Author: Sara Embrey

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Happy Mother’s Day 2015

 

Happy Mother's Day. Here’s to all the Mothers who deserve an incredible amount of recognition and praise for their hard work in supporting, providing, and loving their family members. Mother’s Day gives us an opportunity to celebrate their living existence, especially for daughters who look up to them. They shape who we are as a person. In honor of this Mother’s Day, here are a great list of activities that mothers and daughters can bond over with.

  1. Being Pampered. Take your Mother out for a spa day. She deserves it. Here’s a spa located in Ojai that will truly make it magical. It’s called Ojai Valley Inn & Spa; rating is 5 stars and service is wonderful. The resort features an award-winning on-site spa and golf course.
  1. Watching A Movie.  This is great bonding moment for moms and daughters. A movie can make you laugh, smile, or cry. A great movie to watch is The Blind Side. What better way to see Sandra Bullock, America’s sweetheart, as a loving mother who fosters a boy that becomes a pro football player. Another great film to watch this Mother’s Day is Amy. Amy stars Rachel Griffiths as Amy’s mother, Tanya, and Alana De Roma as Amy. It tells the tale of a girl who is having trouble communicating after her father’s death and the only way to communicate is through singing. Her mother believes if people listen to Amy closely, beautiful things will happen.
  1. Having Brunch. The perfect way to celebrate Mother’s Day is by taking your Mother out to brunch. People enjoy themselves more when they’re surrounded by great food and company. One great brunch place is The Cottage in La Jolla, California. Located on the corner of Fay Ave in the downtown area of La Jolla. Their French toast is delicious with generous amount of powder sugar, strawberries and syrup.
  1. Painting. Wine and Canvas is a studio where you can enjoy a variety of wine selections while painting, Wine and Canvas offers new paintings every day for customers to choose from and paint. There is an instructor who will guide the class. By the end of the night, both moms and daughters will have gotten in touch with their artistic side.
  1. Personalized Mugs. Creating a personalized mug may be the best thing to give to your Mother. She will cherish it and enjoy drinking her favorite tea and coffee from it. Here’s a great mug from Amazon if you’re having trouble with the personalization aspect.

Take this opportunity to show Mother’s out there they are loved. Everyday should be a special day for mothers and they should always be recognized for their hard work and the many sacrifices they make.

In addition, Amy is available on DVD and Vimeo and distributed by World Wide Motion Pictures. Be sure to check all the activities and mark it off your check list.

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May Stroke Awareness Month: How to Be A Stroke Hero

 

Strokes cause a tremendous toll on millions of Americans every year, young and old, male and female, and from every background. The good news is that 80% of strokes are preventable.  Though one out of six people will suffer from a stroke in his or her lifetime, the vast majority of Americans do not think that stroke is a large health concern. This is why American Stroke Month is important. Each May, the American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association take opportunity to spread stroke awareness on American Stroke Month by rallying Americans behind their cause.

A stroke occurs when a blood vessel that carries oxygen and nutrients to the brain is either blocked by a clot or bursts. When this happens, a part of the brain is unable to get blood and oxygen causing it and the brain cells to die. Strokes can cause long-term effects such as physical challenges, communication problems, as well as emotional and behavioral challenges.

Stroke prevention starts with controlling key risk factors, including, cigarette smoking, lack of physical activity, and high blood pressure. If you are having a stroke, it is imperative to get immediate medical attention which may minimize effects of a stroke and prevent death. A quick and easy way to remember how to recognize a stroke is to think of FAST, face drooping, arm weakness, speech difficulty, time to call 911.  Now that you know how to prevent, recognize, and how to act when a stroke occurs, you can be a stroke hero.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is an astonishing true-life story of a man who had the world in his hands but became a bed bound, hospitalized stroke survivor. This movie does a wonderful job of depicting how quickly a stroke can occur and the side effects that come with it. For another insight on how a stroke can affect you or the ones you love watch The Lovely Patient, which showcase the effects of strokes and portrays them in a realistic light. Films such as these are important because they educate the audience about strokes. Help others learn about the harsh realities of stroke by sharing one of these beautiful films with them.

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Willie Nelson Celebrates His Birthday, April 30

 

Farm Aid Willie Nelson

Happy Birthday to the great Willie Nelson!  This world-class musician is an amazing person due to his songwriting talent and his many humanitarian pursuits. He has supported many issues, especially those dealing with farming practices. Willie Nelson also established Farm Aid back in 1985, an organization which raises awareness of families losing their farms and encourages donations to help these families keep their land.

More recently, he fought to keep a local farm in downtown LA from being bulldozed for a warehouse, as presented in the documentary, Welcome to Eden. In the doc, Willie Nelson, Joan Baez, Daryl Hannah, and other celebrities try unsuccessfully to save the farm from being evicted by Ralph Horowitz, a land developer, who bought the land from the Los Angeles City Council through questionable back-room deals.

The public has the power to protect farms by giving input by December 14th, 2014 on the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), a first step towards modernizing food regulations since 1938. The FDA currently regulates farms that grow fresh produce and provide the facilities to process food for consumption, to make sure they aren’t going to kill anyone, but they don’t prevent care about foreign contamination.  In this new resolution they shift priority, for the FDA, from regulation to preventing contamination as well.

Willie Nelson is a great man who continues to do good in the world and provide soul soothing music.

Welcome to Eden is distributed by World Wide Motion Pictures Corporation.

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Game of Thrones Actress Natalia Tena to Not Appear in Season 5

 

Die hard Game of Thrones fans will be disappointed to learn that the characters of Rickon, played by Art Parkinson, and Osha, played by Ways to Live Forever, will not be returning in Season 5 of the HBO series.

The characters Rickon and Osha are somewhat ridiculed in the Song of Ice and Fire community. Well before the pair departed on their journey, fans created memes to represent how much of a minor character Rickon was in both the original novels and the TV series.

The show version did keep Rickon around somewhat longer, doubled his age, and gave him some more dialogue than the books. And while he and Osha take off at the end of A Clash of Kings, (which is basically the second season of the HBO show) never to be seen again. The show kept him around until season three, before sending them off - going beyond the wall to seek the three-eyed raven in Brann’s dreams. Also, author George RR Martin has not finished the next book in the series and the show needed to stretch things out for content.

At the Red Carpet Premiere of Dracula Untold, actor Art Parkinson was asked if he would be returning to the show.

Natalia Tena has been known in recent years from her roles in the Harry Potter film adaptations, as well as Robbie Kay's character's nurse in Ways To Live Forever.

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Record Store Day 2015 is For the Love of Vinyl

 

“One good thing about music, is when it hits you feel no pain.” Although Bob Marley was entirely correct with this statement, there are many other great things to consider about music. Today we can get music anywhere and we usually take this for granted. Although it doesn't matter too much what format you are using to listen to music, there is a certain quality about vinyl. Maybe the fact that its tangible, the awesome cover art, or it could be the warmness you feel as the rich sound flows into your ears.

Record Store Day is a throwback to an older format, Vinyl. It is an annual event that celebrates the culture of independently owned record stores by releasing exclusive records. Marc Fayd’herbe, Universal Music’s sales manager, has described Record Store Day as the “single best thing that has ever happened to independent music shops.” Not sure where you local stores are or which ones will suit your tastes? Here is a link to a review of local Orange County record stores. Or you can check out “The World’s Largest Independent Record Store” Amoeba, which has stores located in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Berkeley.

While searching through the local stores be sure to keep an eye out for soundtracks to your favorite movies. For example, Garden State has one of the best soundtracks out there and if you can find a copy of it at a record store you better scoop it up while you can. Requiem For A Dream, Inception, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Pulp Fiction are all great examples of some of the best soundtracks to keep an eye out for. The musical accompaniment to Red Roses and Petrol, originally by Flogging Molly, is full of great moments and is one of our favorites. Another benefit of visiting your local record store on this day are the exclusive vinyls that normally would not have been pressed if it weren't for Record Store Day. So go participate in this growing culture and explore your local record stores.

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Actress Rachel Griffiths – Parallels of St. James Church Scandals and Film Amy

 

Two stories, one fictitious and one actual, link together through Australian actress Rachel Griffiths to speak of a single message on behalf of the most treasured inhabitants of our society: our children.

The memory of voiceless, innocent children take a part of Griffiths’s real-life history.  The recent arson and destruction of St. James Church in Brighton brought about memories of times when Griffiths attended this church - memories darkened by the church’s history of sexual abuse.  During the 1970’s and 80s, Father Ronald Pickering abused young boys as he served as priest at St. James.  The psychological trauma inflicted on several of these boys ended in tragic suicides.

"We've all attended many funerals of boys that we now know were abused by [Father Ronald] Pickering ... and other perpetrators in the parish - at the actual church that it occurred in,” former parishioner Griffiths told 774 ABC Melbourne.

Griffiths further commented on the struggle it had been to rebuild a community around the church after revelations of the many sexual abuses that were made.  Such revelations of the corruption of innocence within the walls of St. James were only heard after voices were given to the voiceless, and when the children’s trials were finally understood.  The sad stories of St. James Church and the victims who fell through the cracks of our protection meld with the story of the film Amy, starring Rachel Griffiths, to tell us that a child’s silence is never really sound-proof.  It takes only a moment’s worth of listening to hear a voice sing.

Amy (1997) is a film about the struggles of a silent 8-year-old girl and her mother Tanya (Griffiths).  The little girl named Amy does not speak for mysterious reasons discovered as the film’s storyline progresses.  Her silence, a trait so uncharacteristic of the nature we know children to have, is revealed to actually be a cry for help.  Amy depicts an often helpless Tanya finding a voice for her child.