Ten Best Films of 2011

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
The Turin Horse (Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky)
A Separation (Asghar Farhadi)
The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)
This Is Not a Film (Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb)
Le Havre (Aki Kaurismäki)
Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn)
The Kid with a Bike (Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne)
Hugo (Martin Scorsese)
J. Edgar (Clint Eastwood)

This list is also available in an annotated and illustrated format on sister site Ten Best Films. Original Tativille reviews for each of the ten selections can be viewed by clicking on the films' titles. As always, enjoy, and I look forward to your own recommendations for a cinematically rich 2012.

New Film: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) & A Dangerous Method

David Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), from Steven Zaillian's adaptation of Stieg Larsson's international best-seller, richly repays the sort of old-fashioned auteurist criticism that this site performs as a matter of art-centered principle, offering as it does a compendium and synthesis of the filmmaker's guiding aesthetic and thematic concerns, from the director's breakthrough blockbuster Se7en (1995) through to last year's critical mega-hit The Social Network (2010). Indeed, the presence of a number of Fincher's established authorial signatures within The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo suggests Fincher's adherence to the Hollywood studio model upon which auteurism was originally built in 1950s Paris, with the director laboriously transforming his material in the image of his highly individuated world view. It also helps for the auteurist true-believer that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is poised to become neither a break-out hit nor a mass critical darling. Instead, Fincher's latest looks as if it will occupy, judging by the popular consensus, a relatively minor position in the filmmaker's corpus moving forward - which of course will provide the perfect position for future rediscovery and upward reconsideration.

Structurally, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo corresponds most closely with the director's 2007 masterpiece Zodiac, as it centers on a journalist's (Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist) private-sector investigation of an unsolved set of serial homicides decades earlier. As in Zodiac, The Social Network, and Se7en, the obsessive pursuit of the truth is channeled through a thorough exploration of the facts and material record of the objects of investigation, with the director's latest relying on both digitized period photos and transcriptions of corporate activities to disclose the answer to the decades-old mystery. Whereas the latter archival objects of study again call to mind The Social Network's Citizen Kane (1941) inter-text, the former presents another inscription of Fincher's formal interest in replacing the indexical artifact with a malleable digital counterpart - a strategy that finds like expression in his exterior recreations of Stockholm (cf. San Francisco in Zodiac) and in his digital addition of falling snow (comparable in type to the breath special-effect in The Social Network). Fincher once again reveals his deep, defining interest in the digital technology of his moment.

Throughout the first half of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's substantial (and perhaps somewhat over-long, given especially the false endings) 158-minute running time, Fincher pursues a parallel structure, alternating between Craig's journalist male lead and Rooney Mara's Tattoo namesake Lisbeth Salander, again in a fashion that corresponds to Zodiac and The Social Network's shifting subject-hoods - albeit in a manner that moves noticeably closer to the Don Siegel feature that provided the de facto critical object of the 2007 opus. Fincher's brilliant anti-social heroine - perhaps something of surrogate for the director in both senses - is sexually abused and assaulted. This compels a violent act of retribution, which could have been committed by Kevin Spacey's Se7en serial murderer. With Lisabeth consequently agreeing to join Mikael's investigation, after the latter notes that he is seeking a woman-killer, the pair pursue a murder who, again like Spacey's earlier villain, is operating according to an Old Testament-based code. On the negative side of the ledger, the identity of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's serial killer is more or less evident from his first appearance on screen. The strength of Fincher's latest certainly does not rest in its widely known source material.

As The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo unfolds, Lisabeth increasingly becomes Fincher's object of interest, not only narratively, but also visually, with Mara's inked and pierced yet fragile body becoming the focal point of his mise-en-scène. While Fincher clearly finds substantial, fetishistic interest in his young actress's physique, he does allow her increased agency as she initiates an immensely erotic on-screen sexual encounter with Craig's hero. Their relationship, however, will not survive through to the film's concluding elegiac set-piece, which accordingly insures the film's thematic debt to the director's more peripheral study of romantic longing, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo successfully combines the romanticism of the latter with the serial-killer narratives that activate Se7en and Zodiac. This again is work of authorial summary.

Not surprisingly therefore is the reemergence of Fincher's comparably modest, though distinctive revision of classical decoupage, with shallow-depth shot/reverse-shot takes alternating slightly off-rhythm in the pattern utilized in The Social Network. The garish overhead neon's of his prior work, however, are muted somewhat as Sweden's deep cobalt skies and warm interior lighting come to serve as the alternative graphic dominants. (Visually and thematically Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer [2010] offers a close antecedent for Fincher's film.) On the level of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's soundtrack - both also collaborated on The Social Network - the effect once again is fundamentally classical, with the scoring rarely stopping over the course of Fincher's protracted narrative. As such, the director's music video training is also in evidence, as it is likewise, and far more conspicuously, in the The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's opening credits, which feature Karen O. and Reznor's exceedingly cool cover of Led Zepplin's "Immigrant Song." Fincher's anticipatory music video indeed sets the tone no less successfully than The Social Network's opening breakneck exchange between Jesse Eisenberg and Tattoo's Mara. The director's latest female lead silently holds the screen as fully as her Social Network co-star.

***

David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method (2011), from Christopher Hampton's adaptation of his own 2002 play The Talking Cure, opens with Keira Knightley's Sabina Spielrein screaming and convulsing violently in the rear of a horse drawn carriage as Howard Shore's instrumental score crescendos on the soundtrack. While the combination of the film's historical and material settings and Shore's elegant, classical work offers a patina of respectability - that of the period art-house feature - both in the opening passage and throughout, Knightley's grotesqueries provide the first in a line of dissonant, destabilizing elements that will serve to complete A Dangerous Method's operative dialectic of tastes. The latter aspects also present a vehicle for the uncanny within a film that persists in being off, whether again it is the gap between generic form and Knightley's early convulsions or even more, the overtly artificial use of rear-projection (cf. Eastern Promises, 2007) that places the film equally in the contexts of Old Hollywood - in terms of his pacing Cronenberg is even more classical than Fincher - and the arch theatrical modernism of Manoel de Oliveira. The Portuguese master likewise offers a model for Cronenberg's consistently static set-ups, while the like-minded Jacques Rivette's Duchess of Langeais (2007) suggests a source not only for A Dangerous Method's letter-writing set-piece, but also for the aforementioned subtle violence that Cronenberg performs on the middle-brow period picture. In this latter sense, A Dangerous Method returns to M. Butterfly (1993) territory - another Cronenberg film adapted from a legit source, by the playwright.

As Sabina takes on the role of Carl Jung's (Michael Fassbender) research assistant, following her successful treatment at Jung's hands using the talking cure that provided Hampton's play with its title, the married Protestant Sigmund Freud acolyte begins to explore his feelings for the Russian-Jewish psychology student after she expresses her desire for her mentor. Jung is emboldened by the entreaties of his libertine patient and fellow Freudian Otto Gross (Vincent Cassel) to follow his reciprocated passions. (Cassel's mental instability, it should be noted, registers psyognomically in his off-set eyes, whereas Knightley's emerges in her crooked teeth and protruding lower jaw; both are visual obsessions of Cronenberg as he explores the scientific rhetoric that surrounds his early twentieth-century subjects.) Sabina and Jung thus commence with a torrid and sexy on-screen affair that taps into her sado-masochistic fantasies, while allowing for what Sabina describes as the disappearance of her identity. In both of these regards, Cronenberg entertains a more fundamentally feminine attitude towards sex, which the film sets up in opposition to Freud's (Viggo Mortensen) comparatively masculine, and deeply self-centered perspective. As in the director's avowedly anti-Freudian Spider (2002), the ideas and even the personality of the rigid Austrian thinker become targets for the Canadian director in the suprisingly comedic A Dangerous Method.

Cronenberg's latest, which in its directness reinforces the director's attitude toward psychoanalysis, operates dialogically, both as a series of intellectual debates on the schisms between Freudian and Jungian thought, and also in their respective conceptualizations and applications, with Jung ultimately positioned against not only his mentor, but also his lover. Cronenberg moreover draws up his factions not only along intellectual and emotional lines, but also according to ethnic and even religious divisions, with Jung's supressive Swiss Protestant mysticism opposed to Freud's anti-faith, anti-superstition Judaism - a position that Cronenberg likewise holds, albeit with with Sabina as his closest, more open surrogate. Indeed, A Dangerous Method serves no less as an exploration of the director's Jewish identity on the Eve of the First World War, with the film's ethnic context lending A Dangerous Method added significance vis-à-vis the filmmaker's broader corpus. At the same time, A Dangerous Method's historical setting equally confirms its currency for a year where warnings of apocalypse drove a number of its higher-profile offerings, from Lars von Trier's Melancholia (2011) to Jeff Nichols's Take Shelter (2011). Cronenberg's latest is better than both.

This review was co-written by Michael J. Anderson and Lisa K. Broad.

Creative Window Curtain Design

Window Curtain DesignThere are many sites on the internet that feature curtain designs. These sites offer either pictures or illustrations to show the many ways you can use window treatments to add life to your home. By going to these websites you are able to sit in the comfort of your home and check out the new curtain designs that are available.Window Curtain DesignBetter Homes and Gardens

My Christmas Wish for You!

To all my readers, those who celebrate Christmas and those who may not, I want to share with you my personal Christmas wish for all of us. A wish for peace and peacefulness.

Every few weeks I receive a very uplifting story from my friends, Joan, Katie and Meb of The Miracle Chase. I was so inspired reading their story of Rose Mapendo, recipient of the UN Humanitarian of Year Award, that I had to share it with you. Rose’s story brought tears to my eyes and her personal journey for peace filled my heart. Please take a moment and read Rose’s story HERE.

Over the next year my Christmas wish is that we all get better at achieving an inner peace so that we can all become more open, loving and accepting of others. Finding time to enjoy the simple pleasures of life and slowing down to appreciate both beauty we bring to others and the beauty they bring to us.

In this humble quest for personal peace may our actions resonate outward – small and slow but begin to radiate and glow stronger throughout the year.

Thank you for continuing to let me into your homes and your lives through Willow Décor. I feel very blessed that we are sharing this journey together.

Much love to you and your families,

xox Gina

Stylish Living room Floor Ideas

Modern Living roomBack in times there was the living room, a room that was kept for the purpose of reception of guests. It was set up in a formal way, rather unpleasant and severe, with dark colors and images of long-dead ancestors. Modern living room has been seen for quite a while in the same light as a rather formal room, which have used a little, and therefore not much clutter. It was

Previewing 2012: The Day He Arrives

The Day He Arrives (Book chon bang hyang, 2011), leading Korean art-film auteur Hong Sang-soo's twelfth feature in sixteen years, re-imagines the writer-director's conspicuously closed corpus across a series of chance street meetings, barroom visits and one-night stands, all of which feature the film's filmmaker lead Yoo (Jun-Sang Yu). Though all of the above ostensibly inscribe new, sequentially ordered events, Hong treats each as essentially interchangeable with snatches of dialogue rephrased, gestures transferred from character to character and a limited number of players at the director's disposal; that is, with each repetition, Hong subtly gives the impression of replaying the same scene, following a small number of motival modifications, even as the narrative moves classically across Yoo's three day visit to Seoul. It also emphasizes the synthetic nature of the scenario, despite its naturalistic valance. In thus retaining a more traditional storytelling structure, despite the film's Groundhog Day (1993) intimations, the medium's most direct heir to Piet Mondrian has produced a work that seeks to disclose the truth that every day and especially every night brings more of the same for his surrogate protagonist. Of course, thanks to both this latter emphasis on mundane repetition and also The Day He Arrive's approach to narrative form, Hong's latest emerges as one of the most thoroughly modernist works of the director's career.

As an expression of the director's aesthetic, The Day He Arrives confirms Hong's increasing comfort with the zoom-lensing that he first inaugurated in his transitional Tale of Cinema (2005), replacing the prevailing, static deadpan style of his masterpiece, The Power of Kangwon Province (1998). With the filmmaker's latest, Hong has shown his ever greater aptitude for slight reframings amid his long-take stagings, for shifting the spectators' attention within his multi-figural mise-en-scène: during the second of the bar passages, to take an especially superlative example, the discomfort of his centered, silent observer Young-ho (Sang Jung Kim) comes to take unexpected precedent over the sequence's arguing pair, thanks to Hong's incrementally short zoom forward into the scene's three-person cluster. In this passage, as in much of The Day He Arrives, Hong no longer treats the strategy as self-conscious ornamentation or punctuation (as has often been true from his 2005 feature onward), but instead as a replacement for analytic editing procedures. In so doing, Hong continues to develop a personal idiom that distinguishes the director's modernism from those variants of his East Asian counterparts.

Visually, Hong has produced once of his richest works in the same post-2005 period, registering the film's wintery, Christmas-season landscapes in an elegant 16:9 black-and-white (with the lighter frosty tones proving especially prominent). In one of the more memorable of the director's recent set-ups, Hong stages his group at daybreak, huddled on the edge of a busy Seoul street as they wait for a car in the wet South Korean snow. In moments like this, where the specificity of the film's Christmas season and its character geometry are especially in evidence, Hong directly recalls Eric Rohmer's no less verbose signature masterpiece My Night at Maud's (1969). Though The Day He Arrives might not exactly occupy the same position in Hong's corpus as it does for the no less and Mondrianesque corpus of the French master, it does represent significant work by any measure.

Cinema Guild will release The Day He Arrives in North America, with the film scheduled to open in New York in April 2012.

Holiday Window Boxes III and Giveaway Winner!!!

Every year one of Willow Décor’s most popular holiday posts is Decorating Holiday Window Boxes. Even if your house does not have outdoor window boxes you can use store bought containers to bring the look inside. Here are some new favorites I have collected over the year.

This first window box is beautiful, simple and inexpensive to create. Different pines and boxwood are easily in found out in your yard. Here the owner added blueberry branches and some glass icicle ornaments to add sparkle – Lovely!

From decorator extraordinaire, Martha Stewart, what caught my eye most were the branch trellises she added to hold up the pine branches. What a creative touch which adds so much interest and texture, as well as a wonderful place to thread the bow!

Another simple, beautiful collection of pines and pinecones. This would look as pretty on sideboard in your dining room or mantel as it does outside. Again very low cost to recreate.

Something a bit easier to find for my southern readers; here moss, magnolia leaves and ornaments make a pretty holiday window box.

On of my favorite ideas comes from the Bachman Holiday house in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Here an old shutter creates an indoor window box filled with potted poinsettias and highlighted by a row of birch branches. Simply gorgeous! This is a spectacular mantle piece and would look fabulous in any home!

(

Another example of a more southern style here filled with pines, pineapples and citrus fruits. I adore these window boxes! To see more examples of great holiday window boxes read Willow Décor’s previous posts HERE and HERE

Finally, congratulations to 3 Peanuts for winning the German Grainsack Tree Skirt!!! Please send your mailing address to willowdecormail@gmail.com and we will send out the tree skirt in time for Christmas!! A special thanks again to Kym of A Beautiful Mess! If you are not a winner you can still order wonderful items from Kym by contacting her at (805) 630-3727. Enjoy!!!

(Photo Credit: P. Wexford, Bellewood Gardens, 65 Avenue, Container Gardening, Martha Stewart, Bachman's, Home Ideas, Lu Tapp -A Beautiful Mess)

This is about Kids...our Kids in Uganda and our Kids around the world...

Sometimes I get overwhelmed, really overwhelmed.

So much, so fast and I know I have to keep up with it to make it all happen.  Thank goodness for my Board of  Directors because they watch me carefully and they have taken alot off my shoulders to help me get through the days.  I am blessed, truly blessed to have these people in my life
.
But, the children....yes, our focus is to help the children in Uganda. 
We have an amazing group of  people sponsoring the ones we know we are taking into our home and a waiting list  for the ones to be chosen this next February.  I think I would like to make this about them....the kids they sponsor and the kids around the world  who want to make a difference to help them.  I have always said one thing throughout this entire journey....Kids helping Kids.  That is what has happened and we need to make it really an important factor to show how amazing our kids are.  Not only Canada...but in places like England too.  For example, we have a wonderful girl named Olivia, age 10,  who has given her own money to put towards the generator that they are fundraising for over there.  They will accomplish their goal before Christmas.   Olivia and her Mom Simone,  have also sponsored little Joseph.
Wow, the world has joined our dream.  Sponsors in London,  the United States, Poland and Europe.

It is Christmas and the world celebrates the birth of Jesus...Here are some of the things that have happened for the kids we know we are taking into our home and we would like to share them with you.

This is Hope and Desire.  They have been sponsored by two wonderful women who have given them a life they never knew possible.  These dresses are something that they only dreamed of and never believed their dream would come true.  Edwin took them shopping for 5 hours and finally they found the most beautiful ones.  Thanks Edwin for your patience but I know that you knew how important this was for them... Their sponsors have sent them to private school and they are learning so much there.  Thanks Patti and Becky...the kids love you.

This is Sammi...and Sammi is a brother to Hope and Desire.  He is in school thanks to Becky and Patti but he is also at home taking care of his two paraplegic Grandma's of which one is blind.  The workload on this little boy is something you and I cannot understand.  Sammi, Hope and Desire will be with us when we open.
Edwin watches over him very closely and helps him alot with his Grandmas.

 This is our Alex..  Remember his brother Nathan who recently passed away?  His Mom, Mutesi who suffers from HIV also is still holding on for our arrival in February.  When she does leave us , this little boy will be with us too. He has Amanda and her family watching over him from Abbotsford.  Thanks Amanda and family for giving him his very first Christmas outfit.  He was so very happy.

And here is our baby Alan with Edwin.  Alan even got a new Christmas outfit.  Just to let you know...Grandma gave us this child to raise because she has 12 other grandchildren to take care of.  We made sure she had some money to make a business and she is going to be paying back that money within a year and show she can create an income on her own.  She grows tomatoes and all 12 kids help her.  We will update you on the success of her new little business and how she can support the kids more easily.

And there is our Joseph...little quiet Joseph who has been so helpless.  A little boy who hid in a hut until
Edwin noticed him and he was very malnourished.  He suffers from HIV, has no parents and will be coming with us when we open.  Thank you Simone and Olivia in England for loving this little one.  He will come out of his shell once we start working with him.  Edwin took him Christmas shopping and said that when he saw this suit, his eyes lit up.  He was so happy and so happy that someone finally really loved him...Thanks

I have to say there are other kids that received gifts also.  They chose to use the money to go to school instead of clothes, so thanks to all those sponsors who let them make that decision for themselves.

This is Hope and Grace...In our country Grace is a girl, but there, it is a boy.  Grace cried for 2 days when he saw me the first time because he had never seen a white person...scared to death, but after a week he was my best friend.  They suffer from lack of food as many do but there happened to be someone who noticed and came to the rescue.......KIDS HELPING KIDS.....

Meet Rhys, age 7 and Sebastian, age 9
These two boys came to my house with a cheque, their first bank account and their first cheque written and  they wanted to give money to Hope and Grace for food.  I am to take it back with me when I go in February and buy them the necessary things they need.  Wow..this is what it is all about ..Kids helping Kids and straight from the hearts of little ones.  Thanks you guys....I will for sure do this for you and send you pictures.

And more kids.... OK, not exactly kids  It's only cause I am a Grandma and I can say that.....But almost adults.....Chilliwack Secondary African Relief Club and the most awesome group ever.
On December 2nd at Chilliwack's Secondary School, these kids had a fundraiser for Jaaja Barb's Home of Angels selling the banana bread.  They raised $300.00 towards helping the building of our project and we all commend their efforts.  A big thanks to Mr. Anderson and all the students who participated. Thanks almost adults...lol....you are the best

I also want to say that prior to this we had many kids in Canada helping the little ones in Uganda.  Thanks to Silas and Oliva who delivered their piggy banks in baggies to my front door and who made photo albums for Nathan (since passed) and Alex.  Jamie and Olivia who made hundreds of bracelets which we distributed over there last year, W.J. Mouat Secondary School who raised money for banana bread, Katie, Kaitlin and their team in Maple Ridge who worked so hard raising $2000 with the help of the Big Feast Bistro for bunk beds, the grade 11 students at Heritage Woods Secondary School in Port Moody, to Andrea and Laura for their silent auction in Langley, to Jody and her students in Mission who donated $500.00.  To Chris and Catie for wanting to get involved in Brackendale to raise money for us, and then today...Rhys and Sebastian  who took $20.00 each out of there own money to feed Hope and Grace.
How much better does it get than that....Wow.....Kids Helping Kids

Joanne and Tim Codling...how can we ever thank you both.  This gift was something that bought tears
to us.  A quilt of an "Angel" holding a teddy bear..  We have a special place as you enter the kid's home
that we are going to hang this... Thanks to the both of you for your HUGE hearts.  We love you.


I would like to show you the Global TV news that was done by Linda Aylesworth last week.
Many of you didn't get the chance to see it the other day so I am posting it for you.

 http://www.globaltvbc.com/video/banana+bread+orphanage/video.html?v=2176779428&p=3&s=dd#video


Together with myself and Board of Directors, we all wish you a very Merry Christmas.
Thank you for following our journey throughout this past year and I hope you will continue to do so in 2012.  We are estimating the completion of Jaaja Barb's Home of Angels in August or September 2012.   In the meantime, our grass hut is under construction, along with the completion of the main house.  We have been very blessed with our team....that is YOU and we thank all of you for your support and love.

Merry Christmas from all of us....including the kids we so love

This is about Kids...our Kids in Uganda and our Kids around the world...

Sometimes I get overwhelmed, really overwhelmed.

So much, so fast and I know I have to keep up with it to make it all happen.  Thank goodness for my Board of  Directors because they watch me carefully and they have taken alot off my shoulders to help me get through the days.  I am blessed, truly blessed to have these people in my life
.
But, the children....yes, our focus is to help the children in Uganda. 
We have an amazing group of  people sponsoring the ones we know we are taking into our home and a waiting list  for the ones to be chosen this next February.  I think I would like to make this about them....the kids they sponsor and the kids around the world  who want to make a difference to help them.  I have always said one thing throughout this entire journey....Kids helping Kids.  That is what has happened and we need to make it really an important factor to show how amazing our kids are.  Not only Canada...but in places like England too.  For example, we have a wonderful girl named Olivia, age 10,  who has given her own money to put towards the generator that they are fundraising for over there.  They will accomplish their goal before Christmas.   Olivia and her Mom Simone,  have also sponsored little Joseph.
Wow, the world has joined our dream.  Sponsors in London,  the United States, Poland and Europe.

It is Christmas and the world celebrates the birth of Jesus...Here are some of the things that have happened for the kids we know we are taking into our home and we would like to share them with you.

This is Hope and Desire.  They have been sponsored by two wonderful women who have given them a life they never knew possible.  These dresses are something that they only dreamed of and never believed their dream would come true.  Edwin took them shopping for 5 hours and finally they found the most beautiful ones.  Thanks Edwin for your patience but I know that you knew how important this was for them... Their sponsors have sent them to private school and they are learning so much there.  Thanks Patti and Becky...the kids love you.

This is Sammi...and Sammi is a brother to Hope and Desire.  He is in school thanks to Becky and Patti but he is also at home taking care of his two paraplegic Grandma's of which one is blind.  The workload on this little boy is something you and I cannot understand.  Sammi, Hope and Desire will be with us when we open.
Edwin watches over him very closely and helps him alot with his Grandmas.

 This is our Alex..  Remember his brother Nathan who recently passed away?  His Mom, Mutesi who suffers from HIV also is still holding on for our arrival in February.  When she does leave us , this little boy will be with us too. He has Amanda and her family watching over him from Abbotsford.  Thanks Amanda and family for giving him his very first Christmas outfit.  He was so very happy.

And here is our baby Alan with Edwin.  Alan even got a new Christmas outfit.  Just to let you know...Grandma gave us this child to raise because she has 12 other grandchildren to take care of.  We made sure she had some money to make a business and she is going to be paying back that money within a year and show she can create an income on her own.  She grows tomatoes and all 12 kids help her.  We will update you on the success of her new little business and how she can support the kids more easily.

And there is our Joseph...little quiet Joseph who has been so helpless.  A little boy who hid in a hut until
Edwin noticed him and he was very malnourished.  He suffers from HIV, has no parents and will be coming with us when we open.  Thank you Simone and Olivia in England for loving this little one.  He will come out of his shell once we start working with him.  Edwin took him Christmas shopping and said that when he saw this suit, his eyes lit up.  He was so happy and so happy that someone finally really loved him...Thanks

I have to say there are other kids that received gifts also.  They chose to use the money to go to school instead of clothes, so thanks to all those sponsors who let them make that decision for themselves.

This is Hope and Grace...In our country Grace is a girl, but there, it is a boy.  Grace cried for 2 days when he saw me the first time because he had never seen a white person...scared to death, but after a week he was my best friend.  They suffer from lack of food as many do but there happened to be someone who noticed and came to the rescue.......KIDS HELPING KIDS.....

Meet Rhys, age 7 and Sebastian, age 9
These two boys came to my house with a cheque, their first bank account and their first cheque written and  they wanted to give money to Hope and Grace for food.  I am to take it back with me when I go in February and buy them the necessary things they need.  Wow..this is what it is all about ..Kids helping Kids and straight from the hearts of little ones.  Thanks you guys....I will for sure do this for you and send you pictures.

And more kids.... OK, not exactly kids  It's only cause I am a Grandma and I can say that.....But almost adults.....Chilliwack Secondary African Relief Club and the most awesome group ever.
On December 2nd at Chilliwack's Secondary School, these kids had a fundraiser for Jaaja Barb's Home of Angels selling the banana bread.  They raised $300.00 towards helping the building of our project and we all commend their efforts.  A big thanks to Mr. Anderson and all the students who participated. Thanks almost adults...lol....you are the best

I also want to say that prior to this we had many kids in Canada helping the little ones in Uganda.  Thanks to Silas and Oliva who delivered their piggy banks in baggies to my front door and who made photo albums for Nathan (since passed) and Alex.  Jamie and Olivia who made hundreds of bracelets which we distributed over there last year, W.J. Mouat Secondary School who raised money for banana bread, Katie, Kaitlin and their team in Maple Ridge who worked so hard raising $2000 with the help of the Big Feast Bistro for bunk beds, the grade 11 students at Heritage Woods Secondary School in Port Moody, to Andrea and Laura for their silent auction in Langley, to Jody and her students in Mission who donated $500.00.  To Chris and Catie for wanting to get involved in Brackendale to raise money for us, and then today...Rhys and Sebastian  who took $20.00 each out of there own money to feed Hope and Grace.
How much better does it get than that....Wow.....Kids Helping Kids

Joanne and Tim Codling...how can we ever thank you both.  This gift was something that bought tears
to us.  A quilt of an "Angel" holding a teddy bear..  We have a special place as you enter the kid's home
that we are going to hang this... Thanks to the both of you for your HUGE hearts.  We love you.


I would like to show you the Global TV news that was done by Linda Aylesworth last week.
Many of you didn't get the chance to see it the other day so I am posting it for you.

 http://www.globaltvbc.com/video/banana+bread+orphanage/video.html?v=2176779428&p=3&s=dd#video


Together with myself and Board of Directors, we all wish you a very Merry Christmas.
Thank you for following our journey throughout this past year and I hope you will continue to do so in 2012.  We are estimating the completion of Jaaja Barb's Home of Angels in August or September 2012.   In the meantime, our grass hut is under construction, along with the completion of the main house.  We have been very blessed with our team....that is YOU and we thank all of you for your support and love.

Merry Christmas from all of us....including the kids we so love

The Belly Tattoo

Has a woman anytime came appear you on a bank and you accept noticed her abdomen tattoo? It seems to draw your eyes anon to her axis and surrounding area. Abdomen tattoos can attending actual animal and depending aloft the architecture called to enhance the femininity. Choosing a boom on this allotment of the anatomy can be adjustable in the architecture and size.

This accurate architecture actualization dates aback hundreds of years and was mostly beat by Indian women. The women of today additionally accept their abdomen button broken forth with accepting a abdomen tattoo. The aggregate of the two together, if done in the appropriate design, attending amazing and absolutely sensual. If you are because accepting both of these things done, again it is best to analysis with your anatomy piercer or boom artisan to set up a time anatomy for this.

For a feminine boom architecture for your abdomen does not beggarly aloof necessarily your abdomen button area. This can additionally beggarly extending from aloof beneath your breast to appear bottomward the ancillary of your abdomen and about your abdomen button as well. Most tattoos of this actualization are actual intricate in architecture and generally are advised with alien plants, flowers or vines.

Tips to accede about abdomen tattoos:

* The axis boom ability be a little adamantine to booty affliction of and advance the attending of if there is weight gain. Could possibly amplitude and sag. 

* If you are because children. Think about how this may aftereffect your boom appearance. A boom will tend to aggrandize as the abdomen expands.

 * Ask the boom artisan for admonition for affliction and aliment and how the boom will change over time.

Never get a boom because it is accepted or addition told you to. Getting active is a austere activity time decision, that requires consideration, anticipation and analysis afore you accomplish any decision.