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Friday, October 10, 2008
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Musing About Books
The post the other day about books made me start wondering why I don't read now with the same passion I used to. I no longer devour books.
I decided the reason is that I read for characters and to find out the story. Well, right now, I live with enough characters that I do not have the same hunger to seek them out. And most characters in books fall dismally short of the reality of those I live with.
Yesterday Mr Music was (supposed to be) doing his math (loyal readers will recognize how often things happen when he is {supposed to be} doing his math) and I hear him singing a song he learned on a tape from my Mum, "I'm a Lonely Little Petunia in an Onion Patch." Good grief.
And today, as she is crossing an assignment off the day's list, Miss Dance announces, "All I can say is, you never can tell with trombones."
Right ho.
Back to the quote from Elisabeth Elliot’s The Shaping of a Christian Family:A talented woman was asked by a friend, “Why have you never written a book?”
“I am writing two,” was the quiet reply. “I have been engaged on one for ten years, the other five.”
“You surprise me!” the friend said. “What profound works they must be!”
“It does not yet appear what they shall be,” said the woman. “But when He makes up His jewels, my great ambition is to find them there.”
“Your children?”
“Yes, my two children. They are my life’s work.”
~~
I suppose in a few years, when they are grown, my appetite for books will return with a vengeance.
Thursday, October 09, 2008
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The Election
Litmus has been a big theme this week here. We were supposed to do the acid/base introductory experiment in science but when I got out my litmus paper, the blue was damaged and so it is a no-go.But there are some things you don't need litmus paper to know about. I have decided that I do have a litmus test for voting, and think that expecting a president to defend the life of every American, born or not, or even accidentally born alive after a failed abortion, is not setting the bar on that litmus test too high.
And in fact, I'd like to set the bar a bit higher than that. Everyone seems to be fed up with the presidential campaigns and I'm wondering how it would go if I'd run myself. Of course, then everyone would want to know about my platform and my history and would point out all my inconsistencies. One of those inconsistencies being my own aversion to having a woman as Commander-in-Chief. Oh, well.
I'm CarpeBanana, and I approve this message.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
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Touch of Class
It is that wonderful time of year when the catalogs seeking our Christmas dollars arrive. This week one of my favorite came. I only made it to page 13 and want to share the entertainment value thus far.
The cover photo is of this bedding set.Now, I don't do Hallowe'en, but this looked to me like a Morticia kind of bedroom. I asked Devastatingly Handsome how he would like it and he (tactfully) ignored me. Mr Music, however, said he thought Cinderella's Step-mother would like it, and I think he is right. I also love the fact that almost all their comforters are clearly marked with "Oversized to Fit." What does that mean? Wouldn't the right size fit, and oversized be too big?
But the cover did not deter me from looking to see what treasures lay within. I will share two of my favorites.
This table clock is cool, but what are the chances you'd ever be able to see what time it is?Around here it would be covered, 24/7, with piles of math workbooks, lego, and catalogs. It also seems to me somewhat alarming to think about a ticking table.
And this little joy on page 13 is why I took a break at that point.I mean, I think this thing is just plain ugly and let's say so. Would you even consider giving a quarter for it at a yard sale unless you needed a blunt weapon for a murder party or a gift for a white elephant exchange? But according to the catalog, this "regally-styled Rodessa Covered Box creates an illusion of beauty." I earned an A in an aesthetics course, but would have had to go for the master's or PHD to know what "an illusion of beauty" means.
Monday, October 06, 2008
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My Chance to be Above Average
Those of us who are below average height can get a strong yearning to be above average. Tonight I went over and visited my friend at The Chickadee Feeder and found an opportunity, so, without fear, here I go, boldly trying it out. I quote:
The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.
The Rules:
1) Look at the list and put one * by those you have read.
2) Put a % by those you intend to read.
3) Put two ** by the books you LOVE.
4) Put # by the books you HATE.
5) Post.
And now here I go:
*1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
*2 The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
*3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Brontë
4 Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling
*5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
**6 The Bible
*7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
*8 1984 - George Orwell
#9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
*10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
*11 Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
*12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
*13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (wondering how you'd know if they're complete when no one is absolutely sure the guy ever existed....)
*15 Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
*16 The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
*18 Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
*20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
*24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
********25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
*29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
*30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
*31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
*32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
**33 Chronicles of Narnia- C.S. Lewis
%34 Emma - Jane Austen
&35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
**36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis (why is this separate?)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis de Bernières -
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
*40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
*41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
*46 Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
%51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
**52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
*54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
*57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
**************59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
*65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (French class)
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
*70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
*71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
*72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
*73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Émile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - A.S. Byatt
*81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
*87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
**89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
**92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (French class again)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
*94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
*96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
*98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
*99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
*100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
And now I think I am off to see if I can find the Life of Pi thing...
Friday, October 03, 2008
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Just
We ran into a friend the other day who was telling us about a strong-willed (or maybe strong-won'ted) child of his and her habit of starting every discussion about her disobedience with just: "I was just getting a cookie" "I was just getting ready to obey" "I was just..."
I never thought about the meanings of just before this discussion. Just can be an adverb, and mean merely or only as I usually assume it to mean in this sort of sentence. Or, I see now, it can be an adjective and have meanings related to righteousness.
So, when I use just, am I trying to minimize what we did? or am I trying to make a case that it was good and righteous? I will not fool God with clever words, Luke 16:15 ~ And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God," but need a Savior who is more than just, Romans 3:23-26 ~ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
TobyBo
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- Name: TobyBo
- Member Since: 6/2/2005
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