I haven't posted very much lately. Somehow I've been feeling dry, thoughtless--not in the usual sense of the word but in the literal one, without thoughts. I read what others say so well and think, "Yes! Me too!" But sometimes it seems like that's all I have to add.

It's been hot the last few days, which hasn't helped. And I've had some hard news--two deaths in the extended church family--and some difficult news--the job I thought I had may not be mine after all (Elizabeth, it sounds like we had somewhat similar experiences).

So, I'm reflecting. On the one hand, I feel duty bound to write something. On the other...how to write when you have nothing to say?

Bits and pieces

Still no job although a few possible leads have turned up.

Yesterday was hot so I came up with a cool menu: green salad, pasta salad with onion, garlic, red pepper, broccoli, zucchini, and chicken marinated in soy sauce and peanut butter.

Tongiht I'm going to the church to help make chocolate chip cookies for a bake sale they're putting on this weekend. There's an art festival on one of the nearby streets that it's meant to coincide with.

Where have I been?

Moving into a new house in the same city, with the help of a number of church friends. We couldn't have done it without them.

Spending time with friends. Watching "Life is Beautiful" (wonderful movie), playing Quiddler, talking.

Sleeping. Very important.

Unpacking and organizing. Also important, if not quite so much fun.


So, what with all of that and getting ready for London, I don't know how often I'll be posting. I'll try to be somewhat regular, but I'm not promising anything!

Linkage

I've had this enormous build-up of links in the past couple of links.

The Tale of Despereaux trailer: I'm not wildly thrilled. At least from the trailer it looks like they've cutified it.

NYTBR Outtakes: An interview with Markus Zusak. I really need to read more of his books.

I'm YA and I'm OK: An interesting musing on being a Young Adult writer. (Personally, I think the whole category is a lot of hooey.)

Why Jane Austen matters: Just shows that people have a much higher capacity for understanding than most want to allow.

E-mail error ends up on road sign: Is it wrong that much laughter was my immediate response to this?

Wax ornaments: I want to say that my family or someone we knew once made these? But I could be wrong. Not sure.

Over-earnest: Excellent post from The Common Room on parental expectations.

Embracing Story: Another excellent post from The Common Room on Story.

Pride and Prejudice as Facebook: Also known as Sheer Genius. I especially love "Lydia Bennet and Kitty Bennet joined the group 1,000,000 Strong Against the Officers Leaving Meryton!" Because you know there would be a Facebook group for that.

Lemony Snicket posts! How can you not love that?

Tired

So tired right now. Today was a day of some misadventures--my baked potato dish took longer than I thought it would and the apple cider vinegar tipped over on my bed and spilled all over my mattress. I worked for six hours, two longer than usual. That was definitely tiring. I did have a nice, albeit brief, chat with my adviser about my 25-30 page paper. I'm trying to work on that right now, but the brain, it is not focusing. I'm thinking maybe a snack and a break and then we'll try again?

I know this is all fairly boring, but I'm trying to give a little sense of my life. And right now my life is homework, work, homework. I'm hoping for a little space to breathe soon.

Things I have learned about myself recently

*I can always be bribed with free crayons. Chocolate is also acceptable.
*Procrastination is the name of the game.
*I do actually need sleep sometimes. Who knew?
*I am in love with Sweets from Bones. If you have not seen the latest episode (aired yesterday) go watch it. Particularly the last few minutes, but that won't make sense if you haven't seen the rest of the ep.
*I dislike a messy room, but often not enough to actually clean it (right now would be a good example).
*I'm an emotional sap.
*Muslin curtains fluttering in the wind=happiness.
*Wind in general=happiness.

And now I'm off to try and knock off some NaNo-ing. No, my paper is not done. But I'm at two (almost three) pages, so I'm giving myself a little break. A break involving more writing. (But fun writing, she tells herself forcefully. Right, self answers her. Fun.)

The birthday

So...my birthday weekend. I went home Friday night--my mother came up and picked me up after work. When we got home I watched a little of "House of Flying Daggers" (good movie, a few FFW scenes) and then realized I needed to go to bed.

Saturday we worked on getting the house cleaned up a bit and food made. Two frineds came over about 11:30. We talked a bit and then ate lunch. Bratwurst or hamburgers, potato salad, tomatoes, pickles, and carrot sticks. My father was working until 1:00 so we played Taboo and Clue until then. When he got home we had cake and I opened presents. Rested a bit, talked to my sister, and went to Vespers and Matins. It was a really nice day, full of good things and people who love me.

Today we went to church, came home and then I left about 2:15. It was a great blessing to have communion.

The day ended nicely with dinner (at the cafeteria, yes I am lame) with friends, Mulan, and white chocolate raspberry truffle ice cream. *falls over* That stuff is amazing!

And now....the presents! (Click on the pictures to see them full-sized...I can't fiddle with them right now as I need to go to bed.)


My father made me spoons. Which is just super cool! I'd been hoping he would make some for me sometime but it was nice to get them now.


My friends gave me an English tea. Scone mix, Twinings Earl Grey, Nutella, digestive biscuits, mushroom pate, lemon curd, rolls, an English cucumber, Devon cream, smoked salmon, English cheddar cheese with carmelized onions. All in a lovely basket!

Close-up of the basket


My sister painted me a picture! Isn't it lovely?


Books...yes, my brother gave me the King of Attolia.


Second hand baking pans.


Origami


My gag joke from my friend Nick--he made the cover to fit on some random book...because he likes to get me mad by talking about Jane Eyre as if Jane Austen wrote it.

And! The gift that you can't see because it was taking all of these pictures...a digital camera! It was really sweet of my parents to get it for me.

Not pictured: a red sweater (YAY!), a cream shirt, and a traveling skirt.

So...some good, some bad. At the moment I'm tired which is not helping my attitude. Hopefully sleep and a new day will.

I also realized when I got back that my alarm clock would have gone off at 8:30 am both days. Ooooops. Sorry neighbors. Maybe I should give them some of the cookies I made last week.

Not a great day today. Too much to do, not enough of it got done. And there was some personal stuff going on.

On the upside, it was sunny this morning, which is good for my rose bush. It's trying to bloom again (!!!) and I've been worried about the fact that we are entered the Rain. Also received a previously unread Diana Wynne Jones book from the library which is always a good thing.

I'm trying to remember that God is good and not let myself get weighed down in the bog.

Things that make me happy

Beef stroganoff for dinner.

The honey spice cupcake sitting on my desk.

A book waiting for me at the library.

House, Bones and Pushing Daisies all tomorrow.

Peter, Paul and Mary.

Starbuck's Hazelnut Hot Chocolate.

Sunshine (book and actual light).

A day without classes.

Bits and pieces

When I got up this morning I felt as if I'd woken up from a long bad dream. Which is a metaphor. I slept very well last night. It's just that I felt, for no discernible reason, as if all of my failures and falls of the last few weeks had been washed away and I'd been given a brand new start.

That's a lovely feeling.

Leila at Bookshelves of Doom put up the last Big Read post for A Tale of Two Cities. Naturally, she quoted the end. Naturally, I cried. Oh, Charles Dickens, what you do to me.

I'm missing old friends a lot this morning. I know I won't see them for some time and I want to be with them. I want a community instead of me, muddling along by myself. I guess that's one of those things where all I can do is pray.

Hello again

We just finished dinner...yes, a little late. It was good though. We had chicken breasts cooked in soy sauce, water, ginger, and garlic, steamed rice, and green beans and mushrooms cooked in the same sauce as the chicken. Yum.

I worked six hours today and my brain is gone. A little more money, but man, six hours is hard. So I'm going to do homework and clean up a little and then try to get to bed EARLY. As opposed to really, really late, which has been the M.O. for the past two days.

I'm sorry this isn't a terribly deep entry. But like I said, my brain is on vacation.

A question

So, I've been pondering a bit, and I decided to ask all my lovely readers (that's you) a question. What would you like to see more of on this blog? Bits of writing? Book reviews? A recap of my day (that would be pretty boring)? Something else entirely? Let me know.

A (not so) Brief Introduction

Note: I realized some time ago that I never posted a proper introduction when I started this blog. This is my attempt to rectify that situation.

The facts are these:

Life
I am the oldest of three children.

I was born at home. I smiled at my father when he held me for the first time. I weighed 4 pounds, 10 ounces and was ten days late. The day I was born the stock market dropped dramatically, leading the media to dub it “Black Monday.” My parents renamed it Golden Monday.

For the first two years of my life we lived in an apartment building with other families from our religious community. My friend Kathryn was born eight months after me and a day after my parents and I were baptized into Eastern Orthodoxy.

It snowed on my second birthday.

When I was two, we moved to Maine. We moved to a small town where we lived in a small grey house that was a meadow and a road from the sea. There were woods behind us. I ate rhubarb straight from our neighbor’s plant and grew tadpoles in a plastic bucket. I lost a red balloon. My father worked in a boatyard and we had a garden that amazed our non-compost conscious neighbors.

The spring after I turned four the boatyard my father was working at folded. Faced with the possibility of long-term unemployment with one child and another coming very shortly, my parents made the decision to move back. It rained the day we left and my friend Nicole’s mother cried in our kitchen.

A month after we returned my sister was born. I played house under the peach tree in the garden with my godmother’s oldest daughter for hours. I started “Children’s Garden,” our homeschool version of kindergarten where I learned how to knit, make bread, read, and write.

When I was six my great-grandmother, who lived in Ohio, died. At her funeral my great-uncle asked my father if he would be interested in buying her house, the one she and my great-grandfather built when they got married in 1927, at half the market value. My parents jumped at the chance.

We lived in that house for thirteen years.

My great-grandfather had owned a fair bit of land originally and though he had to sell it off when the Depression hit, he had saved a lot and a half for the family. We had a huge vegetable garden and we planted fruit trees. My brother was born when I was seven and a half, the last of the family. I was homeschooled until I was ten, when I entered public school. I was in public school all the way through high school.

The summer after I graduated from high school my family moved to the Pacific Northwest. The move has been very strange for me, having spent so much of my life in one region. I plan to move back to the Midwest after I graduate from college.

Where I am now
Currently I attend a private four-year liberal arts college in a small city an hour from my parents. I’m a junior English major and I love it! I do live in the dorms. I don’t know what I’ll do after college yet, but it will be something with books because that’s what I love. My love language isn’t touch or speech, or any of the other ones. It’s feeding people and shoving books in their hands.

In spring 2009 I will be studying abroad in London for four months. I’m incredibly excited about this! It still seems unreal to me; I don’t actually believe I’m going even while I’m filling out the paperwork.

My faith is incredibly important to me. I believe in traditional Orthodoxy.

I write poetry and prose. I’m currently revising a novella-length story begun as my NaNoWriMo in 2007. I should probably be doing that right now.

Interests
Books, reading, flowers, gardening, cooking, embroidery, knitting, singing, writing.

Favorite Authors (a partial list)
L.M. Montgomery
J.R.R. Tolkien
Charles Dickens
Jane Austen
Robin McKinley
Maud Hart Lovelace
Dorothy Sayers
Megan Whalen Turner
Elizabeth Goudge
Elizabeth Gaskell

Favorite Music
Mozart
Rachmaninoff
Chopin
Verdi
Puccini
Tchaikovsky
Some Bach
The Chieftains
Eisley
The North and South soundtrack

Favorite Poets (another partial list)
John Donne
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Elizabeth Dickinson
Christina Rossetti
Dylan Thomas
Rupert Brooke
W.B. Yeats
W.H. Auden
T.S. Eliot
e.e. cummings
Wallace Stevens

Favorite Flowers
Lilac
Lavender
Roses
Lily of the Valley
Peonies
Violets
Daffodils
Forsythia
Marigolds
Chrysanthemums
Geraniums
Columbine
Pansies

Hobbies
Reading far too much, handicrafts, ignoring the messiness of my room, quoting whatever pops into my head randomly.

Saturday notes

I'm really loving "Early in the Morning" as done by Peter, Paul and Mary. You can see a video of them performing it live here.

This morning we went to a local farmer’s market where I bought beautiful and delicious Gala apples, half a bouquet of dahlias, and a bunch of fresh basil. A friend has the other half of the bouquet.

Since then I’ve been cleaning my room and writing a few letters. I also managed to get a few more of my decorations out—the ones that really mean something to me and aren’t just tchochkies. (Which, incidentally, means teacup in Russian. Just thought you might like to know that.)

This evening we’re going out to dinner…somewhere. I’m kind of hoping for Asian food as I haven’t had any in AGES. MONTHS.

One of my friends and I are also planning to get a meal plan where you have only 3-4 dinners covered for the week and cook the rest of the time. I’ve found that I enjoy cooking, and I get so tired of the cafeteria food here. I think my mother will be worried about that choice, but with two of us, I think it’s realistic and feasible.

Yum!

So I just made shortbread. It's ridiculously simple and the only expensive part is the butter. Which is better for you anyway, but I understand if you're like, I'm not going to blow a pound of butter on one thing!

But it's so gooooooood.

Anyway, the recipe:

1 lb butter (REAL BUTTER NOT MARGARINE)
4 c flour
1 c sugar

Cream the butter and sugar together by hand. I recommend doing this literally by hand as it's much simpler. Especially if you forgot to soften your butter.

Mix in flour 1/2 c at a time. At a certain point, you won't be able to use your spoon/fork anymore and you'll want to go back to the hand mixing. If you're me, you might never have left. Anyway, when the dough leaves the sides of the bowl, you're good.

Press in a pan. Score the top lightly and prick the squares with a fork. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Turn off oven and leave sitting in for 10 more minutes. Cut while still warm and soft. That's it. Seriously.

If you feel like splurging on the butter, you can't go wrong with shortbread.


In other news, I have ordered Twilight from the library. I want to see what all the fuss is about. Although I suspect it'll be one of those things where I go, "WHY am I doing this to myself? Why am I still reading this?" And then keep reading.

In still other news, we have had some seriously gorgeous weather the past few days. Which is good because, make no mistake my friends, the rain, it is coming. I enjoy the rain for the first month. Although I left my umbrella at home, so we'll see how much I actually enjoy it this year.

Camping trip

Back from a family camping trip--the last hurrah of summer so to speak, as after this we all go back to school and work. I have a week before I go to school and I don't know how much I'll be around during it. But once I get back to school and wireless internet, I'll be posting a lot more than I have been all summer. In the mean time, my pillow and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes are calling my name.

Ta-da!

My weekly post is up at The IDD Blog. It's called The story of a rose bush.

But eventually I picked myself off the floor and thought, “Well, it is not dead yet. True, the buds have all fallen off, and the leaves are sadly depleted. But there are still some leaves. So I won’t give up on it yet.”

Take a gander if you're interested.

Of blueberries, life, and dreams

We picked blueberries this morning. Our departure was a bit delayed by the fact that my sister shut her finger in the van door, but we made it eventually. We picked 17.8 pounds and plans for blueberry muffins and other deliciousness are underway. It was at the blueberry place that I heard the Amusing Sentence of the Day:
"Learning more stuff is good!"

Folks, I couldn't make this up if I tried.

As we drove up, we saw what was evidently the girls of a large family getting into their van to drive away. They all had long hair and long skirts on. I felt that recognition--you know? When you see someone else who's trying to live differently than the rest of the world? And then I realized they probably wouldn't think I was trying to live differently because I have short hair and, horror of horrors, a skirt that only comes down a few inches below my knees. But that's all right. I know that I want to live a certain way and if that's not evident from the moment someone lays eyes on me, it might be a good thing.

The blueberry place was away out in the country and I realized again that I do want to live in the country when I'm older. Or at least, not-in-the-city--somewhere where we can have some land and gardens and a few animals. I know that's a dream of mine, but at the same time I wonder if that's what God wants. Maybe He wants me to help street kids in Chicago or something. I guess, in the end I have to just know that God knows who I am and what I need and what I can give better than anyone else, including myself. But...I really want that little bit of land and a nice old house.

And then I came home and ate left-over chicken and read I Capture the Castle. Now I'm trying to figure out what to make because I am in a baking mood and wish to feed someone. This is partly why I love Sunshine even though I don't usually recommend it.

I'm not dead yet!

Even though my absence might have made it seem like I am. I apologize. It's been a bit crazy--I don't think I had quite realized how different it is to be working 9-4. Even when I'm at college and in classes and working at the library, we have wireless all over campus, and I'm not away THAT much. But at home, where wireless is sketchy and my sister is always on the computer for school, it's a lot different. I'll try to pop back in soon, but I can't promise anything.

The job is going well. The first few days were really rough but things evened out yesterday and today went well too. So hopefully things will continue in that vein.

Life is okay. My dad's in Ohio right now, trying to figure out something for our old house. Right now we don't know a whole lot because when my mother called earlier he was out. Praying that something gets resolved there!

And...that's pretty much it. I'm looking forward to tomorrow when I have a half-day which I can spend going (hopefully) both to the library and Jo-Ann's. I want to make another skirt.

What's going on in your lives?

Sidebar changes

I've made some changes to my sidebar--removed several sections and added:
1) A current quote section--whatever is last in my notebook where I write down quotes I come across.
2) Books currently checked out from the library.
3) A temporary section to keep track of the books I read this summer as part of my plan to read or re-read a whole bunch of the classics.