Giveaway

Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer is doing another giveaway and I've decided to participate. I will be giving away 1 illustrated quote, of your choice. You can also tell me what you would like to be pictured, but please keep in mind that I probably won't be able to exactly reproduce what you want and that I may add to the design as my whimsey takes me.

For other examples of my work see here, here, and here.

How it works:
--Leave a comment on this post between now and Friday the 2nd at 9PST. You do NOT have to be a blogger to enter, but if you're not, please leave a valid email address--I won't publish your email address unless you specifically say that you don't care.
--Wait for me to do the drawing. I will try to announce the winner sometime on Saturday.
--If you win, I will email you so we can work out details.

Have fun, and check out some of the other giveaways!

EDIT: If your comment hasn't appeared it's probably because you included your e-mail address and I'm not publishing those. If you didn't include an e-mail address, or if you really have doubts about whether it went through, feel free to comment again but be aware that I will only count each commenter once in the drawing. Thank you all for your interest!

EDIT 2: I've posted the winners!

Sometimes you just have to laugh

In case you didn't know, I'm the administrator over at IDD. We get some...odd ads at the top of the page. Sometimes they have something to do with the content of the thread, but quite often we just look at them in wonder. Today, for instance, I popped over to be greeted with an ad for "Imperial German Headgear: Museum Quality Reproduction Pickelhaube, Field caps, Visor caps." I have no idea what sparked this particular ad, but it makes me quite amused.

Book Joys

My awesome friend Jessica gave me a $15.00 gift certificate to a local used bookstore and I had some books that I wanted to sell, so I headed over there today and ended up with $22.00 to spend. So I got:

The Eyre Affair, paperback, for $7.00
Betsy and Joe, paperback, for $3.50. The lowest price this book is selling for on Amazon is $30.00!
Return to Gone-Away, paperback, for $2.00
Spindle's End, paperback, for $3.25
The Man in the Brown Suit, paperback, for $3.00
The Tombs of Atuan, paperback (a really nice copy), for $3.50

All of these added up to $22.25, so I paid a quarter for six books, one of which is worth considerably more. Yay!

Mustaches!

This was evidently a featured blog on Blogger awhile ago. Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century. The mustaches are impressive and the humor is good.

Possibilities

I hope I spelled that word right. I think I did, only now that I'm looking at it, it definitely looks...strange.

Moving on.

Students at my university generally study abroad, if they're going to, their junior year. I'm a sophomore now and have to apply if I want to study abroad next year, which I do.

In England.

My school has a program in London which has classes in the city and takes excursions to places like Bath, Wales, Oxford, Cambridge, and Stratford-on-Avon. I'd be living there for four months. Now, does that not sound like the coolest thing ever?

So here's the catch. I'm not guaranteed admittance. I need to fill out a whole bunch of paperwork and write an essay between now and November 30. (Coincidentally, this is also the last day of NaNoWriMo. Yes, I am insane.) And I need to make sure that finances work. So, I guess this is partly a post letting you know what's going on in my life, and partly a request for some prayer that I get everything in on time and that the financial aspect works out and that I get to go, if it's God's will.


In other news, my family is coming to visit me and go have a picnic. Yay!

I really am alive!

And back from a wonderful, blessed weekend in California. (I just typed "week" instead; I think it was wishful thinking on my part.) We stayed in two houses right on the ocean--one of them about as close to it as you can get. We saw lots of seaweed, a dead cow (yes, I still think that's funny), lots of seals, and, most importantly, all of each other. It was a great time together as a group and one which, although we didn't do all the activities that were planned, felt immensely productive.

For me personally, I was so entirely burnt out on everything before the weekend--schoolwork, cleaning my room--you name it. After the weekend, not only have I not had the "post-conference blues," but I've felt so rejuvenated! God really blessed us.

I'd show you pictures, but the only ones I have are ones which I didn't take.

Gone for the weekend

I'm going to California for a church youth leadership conference. Leaving tonight and I'll be back very late Sunday night. So I'll see you...sometime after that.

I've done it

The gauntlet is down. The hat is in the ring. I've passed the point of no return and burnt my bridges on the way.

I'm doing NaNoWriMo 2007.

My author profile.

I'll probably feature some bits from the story at different point throughout the month. I promise that I won't post a whole chapter like I did last year. Still not quite sure why I did that...And before you die in agonies, let me say that the chapter looks quite different now.

And if the beginning of this post made you think I'm writing a P.G. Wodehouse parody, I regret to say that you were mistaken.

It's so much more friendly with two

My sister came to visit me at college this weekend and we had a glorious time. We wandered around downtown, buying books and chocolate and looking at a number of neat little shops. We had dinner at an excellent Thai restaurant, and we watched several movies. (Beware the Groove!)

But most of all we were together. I don't mean to imply that my friends at college aren't wonderful, because they are. My sister and I have a special bond. We get annoyed and angry with each other occasionally, but we're also the kind of sisters that have read so many of the same books and watched so many of the same movies and listened to so much of the same music that we can practically read each other's minds and we can finish each other's sentences. I have a personal theory that we could also communicate solely through quotations, but that's a different subject. To be together, just the two of us out of our family, was lovely.

And it's true. It's so much more friendly with two.

Elizabeth Bishop

Schoolwork has swallowed me up again, but I return, if only briefly, with a poem. It's been running through my head the last few days as I have searched for three separate things.

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is not disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss the, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

~Elizabeth Bishop

I truly admire Bishop's command of the villanelle. She makes this complicated form look completely effortless.

Please pray for the Common Room family! Their dear Equuschick is in the hospital with a bad horse kick.

Orthodoxy comes to America

Today is the 213th anniversary of the arrival of Orthodoxy in America when St. Herman, St. Juvenaly, and the missionaries with them landed in Alaska.

Glory to God!


St. Herman of Alaska

Psalm 102

As I was doing the Typica this morning, the first Antiphon caught my attention. What a wonderful expression of God's mercy and love!

Psalm 102 (Orthodox numbering, it's Psalm 103 for everyone else)

Bless the Lord, o my soul; blessed art Thou, O Lord. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all that He hath done for thee. Who is gracious unto all thine iniquities, Who healeth all thine infirmities. Who redeemeth thy life from corruption, Who crowneth thee with mercy and compassion. Who fulfilleth thy desire with good things; thy youth shall be renewed as the eagle's. The Lord performeth deeds of mercy, and executeth judgment for all them that are wronged. He hath made His ways known unto Moses, unto the sons of Israel the things that He hath willed. Compassionate and merciful is the Lord, long-suffering and plenteous in mercy. Not unto the end will He be angered, neither unto eternity will He be wroth. Not according to our iniquities hath He dealt with us, neither according to our sins hath He rewarded us. For according to the height of heaven from the earth, the Lord hath made His mercy to prevail over them that fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our iniquities from us. Like as a father hath compassion upon his sons, so hath the Lord had compassion upon them that fear Him; for He knoweth whereof we are made, He hath remembered that we are dust. As for man, his days are as the grass; as a flower of the field, so shall he blossom forth. For when the wind is passed over it, then it shall be gone, and no longer will it know the place thereof. But the mercy of the Lord is from eternity, even unto eternity, upon them that fear Him. And His righteousness is upon sons of sons, upon them that keep His testament and remember His commandments to do them. The Lord in heaven hath prepared His throne, and His kingdom ruleth over all. Bless the Lord, all ye His angels, mighty in strength, that perform His word, to hear the voice of His words. Bless the Lord, all ye His hosts, His ministers that do His will. Bless the Lord, all ye His works, in every place of His dominion.

Text from the Online Readers Service Horologion

Linkage

It's a cold, grey Saturday here, and I've been out of it all day. Perfect time to link to some other pages!

Blogging Friends
Krista writes about Beauty in the Mistakes.
Mrs. Wilt examines the ideals of Christian art.

Orthodox Christianity
On Giving Children the Sense of the Beautiful.
The feeling of loneliness is in our nature.
Beautiful pictures from St. Seraphim's 25th anniversary.

Tolkien
Tolkien lectures at University of Washington--January and February 2008
Tolkien quote.
Terry Jones will talk about Tolkien.
Why the new "Dark is Rising" movie is awful. I agree.
This is funny and sad at the same time.
Tolkien lecture in Perrysburg, OH, Oct. 11.
Peter Jackson "Hobbit" may be a possibility.

Other
Jeeves and Wooster fun.

I'm not waiting for Prince Charming

This is part of an ongoing series of "controversial posts" I've been writing at my LJ. I haven't posted any of them here until now, but I think this one needs to be shared. I'll say the same thing I do there: you don't have to agree. Really. If you don't agree with me, say so. :) I want to hear your opinions. Doesn't mean I'll change mine, but I like to hear what other people think. Just be sure to be kind and respect my opinion as I promise I will respect yours. Unless it's so far out in left-field that I decide you don't deserve it. But that would only be if you think that Orthodox Christians are actually Gnostics (not making this up). In which case I reserve the right to biff you one with the Cluebat of Orthodox Righteousness.

I'm not waiting for Prince Charming.

I know some of you may be confused by that statement. I am, after all, fairly vocal in my support of "dating with a purpose," or courtship, if you want to call it that. I'm even the administrator (along with a staff of several wonderful young ladies) of an online forum called I Don't Date. Have I suddenly changed my convictions? No, not really.

But I repeat: I am not waiting for Prince Charming.

I am waiting for my husband.

I am not waiting for that mythical someday when a perfect man, a knight-in-shining-armor, rides in on his horse and scoops me off and carries me off to his castle where we live happily ever after. I am not waiting for that day because it will never come and believing that it will is only harmful to myself and to my future relationship with my future husband. (This is not to say that I don't love Pre-Raphaelite art as much as anyone else, just that I don't believe it will happen or ever did in the way we tend to think of it.)

You see, my husband, while I hope and pray that he is a wonderful and Godly man, is just that: a man. He is not now nor ever will be perfect and to imagine that he will is only setting both of us up for heartbreak.

Because what happens when he fails me?

He will fail me, just as I will fail him. And if I cherish the dream of a perfect man only to find that he is not so perfect after all (and I am talking larger failings than leaving his socks on the floor here), what will that do to my trust in him? How much harder would it be to find forgiveness for him and his failings in my heart? Yet would I not hope for that forgiveness myself? I would. And God calls us to forgive our fellow strugglers.

So no, I am not waiting for my Prince Charming. I am waiting for the man that I hope to laugh with, to cry with, to sing with, to read with, to live with, and to worship God with. I know that there will be hard times to come, just as there are hard times now. I know that my own sinful tendencies will rear up their ugly heads just as his will. And you know? I can only pray that God will bring us through them, whatever they be. But I can also refuse to fall into the trap of idealized thinking that is implicated in that phrase, "Prince Charming."

Things of little consequence

Things that make me happy: warm socks, striped, Chopin's "Polonaise", the fact that I am done with my homework except for the conclusion of the essay, an actually hot shower.

Things that make me puzzled: the fact that I moved my arm three inches and my elbow cracked.

Things that make me slightly sad: I want a cup of tea (herbal) but I know I must away to bed.

Hopefully a bit more substance tomorrow!

EDIT: I have a blog label for tea. That makes me happy too.

Business

Or busy-ness. I think the second is what I was going for.

I realize that I haven't posted a thing since Sunday night. I've been horribly busy with school since then. I haven't forgotten about this blog, but I've been going for a long time, and I'm not done yet. I have mountains of homework, besides cleaning my room and all sorts of other fun things to try to get done.

I'm sorry. Please bear with me! I promise I'll post some this weekend--maybe even on Friday (my great one-class day).

Also, please pray for me that I won't lose my mind in the next 24 hours.

Off to class now.