Winter Formal

Here are the pictures for the winter formal put on by our homeschool group. I was sooo excited to get to dress in something fancy and with plenty of "bling." ;)

Me and a friend...


Doing the "macarana" or "macaroni," or something like that. It was probably the longest dance ever, but fun...

Talking...

Laughing...

Posing with another friend...(this one is b&w on account of the blurriness)

More laughing...I really don't remember why. I just break out in laughter right in the middle of nowhere for no reason, apparently.

It was a really fun evening, and it was my very first formal. I hadn't gotten to dress up that fancy since I was about eight for a father-daughter dance. Thanks to my wonderful dad who took all these pictures.

Rena Rowan

Yesterday, my mother and I embarked on a quest. We were looking for a formal dress. If you've ever done so, you will know well just how the racks and racks of dresses, all too expensive (I was going to pay for it myself), and all too immodest (don't even get me started). The long dresses tend to be long, but slinky, and the short dresses are full...but short. So our last stop was Sears where we found it. This lovely color of red that I had only imagined existed just popped out at us and I tried it on.

My dress is the Rena Rowan Short-Sleeved Taffeta Shirtdress. It's not quite as long as I would have liked, but it's much more versatile than a gown, so I can wear it to semi-formal events as well as formal. It also looks very 1940's (you've probably noticed that if I like something lately, it looks 1940's. Go figure.) Can't wait to wear it!

This is a thing called catch-up...

I've been gone too long...so I'll explain my long absence (at least in part).

1) Though I'm still home-schooled, I have a lot to do. Useless stuff like reading. You know. ;)

2) I've been toiling away at my 1940's suit and falling deeper in love with everything about that time-period every second.

3) I LOVE old movies. I'll just have to make up a list of my favorites. THAT was when they new how to make movies!

4) Listening to The Andrews Sisters: I found them through my infatuation with Narnia (they sang "Oh, Johnny" during the hide-and-seek scene in LWW). So now, the house vibrates with "Straighten Up and Fly Right," Bei Mir Bist Du Schon" and "Is You Is or Is You Aint My Baby." I know. I'm weird. But their neat, too. I'll have to do a post about them.

Well, those are the things that have been holding my up from blogging. Oh, and today, *dumdumdum* my sisters and I started FOLKLORICO!!!! It's fantastically fun. Hard work, though. Yes, that's the Mexican dance with the big skirts...only we don't get big skirts this time...we dress up as little old men...but that's ok. ;)

By the way, if anybody has seen Breakfast at Tiffany's, would you tell me if you would reccomend it, and why or why not? Thanks SO much.

Currently Creating...

View A will go with beret and matching scarf.

Longing for Winter...

You would, too, if you lived in Texas after this summer (right, Texans???? Of course right.) .

But not to complain.

Today, I got the extraordinary treat of getting to go to the Gil Shaham master class with my violin teacher. It was wonderful. It was like a lesson...only I didn't have to practice for it and be nervous because I wasn't playing! ;)

Oh, and by the way: I got three blog buttons up in the "Link to Me" under my header...check them out!

Update: My mom had a person put one of her photos on an improper webpage, so I am taking all the photos that are recognizably me off the blog. So that explains why all those pictures are gone.

One of those "Random Mood" posts...you know how it goes.

I just wanted to jot down a quick post to explain...

a) Why do I not answer comments right away? I've been really busy...you know, being a student and all. I think that I'm going to really love 9th grade especially because this is the year that I got into a British Lit. class. All that to say, I'm going to be incommunicado Sunday-Friday. Sorry!
But never fear, I've got all of Saturday to catch up!

b) well, I think that "a) " pretty much explained it all!

And now to explain the large pictures of redness above: I have taken knitting back up after a long time. It's partly because I fell in love with the 1940's, WWII and old movies and found this pattern for a lovely *1940's style* beret. I'll try to post pictures of it when I take them during my huge amounts of free time! ;)



Lucie

P.S. I've put a poll up in the sidebar...please answer honestly! :)

All About Books, Etc.

So, in case you thought that all I ever write about is Narnia...I do have another blog! It's called All About Books, Etc., and it just recently underwent MASSIVE renovations. Now, instead of being exclusively "all about books" it now contains other topics related to my education (hence All About Books, ETC.). So please stop by!

Link: All About Books, Etc.

Do the Actors Get it?

"...or have you forgotten who really defeated the White Witch, Peter?"

Did Georgie Henley, when she said the above quote, know how it represents her as the childlike (in a good way) and undoubting Christian, who always trusts that God has a plan?

Did Skandar Keynes understand what he was representing when he betrayed his family and the Narnians for Turkish delight? And that he represented the sheep welcomed back into the fold when he came back?

Do any of them understand who Aslan represents? Did either Anna Popplewell or Georgie Henley understand what the significance was in Aslan's giving his life to save Edmund's?

I hope that they do. It just makes the movies so much more meaningful.

How strange it is to think that people who can play such allegorically spiritual roles might possibly not even know what they mean!

The Doings of a Young Woman

Since I am not a " Simple Woman's Daybook" type (after all, I am thirteen) I decided to start my own. If you want to do it, feel free to use this picture. It's really pretty random, so if you think of other things that you are doing, just feel free to include them. Here goes:

I am wearing: a brown 3/4 sleeves shirt and dark blue jeans.

I am a listening to: a very LOUD mixture of my little sister playing her little $25 violin to the Celtic Woman Christmas CD and my other little sis' playing Narnia with her friend. It's getting quite brutal out there! (Narnia, I mean).

I am especially glad: that I am done with my schoolwork for the week.

I learned this week that: I can't be good ( for lack of a better word) just because I want to--God has to mold me.

I am working toward: a concerto competition in January, getting my math curriculum finished and finishing my Susan costume.

I have been thinking about: Lots of things, not the least of which being Christmas!

Outside my window: A lovely beginning of sunset, but still nice and cold.

I am reading: Jo's Boys and Plutarch's Twelve Lives.

Here ends this remembrance post.

Shivering on a Bus Stop

Picture this:

A man. A man shivering on a bus stop. He is wearing a pair or old khaki shorts and an old forest green polo shirt, both so worn that they look gray and could not possibly be very warm. Day in, day out, he either sits there, trudges through the shopping center nearby or he sits someplace else. He has a hard time talking, so he can't get a job.

He would like shelter, but he can't imagine where there might be such a thing for him. He is often hungry, but sometimes people give him something to appease his hunger. Life is this cycle of cold days, cold nights (or hot days, hot nights) with no end in sight.

He watches the cars speed down the freeway, not really caring anymore, having learned not to care or wish himself in that impossible to reach world of comfort.

Perhaps he never cared.

All he knows is that he is hungry, and cold, and uncomfortable and lonely. He knows, subconsciously, that almost nobody in the assortment of middle-class cars really cares for him, or even notices.

He might not even know that God loves him, that God made him. How is he to know this? Nobody has much of a desire to come in contact with him. Of course, God is absolutely capable of leading this man to Himself though he were on a deserted island in the middle of the Arctic ocean.

But God has directed his children to feed the hungry, for if anyone does this unto the least of him their brethren, they do it unto him. Why, then are Christians just standing by?

I've been off this lovely brain-fryer for two weeks...

And this is what I've been doing.


I am part of an orchestra down here in Texas, and it is so much fun! However, it mostly consists of public school students, so there are pluses and minuses. On the plus side is that I can feel more comfortable in my own skin (I know that that makes no sense, but at least I understand what I mean). It is really nice to know that if I make a sour note on my violin, they will laugh at me and most likely forget it 4 minutes later. On the minus is that most of them are very wordly... I have heard some things come out of their mouths that are much less than comfortable, much less proper. All this has made me really, really appreciate the way I've been raised.

A trip to the ZOO

Playing with the Lions.

A very cute little bird...I love that color!




You can't go to the zoo and not see a toucan. :)

Now, these gibbons were a story. The small black one is a little baby about one and a half years old. It was so funny how he would fight with his dad. The blond one is the mother, to keep an eye on them. :)

The calmed down to love each other.


This-- this is the fattest squirrel on record. The zookeeper said that people often mistake them for otters. (The zoo used to have the fattest sparrows on record, but they had to thin out in order to fit between the fence mesh.)


Oh, look! It's Pumba!

Birds with Bad Hair Days.

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And on a more serious note... the bald eagle. It was so sad how it would flap it's wings, wanting to fly.

This was a very lonely swan. It was all alone in a pool, so it came up to us to talk.


'Bye!

A Weekly Round-Up: This week we...

Bought some fabric for my Susan costume.


Fell back in love with Celtic Woman (at least I did, I don't think that my mom did).


Watched Fiddler on the Roof--because Dumpling was once again sick. As usual, I took pictures of the screen. I do that because I'm me. :)



And here's to banana bread--chocolate banana bread. And of course, because there are no little green fairies to do the dishes, I did them. Just thought that someday I might want to remember that.



We also went to Costco for dinner. And, after much eyelash batting, we talked our dad into getting us a frozen yogurt. My empty cup...after approximately 3 minutes. ;)

Remember

Here it is on September 13th. Day before yesterday was September 11th. Seven years ago today, the country was still staggering under the blow of the attacks on 9/11.

Families were still holding out hope that maybe, maybe their loved one had survived the catastrophe. Victims were in the midst of the harsh reality of the fact that the co-worker at the next cubicle, had died, but they had lived. All across the nation, people were in a state of shock, the footage of a destroyed tower burning and then a the sudden terror of the sight of a second plane nosediving into its twin. And back in New York, the unbelievable horror of the people who had seen the planes crash, had told their stories, and had subsequently had to flee for their lives from the massive cloud of smoke that billowed through the streets. An employee from one of the towers had watched the plane heading directly for the tower, and had realized that he could not do anything to help himself, he was in the palm of God's hand. A wife across the bay had been watching the TV while the havoc was wreaked just a few miles away-- her husband was in one of those towers-- and talking to his friend whom he had just contacted. As he tried to reassure the distraught wife, she screamed, a horrible ear- shattering scream of utter grief, as she watched the tower that her husband was in crumble. Her husband was dead. Firemen rushed down the stairs as they realized that there was nothing more that they could do, but on meeting a bookkeeper on one of the landings, they decide to throw aside all selfishness and help her escape. Soon, a tower imploded, contracting floor by crushing floor like an accordion, killing people who still lived.

All this was in New York.

In the middle east, however, was a different story. They celebrated in their streets, rejoicing that they had devastated their enemy, America.

Recently, my parents heard a news anchor practically apologizing for airing footage of 9/11 during one of the conventions. He would like to forget as much as possible. He would like to only think of " change" and "hope for America". Well, I'm sorry, but we cannot afford to forget. Not only to honor the memory of the souls who died in the attacks, but because the enemy has not forgotten. The terrorists are just more patient than we are, and if we let their patience pay off, we will pay dearly for it. They are full of religious zeal and we have to hold strong. We have to remember that although we may want to forget-- it is a tear-wrenching memory--they won't. It was victory for them, and it will help motivate them for years to come. We must not let them gain another one. I don't know where we should be in the war, and I am not going to try to explain the reasons or the "should be" behind every current event, but I am going to assert that we cannot forget. We cannot afford to forget.


My mom wrote a great post about this on her blog. Here it is : Remembering that Day


Much of this was learned by watching History Channel's Countdown to Ground Zero.