Somewhere in England

Read It!

Just Ignore Me, 'Kay?

An Excerpt from My Novel

"Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night," Theo said dreamily, going about putting things in cupboards, as Jane and I washed the dinner dishes;
Sailed off in a wooden shoe, —
Sailed on a river of crystal light
Into a sea of dew."
"We should use this jug more often," Jane said, submerging it in the suds. It was fat and cream colored, with little pink rosebuds painted all along the inside rim, and one deep red one right on the spout. "It's so pretty."
"Did Mrs. P. give that to you?" I asked.
Theo said:
"'Where are you going, and what do you wish?'
The old moon asked the three."
"No. It was mother's," Jane said, "and Mrs. P. kept it for me. I don't think either of us remembered it until we moved to Wythe."
"It's sweet."
Theo said:
"'We have come to fish for the herring-fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we,'"
"If I was a burglar," I said, "I wouldn't break into banks or people's houses to steal money or valuables. I would break into people's houses to steal little jugs like that one, and photographs of people's grandparents, and baby prams."
Theo said:
"Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod."

Another Giveaway!

at Grosgrain.

This time, for an adorable Etsy jewelry shop.

(At first, the perfection of this model's skin really creeped me out. Then I realized, it only was a model.)

A Giveaway!

At Grosgrain for a gift certificate

To a sweet Etsy shop!

How I Met C. S. Lewis

I was learning to read. I had learned my alphabet. I had gotten past the part of the book where I recognized and named sequences of letters. hhh aaa ttt hat ath tha tah. Stuff like that. And now I was putting the sounds together. A-X. Ax! And! Ab! Learning to read was fun! I was excited. I had yet to reach the point where, when my parents would tell me it was time for a reading lesson, I would complain and desire to be somewhere else, out of my parents' grasp. Therefore, I also had yet to reach the point where I was curled up on the couch reading Laura Ingalls Wilder. And yet to reach the point where I'll be in my room, reading L.M.Montgomery. Or Dickens. Or Austen. (Reading is fun.) I had passed the first few lessons, and had begun to understand the concept of how to read the English language.

My wiser, older, understanding brother, two years my elder, saw and understood. It was time. He took me to the bookshelf at the end of the hall.

"It's time for you to read "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe!" he said, or something to that effect. Excitedly, too, and zealously, I'd imagine, though I can't remember exactly. He then handed me our paperback copy, with Pauline Baynes' illustrations, and left me alone. I sat down there at the end of the hall, and began. I liked the picture. I read and I read.

A half hour later, and I turned the first page. Then, I gave up.

"It's too hard! It's really boring! I don't know what these words mean! I will not read this, Mark!"

And I didn't pick it up again. Until much later. Much, much later. And then I enjoyed it immeasurably.

So that's my introduction to C.S.Lewis.

Another Kilmeny

Kilmeny, Kilmeny, where have you been?

On my bookshelf. And looking up with a most lovely grace.

Enter my favorite name.

In Case You Wanted to Know

This is where I want to live. Because it's perfect, and if I live there, I can throw out/sell on ebay/therefore replace the weirdo chair on the left, the lamp, the shoe, the wall art, and the rug that the dog chewed on. Because I love this place.

Bright and Happy Aprons!

Another giveaway at Grosgrain for a gift certificate for Cocoa Dreams!

Beautiful Silver Jewelry

A giveaway for a gift certificate to Lisa Leonard Designs at Grosgrain!

Bibliophile

I'm one, anyway. But not a Bibliomaniac. Yet.

(As proved by the great fun I get out of choosing the books to buy with my Amazon gift card. ;) Manalive! came today, and there's about 7 or 8 more soon to come. Yay!

Baby Boat

My very favorite, very dear, and rather rare children's book, is now mine! :D

Lovely Package I

A few weeks ago, I came home one afternoon, and found this:

Having signed up for a lovely package exchange a few weeks before, I wasn't surprised, but very excited and delighted!

I was very much put to shame by the cleverness of the decorating on the box! Mine was not pretty. :)

Inside...

Isn't it sweet?

First, some elegant and vintage and fun (exactly to my taste!) little pockets.

Can you see the faces?

Underneath the flowers was an adorable cigar box! I love little boxes.

It was full of origami balloons and swans (I love origami, too!), and a vintage spool of thread, heart shaped box of bling, and a beautifully decorated clothespin.

The pin is made with real feathers, painted to look like little butterflies!

Labeled "For your little things." The pouch is about three inches wide, and has my initial on it. :)

And inside the little pouch was this:

Last, but most certainly not least:

Self explanatory and adorable. :)

Didn't Sara and Ben send me a splendid package?!

These United Steaks

Found at a website linked from a website linked from wide open spaces. :)

Darcy

I love it when people name things, so I have decided to name the things I sew.

This is Darcy, made from some lovely fabric I got at a garage sail for pretty much nothing. (I won't tell you how little, so as not to make you jealous.) I designed the pattern myself, taking my inspiration from the trend in purses, and more specifically from purses on Etsy.

She's fully lined, with lots of messy topstitching. And I love her. ;)

Vote!

On the dress contest at Christa Taylor!

For Lunch

I made Pita Bread. I was surprised at how easy it was. And everyone liked it. :)
But mine didn't quite look like these. We use whole wheat flour. Some were darker and some were much darker.

Edited.

This is Jane.

This is Betsie. I just decided.

By Jane Austen

Oh, my. I love Emma.

Musette Bracelet Giveaway at Grosgrain

Musette Bracelet GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

In Appreciation

Thanks to Simply Vintage Girl for the lovely current header!

Creative

I got this skirt at a thrift store (during a bag sale: I wasn't allowed to leave until my bag was full, and there wasn't much there!), and it was a little too long. I knew I'd never be happy with it. So I trimmed the waistband off, and put in elastic (like they did here). Now I'm excited to wear it!

I just finished another skirt today. I'll post pictures once I've taken them. :)

Excited

I really enjoyed Hard Times. I am really excited that I read it during the busiest week and a half of the year, and only took a week and a half. Me, who took nearly a year to read another book by Dickens. I'm excited, because if it only took a week and a half for this, might it not take less time to read each of the others on my list?

Summer Reading

A couple of girls have posted a list of their intended summer reading on their blogs, and are encouraging others to do the same. Since I love books and lists, the idea highly appeals to me. I kind of doubt that I'll even get through half of them, and I know it's not as an aspiring list as some, but I think it's a list of all the books that I've been wanting to read for a long time, and haven't gotten up the nerve to read, or just have been putting off.

Fiction
*Emma, by Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy
Crime and Punishment, by Feodor Dostoevsky
*Hard Times, by Charles Dickens
*David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens
The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Quo Vadis? by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan
Paradise Lost & Paradise Found, by John Milton
The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri
Prince of Foxes, by Samuel Shellabarger
The Master of Ballantrae, by Robert Louis Stevenson
The House of Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo
*The Giver, by Lois Lowry


Nonfiction
So Much More, Anna Sophia and Elizabeth Botkin
Surprised by Joy, by C.S. Lewis
Pagan Christianity, by Frank Viola and George Barna
Always Ready, by Greg Bahnsen

Life is Wonderful!

Wheeeeeeeeeeee!

I have found a song that I think is my favorite. Life is Wonderful by Jason Mraz. I don't think I ever really had a favorite song before, and I'm not sure if I do now. But I listened to it four times in a row as soon as my friend told me about it. Then I listened to it four times in a row yesterday. And I listened to it three times in a row today, and I want to go listen to it again.

I'm reading Oliver Twist. I've been reading Oliver Twist for about the past year. But now I really am. I'm into it. I'm loving it. Dickens is really fascinating if you remember you are reading Dickens. I love that the movie was different from the book. Usually I hate that, and usually I read the book first. But this time, I watched the movie before I got half way through, and I love that I don't know what is going to happen next, because they cut this part of the book out of Oliver!

We leave this weekend for a long trip to Tennessee to see relatives and South Carolina for the NCFCA National Tournament, which my brothers qualified for. I'm really excited. I'll also be gone for a while. When I come back, I'll be done reading Oliver Twist. When I come back, I'll have listened to "Life is Wonderful" 13, 487, 904 times.

I am newly in love with yellow.

Excepting the first two pictures, which were found on the internet and my windowsill, respectively, these pictures were taken from my Oliver Twist which I purchased at an antique shop a few years ago. Title pages aren't what they used to be. Is a four-leafed clover still lucky if you find it an hundred years after it was picked? Who is the Thorke Thimble Club? And what costs $3.00?

Life is wonderful! Wheeeeeeee!