The House on the Rock

Olivia Junior

2012-02-18T22:16:00.000-05:00

“I was with book, as a woman is with child.”

- C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

This is a pretty accurate analogy of writing. First you conceive the idea. Then it grows and grows inside of you until the bulge of it is hanging there right in front of you whatever you do. You experience strange cravings and sensations. It keeps you up at night. Then the birth pangs come, and there's nothing you can do--you just have to sit and write and write and write and write, all the while wondering if you're going to survive this--until finally, the whole thing is out of you. And when everything is through and you cradle your creation--your own flesh and blood and tears and sweat--in your arms, you forget the past hours and days and weeks and months of pain, and all you know is joy...

Okay, so it's not quite as great as that, because the next morning when you read over what you've written you often realize it's a whole lot more terrible than you remembered. I hope a mother doesn't do that.

Anyway, you witnessed the childbirth process a month ago in my post Stages of an Essay (don't worry--it's nothing graphic) and now I'm following up with the result.

I'm applying for a camp this summer held by a vet school for incoming juniors and seniors interested in the veterinary field. As part of the application students had to write an essay five hundred words or less about what area(s) of veterinary medicine they were interested in and why.

So here is my child. 499 words. And my firstborn essay*.

Unfortunately, they aren't interested in artwork, so my little masterpiece was not included.

***

When we were young children, my friends and I had a vast array of plastic and plush horses. We formed racing stables and cattle ranches and wild horse herds, and whenever a horse fell ill or hurt itself, I was the one to prescribe various cough syrups and poultices, or experiment with some innovative procedure made up on the spot. Over time I acquired a small library of books like The Complete Equine Veterinary Manual, The Horseman’s Veterinary Encyclopedia, and The Comprehensive Guide to Equine Veterinary Medicine. I lugged these volumes to our play dates and referenced them to give more accurate treatments to my plastic patients.

I was unperturbed by the graphic images in those manuals of festering wounds and animals mid-operation with their bowels splayed across the table. Each morning I poured my cereal in a rush to make it to the TV in time for that day’s episode of Emergency Vets, and happily munched Cheerios while watching a cesarean section performed on a Labrador Retriever. I failed to understand why my mother was so disturbed by this.

When I was eight or nine, I was given a little money to spend at a used book sale held by our homeschool group. As I browsed one of the tables, my eyes fell upon the heftiest volume: a tenth grade biology textbook. It was love at first sight. The best part? It was just fifty cents, perfectly within my limited budget. Passersby grinned as I proudly staggered off under its weight.

Over the years, little has changed. My vision of an ideal Friday night still involves curling up on the sofa with a science textbook. To my parents’ dismay—and that of their wallet—my love of horses didn’t wane either. At the age of eleven, after years of riding lessons and horse camp, I adopted the pony I had gentled at a local horse rescue. She was a spooky mare that had run feral on a mountainside for nearly a decade. Over time I had earned her trust, and I taught her a number of tricks, including giving kisses, swishing her tail on command, answering “yes” and “no” to questions, and dancing the hokey pokey. The two horses I’ve acquired since then have learned a few things watching her, but so far they haven’t quite figured out the hokey pokey.

The veterinarians around me have been very supportive, perhaps empathetic to what others see as a slightly disturbing fascination with animal innards. I was invited to sit by and watch a foal at a nearby riding stable undergo surgery to repair an umbilical hernia, following step-by-step in a surgery manual. When it was time for my own colt to be gelded, our veterinarian handed me the emasculator and allowed me to perform one half of the operation myself. My horse still hasn’t forgiven me for it.

I would be happy in any field of veterinary medicine, but I feel equine practice is what I’m meant to do.

***

Yep. I'm a homeschooler.

*That's right, I never had to write a formal essay before this. Aren't I lucky? I did write other scholarly stuff, but I wrote those of my own accord, which made them nerdy.

A Ramble Like in Old Times...

2012-02-17T23:25:00.000-05:00

It's late at night and Olivia wants to post something, but she's not sure what.

And she's not sure she wants to talk in third person either. She was going to write this post in first person, but she's written so many third person posts lately she lapsed into it without thinking.

So I am going to write in fourth person instead.

...

Fourth person?!

Wow, it really is late.

My little slip-up leads to a deep, philosophical state of ponderment, however. But it is too late to get into such a state of ponderment, because my brain might melt down. So I'll save that thought for later.

Anyway, I wanted to post, but since I don't have anything particularly intriguing at the moment that I would like to share with the world, I'm just going to spout whatever's on my mind.

Like math. Oi. Every time I warm up to it, it bites me. But it's not math I have a problem with, really. It's the approach society takes to it. Math the way God designed it = squee. People tinkering with math to make it as boring and tedious as possible to teach = snore.

And yes, I did find a math course that I like better than everything else I've tried, and that is largely compatible with my puny, wonky little mind. I think they do make a strong effort to make math not boring and tedious. But I still have qualms about how it's presented. But then, I would completely reform education if I had my way. This is an unschooler talking, after all.

Speaking of which, I've only recently come to the realization that I am pretty much categorizable as an unschooler. But that is a topic for another post, because my brain's a little melted after all that talk about math.

I realize how much I miss blogging when I haven't done it in a while. There's something thrilling about staying up past your bedtime to rant about the tedium of manmade mathematics to the whole world... or at least the little portion of it that happens to stumble across this place.

Which actually isn't such a little portion. I've had readers from China, Egypt, Brazil, Russia, the Ukraine, and a whole bunch of other places I can't think of right now just in the past month. It's rather humbling to think of the audience I'm reaching. I read recently that blogging is a ministry. I hadn't really thought of it that way--especially a blog with such silly tendencies as this one--but I guess it is. And that renews my vigor. We'll just have to see how much time I can carve from my day--or week--and how quickly I can sprint-write a post therein*. But no guarantees that you'll be seeing more posts or anything, because this blog doesn't need to be any drabblier than it already is.

Oh, and get this: someone found this place in a search for phagocytosis.

That's pretty awesome.

Which brings me to science. Ah, my beloved** from whom I have so long been parted.

I am, in case you skipped the somewhat lengthy welcome on the right (or the tab at the top), just a little obsessed with anything scientific. (Actually, I experience physical and mental withdrawal symptoms when I don't do science. My friends say I need intervention.) Science, therefore, monopolizes my time just a little bit. (Last year, for nine and a half weeks, all I did besides read my Bible was study biology. I didn't read novels or watch movies. I didn't practice piano as much as I should have. I didn't mindlessly surf the internet, and I scarcely communicated with my friends. I ate and slept only so I could live to do more biology.) Therefore, I must take precautions so that I have a life outside of science (hard as the thought is to bear). This involves banning myself from chemistry for extended periods so that I may take the time necessary to tend to my other subjects (and friendships). The thought is to use science as a reward when I've been thoroughly productive in other areas. And I have been, but I'm not very good at giving myself rewards when I deserve, so I have long been parted from my beloved.

But I won't continue to bore you with my woes. It's bedtime for Olivia. And there I go, lapsing in the third person again.

What is fourth person? I shall go to bed with this thought.

*As I have lamented before, I am a painstakingly (I just typed painstalkingly, and since it's 11pm I found that quite amusing) slow writer. Not a slow typist, necessarily--I can type 77 words a minute, which is a whole lot slower than a friend of mine but from what I father--er, gather; excuse the late-night typographical errors--that's not too shabby for us normal people.
**I just wrote belobed, and I'm feeling the need to record each typo right now.

Glorification and Dedication

2012-02-12T12:50:00.000-05:00

There's a funny little trick that Olivia has employed to keep herself from being so nervous at piano recitals and music festivals.

Only, it isn't really a trick. It's an entirely different mindset.

This mindset is founded on such verses as the following:

And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
Colossians 3:17

And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men,knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.
Colossians 3:23-24

If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
1 Peter 4:11

And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’

Matthew 25:40

When one realizes that one is not serving oneself--or even others--but God, in whatever they do in word or deed, one's attitude toward life changes. One is infinitely more motivated, patient, and at peace. One needn't worry about pleasing others or satisfying oneself, because it is the Lord Christ whom one serves. And when one does all in the name of the Lord Jesus, one's efforts are blessed. The outcome may not be as one intended, but that is okay, because one dedicated one's performance to one's God, and in this one can be fully content. And often, the outcome is even better than one dared to hope.

(Olivia is now tired of writing in ones, and will move on to a less proper they henceforth if necessary.)

While Olivia knew this, to some extent, intellectually, it didn't hit her until sometime last year that whatever you do really means whatever you do, and that one can find complete contentedness in the smallest of matters. And her life has been much improved, and her humble endeavors more successful, since then. So she will give you the most tangible and illustrative... illustration... that she can, because points are most effectively driven home with illustrations, even if the illustrations are anecdotal.

Olivia has played piano for a long time. Nine and a half years, in fact. She is not particularly talented and in no way musically gifted, but she is a hard worker and a diligent student (most of the time *cough*), and that can get one pretty far in life, or in a specific pursuit therein. (Not that Olivia's a good example of this, because she isn't especially advanced in piano given how many years she has played, but that is besides the point.)

So in nine and a half years, Olivia has had many, many, piano recitals. Like many people, when Olivia was young and blissfully carefree of others' opinions, she was not nervous at all and performed quite well. But as she got older, she feared making mistakes--because of what others might think, but mostly for her own sake--and, as is inevitable when one fears one's own failure (Olivia isn't very good at abstaining from ones, is she?), she began to make many of them. Nothing huge--she didn't stop cold or break down sobbing--but she was not pleased with herself.

Enter this aforementioned new mindset. Suddenly, everything Olivia did, she did with a different goal in mind. She did not try to please herself, for that did not matter and proved futile. Instead, her sole aim was to please her God. And if she did that with a pure and earnest heart, she could not fail.

Something remarkable occurred. She began to play much better at recitals. Why? There are probably several reasons for this. She wasn't so nervous, for one. She went into it knowing she wouldn't fail, after all. And because she played as for the Lord rather than for men, she could thoroughly enjoy what she did, and therefore focus, and therefore play better. And because she played for the Lord rather than men, or herself, and because she wouldn't fail her objective, she put more effort into it than she ever could have otherwise.

So Saturday, this was her assurance as she went into the church where her music festival was held. Everything, it seemed, was against her. She was already tired and not feeling so great. When she got there she used the restroom, and her hands were afterward as icy as the water she washed them in (and her hands get stiff when they are cold, and it's hard to play well with stiff hands). Before she even had a chance to sit in the waiting room and prepare mentally, she was whisked away to the sanctuary, and climbed the stage and sat at the piano quite out of breath, foggy of mind, and with freezing, stiff fingers.

Then she warmed up. The piano was a baby grand on wheels, and the most unstable one she's ever played on. As she lifted the pedal up and down the whole instrument rocked. The keys were quite different to press than the pianos' she usually plays, but at least she'd been accustomed to a variety of pressabilities. (What's this, spellcheck? "Pressabilities" isn't a word? Bah! She longs for the day when Olivian is a language option.)

Her first piece actually began quite well. She knows it so well she could almost play it with her hands behind her back--assuming the piano was also behind her--and she was also slightly dazed, so she started not really paying attention to what she was doing. And then her memory slipped. She knew where she was in the song and what it was supposed to sound like, but not which notes made that sound. She groped and hit a few wrong notes trying to figure out what to do next.

Then her brain kicked in and she remembered who and what she was playing for. She didn't recall the forgotten notes, but she did flow swiftly into the next measure. From there on out she was able to enjoy what she was doing, because she didn't have to please the judge or herself. She would get an Excellent, not a Superior, thanks to her error, but that was okay.

The next piece she was also able to enjoy as her fingers flew through Schumann. In a couple places her cold, stiff left hand wasn't quite caught up to her right hand, but that was okay. She would get an Excellent. And that was okay.

She finished and sat just outside the sanctuary awaiting the judge's comment sheet and his score of "Excellent". When the lady who had first ushered her to the sanctuary handed the sheet to her, Olivia knew already her score, so her eyes went first to the commentary. The judge praised her smooth recoveries and offered a few suggestions like not accenting certain notes so much. "Good spirit!" he said in regard to the Schumann, and at the end he wrote, "Bravo!"

What an odd compliment for an Excellent pianist. Olivia went over all the comments again to be sure she read correctly.

"A Superior Plus!" the lady--whom Olivia had forgotten was sitting beside her--said. "Congratulations!"

Olivia stared at her.

"He doesn't give those out to everyone, you know."

Blink, blink.

Olivia turned back to the comment sheet. At the bottom was printed each of the possible scores from best to worst: Superior. Excellent. Good. Fair. Poor.

The judge's pencil did not circle "Excellent". Instead, a bold trail of graphite surrounded "Superior". Two perpendicular strokes were drawn beside it, in a plus mark.

Olivia laughed out loud. "I really wasn't expecting that."

And she wasn't.

And if God thus acknowledges such tiny, tiny details in life, how greatly does He bless a life devoted to Him?

Greatly, you can be assured.

Photo credit dennis.ramos on Flickr

The Post That Had No Title

2012-02-07T17:09:00.000-05:00

Which isn't this one, clearly, because this post does, indeed, have a title.

It's been a long time since Olivia has done a Musical Monday. In order to make up for this, she's going to do something special. Or maybe it isn't so special. You will have to see.

First, imagine it is Monday. You still haven't quite gained full consciousness since your alarm clock jabbered at you at an inhuman hour this morning. You yawn and groan, because you were half hoping as you went to bed last night that the power would go off at 2 am and reset the clock's settings, and conveniently be restored by the time you wake of your own accord. But that didn't happen. And you drag yourself from bed, shivering as your bare feet emerge from the warmth of the covers and face the cold morning air on the way to your fuzzy bunny slippers that your great aunt Matilda gave you for Christmas last year.

You shuffle through your morning routine, perhaps brushing your teeth already if you're awake enough, or brewing a heavily caffeinated warm beverage if you're not, and turn on your computer as you mouth the minty taste lingering on your tongue or inhale the aroma of brewing coffee or steeping tea.

You check email, finding several new junk items that were sent out by computer systems at inhuman hours of the night. (Ever wonder why they call them inhuman hours? It's because that's when the robots send out spam! Or so Olivia has now convinced you, despite the fact the term is much older than the internet, but you're still so groggy and disoriented and irritated that the weekend is over you don't notice or care.) So now you trundle over to Blogger, which Olivia keeps typing as Bloggoer for some unknown reason, but she makes lots of typographical errors so never mind her, and--gasp!--what do you see? It's a new Musical Monday post!

"Um, okay, Olivia," you say, "sorry, but your representation of my Monday mornings isn't quite accurate. For one, my great aunt Matilda didn't give me bunny slippers for Christmas last year. I don't even have a great aunt Matilda! I only have a great aunt Geraldine! And my slippers aren't from any great aunt at all. They're from my second cousin Frances, and they're not bunnies, they're baby seals, and she didn't give them to me for Christmas. They were for my birthday. And why are you making me pretend it's Monday anyway? Just get to the point of the post already, will you?"

Er, yes, that.

Well, anyway, Olivia's piano teacher makes all of her students participate in a music festival each February. What is this music festival, you ask? Well, basically Olivia goes into a room with a judge and a piano, and she plays the piano, and then the judge gives her a rating and some comments. This will happen on Saturday. But the weekend before the fateful Saturday, Olivia's piano teacher's students perform in a recital, in order to prepare for the coming festival. Because, as her piano teacher puts, if you can play in front of a roomful of people, surely you can play in front of one person! Olivia actually finds it quite distressing to play in front someone who judges you, but that's besides the point.

So on Sunday, Olivia played at her recital. Olivia's mother recorded it. Olivia reviewed the recording and concluded her playing was just presentable enough to post publicly. So Olivia posted it publicly.

You will have to forgive the shakiness of the footage and the quality of the sound, for Olivia's mother had to film it on Olivia's digital still camera, which probably doesn't have the best audio capabilities, without a tripod. (Also, never mind the coughing and screaming children in the background.)

The first piece is not a classical piece but a contemporary one (which Olivia actually likes, unlike many of the contemporary pieces she plays, though she's getting a bit tired of it after practicing it so long). It is called The Promise of Spring, and is by a composer named Dennis Alexander, in case anyone wants to know. She played it with a few minor errors. The second, however, is Schumann's Knight Rupert, which she played much better, though with a handful of wrong notes.

Well, all of that took long enough. Now enjoy. Or run far away. Your choice. Although it would probably be wisest to just--well, Olivia won't delay you any longer.

Instead, Blogger will. It's giving her grief about embedding that video. She'd rant about it in detail, but she's already taken a lot of your time. So she made lots of strange noises, and decided to just post the link instead.

Here you go.

Where Has Olivia Been?

2012-01-30T11:04:00.000-05:00

And why hasn't she been posting?

Besides the obvious--right here--and the usual--she's been too ~~lazy~~ busy--Olivia actually has some pretty good reasons for sealing herself from the world.

Exhibit A:

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

That's right, Olivia had MRSA.

That--that purple thing was inside of her!

It's kind of paradoxical, really, that something such a pretty shade of purple could be so wicked, and in the wicked-bad kind of way rather than the wicked-good or wicked-cold kind of way.

"Um, Olivia," you say, "it's not really purple. It's only purple because smart scientist people dyed it that way so you could see it better."

"Oh, yeah, um, right. I knew that." She tugs on her blonde hair. "I just forget things sometimes!"

Still, it's a blasphemous usage of the color purple!

You might be wondering now what having MRSA entails. (And what it means: it is a staph bacterium that has mutated to be resistant to a number of antibiotics, which makes it doubly nasty.)

Well, to abridge this story, Olivia got a small pump on her leg which was very sore, and then it got very, VERY sore, and then she got more very, VERY sore sores on her legs which then burst and gushed blood and pus everywhere (it's a very, VERY good thing that Olivia takes a fascination to these things and is not easily disgusted by blood and pus, because if she were, she would have retched on top of it all). On Monday Olivia had a doctor's appointment already scheduled, and when the doctor took one look at the worst of the sores, she told Olivia's mother to take her to the ER and get admitted to the hospital.

Olivia was rather angry when she heard this. Olivia, you see, HATES hospitals. This is also a little paradoxical, because Olivia is quite fond of science and especially of medical-related things, but she LOATHES medical environments with every fiber of her being. (Her mother wants her to be a pediatrician, but Olivia says she would die to spend any more of her life in a clinical setting than she already does, and instead desires to become a large animal veterinarian, so she can largely work outdoors.)

She also learned she has a good deal of depression which she keeps at bay by staying insanely busy, but being idle in the hospital, which is an exceedingly dark and gloomy place to begin with, put her over the edge, and she sobbed, inconsolable, for hours, even though she was responding very well to the treatment and knew she would probably get to go home very soon.

Overall, her two nights (and threeish days combined) in the hospital were a very dark and slightly traumatizing time she prefers not to think about, but she survived emotionally by reading Job (and especially 6:10) and praying (for herself and others) and reading some Hamlet (which is NOT what you should read when you need a pick-me-upper, though it is very well written), and she has a large group of truly amazing friends (and family) who prayed for her, and she responded amazingly well to the antibiotics and got to go home Wednesday, and was well enough with the doctor's permission to go to homeschool co-op Thursday, a piano lesson Friday, work on the ongoing project of revamping her room Saturday, and go antiquing and bookshopping* (you can save that footnote till you get to the end of this sentence, because that footnote is long, but you probably already read that footnote anyway, so sorry, and I'm just stretching out this paragraph now) with her mom Sunday, and resume run-on-sentencing on Monday, though the people she came into contact with treated her a bit like a leper, for which she can't really blame them, because MRSA is nasty and nobody wants it.

(And yes, she might have made that sentence super long just for the sake of it and to show you that she is much better now.)

She shall continue her antibiotics course till Thursday, and while her wounds are still a bit sore when she moves in a certain way, they are much, much improved. (She was in so much pain in the hospital, the nurses wanted her to take narcotics, but Olivia does not like feeling loopy, so she only took Tylenol, and dealt with the pain.)

Well, and there you have it: the tale of Olivia's hospital ~~trauma~~ experience, which turned out to be augmented rather than abridged. To (badly) paraphrase Mark Twain, she doesn't have the time to write a short post.

So hopefully now you understand why Olivia has not been up to blogging lately. Hopefully, she will blog a bit more if she finds the time once she makes up for a week unproductivity, though she doesn't really NEED to make up for it, because no one forces a school or any other schedule upon her but herself, and she was so immensely productive last semester she kind of needed a break; she just feels slightly panicky when she is not intensely productive (it probably goes back to keeping that depression at bay).

*She met two pretty cool people at Barnes & Noble. The first showed her to the Shakespeare section, and she had recently played Olivia in a production of Twelfth Night. Then, as Olivia was checking out (well, really her mother was doing the checking out, but anyway) with a rather nerdy stack of books (Twelfth Night, The Tempest, a nonfiction book on Shakespeare, Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, and Tennessee William's The Glass Menagerie) (yes, Olivia is doing a self-conducted study of drama), the woman checking them out asked which class she was in, for two classes at a nearby university were reading the latter two plays. When Olivia's mother told her that Olivia was, in fact, reading them purely for fun, and that she was a tenth grade homeschooler, the lady didn't even bat an eye, for she too had been homeschooled, and therefore understood these things.

That was almost as long as some of the footnotes in some of the editions of Shakespeare Olivia looked at. She is leaving it in a large font, to spare your eyes.

Stages of an Essay

2012-01-17T17:36:00.001-05:00

1. Think.

And think.

2. Write.

And write.

3. Read what has been written.

"I seriously wrote that?"

"That will never do."

4. Despair.

5. Regroup.

6. Employ Little Brother's hair-plucking services.

7. Practice aim.

8. Refocus self on task at hand.

9. Blog about it.

Well, now you know what's been holding me up lately. Maybe if I ever get this thing finished I'll start posting again.

It's times like these I'm glad I'm a self-directed learner and I never was forced to write papers of any sort. I wrote so much on my own about what I was learning my mother saw no need to constrain me to assigned essays and thereby squelch my creativity. In fact, as a child I compiled books about my studies, so why should I have been limited to mere essays?

But now I am applying for a camp, and I must write an essay to turn in with the application.

Woe is me.

A Precursor of Deep Musings to Come

2012-01-15T10:25:00.003-05:00

³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. ⁵ For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ. ⁶ Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.
- 2 Corinthians 1:3-6

If I suffer, I will be better equipped to minister to those who are also suffering any kind of affliction. It is this thought that sustains me of late, and allows me to embrace with joy the pain and trials this life brings so that I will be receptive to the lessons it teaches.

The topics of affliction and perseverance and comfort have been weighing heavily on me lately, so you might see a number of posts in the near future dealing with that.

On a lighter note, today or tomorrow, if I remember, I'll be posting my New Year's post, which has been delayed a couple weeks by feelingnotsowellness. Which is totally a word, by the way. Look it up--it's in the OOD*.

*Oxford Olivian Dictionary

What It's All About

2011-12-25T07:30:00.000-05:00

It's amazing how many movies and TV specials air during this season which claim to be about "the true spirit of Christmas", and yet skirt around the actual true meaning of Christmas.

That's why I love Charlie Brown Christmas--Linus hits the nail on the head, simply though profoundly, and quietly leaves the stage.

This is a Test Post

2011-12-23T11:40:00.000-05:00

Nothing to see here. Mosey on down.

Two Hundred and Forty-One Years Ago...

2011-12-16T20:03:00.000-05:00

A great was born*.

Happy Beethoven's birthday!

* According to Wikipedia: "There is no authentic record of the date of his birth; however, the registry of his baptism ... on 17 December, 1770, survives. As children of that era were traditionally baptised the day after birth ... and it is known that Beethoven's family ... celebrated his birthday on 16 December, most scholars accept 16 December, 1770 as Beethoven's date of birth." I, for one, should think his family ought to know; therefore Beethoven most likely spent the day rolling in his grave as I "celebrated" by playing Sonata Op. 49 No. 2.

Of Prayer, Outreach, and Perseverance

2011-12-11T09:44:00.001-05:00

Firstly, two prayer requests:

For Birdi, who has scoliosis and is about to undergo an operation on her back;

and for baby Adam, who was born with Bartsocas-Papas Syndrome, and for his parents as they face these trials.

Secondly, and on a much lighter note, it is amazing the global reach this little blog can have! Just this week I have had readers from the US (well, naturally), New Zealand, Russia, Ireland, Haiti (hi, ZNZ!), Latvia, Turkey, Australia, India, Germany, and the Czech Republic.

People have stumbled upon this place searching for joseph mary, angel of god, joseph bible character, the virgin shall be with child, stack of books, house on the rock, house on the rock photos, mary betrothed to joseph, house on the rock blog olivia (someone was actually searching for me!), fistulated cow, and phagocytosis. Oh yeah.

Thirdly, a brief ramble, if you will bear with me.

I will not despair.

To despair is to be defeated, and with God's help I am going to conquer this.

With my God I can scale any wall.

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

With God all things are possible.

How can I give up when I have such a wonderful Friend?

How can I let down He who never lets down me?

How can I do anything but trust Him? If I cannot trust in Him I can trust in nothing, and I would indeed despair.

But thanks be to God who is faithful! I am not anxious, but by prayer and supplication make my requests known to God. Tomorrow worries for itself; for today I have God.

And that is more than I need.

7x7 Award

2011-12-09T10:39:00.000-05:00

Olivia knows what you are thinking. Olivia? Received a math award?

You see, she graduated at age eleven from UC Berkeley with a degree in quantum physics. While there, she received the Nobel Prize for solving a perplexing question that has plagued mathematicians for centuries:

What is seven times seven?

UC Berkeley being, of course, the name of her kitchen table, and mathematicians referring to fellow elementary students.*

But she did solve a problem yesterday (note: this post was written several weeks ago) that her mother could not.** The radio person asked, What is five to the zeroth power?

Contrary to popular belief, it is not zero, but one. Because 5^4 is 625, and 5^3 is 125 (which is 625/5), and 5^2 is 25 (which is 125/5), and 5^1 is 5 (which is 25/5)--and so 5^0 is 5/5, which is 1. Isn't she smarticle?***

You have just witnessed a mathematical ramble--one that does not lament the methods used to teach math--one that was... almost... fun to write--and Olivia is now very concerned for her health.

But all that was not the point of this post.

Olivia means to thank Aloha for nominating her for the 7x7 Blog Award.

She hadn't heard of it until until Aloha tagged her, but it appears that one is to address seven things about one's blog, and then nominate seven other bloggers to award. The seven things to be addressed are as follows:

1. Most Beautiful Post: It is hard to answer this without feeling haughty... The most beautiful post that Olivia has written may be The Breath of Fall, but that's not saying a whole lot since she hasn't written many posts like that. The most beautifully written, if she includes all posts, as well as probably the most visually appealing, is the last From the Word post, pairing roughly the first half of Isaiah 40 with images she took in the Blue Ridge in North Carolina (plus an amaryllis, which was in her house) (that's the flower, for the botanically challenged).

2. Most Popular Post: Immanuel. If you want to increase your pageviews, post famous biblical paintings. That post is by far the most popular, and she gets traffic from Google image searches like "mother mary" or "the annunciation" from all over the world, and sometimes in other languages, which confuses her, because she's never written Mother Mary in any of the Eastern European languages.

3. Most Controversial Post: Well, non-Christians would disagree with something in nearly all her posts, but her single most controversial post might be The Woes of Mathematics (ironic that she links to this after touting her mathematical knowledge above?). A number might disagree with her views on education. She hasn't written many posts on education or on deeper subjects, though. If she gets to those, she would have a good deal of controversial posts.

4. Most Helpful Post: NaPiWriMo, because the event marks the turning point in many an aspiring novelist's career. ... No, she really doesn't have any helpful posts.

5. Most Surprisingly Successful Post: Besides the aforementioned Immanuel, which garnered 819 pageviews while the next most popular has 70, the most surprising would have to be Day 3: A Favorite Book. Again, the traffic sources to that page are from Google Images--this time for such keywords as "stack of books" or "hoarder house". Should she be concerned that her blog appeared in a search for hoarder house?

6. Most Underrated Post: While she can't complain about the pageviews for The Wonderful World of Amoebae (it was the third most popular last month, and sixth all time), she's amazed it hasn't received more comments oohing and ahing over the adorable little amoebae!****

7. And finally, Most Pride-Worthy Post: Really? Is Olivia supposed to be proud of this anthology of delirius insomnia-induced drabble? There are a few, however, that don't make her want to take this blog out and shoot it after posting. Writing in third person especially amuses her (she rewrote this post from first person to third person, in fact), and some of the posts that don't shame her terribly are The Post of Shame (...should she be concerned that this does not shame her?) and Olivia Goes to the Doctor, both epic tales chronicling the adventures of Olivia. (By the way, the wound inflicted by the malevolent Empty Box still lingers.)

And now it is time for Olivia to nominate seven lucky bloggers! She will try to pick bloggers who have not, to her knowledge, already been nominated for this award.

And I'm switching to first person, because it feels weird nominating in the third person.

Abby at a girl with wings. She's articulate and writes about a number of relevant topics in a humorous yet thought-provoking style. It's one of my favorite blogs to follow.

Olga at You Are My Hope. She's an awesome person who lives in an awesome state, and I just want her to know that I do read her blog (although I'm behind in all my blog-reading), but meany Blogger eats my comments.

Birdi at chirpings of a bluebird. She's funny and positive, even when life throws bad things her way, and quite possibly one of the nicest bloggers I follow. Her influence can be seen in my blog... like the third person writing... and tweaking (*coughcheatingcough*) the last award I received... And it's fun reading about life in New Zealand. Homeschoolers are pretty much the same everywhere!

Kayla at Dancing Flames. Another writing, reading, horse-loving, Christian homeschooler! Unfortunately she began her blog as I fell behind in my blog-reading, but I look forward to catching up on hers.

Skyeler at A Maiden's Notes. We're so similar sometimes I wonder if we're related. Her blog, for all it's reallycoolness, doesn't receive enough attention. (Not that I've given it any of late.) This ought to change!

Bubbles at Tsepic Tales. Because he's a cool person and he needs to post more!

ZNZ at jotting down notes. I don't think I've ever read her blog without laughing. She cleverly writes about the woes of writing and raptures of reading, as well as other cool stuff like cuttlefish and Galileo, and with deeply stirring artwork, too. ;)

The Nobel-winning answer, by the way, was luck sevenfold.

*She was, unfortunately, legally constrained to fifth grade at the age of eleven, because of the silly notion that those born in the last several weeks of the year are to be placed in the same grade as those born the following year. But luckily in homeschool, grade is irrelevant.
**After all, Poor is the student who does not surpass his master.
***Of course, she did not discover this reasoning on her own.
****She jests. Mostly. But who doesn't love unicellular organisms whose method of locomotion involves pseudopods?

Those Items which Occupy My Desk at Present

2011-12-07T13:17:00.001-05:00

On a normal day, my desk area is neat and tidy, because I cannot work in chaos. However, my desk items are revolting, and now crowd its entire surface in protest, crying, "5% of the desktop occupies 93% of the office accessories!"

I thought I would seize this pivotal moment in history to describe my desk's contents to you, because never before has such equality in the distribution of office supplies been seen on the face of my desk.

My Bible (most importantly!), neatly tucked in an Amish-made bookcover to protect its paperback...ness.
Two notebooks, one containing ponderings on various theological and philosophical subjects, another some rather pitiful poetry, and the last some attempts at Venn diagrams.
Four mugs used as penholders depicting paintings by Mary Cassatt and... some other person whose name escapes me. One contains pencils, mostly mechanical; one Sarasa gel pens; another Papermate gel pens; and the last, other brands of gel pens. (I like gel pens.)
Several pens and pencils scattered about the desktop, protesting segregation of utensils.
A hymnal open to Be Still My Soul. Yes, with music by Jean Sibelius!
Two long rope-like erasers.
The score to Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67.
Some Post-It notes containing jottings of a story idea that seized my mind late one night.
An iPod USB cord... thing.
Another notebook with musical staves on the sheets in which I've learned composition is not my forte.
A hair elastic.
A Kindle.
A copy of Macbeth.
A calculator, for I am a calculator addict. But I usually use the app on my iPod, so the real one's rather dusty.
The Oxford Latin Desk Dictionary.
Quite an assortment of postcards to be sent to friends, as well as a letter or two to which replies need to be sent.
A wooden icthys engraved with the words Rejoice in the Lord.
A Lennox lamb.
A miniature of Monet's Houses of Parliament in the Fog, the original of which was painted in 1903.
A tag to something that fell off.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci.
And lastly, William Shakespeare.

Not to mention the other books and items in the hutch above my desk, which are numerous enough for another posting. Anticipate one in the near future. Or don't, considering my countless unfilled promises of posts to come. I'm prophetically challenged, it would seem.

Oh, yeah, and one more thing.

2011-12-06T09:26:00.001-05:00

Remember that NaNoWriMo thing?

I won.

YAY!!

Fine print: For those of you who don't know what NaNo is, winning just means you achieved the goal of 50,000 words in 30 days (or 60 hours in 30 days for me, 'cause I'm rebellious). There are thousands and thousands of winners. So I'm not special or anything. ;)

The Birthday Boy!

2011-12-06T09:09:00.001-05:00

A year old already, can you believe it?

Happy birthday, Christian!

Heavenly Sunlight

2011-12-04T11:03:00.001-05:00

Walking in sunlight all of my journey;
Over the mountains, through the deep vale;
Jesus has said, “I’ll never forsake thee,”
Promise divine that never can fail.

Refrain

Heavenly sunlight, heavenly sunlight,
Flooding my soul with glory divine:
Hallelujah, I am rejoicing,
Singing His praises, Jesus is mine.

Shadows around me, shadows above me,
Never conceal my Savior and Guide;
He is the Light, in Him is no darkness;
Ever I’m walking close to His side.

Refrain

In the bright sunlight, ever rejoicing,
Pressing my way to mansions above;
Singing His praises gladly I’m walking,
Walking in sunlight, sunlight of love.

Refrain

Counting Blessings

2011-11-24T11:23:00.001-05:00

I will give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with all my heart,
And will glorify Your name forever.

Psalm 86:12

and He took the seven loaves and the fish; and giving thanks, He broke them and started giving them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 

Matthew 15:36

always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father;

Ephesians 5:20

There is just one little problem with counting your blessings.

I can't count that high!

So here are just a few of the things I have to be thankful for.

***

A God who loves, protects, guides, frees.

A family that is stable, and parents who are willing to sacrifice for my education.

A little brother who smiles when I wake up each morning.

The wonderful, godly friends God has given me, who encourage, support, and uplift me.

The older friends, from whom I draw wisdom and guidance, and the younger friends, who are a delight and keep me young.

The internet, telephone, and post, which allow us to keep in touch though distance may separate us.

For sunshine, and for rain, both metaphorically and physically.

For the details which prove God lovingly and thoughtfully fashioned every facet of Creation.

For the hardships that strengthen us and teach us to give thanks, if we let them.

For a warm home and plentiful food and clean water. It's cliche and often spoken without real meaning, but it is truer than I can begin to comprehend.

Being homeschooled.

Pianos, and the knowledge and skill to play them.

For language, for words and their power, and the ability to use them.

For horses.

Wind in my face.

Sunlight seeping through the treetops.

The gift of modern medicine.

Books!

And a thousand other things for which I will spend the rest of my life giving thanks.

I hope each of you has a blessed day spending time with your loved ones.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Time

2011-11-06T22:12:00.000-05:00

Source

It's a funny thing. In the good eras of our life there isn't enough of it, and in the less pleasant periods each tick of the second hand is an eternity.

And time changes on us twice a year.

I always liked the autumn change, because it gave me a chance to wake earlier without being as tired, and since morning is my favorite time of day I like to be conscious for as much of it as I can. (Unfortunately, I am by nature a night owl, so it is very difficult for me to drag myself to bed soon enough to get up as early as I'd like.) I also like to have a little light at seven in the morning. It's depressing when the sky just begins to glow with a faint bluish tinge half after seven.

But with the good comes the bad, and then there's the spring change which steals from us an hour of precious rest and makes me wish they'd do away with the whole daylight saving time thing.

What do you think of the daylight saving time? Do you use it to your advantage to sneak in an extra hour of sleep, or to wake earlier that morning? Is mankind mad for thinking it can manipulate time?

Brother's First Ride

2011-11-02T08:54:00.002-04:00

*cheat post* *more may be added later* *maybe*

A Very Hasty Post

2011-11-01T08:57:00.000-04:00

I'm setting myself up for a challenge. Can I finish this post before 9:00 am? That gives me seventeen minutes, which would be a record for me, painstakingly slow writer that I am.

I just wanted to post a little something here before I forgot about blogging altogether. I've been either busy or unwell lately, so something had to give, and it was blogging (as well as a number of other tasks). I don't know how much time I'll have in the foreseeable future, either, but hopefully I can find the health and time to be immensely productive so I can squeeze in some time for posting.

As many of my readers will know, today is the first day of NaNoWriMo. If you don't know what that is, I'm afraid you'll have to click the hyperlink to find out because I don't have the time just now to explain.

I'm participating this year, with a twist. The novel in my head is far from ready to be written (and I know all too well by now that trying to write something when it is not ready to be written produces much drivel, and I don't want to waste so much time again), so I'm not actually writing this November.

Instead, I'm trying to clock a certain number of hours spent researching, plotting, characterizing, and otherwise preparing my novel so it can get written. My goal is to have everything prepared so I can write the first draft relatively quickly (for me, the painstakingly slow writer). I would like to have the first draft done by March. It's a harsh deadline for me, but I really need to get serious about getting this story written.

So, I'd like to spend a total of sixty hours this month working on this novel. That's two hours a day. So you can see, with everything else I need to do, I'm not giving myself a whole lot of freetime.

Writing here, if I can manage it, will be a little like NaBlogPoMo, because I'll just have to whip up posts very quickly, without much editing, and not worrying about quality, if I'm to post at all. But don't expect too many posts this month, because if I'm in a crunch this will have to be one of the first things to go.

Whew, all that written and seven minutes to go! I actually have some time to proofread.

And now I post with four minutes to go! That's thirteen minutes taken to write this post, which I'm pretty sure is a record. Yay me.

From the Word

2011-10-23T19:33:00.000-04:00

The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
      “Prepare the way of the LORD;
      Make straight in the desert
      A highway for our God.
      Every valley shall be exalted
      And every mountain and hill brought low;
      The crooked places shall be made straight
      And the rough places smooth;

The glory of the LORD shall be revealed,
And all flesh shall see it together;
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

The voice said, “Cry out!”
And he said, “What shall I cry?”

“All flesh is grass,
      And all its loveliness is like the flower of the field.
       The grass withers, the flower fades,
      Because the breath of the LORD blows upon it;
      Surely the people are grass.

The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God stands forever.”

O Zion,
      You who bring good tidings,
      Get up into the high mountain;
      O Jerusalem,
      You who bring good tidings,
      Lift up your voice with strength,
      Lift it up, be not afraid;
      Say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!”

~ Isaiah 40:3-9~

A Guest Post, Sort of

2011-10-21T21:58:00.000-04:00

Wednesday I was a little concerned for myself when, having circled several times within a used bookstore containing hundreds of books on every subject imaginable, I felt attachment for not a single one therein, and wondered whether I must be gravely ill. My mother directed my attention to a corner I had not observed, and pulled a hefty volume from the shelf--The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. I was smitten at once.

Since this blog is diminishing in quality and there are times I want to take it out and shoot it, I thought I would instead post the words of someone much wiser, and articulate. Here are a few selections from the book. I'm a bit out of it this evening, and in typing them out I have made quite humorous errors. If any have slipped my notice, blame it on my delirium.

Just as eating contrary to the inclination is injurious to the health, so study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.

Call not that riches which may be lost; virtue is our true wealth, and the true reward of its possessor. It cannot be lost; it will not abandon us unless life itself first leaves us. As for property and material wealth, these you should ever hold in fear; full often they leave their possessor in ignominy, mocked at for having lost possession of them.

Where the descent is easier there the ascent is more difficult.

He who does not value life does not deserve it.

Every wrong shall be set right.

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.

Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?

Neither promise yourself things nor do things if you see that when deprived of them they will cause you material suffering.

The natural desire of good men is knowledge.

The words freeze in your mouth and you will make ice on Mount Etna.
Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind.

Love conquers everything.

Truth brings it here to pass that falsehood afflicts the lying tongues.

Whoso curbs not lustful desires puts himself on a level with the beasts.
You can have neither a greater nor a less dominion than that over yourself.

In life beauty perishes and does not endure.

Obstacles cannot bend me.
Every obstacle yields to effort.
Not to leave the furrow.
He who fixes his course by a star changes not.

Sweet Sixteen, eh?

2011-10-19T09:50:00.000-04:00

Sixteen years ago, my mom experienced episodes of staggering abdominal pain. In the middle of the night my father rushed her to the hospital, where a team of doctors and nurses closely monitored her as the pain reached a zenith.

A little while later, I was born.

Birthdays typically celebrate the child's being born, but I think we should take a minute to congratulate the mothers for the giving of birth.

So congratulations, Mother Dearest, for surviving the ordeal of childbirth. Twice.

I really don't understand what's supposed to be so special about turning sixteen. But then, maybe it's because I don't drive.

I certainly don't feel sixteen, at any rate. But then, maybe it's because I don't drive.

It all seems to come back to that point. If I start driving, will I see life in a different light?

I'd probably hold it more dearly.

For me, the most special thing about turning sixteen is that it's the fifth anniversary of pony ownership.

Meet Gracie, my wittle pony wony.

For contrast, see summer coat.

Also, today marks the fourth anniversary of miniature horse ownership.

Gabriel, who would more aptly be called Lucifer.

The actually anniversary, I believe, is October 21 or 22. Possibly 23. But today marks the promise of mini horseness to come.

This was the little Gabe I first fell in love with. He certainly put on a convincing angelic act.

January 27 shall mark the third anniversary of big horse ownership.

Miss Lucy.

A Little Love

2011-10-18T20:58:00.001-04:00

The lovely Faith has kindly given me the lovely Liebster Blog Award. Love you, Faith!

It has a few rules:

Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
Copy and paste the award on your blog.
Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.
And most of all – have bloggity-blog fun!

Thanks, Faith!

I have, ahem, tweaked the the rules just a bit. The reason this post is so delayed, you see, (for Faith nominated me last month) was that I was having such a hard time picking just five of the wonderful bloggers I follow to award. Such would be an agonizing decision, and certainly not bloggity-blog fun, as the rules demand of me.

Instead, I hereby nominate you. Yes, you there! It probably sounds lazy of me, but it's actually a lot harder to come up with a good reason I'm doing it this way.

On another note, there was a gorgeous rainbow today.

And God said: “This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.

It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; and I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

~Genesis 9:12-16~

Gift Givers and Recipients

2011-10-17T22:10:00.000-04:00

Apple cider and Reese's really don't go together.

Now that we have gotten that important bit of information out of the way, on with the post. I have a bit of a headache (thanks to Tylenol and tea it is waning) so I don't really feel like looking at a computer screen. Ergo I resort to e-ink! This post is brought to you by my Kindle. We shall see how this goes, since it gives me a warning that Blogger is not compatible with this browser.

I've been meaning to blog more, but various matters need tending to and have absorbed my time. And, okay, I confess I just haven't felt much like writing. But I do have good news, for we have gotten a new wireless router, and it actually works and doesn't kick us offline every time we watch video or upload pictures, so you may get to see more photos.

I am not really fond of how those last two paragraphs turned out and I would rewrite them, but it is just too hard typing on this thing.

Now for the test. I shall see if inserting video works from the Kindle. Drumroll, please.

...

Well, I guess I can't know for sure! The cursor jumps a certain distance when directed by the five way controller thing, and I can't get it to hover over the video insertion button. This poses a problem.

Instead, maybe I'll just tell you about a guy named Delius. I was reading one night and a nice song playing on the classical channel caught my attention - his Florida Suite.

I looked him up on Ye All-Telling Wikipedia. Delius was the son of a merchant but had no interest in doing the same, and somehow ended up in Florida manging an orange grove (whether of his own volition or of his father's coercion is unclear). He paid little heed to his managerial duties, however, and instead pursued composing.

I was fascinated by his story, until I read on to his unfaithful marriage and strings of affairs. It makes me wonder, why does God give such gifts to staunch atheists?

I suppose it's up to those who receive the gifts whether they praise the gift Giver or turn around and spit in His face...

Why Can't I Come Up With Good Titles Lately?

2011-10-14T21:33:00.000-04:00

Olivia, shamefully, has really not felt much like blogging lately. In fact, she was going to skip Geeky Friday this week. But then she felt guilty, and decided to at least throw something at you.

Also, she today discovered iTunes U, which is really kind of cool. There are tons of free lectures!

Psh, titles are lame! Oh, wait...

2011-10-11T21:53:00.001-04:00

I haven't been posting much lately. And it's funny that I'm saying that because I'm still posting loads more than I used to, it's just that the post-a-day era has come to an end, at least for now.

That's because energy comes in extremely limited quantities for me, so I've learned I need to spend every moment I'm able doing something constructive. Not that blogging isn't constructive, it's just lower on the list of priorities.

...My, it sounds as if I'm about to say I'm quitting blogging! Which, I assure you, I am not. I'm not even taking a hiatus. I'm just going to have to start posting when I'm tired. (Which ends up happening a lot anyway...)

You know, the above three paragraphs were really kind of pointless. But I'm going to leave to them, so I'm not so picky about my posts, and if I'm not so picky about my posts maybe I'll post more.

And post the things I need to post.

Like Musical Monday yesterday?

Oh, I remembered and had internet access and everything. I was just tired. So tired, in fact, I fell asleep at nine, which is the earliest I've gone to bed since early childhood, and slept for twelve hours, which is the longest I've slept in... forever?

I should do that more often.

You know, I've realized getting appropriate amounts of sleep and food really helps. I guess that's a good thing, but it kind of stinks, too, because now I actually feel obligated to sleep eight hours (actually, nine for teenagers... ugh) and eat three meals a day. Grr. This is most inconvenient! Nine hours of sleep! Three meals a day! What a chore!

Ahem. So anyway, I went to bed as soon as I got home yesterday, which is why I did not post.

You know, I was going to post a belated video, but Brother is falling asleep, so I'd have to go in the other room to get the headphones so I can find a suitable recording of the piece, and things will get done faster if I skip all that. In fact, if you have any suggestions for future Musical Mondays, that would be wonderful!

Sigh. This post is going on and on rather pointlessly. I'm not awake enough to write a good post and not tired enough to carelessly write a silly tired post. This is just a stuffy, dry tired post. I'll try to end your misery as soon as possible.

Much too long ago to just now be posting about, Aloha tagged me with the Versatile Blogger Award. Thanks, Aloha!

Da Rulez:
1. Thank and link to the person who nominated you.
2. Share seven random facts about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 5 deserving blogging buddies.
4. Contact those buddies to congratulate them!

Step 1.1: Thanks again!

Step 1.2: Fulfilled above.

Step 2:

a. I'm sitting on an exercise ball.

b. It took me about ten times to spell exercise just now before I had to stoop to asking spellcheck. I really am tired.

c. I wear my socks inside-out. Seams aren't kind to my cuticles.

d. Absentmindedly I just filled in this bullet as, "Seams aren't kind..." and then caught myself.

e. I tend to trail off in mid

f. This evening my mother and I were discussing how many bad books get published because there are many undiscriminating readers out there. I made the comparison to paper towels: Companies will make cheap, thin paper towels that don't really do anything because they know people will buy them anyway because they're cheap. My father cut in, "Where did you come up with that analogy?" 'Cause I'm weird like that. And my father buys cheap paper towels.

g. Last fact. Believe me, this is harder than it looks, because you realize just how uninteresting you are. Well, that's probably just me. Um... I like coconut.

Step 3: Here's where I'm breaking da rulez. Instead, I hereby bestow this award upon any of my fine readers reading this post. In fact, not only do I bestow this award upon you, I demand you to receive it. Because if you don't post about it, no cookies for you!

Step 4: Congratulations! Or a cookieless state. It's your choice.

I have much more to post, including another award, but it's getting late and I have other matters to tend to, and this post is getting much too long besides.

I look forward to your post! Or no cookies for you...

I Have Sat Here For Several Minutes Pondering Titles. So Here's One.

2011-10-07T23:17:00.002-04:00

A. My. It's Friday and I haven't posted since Tuesday, when I left you with promises of many posts to come?

But knowing me, that's really not surprising.

B. Blogger. Is. Driving. Me. Insane. I try to respond to your comments, and it eats me! So. This is what I tried to write in response to the comments on my last post.

Mercy--It's a masterpiece! That's what!
Specifically, a scrap of fabric folded in half and sewn in straight lines over and over and over.
Thomas--Thing. Only thing.
What is it called, anyway? I guess I'd know if I actually looked at the thing.
There I go again. Thing. Thing, thing, thing, thing.

Of course, I couldn't leave you wondering what I'd say in response, because everything I write is so profound.

Like thing. Bask in awe of the poeticness.

C. I had a lovely afternoon admiring the underbelly of a tree. I picnicked in the woods in my backyard and did a bit of schoolwork. (The many wonderful things about homeschooling!) Littlest Horsie nibbled on my blanket. Squirrels chattered at me. Fire ants found their way up my pants.

From the outside, luckily.

D. The first time I wrote this paragraph, I made such a horrible error I fear I shall never forgive myself. I don't trust myself grammatically to go on at this hour. But it's Friday, and I have a duty to provide geekiness to my readers... although most won't see it earlier than Saturday.

E. I'm stalling.

F. The longer I keep you waiting, the more time I have to find something for Geeky Friday. 'Cause I forgot to plan ahead this week.

G. Why is it that I forget the many other things I have to do when I am idle, and suddenly they come back to me when I'm in the middle of something?

H. When I pause, I have to sing through the alphabet again to remember what letter comes next.

I. I've always found it amusing that the alphabet spells "Hi!".

J. Perhaps I should actually go look for something to post now.

K. Aha!

L. Khan Academy is awesome.

M. I could easily spend all day watching his videos.

N. In fact, I might spend the rest of the night doing that.

O. It's Friday night, after all.

P. The night of nerdiness.

Q. Now I feel obligated to finished the alphabet, even though I really have nothing left to say.

R. Waking to Bach is a lovely thing. I've set my alarm to play his organ music at seven-thirty each morning. (I'd set it earlier if I managed to get to bed at a human hour.) If ever you need a boost in the mornings, I prescribe Bach.

S. I have no idea what movie my father is watching right now, but it looks... really rather horrible.

T. I'm rather tired tonight, so it will be amusing tomorrow to see what typos I didn't catch before posting.

Translation: Please don't burn me at the stake if you find an error, because I'll do it myself.

U. It's a strange letter.

V. I need to read. Eh. You know something's wrong when I'm not looking forward to reading.

W. This information is all quite useless and nothing you were really interested in knowing, save for K.

X. Xylophones.

Y. Yaks.

Z. Zebras!

Next time won't you sing with me?

A Marvelous Masterpiece

2011-10-04T22:02:00.000-04:00

Olivia should be posting one of the two awards she's been tagged in recently or uploading pretty mountain pictures or writing about a serious topic because her blog's been disolving into fluff lately.

Instead, she's going to show you the first thing she ever sewed.

See how perfectly aligned her backstitching is and how beautifully she followed the pencil lines her teacher drew?

*coughnotcough*

But one day, she'll be able to look at that little scrap of fabric and marvel at how she's improved.

Or not.

Olivia could ramble on about several things, like how she pulled that muscle in her side eleven weeks ago and it still hasn't healed even with all her carefulness, but she'll have to save such ranting for another time for she promised her mother she would read tonight.

It's the first book she has ever, ever, in her life been forced to read.

The next will probably be the driver's manual. Thing.

It was nice knowing you.

(Announced)

2011-10-03T22:14:00.004-04:00

*whispers* This post is just to prove I really did remember Musical Monday, just in the nick of time, before going to bed, in case going on YouTube to find this week's to-be-announced selection angers our router. It is really quite petty, our router.

This post will be edited upon successful video-insertion.

Edit: And here you go!

There are a number of posts I need to get around to writing, including an award from Faith and pictures of the mountains and a post exhibiting some of my new masterpieces which is probably only amusing to me, all of which will hopefully happen sometime this week, if I find the time.

From the Word

2011-10-02T21:43:00.000-04:00

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

~Philippians 1:21~

image source

Our Dear Mr. Blogger is Videoist

2011-09-30T22:22:00.000-04:00

Mother Dearest sent this to me for this week's Geeky Friday.

Only, you will never know what this is because Blogger doesn't let me insert non-YouTube videos that aren't on my computer. How rude, and exclusive, and discriminating, and inconvenient!

Blogger has been bothering me lately for lots of reasons. Like--ahem--NOT BEING ABLE TO COMMENT ON MY OWN BLOG. First, whenever I tried to comment with my Google Account it told me I was not authorized to access the page (...eh?), so I've had to post for a while now with a name and URL. But this morning it wouldn't even let me do that. And poor, dear Birdi's comments get all eaten up too, and possibly other commenters' that I don't know about because they can't comment!

Blogger's probably mad at me because I mentioned considering switching to Wordpress. But I considered switching to Wordpress because Blogger is possessed. So Blogger started it.

Anyway, back to Geeky Friday.

I am afraid I can only provide a link, thanks to Blogger's... videoism.

Linkage provided.

It's about asteroids, for the curious.

Lessons Learned

2011-09-29T21:05:00.000-04:00

Today was another socialization experience. In drama, we had much fun making fools of ourselves by striking ridiculous poses (I assumed an Egyptian and The Scream), and then read through our script for the first time. The play is a courtroom Cinderella fairytale, and I'm a little old lady who turns out to be the fairy godmother. I get to threaten people with an umbrella.

In sewing, I shredded my poor wittle thumb trying to cut through canvasy stuff. Who knew the handles of scissors are as dangerous as the blades?

Also, a sewing tip: The machine is most effective when the needle is threaded.

Also, a computer tip: The laptop battery does not charge unless the AC adapter is plugged into an outlet.

Yes, I have learned all sorts of important life lessons lately.

Postscript: Today was National Coffee Day. I thought you might want to know that, now that you're probably reading this tomorrow.

The Gullibility of Olivia Longfellow

2011-09-26T19:38:00.000-04:00

Note: Longfellow is not actually my last name, but such a title needed a last name, and not wanting to put my actual last name on the internet, I resolved to make one up.

Now on to your regularly scheduled post.

All over the internet, amid compilations of random facts or useless information, I had come across the statement that the commonly used word gullible is not in the dictionary.

When I first saw this, I scoffed, for of course the word gullible is in the dictionary, and I questioned the credibility of the other facts listed. The next time I saw it I wondered if perhaps the word was commonly misspelled, and the proper way was to omit one L, but I was busy and went about my tasks for the day without consulting the dictionary.

When I came across this piece of information again, I double checked to be sure I was, in fact, spelling gullible properly. There it was on dictionary.com: "gullible - adjective - easily deceived or cheated."

I was so perturbed by this, that such blatantly false information was circulating the internet, that I brought it to the attention of my mother.

"Mother," I said, "I don't understand. I keep seeing this thing that gullible is not in the dictionary. But it's on dictionary dot com!"

Here, she grinned.

I stared blankly, wondering what was so funny.

"Olivia," she began.

And then I got it.

We fell in heaps laughing.

Gullible! The dictionary! I looked up gullible in the dictionary! This was a trick and I fell for it!

Of course, all this was a trick meant purely for the amusement of my mother. Of course.

I would never actually fall for anything like that.

It was just a... blonder than usual... moment.

Postscript:

It's Monday!

The day of music!

A psaltery and guitar ensemble, it says*, of Waltz from Masquerade by Aram Khachaturian.

*Well, Google Translate says it says.

Geeky Friday: Wear Your Geekiness on Your Sleeves

2011-09-23T05:05:00.000-04:00

The other night, good bloggist that I am and always thinking ahead (*coughnotcoughthiswasaveryrareoccurrencecoughcough*), I asked my mother for ideas to post on Friday. While searching for "geeky site" or something of that nature, she came across thinkgeek.com, and looked at the apparel. While a number of the jokes were lost on me (mostly the sci-fi and tech references, for those are not my geek niche), the rest... the rest! They were so geeky! I was so giddy reading them!

These are some of the best.

This shirt is rather nerdy.

But not as nerdy as this one.

I breathe geek.

Just add photons.

No, I did not just fall. I was obeying the law.

Now these are some metal groups I can enjoy.

I find this amusing, even though the very odor of bacon makes me quite nauseated.

This, my friends, is a caffeine molecule.

This is so not tr

I feel like such a geek for getting this.

This... is very true.

But don't stop there! How about an anatomically correct heart?

P.S. This post was posted on the very first minute of autumn.

P.P.S. Blogger is driving me batty.

I Am a Hostess

2011-09-20T21:49:00.000-04:00

Dear reader, I am a victim of the dreadful rhinovirus.

In other words, I hab cod a coad.

Viruses are meanies. Really, don't they have anything better to do than pick on poor, innocent little girls?

That... that thing is infecting me. How rude!

Actually, it's sort of pretty... it's blue... and wavy... and it glows...

But I don't want it inside of me!

If you noticed an absence of posts over the weekend, that blue glowy thing the explanation. If you didn't notice the absence of posts over the weekend (more likely), shh! I didn't say anything.

I do believe, however, that I am recovering from this infection, and that my prognosis is fair. Odds are, I will survive. After all, if my research is correct, less than half of 1 percent of people afflicted with this illness die.

Still, there is that half of a percent...

The Woes of Mathematics

2011-09-16T23:35:00.000-04:00

As a warning, I am tired and quite incapable of thinking clearly at the moment. This post is going to be a jumbled mess. I am going to regret posting this at such a late hour. I am going to wish I had never posted this when I am in such a state of mind. But it's Geeky Friday, and I must post something.

It may seem quite shocking that I would write a whole post all about the dreaded math.

On the other hand, it's quite shocking that I don't like it. After all, all life is biology*, all biology is physiology, all physiology is chemistry, all chemistry is physics, and all physics is math (or however the saying goes). And I'm all about learning how and why things work.

For while I didn't know why I disliked math, other than that I did. But I think I've finally pinned down my main objections to it.

Force. I was a nerd from the very start, and avidly pursued my studies beyond what was required. But all the other subjects were so interesting and exciting to me, math tended to get neglected. My mother, therefore, had to make me sit down and do my addition and subtraction.

That brought my enthusiasm to a screeching halt.

I have the unfortunate tendency to despise anything that I feel forced to do. This is, in fact, likely the primary reason I don't drive: I was forced behind the wheel a few years ago, and I think I'm about to be forced to get my permit. I have a natural response to resist pressure.

I suppose this makes me sound like a wayward, rebellious child, but I don't think this reaction is at its root necessarily a bad thing. This is the same reflex that causes me to resist societal influences.** It's just, perhaps, taken a bit too far here.

Still, coercion is an ineffective method of imparting knowledge. As Plato said, All learning which is acquired under compulsion has no hold upon the mind.

Method of problem solving. In most cases, I'd rather toil for hours until, by trial and error, I discover the solution on my very own, than read how to solve the problem their way step by step in boring detail. I skip over bits of the process, working it out in my head, and scribble out others. (This means when I am interrupted and look down at the paper again I have no idea what I was doing or how I got there.) I attempt to forge short cuts; many don't work, but some do.

This makes me wonder what people like Einstein or Stephen Hawking thought about their schooling. Not that I am anything like them, but I suspect I am better at math than standard teaching methods allow me to realize.

Of course, this is coming from someone who feels like a mathematical genius when she correctly adds two single-digit numbers on the first try. So then again, maybe not.

Lack of science. Math is fascinating as it applies to the world. But when all I'm doing is empty equations on the paper, and solving the problems brings about no scientific revelation, it feels like my time should be better spent. Math that does nothing is boring. It is intangible and pointless and dull and if ever I could find a program that taught it as it applies practically, to science, to something, oh, I would be so happy!

Lack of milkshakes. As I was pondering all this, I suddenly remembered a long-forgotten part of my life, a time in which math was a happy event. My father used to write two very large numbers (at least, they seemed impossibly long sums at the time) and ask me to add them. When I did several of these, he made me a milkshake. I had so much fun doing that. I don't remember why that stopped.

Can't someone out there write a curriculum that teaches math in a sensible way and that puts knowledge gained to use?

Anyway, what got me thinking about all of this was The Official SAT Question of the Day, which I suppose was the ultimate purpose of this post. So there you go. Have fun. Be nerdy. I really should go to bed.

*The very best subject ever.
**Besides, of course, the conscious realization that society has issues.

I Spy Something Blue

2011-09-15T23:02:00.000-04:00

Olivia finds herself rather weary this evening, and with an incoming headache, so she's just going to give you a little teaser of her trip to the mountains.

She--gasp!--socialized again today. It was her second week at that homeschool co-op thing (really the third, but she missed last week because she was out of town), and she has had a slight headache afterward both times. She's beginning to think socializing is bad for one's health. Those poor public-schooled children. She found it otherwise enjoyable, however, and met a very adorable nine-year-old and a very adorable six-year-old.

The Return

2011-09-14T12:21:00.001-04:00

And so Olivia returns from her trip.

Actually, she returned Sunday evening, but has been busy since then, and spent her down time recovering (for journeys are wearying for her). She also must get busy this afternoon, but first she is sneaking in a quick little post so poor wittle bloggy woggy won't feel so neglected.

She will have to find the time to post pictures later, for she went to the very lovely Blue Ridge Mountains (and climbed to the top of Mt. Mitchell (most of which was done in a car (that she did not drive (she does not drive (nesting parentheses!))))), but that will have to be done later because uploading pictures is an involved process with her internet connection, which likes to kick her offline when she uploads photos or does a number of activities on the internet.

That was a long one-sentence paragraph.

That was a short one-sentence paragraph.

Anywho.

(An even shorter one-sentence paragraph!)

Ahem. And to end this post before it dissolves into drivel, farewell! I will try to post something tomorrow to keep up with the somewhat dissolving every-dayish posting schedule, but no guarantees, and--GASP! Olivia broke the fourth wall! She lapsed out of third person! She said I! With no quotation marks or anything! The horror!

(Actually, is it still breakage of the fourth wall when one was writing in third person about oneself?)

Anyway.

THE END
(fade to black)

(back to white)

EPILOGUE: Olivia just remembered something! What geeky things did her readers do on Friday, or any other day of the week? She has had no reports of geeky activities so far!

(credits)

Three Things

2011-09-07T23:55:00.000-04:00

'Cause such posts are easy to write when I'm tired or short of time (or lazy).

Thing I: It is rather unlikely I will have a chance to post again this week. I totally meant to schedule posts ahead of time... but I forgot. Bad Olivia.

Thing I I/II: (How do you do fractions in Roman numerals?) This means there will not be a Geeky Friday post this week. Instead, I encourage to do something nerdy on Friday (or any day) and, if you wish, report back here with what you did.

Thing II: My sweet great-grandmother (who is, I think, almost ninety-six) recalled that I've been doing a deal of research on the First World War due to a novel in progress I'm working on set during that time. When I saw her at Easter she gave to me a postcard from her uncle (my great-great-great uncle, if my brain reasons properly at this hour) dated 1919. This week I got in the mail two photographs she copied of that same uncle. The first was taken when he enlisted; the second, after he was discharged. The change in him is remarkable. And saddening.

Thing III: Jesus is awesome. Just sayin'.

The Breath of Fall

2011-09-06T19:52:00.000-04:00

Source

This morning, fall swept away the heat of summer and blew in fresh, clean air. I hope it stays this way.

Autumn is my very favorite time of year. The coolness it brings rejuvenates my soul. In its crispness I feel every part of me awake to take in its splendor. I am alive.

Yet with the joy of autumn comes the waning of sunlight and the decay of summer--and with the dull array of orange and brown comes the homesickness, the longing for the vibrant reds and golds of my beloved New England.

But all the sweeter is joy tinged with sorrow; the more resolute contentedness that prevails over the longings of the heart.

Four and a half years ago we left Northeast for Southeast. It's not that I dislike the South, but with every sweltering summer, each wet, brown, dreary winter, I long for the genial summers and snowy winters of New England.* I am homesick.

Though the first four years of my life were spent down South, my childhood memories lie North. Some of the sweetest of these took place in my favorite time of year--autumn. So each fall, when the nights grow cool, the mornings crisp, the trees ocher**, nostalgia creeps over me. I miss the cooler, crisper, more vivid autumns of my former home. I miss my old friends. I am homesick.

But reminiscing over time past will never bring it back, nor do memories ever satisfy the desires of the present. I am here and I cannot change that, and many good things have come out of living here that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't moved. I am busy enough tending to the present and preparing for the future. I don't have time to daydream of my old life.

I must look ahead, and move on.

I don't know if life, or God, will ever take me back to New England to live permanently, but a little piece of my heart always lies there.

*I know, should I ever move back, I would utterly revoke the latter part of that statement mid-February.
**I hope that word isn't too heavily associated with the 70s to lose any semblance of contrived poeticness.

Reverie

2011-09-05T21:26:00.000-04:00

I was going to write about other things, but my heart weighs too heavy tonight to write about such flippant things.

From the Word

2011-09-04T22:47:00.000-04:00

Have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

~ Jude 1:22-25 ~

The National Pi Writing Month

2011-09-02T23:51:00.003-04:00

Because I have waited for the last minute to post, I am copying and pasting last year's post so that I can go to bed.

This month I'm participating in an utterly pointless, very silly, and rather nerdy event known as National Pi Writing Month, or NaPiWriMo for short.

Inspired by the National Novel Writing Month, NaPiWriMo is a challenge to write a 500-word story during the month of September.

The catch? Each word has to have the number of letters as the corresponding digit of pi.

For example, the first word must have three letters, the second one letter, the third four letters, and so on.

No, there is no point in this, aside from a good many laughs (PiWri stories have a tendency to be extremely silly), and no, you don't have to like math to do it (in fact, I rather dislike math).

Last year's attempt was rather a failure, but it was a fun failure.*

Even if you haven't begun, it's not too late! I... erm... have not started either. And I'm going to be rather occupied this next week. And I have no ideas for subject matter. This is off to a good start.

*So was it really a failure? This is a deep thought.

Title: n. a descriptive heading or caption

2011-08-31T22:02:00.001-04:00

Olivia had kind of a long day today, and is tired. Therefore, she hopes that you will forgive her for writing a brief post that is probably going to be badly written because she is too tired to be articulate (not that she ever is) (she is so tired, she wrote articulative the first time, rather than its proper form articulate). (Why is third person so much easier to write when Olivia is tired?)

There are two main things that Olivia would like to say.

Firstly, that she went to Borders today. She has been rather sad (okay, totally depressed) that they are going out of business (even though she has always held the notion that Barnes & Noble is better), and she wanted to cry at all the empty shelves in the store. But! But, she was consoled just enough to contain her tears by the “Clearance!” signs all over the store. Nothing was less than fifty percent off, and much was sixty percent off, and a few seventy percent. She got quite a number (she would count them for you and list their titles, but the bag was so heavy it is in the car still waiting for her father to heft it out) including classics, a few contemporary novels, a couple notebooks (which Olivia reeeeaaaaaally does not need, for she has stacks and stacks of lonely blank ones in her room waiting to be filled) and a really cool, very heavy, rather geeky Shakespeare Encyclopedia or something of that nature.

Secondly, Olivia just forgot what the other thing was she was going to say.

Oh!

That’s right.

And thidly (or thirdly, if you so prefer, but thidly has a ring to it), tomorrow Olivia will be in a facility surrounded by a large group of children her age. This is the first time such an event has occurred in a year and a half. She is not certain she remembers what people look like. Someone might have to point them out for her.

At this facility, Olivia will operate a sewing needle. That is very dangerous. Sharp objects and Olivia are not a good combination. Also, she will be in drama. She was not entirely sure she wanted to be in drama in the first place, but she woke one morning to discover she was signed up for it. Oh well. It should be fun, at least.

Furthermore, this will henceforth be a weekly occurrence.

Will she survive?

Time will tell.

Pretty Colors! Pretty Music!

2011-08-29T21:44:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I pondered what piece I might post for this week's Musical Monday, and suddenly it occurred to me, "I have not posted a Chopin ever in the history of Musical Monday! How shameful! What a disgrace! I must amend this!"

This revelation was quite shocking, given my fondness of Chopin's music. So, I am amending this.

A YouTube search for "chopin" wielded this video.

I thought that was kind of cool.

My Story, My Song

2011-08-28T21:50:00.004-04:00

[L]et us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.

~Hebrews 10:22,23~

Blessed Assurance
Fanny J. Crosby

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

Refrain:
This is my story, this is my song,
praising my Savior all the day long;
this is my story, this is my song,
praising my Savior all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight!
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

Perfect submission, all is at rest!
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with his goodness, lost in His love.

According to Wikipedia,

Crosby was visiting her friend Phoebe Knapp as the Knapp home was having a large pipe organ installed. The organ was incomplete, so Mrs. Knapp, using the piano, played a new melody she had just composed. "What do you think the tune says?" asked Knapp.

"Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine", answered Fanny Crosby.

Leaves! Bark! Grass! Whoa!

2011-08-27T22:21:00.000-04:00

This picture doesn't really have anything to do
with this post. It's just pretty. And detailed! Look at the
blades of sea oats!

Dear reader, I can see.

I can see!

I got new glasses last night. I put them on and I was like, "Whoa! The world!"

The difference is remarkable. I'd needed to have this prescription filled for some time, so I was quite amazed to find that there really are leaves on the trees. With these new lenses, things are shaped differently, colors are richer, and textures more detailed. Everything is so vivid and crisp, and pretty!

I put my old pair back on to compare. How did I function in those? Everything is so foggy! (But then, that may also have to do with the layers of dirt and smudges accumulated...)

I got new frames, too, because the lenses in my old pair were rather little, which substantially decreased my peripheral vision. I'm not overly fond of the armbands on these new ones, which have sort of a braided look and a little rhinestone on either side. (Rhinestones! Ick!) And this was one of the more modest frames available.

But I don't mind too much, because the world! How lovely is the world! The bark on the trees! The blades of grass! So detailed, and wonderfully made!

A Prompt for Your Next Sci-Fi Novel

2011-08-26T21:21:00.000-04:00

Why is it that each Friday I am too tired to write a coherent post?

Basically, what I want to say is--
a) there is a planet made of diamond;
b) there is a PLANET made of DIAMOND;
c) said planet is 4,000 light years away;
d) it has slighly more mass than Jupiter but is twenty times as dense;
e) it orbits a pulsar star that is 12.4 miles in diameter;
f) if we lived on this planet, we would be very old. Its year is two hours and ten minutes long.
--just in a really brilliant, profound way. But oh well. You may read more about the diamond planet if you wish.

It's like something out of a sci-fi, isn't it? People trying to get to a diamond planet and mine it or something?

It's amazing all the gems stowed away in the universe.

A List (the Items of Which I Do Not Dare Attempt to Count at This Hour)

2011-08-25T22:33:00.005-04:00

- I want to go to bed as soon as I write this, so I’m using bullets to speed me along (and so the variety of subjects I discuss doesn’t seem nearly so random).
- I really want to start getting to bed earlier. Lately, I haven’t been getting up until almost nine. Nine! I hate getting up late. I feel like I’m wasting the day. It depresses me.
- Yes, I am rather odd for a teenager, aren’t I? I don’t like sleeping in! The horror! This shocks many people.
- I’m tired, so excuse the nonsense.
- That adorable puppy that was in our keeping for a week? He left today. He went to a rescue, so hopefully he’ll be adopted soon.
- It has now been five and a half weeks since I pulled a muscle in my side, and it still hurts. I haven’t been able to get those patches because insurance wouldn’t approve them, so I’m going to use a gel stuff instead. I hope it works.
- In the meantime, I am forbidden from lifting things, especially with my left arm.
- The fungus that dared penetrate my cells with its haustoria? It will not die. It is dying, I think, but not yet dead. Fungus. On my ankle. I strongly disapprove.
- My favorite, comfiest shoes are falling apart. I have a hard time finding shoes that are comfortable, so when I found these, it was like sliding my feet in little pockets of heaven. They’re Dr. Scholls (yes, I am gellin’) and the little built-in inserts (oxymoron, ha!) are falling out. This is very sad. Sadifying. It is sadifying.
- Spell check does not think sadifying is a word. It does not think that happifying or scarifying are words either. Spell check is prejudiced against cool words. …Actually, I take that partially back—there is no red squiggle underlining scarifying. Is that really a word, or did I add it to the dictionary before?
- Writing this post has actually been sort of fun. I don’t really want to go to bed.
- But I must! I must wake early tomorrow! I cannot bear to waste another morning!
- I have something kind of cool to post tomorrow.
- Good night! This has been one of my quickest blog posts ever. Twenty-three minutes!! (I am a painstakingly slow writer.)

Dirty Laundry

2011-08-24T20:31:00.000-04:00

Brother's new favorite playpen.

Hehe.

And I shall leave you with that, because I have nothing profound to say today!

Actually, I take that back. I do have one great thing to say.

Jesus loves you.

=)

A Great, Terrible Tragedy

2011-08-23T11:21:00.000-04:00

"Oh no!" you say. "Olivia missed Musical Monday! Something must be terribly wrong! Was she kidnapped and held hostage? Did her house burn down? Did she contract the reallyscarysoundingosis?"

No, my dear readers. I am afraid a calamity far greater befell me last night. The most tragic, most dreaded scenario of all did I face:

I was internetless.

GASP!

Okay, so maybe I'm being just a tiny bit dramatic. Just a tiny bit. Yesterday morning, I read a book, so I did not post in the morning. In the afternoon was my piano lesson, and then we went and got me some new glasses (squee! I can see again! Well, not quite yet--they won't be ready for seven to ten days) and some groceries ('cause, you know, I guess eating is kind of important. Who'd have guessed?).

In fact, I did not even open my laptop until 6:03 yesterday evening.

I told my mother, "It is 6:03 and I have not been on the computer today. Are you proud of me, or concerned?"
"I'm concerned," she said.
And she went and got my computer.

But at 6:03, I was wiped out from the activities of the day (piano lessons are tiring!! And add Walmart on top of that... phew...), and I could not breathe very well (my respiratory system goes on strike sometimes), and I could not think of a unique-ish video to post (because I've done a lot of piano lately, and I wanted something orchestral, or at least different). (Are you tired of the parentheses yet?)

So I surfed the web for a little while (*coughafewhourscoughcough*) until I was recovered. And then I had a late-night date with Bach. I was playing one of his Inventions on my digital piano/full-length keyboard thing, setting it to all sorts of instruments (including the ancient percussion instrument, Rain, and the wind instrument, Wind, and other such things). Bach sounds lovely on everything from trumpets to mandolins to castanets! The only things that, erm, don't sound so good are evil laughter and clapping.

By then, it was ten-thirty, and then I remembered the horses still hadn't gotten their dinner. I went and did that. When I came in, I finished the last few voices on my piano/keyboard thing, and then logged onto Blogger.

And then... my internet died.

This happens all the time (several times a day, at least!), and is not-too-difficultly fixed by resetting the modem and unplugging the router. However, it was late, and the modem and router are in the bedroom in which my father was asleep. So I just went to bed.

Now that you have read the explanation of yesterday's events which turned out much longer than anticipated, here is this week's (slightly belated) installment.

This is the first movement (at least, I'm fairly certain it would still be considered a movement... but my limited classical knowledge fails in the subject of... konzertstücks... so maybe it's not a movement?) of Schumann's Konzertstück for Four Horns and Orchestra. I got to see this piece performed live by the symphony orchestra a while ago. Much fun!

How Blessed Am I

2011-08-21T11:02:00.001-04:00

I am very weary. Yesterday was a long day, and the morning already has been tiring. (Which basically translates as, Please excuse the poorly writtenness of this post.)

Sometimes the irksome little things in life add up and make it seem as though the world is coming to an end. Have you ever felt that way? To paraphrase a friend of mine (who put it much more eloquently), some days I want to find a little hollow in the universe, and curl up in this hollow with a blanket and a good book and never come out again.

But when I feel this way, snuggled into the sofa with a blanket and a book and a dog lying on my feet--in a heated, air-conditioned home with a pantry filled with food and faucets flowing with potable water, in a safe neighborhood--I am reminded of those not so fortunate, the cancer patients and the impoverished, the orphans and the widows, those struggling to provide for their family, while I, a young teenage girl, have really not a worry in the world. And I praise Him for all that with which He has blessed me, and I pray for those less fortunate. And I feel better.

I am glad also that the trials which I do endure allow me to empathize more deeply with those faced with much greater ones.

On a lighter note, the puppy is doing much better today. He jumps and plays and actually seems to care what's happening to him. Maybe he was just dehydrated. There still has been no word from his owners, although a lady called who was missing her beagle.

It's hard to walk because he romps along underfoot, pouncing my feet and pulling at my pants!

Of Puppies and Geeks

2011-08-19T21:22:00.000-04:00

This is the puppy my dad found on the side of the road.

Isn't that sheer adorableness?

He saw the vet today, and she said she didn't see any signs of trauma, and he tested negative for parvo*.

Still, something isn't right with him. He's lethargic to the extreme and just lies there. That isn't normal for a puppy in a strange place surrounded by strange people--or any dog, save maybe a senile, geriatric one.

Outside he perks up, though he still isn't as lively as it seems a puppy should be. Hopefully we'll get a call from his owners soon, if he has any.

Also, I hereby declare every Friday shall be Geeky Friday**. (Because, after all, we nerds having nothing better to do with ourselves on Friday nights than be nerdy!) I've wanted to declare it for several weeks now, but each Friday I'm too tired to write a post nerdy enough. And I'm still too tired, so I'm going to leave you with Fibonacci.

*Canine parvovirus type 2. According to Wikipedia the Omniscient, "It has two distinct presentations, a cardiac and intestinal form. The common signs of the intestinal form are severe vomiting and dysentery. The cardiac form causes respiratory or cardiovascular failure in young puppies."

**I was going to go with Nerdy Friday, but Geeky Friday is like a play on Freaky Friday... which was a movie I saw years and years ago and have almost no memory of... but I might end up changing it to Nerdy Friday... Your thoughts?

Three Things

2011-08-18T22:39:00.000-04:00

'Cause it's late and I don't feel like writing a long post, although I could.

Thing the First: My last list post was called Thirty-Two, because there were thirty-two bullet points in it. I realized a few days later there were actually thirty-three things in it. Eheh...

Thing the First and a Half: The first time I spelled it realised. What am I, British?

Thing the Second: I have dermatophytosis. That is, ringworm.

Now, I'm not bothered by blood and gore, and I examine photographs of gruesome wounds with fascination. However...

Eeeeeee! There's fungus on my ankle GET IT OFF GET IT OFF!!!

Ahem. I do not like fungus. I do not desire to ever eat a mushroom, because it is a fungus. Therefore, I am just a little disturbed that a fungus is feeding on the dead tissue of my skin. I did not give this fungus permission to lay its haustoria on me. This is not cool. I banish the fungus. The fungus is banished.

Thing the Third: On his way home, my father found the most adorable basset hound puppy on the side of the road. I'll try to get a picture of that wubbable wittle face tomorrow when it's light.

Now to find its owners...

Olivia Goes to the Doctor

2011-08-17T18:16:00.000-04:00

Olivia went to the doctor today. In fact, she tried writing this post in the exam room on her mom's phone while waiting for the doctor to come in--because the wait is usually a long one--but it was being funkeh and wouldn't let her type in the text box, which was kind of a problem.

In fact, she handed her mother the phone, and her mother pushed something which they thought was the Publish button. This made Olivia laugh hysterically, because that would have published the post with only a title and no body. But it was only the Save button that her mother pressed. Olivia was slightly disappointed, because it would have been funny if her mother published the post with a title and no body, but oh well. By the time she recovered from her laughter, the doctor came in.

Why was Olivia seeing the doctor, you ask? If you are a regular reader, or by chance a two-time reader, you may recall the attack of the Empty Box in the Plain of Tile. Well, that incident was more than four weeks ago, and Olivia's side still pains her. So she went to the doctor just to be sure she was okay.

The doctor poked and prodded and made Olivia twist, which made her side very sore. But the doctor determined that the injury was merely muscular, and that nothing was wrong with her ribcage, which is a good thing. Olivia thinks--although she isn't sure, because Brother was banging his rattle very loudly on the stroller and it was difficult to hear the doctor--that she was prescribed NSAID patches to apply to the site of the injury, and admonished to be very careful of twisting.

After the doctor, her family went to lunch. She liked the waitress, because she guessed correctly that Olivia was the sister and not the mother of Brother. Most think otherwise.

After lunch, Olivia got to hold a very teeny tiny baby. He made Brother seem like a giant.

After holding the very teeny tiny baby, Olivia admired a pretty creek.

After that, she went home. And then she ate the butterscotch Dum-Dum acquired at the doctor's office. It was yummy.

Also, Olivia realized the photos from last night's post didn't show up. She will try to fix this, because she thinks the moon photo is kind of pretty and that her readers might enjoy it.

Speaking of her readers, where did they go? She suspects the lack of comments is merely due to the decreased quality of her posts, but she just wants to make sure that Blogger didn't get angry and eat her readers, because Blogger can have quite a temper.

So if you are able to comment, she'd feel relieved after just a brief comment or two, to make sure everything is in order. If you are unable to comment, she would appreciate, if you have some other form of contacting her, kindly letting her know so she can see if she can fix things. If you are unable to comment or reach Olivia in any other way, you are probably in Blogger's belly.

Have a nice day!

A Winter Evening

2011-08-16T23:36:00.002-04:00

Oops! I was so enthralled in medical articles that I completely forgot about posting today. I really want to get back to them, and it’s late besides, so I’ll spare you a late-night ramble and allow you to enjoy this pretty moon.

At least, I hope you can enjoy it. I’m writing this post through email, so I assume if I insert a photo it will show up in the post, but I’m not entirely sure. Also, the photos might be huge. I’m not sure. (EDIT: It didn't work the first time, but now it's fixed. I think.)

Bark in the dark!

…Sorry. I couldn’t resist.

Appraised Historical Recordings

2011-08-15T21:54:00.003-04:00

I'm out of title creativity today. Now, onto your regularly scheduled post.

Do you know what day it is?

It is the day you have eagerly anticipated all week,

the day you set your alarm for four AM but rose at three-thirty

because you were too excited to sleep and leapt out of bed and
quickly turned on your computer and went to Blogger and then went skulking
back to bed because the post you were waiting for was not yet in existence.

You mean you didn't actually do that?

Oh.

Well, anyway, it's

Musical Monday!

The day on which I give you...

...

....

.....

THIS!

(I haven't actually picked out a video for this week yet. I'll go do that.)

Ahem.

The day on which I give you

THIS!

It's Grieg. Playing Grieg. It was recorded in 1903, apparently.

But wait! There's more!

It's scratchy. It's raspy. But it's Brahms, in 1889. Isn't that just cool?

And because I'm in a random mood, a few bullet points for you.

Last night I dreamed my aunt got a pet iguana, and it was forty-two years old. She wanted to get a photographer out, because it had some kind of medical condition and had really weird eyes.
I had the first piano lesson of the new school year today.
After my piano lesson, we got McDonald's and ate it in the car in the parking lot. Suddenly, water droplets appeared all over the windshield. This was very confusing, because it was bright and sunny out, and blue sky was directly overhead, and surely it couldn't be raining. Then my mother pointed out it came from sprinklers.
After McDonald's, we went to Target. I got a book. They only had the mass market paperback edition, which I've considered getting before, but I'd decided to hold out and get a trade paperback copy. I don't like mass market, because they're hard to hold and have cheap ink that makes me itchy. But today I ended up getting the mass market one anyway. I liked the cover. There's a horse. (Actually, the trade paperback might have exactly the same cover. I've never actually checked. Oh well. Now I have it.)
It's after nine o'clock and I haven't eaten dinner yet. Do you suppose I should?
Actually, I think I will, because then I can eat dessert. My mother unwittingly participated in the Zucchini Revolution yesterday by baking chocolate chip zucchini cake. It's yummilicious!
Actually, I just got my mother's permission to eat chocolate chip zucchini cake for dinner! I'm eating it with a spoon, because the forks are all dirty.
As I was writing this, I felt something crawling on my neck. It was a tiny jumping spider. Crawling on my neck. How rude.
People I actually know in real life* may end up seeing this blog.** That is a slightly terrifying prospect. Maybe I should actually try to write my posts intelligently...
It has taken approximately ten hours to write this post.

*I know! I was surprised I had one too.

**Well, my parents have seen it too, but they already know I'm a cow admirer and zucchini revolutionist.

From the Word

2011-08-14T20:07:00.001-04:00

But you did not learn Christ in this way, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

Therefore, laying aside falsehood, SPEAK TRUTH EACH ONE of you WITH HIS NEIGHBOR, for we are members of one another. BE ANGRY, AND yet DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity. He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.

Ephesians 4:20-29

Very, Very Tired; or, You're Having a What?

2011-08-13T18:39:00.001-04:00

I did not post yesterday. You were probably frenzied in a panic. You might have called the National Guard. For Olivia said she would post every day, and she did not. Therefore something must be terribly, terribly wrong.

I was not kidnapped, or away from home, or devoid of internet, or forgetful, or even without a topic about which to post (which is a first). I was just terribly tired. Tired tired. Exhausted, one might say. To the point that it took five minutes to comprehend one sentence in the book I was reading (it did not help that the characters were also very weary and in the dark), and scratching my nose was a chore.

I even went to bed at nine, which is the earliest I've gone to bed in years. I got up at eight thirty. Even after all that sleep, which is the most I can ever remember getting, I am equally tired today. My mother suggests I take a nap, but I do not like naps. Sleeping in the daytime is depressing, and scary.

All of this tiredness is the result of getting poison injected into one's body. Now, don't worry--this poison is for purposes medical*, and it is something that occurs regularly, and if you are curious you might get an explanation, but that is not the purpose of this post, and is irrelevant, so I will skip explanations for now, and this is turning into quite the run-on sentence.

So! Where was I? Oh, yes, tired. I was tired. Very much so. And you can probably tell I still am because of the way this post is written. Quite rambling, and not really making sense, and it's actually much easier to write when I'm like this because I'm too tired to care, ha!

Anyway. Because of all this poisony stuff, I was very, very tired. Yesterday I wanted to write a seriousish post, for yesterday was one year after my mother discovered that she was pregnant with her second child (I was the first... obviously), but at nine, my usual post-writing time of late, I went to bed.

So I'm trying to write it today. In Tiredese. Prepare yourself.

Actually, I'm too tired to write all of it. So I'll just start with the evening of August 12, 2010. I was in the living room on the computer, and my parents were in their room. Little did I know that my mother was taking a pregnancy test. The thought had never crossed my mind that my mother might have another child.

That is, until she entered the room right then. I knew, somehow, that she was about to tell me she was having a baby. As she asked me to sit on the couch beside her, I almost asked outright if that's what it was, but I didn't in case it turned out to be something really trivial.

So she told me. I don't think I said anything for several minutes. All I could do was laugh. My mother! Was having a baby!

The next several weeks were spent sitting around in shock. She went to the OB/GYN--and discovered she was twenty-five weeks along. Also, she was having a boy. My parents were adamant when I was in the womb that they wanted my gender to be a surprise, but this time, they said, they couldn't handle any more surprises.

It's hard to believe all that was a year ago. This is what we have now:

Well, not now now, because that picture was taken in June, but close enough.

*I'm not really sure why I switched those two words around. It just sounded cool. Actually, I tried to make that Latin, but I am not yet knowledgeable enough in the language, and I'm tired.

A Contest!

2011-08-11T21:48:00.000-04:00

A while ago, I decided to run a contest for the 135th comment, although I don't think I actually mentioned it.

Anyway, the author of the 135th comment was...

*suspenseful pause*

*more suspenseful pause*

1018mockingjay!

Con. Gratula. Ions!

Let's all give Mockingjay a round of applause! She said,

The builders have triskaidekaphobia, or the phobia of the number 13.

So profound. *tear*

Your choice of prizes:

A graphic of some sort
An interview on my blog
A video of me doing... something
A poem
Something else that you can think of, because I cannot think of very intriguing prizes

Have fun choosing!

I'm Versatile, Apparently

2011-08-10T22:38:00.000-04:00

All the way back in May the estimable Mercy was kind enough to award me for my versatility in blogging (specifically, for unwittingly co-founding National Cow Week) ~~but I didn't get around to it till just now~~.

Shnazzy.

These are the rules:
1. Thank and link to the person who nominated you.
2. Share seven random facts about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 5 deserving blogging buddies.
4. Contact those buddies to congratulate them!

1. Thanks, Mercy!

2. Seven Random Facts:
a) My closet is almost as large as my room.
b) I've been to New York City twice. The first time was five weeks after 9/11.
c) When I was twelve, I taught my pony the hokey pokey.
d) My favorite ice cream is Breyer's mint chocolate chip.
e) I sing the alphabet whenever I look up a word in the dictionary or put a new book on the shelf.
f) I cannot bring myself to spend money. Besides gift cards, I think I've only spent a sum larger than five or ten dollars twice in my life. The first time I bought a cockatiel, and the second time a horse.

3. I award...
Skyeler, because she swaps from regency gowns to photography to poetry.
Kayla, because she has a variety of interests (many of which I share *highfive*).
Sarah, because she has all sorts of inspiring posts.
Bubbles, because I predict his blog will be versatile and profound, if he posts.
Olga, because between her and Curly Fry, they have many different areas covered. ;)
Birdi, because she never fails to make me smile. :D
I have so many deserving blogging buddies I had to choose six! And there were more I could have picked if they weren't already tagged.

4. And now I scuttle off to notify people!

The Rain Fell, and the Winds Blew

2011-08-09T06:00:00.008-04:00

This is really yesterday's post posted today. The very post that Olivia wrote forgetting yesterday was Monday. So when she says "tonight" she really means "last night". She's just too lazy to edit. Shameful, really. And don't ask why she's writing this paragraph in third person, because she didn't even realize she was doing it until this sentence.

I’m really not quite sure why I said I would post every day. I’m really not quite sure why I started a blog. I’m really not quite sure why you readers put up with all this rambling nonsense, but I’m glad that you do, even though it’s a slightly horrifying thought that there are actually people out there reading this.

But not as horrifying as the fact I just saw a flea on my arm and now I can’t find it. The flea, that is. I’m fairly certain of my arm’s location.

Now everything that touches my skin feels like a flea. It’s really annoying to be paranoid.

Tonight there was a large storm. One audible roll of thunder rumbled before it was right on top of us. Father Dearest went out to feed the horses, or at least move my pony--who is terrified of thunderstorms--to her own safe little paddock, but by the time he got out there it was pouring. I was going to follow, but Mother Dearest urged me to stay indoors because the lightning was close.

The pony wouldn’t go, though. She wears a flymask during the warm months to keep the flies from her face because she’s sensitive to the bacteria they leave behind, and her eyes swell when she doesn’t have it on. The downside to this, though, is that when it rains the water drops cling to the mesh and obscure her vision. I don’t think this is so much a problem for most horses, but she’s a rescue and very spooky, and she doesn’t appear to see well anyway.

So when Father opened the gate to the paddock and tried to coax her in, she ran away, frightened and unable to see. It was pouring like a celestial hose was set to powerwash*—from the window all you could see was an opaque sheet of water—and the lightning was very near. Eventually he had to come in and leave the pony trembling in the woods. By the time he came in, the wind blew the rain nearly horizontally, the thunder was deafening, and we huddled near the front of the house, afraid a large branch would come crashing onto the roof.

In ten minutes, it was over.

Once the thunder faded in the distance, we went outside to finish feeding. Usually after a big storm, especially if her flymask was on, the pony’s kind of traumatized. Sometimes she won’t let me near enough to remove her mask until the next day. But tonight she was perfectly calm. She walked right into the paddock, and as I approached her with a handful of grain she did a few of her tricks**, giving me a kiss and spontaneously nodding yes to some unasked question. And she let me remove her flymask without a problem. Go figure.

*That is a really laughable simile, but I’m too tired to care or think of a better one, so oh well!

**She knows all sorts of tricks, from swishing her tail on command to dancing the hokey pokey.

Scherzo in Bb Major

2011-08-08T23:11:00.001-04:00

Silly Olivia forgot all about it being Monday, and scrambled to write a post. The instant she posted it, of course, she remembered it was Monday, and that Monday is the day to post good music. So, here's today's Schubert, and she supposes she'll delete the other post and reschedule it for tomorrow. Silly, silly Olivia.

By the way, this girl is ten years old. That is quite humbling, Olivia thinks.

Grey Days

2011-08-07T11:39:00.000-04:00

source

Grey days make me happy.

It isn't a flippant, jovial kind of happiness. It is an attitude of resolute contentedness, tinged with the pain and sorrow tribulation brings. Grey days remind me of what is truly important in life, and they strengthen my fervor to make the most of what I'm given and to improve the lives of others.

source

On gloomy, dark days, I am thankful for the little things.

I am brave, ready and willing to endure whatever I must in order to serve. I'm always willing, but on days like this I am reminded of the trials that lie ahead. And I am content with them.

It is on such days that my hope is renewed. I'm reminded that I am provided the strength to accomplish the deeds which I'm called to perform, and I welcome the pain I may face. It is an honor to suffer for His name.

source

It's also a reminder of how blessed I am. Every way I turn I cannot help but give praises. The world is a wonderful place!

There must be enough sunny days interspersed, of course, to fully appreciate the splendor of the greyness, but it's the grey days that give me the vigor to live life.

Do you find a certain type of weather inspiring?

Thirty-Two

2011-08-06T22:32:00.000-04:00

The heat index yesterday was 106. That is simply unacceptable.
Brother is a technological genius.
Chocolate milk is delicious.
Lists are fun to write.
Olivia was going to stop at 3, but then she kept going.
She isn't quite sure why she's writing in third person.
Perhaps it's due to the fact that she was just reading Birdi's blog.
She did a video call on Skype for the first time today. It was slightly terrifying, but also really fun to be able to see her friend face-to-face. And her friend's adorable brother.
She learned she isn't the only one who forgets to eat because she gets distracted doing other things.
She is probably the only one who forgets to eat because she is so riveted by her school work.
She is having tipaing--er, typing--difficulties tonight.
This list now has twelve things.
The number thirteen reminds her of a story.
The story begins at a conference she attended years ago. After the day was through, and everyone was heading back to their hotel rooms, she got in the elevator with several other people. These included an older man, another girl a couple years older than Olivia, and the girl's parents. The girl pressed the floor level buttons for everyone, and when she inquired of the older man's floor, he said, "Thirteen." The girl searched and searched, but she could not find the button for the thirteenth floor. The builders of that building were superstitious, and did not build a thirteenth floor. Well, they did, but they called it the fourteenth floor, rather sillily Olivia thinks. Then the man chuckled and gave his real floor number. The End.
Brother just fell over.
The readers are probably boring of reading this list, Olivia suspects.
Olivia will do something interesting to spice this list up.
Blueberries!
Olivia thinks blueberries are very pretty, and also surprisingly delicious, as she learned today. With enough sugar, that is.
Olivia broke a vow today. When they were little, you see, she and her friend were disgusted by blueberries, and promised to never, ever, ever like them. So Olivia was slightly disappointed in herself, she confesses.
But she also doesn't mind too much, because blueberries make her think of Maine. Olivia misses going to Maine.
To console herself, she is writing a story set in Maine. Which she needs to get back to...
Maine is very pretty.
Maine is very cold.
Google images is handy.
Olivia might pull a Benedict Arnold.
She thinks Benedict is a nice name. It's too bad it has a negative connotation thanks to Mr. Very Important Arnold.
Olivia thinks she should have put a different title before his name, but she can't recall his exact military ranking at this moment, so Mr. Very Important Arnold it is.
What is this Benedict Arnoldesque deed Olivia might commit, you ask? She shall leave you in suspense until she has made her decision of whether or not to commit this Benedict Arnoldesque deed. Mwaha.
This list has reached thirty things and is now probably getting very boring.
So Olivia will pull the most exciting trick of all for her readers.
Olivia will end this list.
But not without first saying she's going to run another contest.

One Hundred Things You've Never Needed to Know

2011-08-05T22:59:00.001-04:00

I've frightened away my lovely commenters with my late-night posts, haven't I? I really ought to start posting earlier in the day. In the hopes of producing a slightly less nonsensical post, I'm following a structure tonight, in the form of one of those tags on Facebook (which I actually wasn't tagged in, but never mind the needless details). Which means you get to learn more than you ever wanted to know about a complete stranger. ;)

1. Full name: Confidential
2. Nickname(s): A handful call me Livi or Livvy, but for the most part people pronounce all four syllables. Then, of course, there is the dreaded parent nickname... whose horrid syllables I cannot bring myself to inflict upon such nice people as my readers.
3. Zodiac sign: Libra
4. Male or Female: Female
5. Elementary School: My Kitchen Table
6. High School: See above. It's K-12.
7. College: Lies ahead. Where this level of education will take place is not yet determined.
8. Hair color: Blonde. (Brain color: Very blonde.)
9. Tall or short: Boringly average, at 5'4".
10. Sandals or Sneakers: Sneakers, unless it is unbearably hot.
11. Sweatpants or Jeans: Sweatpants
12. Phone or Camera: Camera
13. Clean freak: In many ways, yes. In others I am appallingly sloblike in my tendencies.
14. Orange or Apple: Apple
15. Do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend: Jesus is mah lover.
16. Eat or Drink: Smoothie!
17. Eye color: Greenish bluish ish... I'm not sure, honestly.
18. Pepsi or Coke: Root beer

Have you ever?
19. Been in an airplane: A number of times.
20. Been in a relationship: Of the romantic variety, no.
21. Been in a car accident: A minor one.
22. Been in a fist fight: Heh. No.

First and last:
23. First piercing: None. *collective gasp*
24. First real boyfriend/girlfriend: See 15.
25. First pet: Three poodles named Neesha, Whopper, and Oliver, all of which are now deceased. Don't blame me: they were named before my time.
26. First kiss: My doggy
27. First word: Dog
28. Last book you read: The Two Towers
29. Last person you talked to in person: Father
30. Last person you texted: I have texted once in my life. To whom I don't recall.
31. Last person you watched a movie with: Father, Mother, and Brother. Father and Brother slept.
32. Last food you ate: Club crackers
33. Last movie you watched: Ever After. Meh.
34. Last song you listened to: Scherzo in Bb Major (Schubert)
35. Last thing you bought: I... don't recall.
36. Last person you hugged: Mommy

Favorite:
37. Food: Dairy. Eggs.
38. Drink: Chocolate milk
39. Bottoms: This time of year, comfy, lightweight linen pants.
40. Top: It is green with a little drawing of sparrows, and it says, "No worries."
41. Animal: Horses!
42. Color(s): Purple, green, and blue
43. Movies: The first that come to mind are Amazing Grace, Finding Nemo, and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
44. Subject: Science!

Have you ever: (Put an X in the brackets if yes)
45. [x] Gotten baptized.
46. [x] Celebrated Halloween.
47. [] Had your heart broken...
48. [] Went over the old texts on your cell phone.
Number 49 went missing.
50. [] Hacked someone’s Facebook.
51. [] Got pregnant.
52. [] Had an abortion.
53. [x] Did something you regret.
54. [x] Broken a promise.
55. [x] Hid a secret.
56. [x] Pretended to be happy.
57. [x] Met someone who changed your life.
58. [] Pretended to be sick.
59. [] Left the country.
60. [x] Tried something you normally wouldn't try.
61. [x] Cried over the silliest thing all the time.
62. [] Run a mile.
63. [x] Went to the beach with your best friend.
64. [] Got into an argument with your friends.
65. [] Dated someone.

Currently:
66. Thinking about: Snow and ice, and my horsie.
67. Eating: Nothing
68. Drinking: Nothing.
69. Listening to: An obnoxious commercial, because the TV was abandoned with the volume up high.
71. Plans for today: Brush my teeth and go to bed.
72. Waiting for: Small-scale? This to be over. Otherwise, to see what God has planned.

Your future:
73. Want kids: If I marry, lots.
74. Want to get married: Perhaps.
75. Career: Veterinarian; and I may be called to use this to enter the missions field, caring for the livelihood of those in less fortunate parts of the world.

Which one in a significant other:
(Gah! I didn't see these when I copy-and-pasted this thing...)
76. Lips or eyes: Well, I'd prefer he have all his facial features...
77. Shorter or taller: Erm...
78. Romantic or spontaneous: Uh...
79. Tough or sweet: This is awkward...
80. Texts you or calls you: I'm skipping these.
81. Hook-up or relationship: Hear that?
82. Looks or personality: I'm skipping these! (But personality, of course, is the important of the two.)

Have you ever:
83. Lost your phone: Nopers! 'Course, it's kind of a given, when you have no phone.
84. Snuck out of a house: Yes. At night, or for ill purposes, or further than the backyard? No.
85. Held a gun/knife for self defense: No.
86. Killed somebody: Huh? Uh, unless you count that mosquito earlier... no.
87. Broken someone's heart: I... hope not...
89. Cried when someone/something died: Yes.

Do you believe in:
91. Miracles: I've seen 'em.
92. Love at first sight: In a nonromantic way, absolutely. In a romantic way, I wouldn't know. ;)
93. Heaven: Why, yes!
94. Dreams coming true: They certainly can, whether or not it's in the way you anticipated.
95. Respecting your elders: Yes'm.
96. Kiss on the first date: Eheh. No.

Truthfully:
97. Is there anyone you want to be with right now? Jesus. :)
98. Do you know who your real friends are? Only a true friend would willingly put up with me. ;)
99. Do you believe in God? Wholeheartedly.
100: Were you honest? Absolutely so.

The Wonderful World of Amoebae

2011-08-04T23:23:00.002-04:00

I have a slight fascination with the amoeba.

This fascination, in fact, borders excessive fondness.

I may be the only person in the world who thinks amoebae are cute. Pretty, even.

Don't you just want to huggle it?

What's not to like about a unicellular organism that comfortingly wraps its arms around its prey as it is engulfed and torn apart by enzymes?

"There, there. This won't hurt a bit."

So infatuated am I with amoebae, I wrote a poem dedicated to them. I'm also collaborating with a friend on a musical starring an amoeba. It's sure to be a Broadway hit.

Isn't it pretty? It's like a blob filled with... blobs.

I want a pet amoeba, but instead I have to make due with their cousin, Entamoeba gingivalis. Meet George and Ginger.

They live in my mouth.

But back to the amoeba.

Another part of the reason I like them is that they serve as nice excuses. When my Os come out not quite round, I just say, "Oh, that is a drawing of an amoeba. It's just a coincidence that it's followed by the last five letters of my name." And then I'm only five sixths embarrassed by the awfulness of my penmanship.

Drawing amoebae gives insecure artists confidence in their ability.

Don't you want an amoeba too?

Credits and stuff: photo one and three source, photo two source, photo four and five source, image six source.

A Past-Bedtime Post

2011-08-03T22:19:00.000-04:00

I've returned from my first draft reading with a full head of hair. It's a little disappointing that I don't get to order a colorful wig, but I was pleasantly surprised, for the most part, by what I read.

Gah! Why did I say I would post every day? What was I thinking? What came upon me? I don't want to post today. I don't have anything to post today. I want to go to bed.

It's taken me at least an hour to write these four paragraphs. And apparently I'm so tired I cannot count. And tomorrow I'll be horrified to find I actually published this nonsense. So! I'll just wrap up this post before I embarrass myself further and ask, what was the last book you read?

Today is the Day

2011-08-02T13:42:00.000-04:00

Today's the day. For better or for worse, I'm going to do it.

I'm going to read my Script Frenzy manuscript.

Wish me luck. In my three Screnzies, this is the first time I've summoned the courage to go through the result (shameful, I know). I have no idea what I might find.

I'm a little scared. I found after reading my NaNo novel that the parts I felt when writing them were absolutely horrid weren't actually so terrible as I remembered. The parts, however, I thought at the time were kind of good... made me want to scream. They were so bad.

Throughout April I felt for the most part that what I was writing was pretty good, sort of. But that probably just means that when I look at it again I will pluck my head hair by hair.

So, if you don't see me around for a while, I'm probably still recovering from the trauma, and shopping for wigs on Amazon*.

When I'm back together, you might get to see some amusing Screnzyisms.

When you reread your first drafts for the first time,** do you find it's better or worse than you remember? Have you ever come across any particularly amusing errors or typos? If you're not a writer and you're reading this post, do you like pie?

*Okay, I couldn't resist. I just did it. I think this one would look really natural on me, don't you think?
**That sounds sorta funny: reread for the first time. Hehe. Anyway.

What Am I Getting Into?

2011-08-01T05:00:00.008-04:00

Dear reader, it is August. It is August. How did that happen?

I created this blog nearly a year ago (though I didn't actually post until September of last year). Since then, my posts have been very sporadic, and I've had several long absences. My third post was titled I'm Back. With each return, after much apologizing and naming of excuses, I've promised to try to post more frequently, and promptly poofed. In a year, I've posted less than fifty times.

Starting now, I am going to post every day.

That's not a promise, because you can see how well that's worked before. I don't know how long it will last, either. But I'm hoping even if it's for a few months, it will get me in the habit of finding things to write about, remembering to write about them... not that I'd ever forget or anything... and scheduling posts. This post is, in fact, scheduled. So it was weird to write, "It is August," at the beginning, because it isn't August. Maybe that's why I was so shocked.

This means a decrease in the quality of posts, I'm sure, (That's possible? you ask), but it also likely entails many late-night last-minute rambles, which may be amusing.

Oh, and it's Musical Monday, isn't it? This is the happifying Bach piece I mentioned in my last post:

That's not me playing, as you can (hopefully) tell by the big hands and skill of the guy, but I am learning it this month. It's hard, but so much fun! I have to try very, very hard to exercise self-control and not over-practice it. But once I start, it's so hard to stop...

Little Things That Are Happifying

2011-07-31T13:10:00.000-04:00

Lately the heat here has been oppressive, and on top of it the humidity's thick enough to swim in. I love being outside, but not in this weather. I resolved to go out one evening, hoping it wouldn't be nearly so hot, but first I was trying to finish something.

When I was through, it was raining.

But then I thought, Who cares? I didn't mind if I got wet. That's what changes of clothes and hair dryers are for, after all.

So out I went. And it was lovely. The rain was cool, a breeze blew, and the world was splendidly grey. My only complaint was that the water on my glasses made it hard to see (really, someone should invent miniature windshield wipers!), but even that was sort of cool-looking (and it reminded me of my background here).

Then thunder rumbled, and I went in.

Awaiting me on the kitchen table was a brand new pack of the awesomest, prettiest, comfiest, smooth-flowingest pens ever, brought home by Father Dearest. I tried to show you a picture of the prettifulness, but my computer was being moody.

Sometimes when I'm having a bad day, it's a little thing that puts me on the right track again: playing Bach, reading a good book, a sweet note from a friend, a smile from a stranger, a cool breeze.

What was the last little thing that made you happy?

Post of Shame

2011-07-28T12:33:00.002-04:00

Olivia has a blog, doesn't she?

Oops. She forgetted. And now she is so ashamed she is writing in the third person, because it is shameful to say "I forgot", but speaking this way it sounds as though someone else forgot, not Olivia. Also, she is so ashamed she can't even use proper grammar--hence why she forgetted and not forgot.

So this is the post of shame.

Part of the reason for her absence is that she hasn't been able to think of anything to write about. Actually, that's probably the reason for every absence of hers. Nothing too big or exciting goes on in her life to blog about.

But then it occurred to her that nothing terribly big or exciting happens in the lives of most of the bloggers whose blogs she follows. They just write about the little things in life, for the most part. She's going to try to start writing about the little things, too. So for practice, here's a little thing that happened to her.

On the Monday of yesterweek, Olivia thirsted, so to quench her thirst she went on a quest for tea. Her quest took her to the far away Pantry in the land of Kitchen. In Pantry, she found that which she sought--Canned Tea. In fact, there were two Canned Teas, nestled peacefully together in their dwelling of a long, narrow cardboard box.

Olivia extended her arm through the open door of their house and groped for a Tea. But the two Teas held fast in the bottom of their box. She lifted the whole box, with her arm still inside, and carried it across the land of Kitchen to the high ridge called Counter. There she could set down the box and extricate the Teas inside.

But on the way she did not see the stealthy Empty Box that lurked on the Plain of Tile. It pounced, setting itself directly in the path of her feet.

She flailed her arms wildly in a desperate attempt to maintain her balance. Finally, with her free hand (for her other arm held still the box of Tea) she managed to grasp hold of the edge of Counter. Thus she righted herself, and proceeded to drink a Tea.

While she escaped, ultimately, the wrath of the Empty Box, it inflicted lasting wounds. A muscle in her torso, across her side, has been pulled, and pains her to some degree to this day. In time, however, this wound is expected to heal.

And so concludes the Tale of the Empty Box Attacking the Bearer of the Tea.

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor

2011-05-30T14:20:00.000-04:00

I could watch that thing all day.

Musical Monday... on Friday. Oops.

2011-05-27T11:24:00.000-04:00

At least I actually remembered, if a bit late. Last week I forgot about it entirely. This isn't off to a very good start.

Anyway, here is your video for the week.

Don't ask.

The House on the Rock

Olivia Junior

A Ramble Like in Old Times...

Glorification and Dedication

The Post That Had No Title

Where Has Olivia Been?

Stages of an Essay

A Precursor of Deep Musings to Come

What It's All About

This is a Test Post

Two Hundred and Forty-One Years Ago...

Of Prayer, Outreach, and Perseverance

7x7 Award

Those Items which Occupy My Desk at Present

Oh, yeah, and one more thing.

The Birthday Boy!

Heavenly Sunlight

Counting Blessings

Time

Brother's First Ride

A Very Hasty Post

From the Word

A Guest Post, Sort of

Sweet Sixteen, eh?

A Little Love

Gift Givers and Recipients

Why Can't I Come Up With Good Titles Lately?

Psh, titles are lame! Oh, wait...

I Have Sat Here For Several Minutes Pondering Titles. So Here's One.

A Marvelous Masterpiece

(Announced)

From the Word

Our *Dear* Mr. Blogger is Videoist

Lessons Learned

The Gullibility of Olivia Longfellow

Geeky Friday: Wear Your Geekiness on Your Sleeves

I Am a Hostess

The Woes of Mathematics

I Spy Something Blue

The Return

Three Things

The Breath of Fall

Reverie

From the Word

The National Pi Writing Month

Title: n. a descriptive heading or caption

Pretty Colors! Pretty Music!

My Story, My Song

Leaves! Bark! Grass! Whoa!

A Prompt for Your Next Sci-Fi Novel

A List (the Items of Which I Do Not Dare Attempt to Count at This Hour)

Dirty Laundry

A Great, Terrible Tragedy

How Blessed Am I

Of Puppies and Geeks

Three Things

Olivia Goes to the Doctor

A Winter Evening

Appraised Historical Recordings

From the Word

Very, Very Tired; or, You're Having a What?

A Contest!

I'm Versatile, Apparently

The Rain Fell, and the Winds Blew

Scherzo in Bb Major

Grey Days

Thirty-Two

One Hundred Things You've Never Needed to Know

The Wonderful World of Amoebae

A Past-Bedtime Post

Today is the Day

What Am I Getting Into?

Little Things That Are Happifying

Post of Shame

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor

Musical Monday... on Friday. Oops.

Our Dear Mr. Blogger is Videoist