Another Year at APT

This past September we saw "The Tempest" and "The Taming of the Shrew". Not our *most* favorite year but we enjoyed it nonetheless. We are hoping for a summertime evening performance next year. We can't wait to see what the plays will be.

Also regarding Shakespeare . . .
Susan shared a link to a wonderful book entitled: The Actor's (and Intelligent Reader's) Guide to the Language of Shakespeare, by Richard DiPrima

It's 850 pages long and at the time I contacted them it was $85. Really not a bad deal but I haven't bought it yet. There are a few sample pages shown at the site. Looks very interesting! Definitely on my wish list.

Reading

I've been on a Dorothy Sayers read-a-thon. I started with "Strong Poison" in June (as per July 4th blog post). I finished "Have His Carcase" mid July. And then devoured "Gaudy Night". I just finished "Busman's Honeymoon" August 18th. Of the four, I think I enjoyed this last one the best of all...although I wouldn't have if I hadn't read the first three to understand the background of their relationship.

These four books are the main books that deal with the Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane's relationship. I loved the interactions between those two characters (and Bunter!)...with a few mysteries thrown in as well. There was quite a bit of French and Latin thrown in also. Most of that I had to let go over my head. I would have loved a translation of the French letters near the end though.

Sayers also started "Thrones, Dominations" but it was finished by another author....who also wrote another Peter/Harriet novel after that. I'm still deciding if I should continue on. There have been very mixed reviews about both of those novels. But I don't know how I can resist not reading them....even if the last reads more like FanFiction rather than something Sayers would have wrote. Not all FanFiction is horrible.

Here is a website with the chronological list of the Lord Peter Wimsey short stories and novels with some reviews and plot points.

~~

New Computer

Well, the new computer is here. But I can't seem to manage to get the pictures in the right place. What this means is that no pictures of my finished items are being posted. :sniff:

I've had the computer for a few weeks but I haven't had time to deal with the issue since I'm a bit busy with a new part-time job and we are trying to adjust our schedules to that. Yes, you did read that correctly. A new part-time job. Dh's job is tenuous at best and even his self-employment is having a bit of a down turn.

I'm off for a few days for appointments...much needed hair cuts, dentist, and oldest dd taking her driving test. The computer getting tweaked is high on my list of things to accomplish this week. Can't wait to post some pictures!

Oh yeah....Twilight......Hogwart's Professor has a new website for Twilight related posts. This article written by a guest author really explains Bella and Edward's relationship very nicely. And along those same lines....Subtlynice has updated her version of New Moon from Edward's POV. Reading today's updated chapter reminded me of Arabella's article.

--

I've been a bit distracted.....

March 3rd was my last entry! Yikes!

I've been reading a lot since December. You already know about Twilight, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Dracula from previous posts.

I have since continued to read book after book...

Northanger Abbey (Jane Austen)
Persuasion (Jane Austen)
Mansfield Park (Jane Austen)
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

and currently Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen...of course!)

Don't think I overlooked Emma. I've read that book a couple times in the last few years.

I've also been enjoying some (okay maybe more than just "some") Twilight related FanFiction. Someday I'll post a top 10 or 20 list...or wait how about chronological???. I really enjoyed the saga from Edward's point of view. I didn't think I'd ever read FanFiction but some of it is really not too bad. Although there is definitely plenty to avoid so please do use some caution at that site if you venture over there. (Especially anything with a "M" rating!)

Here's a few I enjoyed...
Continuance of Midnight Sun (This story picks up where Stephanie Meyer left off with Midnight Sun) although I preferred Phoenix Rising for the account of the action in Phoenix.
And this last link is one chapter called The Video Tape.


I had Atlas Shrugged checked out from the library but after vacuuming off many of our books and bookshelves I found some books I wanted to read that I had forgotten about. Yes...we have many books and bookshelves and that is not necessarily a good thing. Anyway....for now I just settled for reading reviews for Atlas Shrugged at Goodreads (above link). 1000+ pages and such a fine print was just too daunting at the moment.

Dd#2 was also confirmed on Palm Sunday (April 5th). (Hence the reason for the extreme dusting of bookshelves.) Very exciting day!

I have been knitting also. I've got one free cloth pattern and one $1 lacy cloth pattern about 99% ready to be released. Those posts and pictures will be coming in a few days or so.

~

Rambling and updates

This was the reading from this past Tuesday from Day By Day We Magnify Thee.

It refers to John 15:16 "Ye have not chose Me, but I have chosen you."

Martin Luther writes:

"This cuts off and condemns at a stroke all the presumption of spurious saints, who want to do and deserve so much, even to reconciling God and making Him their friend. For what do they do but make the choice and seek to be first, in that their merits precede and God's grace toddles on behind? It is not He who chooses us, but we seek Him and make Him our friend, that we may glory in that He has received much good from us. That is what all the world does in seeking to merit God's grace by previous works. But the Gospel says 'Ye have not chosen Me'. That is, you are My friends not because of what you do, but because of what I do. If it were because of what you do, I should have to regard your merit, but it is because of Me and through Me, because I draw you to Me and give you all that I possess, so that your glory is in nothing but My grace and love, and not your own nor all the world's work or merit. For I have not let Myself be found by you; rather have I had to seek you and bring you to Myself, when you were afar off, without knowledge of God, and were held in the grip of error and condemnation like the rest. But now I am come, and I have called you out of the darkness, before you prayed or did anything about it. Thus you are My friends in that you have received all good from Me, and know that you have received it all for nothing and out of sheer grace."

Ahhhh....The sweetness of Grace!

God's
Riches
At
Christ's
Expense



Update on reading: Finished Dracula last night on Daily Lit. Putting that on the kids list of books to read. Now on to Jane Austin...Dostoevsky's Devils may just have to wait a little longer.

Update on Knitting: The Apple Leaf Pi pattern is written. Time to test knit.

Update on Exercise: Today I completed my 4th consecutive week (Monday thru Friday) of exercise (Wii My Fitness Coach...not Wii Fit). I like the program. It adjusts the workout to you, the workouts change every time, and you can add a step, hand weights, or a stability ball (and a heart monitor). And it was only $30 vs. $90 for Wii Fit (if you can even find one!). Also you can pick the focus of the day (6 different ones...yoga, stretch, cardio, lower, upper, core), the location, the music, and the length of time you want to workout.

There are a few things I would change about the program but they are insignificant. The "Goldilocks" thing is one. After a portion of the workout she (the trainer...not Goldilocks!) asks if that section was too hard, just right, or too easy. Well...if you aren't able to control the controller and you end up clicking on "too easy" when you really wanted "just right" there is no way to go back and change it. The next time she will "up the intensity" of the workout. I've made that mistake more than once but I haven't noticed the exercises being out of my realm of capability. When that does happen I'll just have to work real hard to click on the "too hard" button! The way to solve this would have been the next screen asking "Do you really mean that!?!". Or having the three choices further apart.

For those who know me, you may be asking how I've managed to workout FIVE days a week.... For FOUR weeks straight. Easy. I bribe myself. It wasn't my idea. I got it from a Ravelry group called Exerstashers. Everyone has figured out their own reward system. Mine is $0.25 for every 15 minutes of working out. On Friday...when I really want to just stay in bed...and justify that by telling myself how I worked out the rest of the week, isn't that enough?....Then my second incentive kicks in. If I work out each day (Tuesdays & Thursdays are easy days...yoga or stretching and only 30 minutes long) then at the end of the week I double the amount I received for that week. It isn't a lot but in four weeks I'm up to $25. And if you think it is weird to pay oneself for exercising....just think how much I'd be paying if I'd join a gym! Way more than that....plus I wouldn't have the incentive of saving up for some special reward. I'm not sure what that reward will be yet....

--

Apple Leaf Pi Cloth

I finished this cloth Jan 9th but haven't blogged about it yet. Got too caught up in reading. In addition to Twilight I also managed to fit in Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. I can see how both of those classic stories influenced the Twilight books. Jane Eyre has always been one of my favorites although I hadn't read it in some time.

On with the knitting.....

This is another Pi Cloth knit in the round from the middle out. I used a leaf stitch for the main body. The border is also a leaf.

I used size 2 dpns with Pisgah Yarn & Dyeing Co., Inc America's Best Article 960, Perle Cotton in a Lime Green. I think that is the end of my green now.







Here's a close up of the leaf border.

I haven't formally written up this pattern yet.

UPDATE: The pattern is up for sale! Details here.

--

Thoughts on the Twilight Saga

I've read all four books plus the extras at the website. Here are some of my disjointed thoughts.

Overall I enjoyed the story. I had a hard time putting it down.

I liked seeing the strength of the family, trust, loyalty, love and humor. And these qualities were even able to affect the feelings between natural enemies. (I'm trying to keep this general in case you haven't read the books yet.)

Things I cringed at...but it offered nice talking points with my girls:
works righteousness (but I wasn't reading this story for theological purposes),
some intimate bedroom scenes,
and a seemingly unhealthy "devotion" to a boyfriend.

Don't miss the extras for New Moon. Meyer has three snipets of the story from three other points of view. Jacob is a "crack-up". [NB: pgs 250-251 of Breaking Dawn]

I really liked reading the story from Edward's perspective. He had a lot more thoughts going on in his head than Bella who seemed kind of hung up on age and beauty. Hope Meyer decides to finish that book.

Is this saga a "classic"? My unprofessional opinion is "no".

Did I enjoy reading it? Yes.

Some are trying to compare this saga to Harry Potter. I'd say there really isn't any comparison. The Harry Potter novels are much deeper with more layers of things to experience on each reading. More mystery and surprise twists too.

If I had to apply movie ratings to these series of books....
I would rate Harry Potter as PG and Twilight as PG-13 (because of the bedroom scenes).

--

Twilight

Okay...I've finally succumbed to reading Twilight. My two older girls devoured the books (all four! plus the draft mentioned below!) in the month of December and continued to beg me to begin.

I balked. I chose to read Dracula instead via DailyLit. I'm at about half way through that book. Just a little after the point where Dr. Van Helsing placed the garlic around Lucy and filled her room with it. (I thought I wasn't going to give any spoilers but.....Spoiler alert below in the quoted section!)

Someone had posted about Twilight and vampires and questioned what it was about the garlic. Another posted at that site that perhaps it is that garlic is good for our blood and that wouldn't be good for a vampire with evil intent (paraphrased).

Then today I read the first two chapters of Twilight and the first two Chapters of Midnight Sun (from Edward's point of view). It was the two chapters from Midnight Sun combined with the last lines I read today from Dracula that connected in my brain.

"Van Helsing did not go to bed at all. He went to and fro, as if patroling the house, and was never out of sight of the room where Lucy lay in her coffin, strewn with the wild garlic flowers, which sent through the odour of lily and rose, a heavy, overpowering smell into the night."

Ahhh...the "heavy, overpowering smell" of garlic....that's the thing about garlic!

Now go read chapters one and two of Midnight Sun. It is a pdf file at Stephenie Meyer's official blog link I gave you above.

p.s. The girls told me yesterday that the DVD of the movie is coming out March 21st. I didn't go see it either of the two times that they went. But I know that the books are always better than the movie!

A Precursor to the Mirror of Erised

I just finished reading Phantastes: A Faerie Romance by George MacDonald. It has been on my reading list for some time thanks to Dr. Veith and his book Reading Between the Lines. What got me motivated to read it though was finding (at a local bookstore) a bargain copy of The Princess and the Goblin (also by MacDonald) and reading that aloud to the kids. We are now half way through the sequel (The Princess and Curdie). I wanted more MacDonald for my own private reading time.

The copy of Phatastes that I checked out from the library has a wonderful forward by C.S. Lewis who states after reading this book that he "had crossed a great frontier". It was a turning point in his life.

Anyway...as I'm reading along I came upon a chapter that related a story from a library book in Faerie Land. This story tells of a mirror with curious carvings around the frame. As Cosmo looks into this mirror he sees his room reflected but also a lady who, when he turns away from the mirror, is not there. He sits many a night looking and longing for his beautiful lady.

"But as he gazed on the face and form, which now possessed his whole soul, to the exclusion of all other joys and griefs, the longing to speak to her, to know that she heard him, to hear from her one word in return, became so unendurable...." p.97-98

This mirror reminded me (although it was not exact as this was an enchanted mirror that had trapped the lady) of the Mirror of Erised from the Harry Potter series.


Mirror of Erised (from the Harry Potter Lexicon)
A magnificent mirror, as high as a classroom ceiling, with an ornate gold frame, standing on two clawed feet. The inscription carved around the top reads "Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi," which is "I show not your face but your heart's desire" written backwards (that is, in what is called 'mirror writing'). When you look into the mirror, you see the deepest, most desperate desire of your heart. The mirror has trapped people who can't bear to stop staring into it, unsure if what they see is going to actually happen.

and from Dumbledore:
"Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible."

---

Oh...I was going to add...Here is a link if you want to listen to the book at LibriVox. It isn't all the way finished however. But that is where I went to find out how to pronounce "Phantastes".

---

Hope

Today's excerpt from Day by Day We Magnify Thee by Martin Luther.

Wow! Looking up that link Amazon tells me that I purchased this book June 15, 2002. And I've been reading and rereading one little page per day for the last 6.5 years.


The hope of the righteous shall be gladness.
Proverbs 10:28

Although the world may impose on us all manner of plagues and sorrows, and pain our hearts and give us a bitter, sour drink, to say nothing of other daily troubles, such as accidents, or illness, disease, hard times, and war, which hurt the body or the outward man, we must endure it as though biting a sour apple and tasting a bitter draught, that the sweetness that follows may taste the better, and we be driven by this experience to yearn for that day with greater longing. Otherwise we should continue our way so cold and numb that in the end we should no longer feel our misery, like the confident and unrepentant world, till at last we should no longer take notice of the Word of God and should perish with the godless. But now, God in His grace maketh us weary and tired of this life and gives us the comfort of a better--that is, that He will soon appear in the clouds with great power and glory, and lift us up out of all misery to everlasting joy, so that as far as we are concerned nothing better or more to be desired could happen to us. But for the godless there will then be no such joyful sight.


Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!




And yesterday this beauty arrived!

Treasury of Daily Prayer is just hot off the presses.

It has everything...Old Testament readings, New Testament readings, Psalms, hymns, devotional readings from the church fathers, prayers, orders of services (more than one)...and more! See above link for links to excerpts.

I look forward to adding this to my morning routine. Day One...begun. I'd also like to add it to my night time routine. Here's to a future of "intentional" daily devotion! (The word "intentional" on the cardboard wrapping of this book made me giggle.)

Dd#3 is purling!

Dd#3 has been knitting coaster size squares (garter st) for a several months on and off. She wasn't interested in learning how to purl.

Then I ordered Kids Learn to Knit by Lucinda Guy.

She found a cute little owl project in that book that she wanted to make. It required purling which she picked up in a flash. 2 stockinette squares later and some felt shapes cut and we've got Flapping Fred.



She now also knows how to cast on using the reverse loop method. She'll sometimes just grab yarn and needles and cast on over and over.

Polly Pocket also received a rug designed and knit by dd#3.

Happy Herbie is next in her queue.

Knitting and Reading

There has been some talk on the KnitList about knitting while reading.

I use a nifty little book holder called The Book Gem if I'm reading a printed book while knitting.

If the book is on CD...then a CD player will do.

I've recently acquired a Sony MP3 player (dd#2's old one). Today Wendy (from the KnitList) shared a link for LibriVox. This site provides free audiobooks for works in the public domain. That looks like a great resource! I'll have to learn how to download the files....not today....I've already got a book on CD and several "real" books going at the moment.

Another fun way to get a daily dose of literature is Daily Lit. They email you a small portion of a book of your choice each day at the time of your choosing. You can also omit weekends if you like. Set your mouse to slowly scroll and grab your knitting.

NB....I don't always read while knitting. Sometimes the TV is going (I don't often get control of the remote) or I'm visiting with friends or knitting in public....or sometimes everything is quiet. That doesn't happen real often in this house.