Finishings

I like to finish things. It just feels so nice. I've recently been finishing books. For one, my mom just finished reading The Eagle of the Ninth to my sister and I. That is really good book. Well written. Rosemary Suttcliff is an amazing author. It builds, growing tenser and tenser, more horrible, until the climax, where, up until the second to last chapter, you don't even know if they're going to live. And then the tension slowly slacks off to the best ending it could have had.
And then I finished Mansfield Park today. Again, up until the last moment (the last few pages) I didn't think it could have a good ending. I would pour out my heart and spoil the ending for you all except my sister reads this blog and I'm going to have to make her read it. But OH! Jane Austen did it again.
A week ago, I finished Beautiful Outlaw. Seriously, that was the best Christian nonfiction book I've ever read. Every chapter, I could feel Jesus's presence. I loved renewing my relationship with him, getting to know him and understand him in ways I never knew I could. It was convicting to realize how the religious "fog" (to quote the book) has crept into my life and my worship, pretending to be piety or fear or something else entirely. John Eldridge wrote about Jesus and intimacy with Jesus in a way that I love. I love being able to share my life entirely with Jesus – every moment. Oh, Jesus, how I felt to really see you for who you are. I can't explain it. I can only urge you to read this book. It is not just another devotional.
And then, I just minutes ago finished True Freedom. Oh – you don't know that one. Because I just finished writing it.
Yes, my dear little Maurelle story. Finally finished, finally named. Not edited, of course. As a proud Mama, I can't just go edit it after I finish it (I'll have to wait a few years for that), so I am now putting it down happily, if a bit sadly.
This proud Mama would also like to inform her readers that her book is a walloping 21, 961 words long- 1, 961 words longer than my goal. That's 87.844 pages, peoples.
I really can't add any more to that. :)
So wiithout further ado, I bid you adieu. Until my next post,

Ahh, for the Victorian age...

I am a lover of all things old and romantic. Today, we are going to a Victorian shop! I'm very excited. They have hats and furniture and dresses and stationery and statues and quilts and lamps and kitchen things and mirrors and shoes and fountains and couches and fans and so many things! Of course, it's probably all horribly expensive. But we can look, and touch, and feel, and smell. I am so glad God gave us smell. The smell of a library. Or pumpkin muffins in the oven. And touch. Being able to touch smooth silk, and the shiver of running your finger over silky wood. Oh, I am very excited!

I'm back!

I'm back! A lovely trip, but deliciously wonderful to be home. Today was a day of resuming – slipping back into the normal life. A usual Monday. Kitchen duties, lots of reading, and ballet at 5, of course. I dearly enjoy ballet, but it makes me hungry. (Notice I already used the word delicious?) I really like chassés.  It's a sort of slide with one foot leading, and then we leap in between. Chassés always feel so ladylike and graceful and slide-y and glide-y. :) Next week is our last class until September. I wish it wasn't…
But I suppose I need to get to writing that last chapter of Maurelle. Farewell, friends!

Busyness

Well, we've been quite busy here in Minas Galen/Green Acres/Green Gardens. Pardon me, inside joke which only my sister will get. :)
My mother is in a play – a musical, in fact – let's not be secretive, it's Ragtime! It's a splendid, extremely dramatic, 35-scene (and singing [note: mute the sound in this song from 5 minutes 44 seconds (4:44) to 5 min 57 sec (5:57) ] in nearly every single scene ), 50+ member cast.  This is the last weekend of the show. Tonight, tomorrow, and Sunday. For the last two months, "everything is Ragtime" (to be grammatically correct, that would be 'everything has been Ragtime' but I wanted to quote).
And next Wednesday, we depart for a journey of extreme length (5 hour drive there and back) which shall whisk me away for some time (not that it shall be noticed, since I don't blog very regularly). We'll be exploring the city and seeing my dear cousin (and aunt and uncle) for a week.
I wish I had more to say – it doesn't sound so busy, but between redoing our room and my dad's work schedule and my mom's play schedule, the last few weeks have been crazy.
Speaking of redoing our room, I have a picture to show. It's a rather blurry, dark picture because I am not a photographer.

You see, we had a shelving system attached to the wall. Every little dot is a hole in the wall. The brown patches are where the drywall is showing because it peeled all the paint and the paper off the wall. But even though it's extremely ugly, it is also good, because it means that tomorrow we paint! Blue, beautiful blue.

Fare thee well!

Promised snippets

The editing done, I am now free to write my last chapter (I should have liked to put a exclamation point on that, but exclamation points are not exactly dreamy and romantic. And since I'm once again listening to the Ever After soundtrack, I simply can't put an unromantic exclamation point in).
Of course, I may have to edit some more after I finish writing, but I don't intend to look critically on Maurelle for at least six months. If not longer. I can't look at my dears so soon after I finish them and expect myself to not be partial, or to not be offended at someone who is.
I'm not sure where I will take myself next. Perhaps to a fairy tale, since I'm in that sort of mood. Or maybe my dear African tiger-riding princess, or my laundress, or an old story which has been finished but needs refurbishing…
Anyway, after that long-winded explanation, here are the promised snippets:

I looked up and met his cold eyes. “But Raoul, please- just don’t- please don’t-” I looked away and my eyes saw Jacque. When I looked back at Raoul, his face held a sickly smile.

“Of course not. I’m a gentleman, aren’t I?”

I went to sleep, not comforted by having the decision made. What have I done?

It was a gray morning that I woke up to. If I didn’t do something, it would be my last day alive. I was jumpy and frightened at breakfast. Every branch that crackled in the fire I expected to be thieves stomping through the woods, coming to kill me. But no one seemed to notice my terror. Bridget cast concerned looks my way every once in a while; I tried to make myself immune to her anxiety, reminding myself that she wasn’t to be trusted.

I wasn't really listening. It didn't matter. Lost or not lost, Jacque was gone. Dead. I forced myself to think it. I felt sick.

I would have my freedom, but at this cost, I did not want it.

Writing and Beautiful Music

I really don't have time to blog write now, since I'm in the middle of editing Maurelle (almost finished, and then the last chapter - wheeee!), but this song started playing in my writing playlist, so I just had to share.
http://grooveshark.com/#!/s/Walking+On+Water/gBAXo?src=5

From an extremely romantic movie, Ever After.
I hope to share some snippets soon but I'd like to finish first.
So off to editing I go! Oh, and happy Independence day! (I feel like there should be a song for the fourth… sort of like the birthday song. You know, like 'Happy Fourth-of-July to us, happy Fourth-of-July to us…' or maybe, 'Happy Independence day to you, happy Independence day to you…'  if you prefer to call it by it's proper name.)
As Evelyn Nesbit would say, Wheeeeee!



P.S. I do not in any way endorse Evelyn Nesbit. She's a character in a play that my mom is currently in.