Answers

I frequently visit Cultivating Home to get ideas and encouragement. I found this meme on her blog and decided it would be fun to do!

What were you doing ten years ago?

Ten years ago, I lived in Pennsylvania. I think the biggest thing that happened was that I fell from a horse and had a compression fracture in on of my vertebrae. Boy that's not really all that interesting, is it?

Five things on my to-do list today:

Finish the skirt I started yesterday (waiting for an invisible zipper)
Knit a scarf
Work on a script
Work on compiling Proverbs
Read

Five Snacks I enjoy:

Homemade whole wheat cookies
Homemade bread toasted with butter
Oatmeal and raising cookies
Fruit smoothie
Homemade bread and cheese

Things I would do if I were a millionaire:

After tithing, I would help crisis pregnancy centers by giving sonogram equipment and people to run them. I would save anything else for my future household one day, so that my husband and I can decide the best way to use it.

Places I have lived

Okay, this could get long:

Cochranville, PA
San Diego, CA
Guam
New Orleans, LA
Virginia Beach, VA
Buckinghamshire, England
Newport, RI
Key West, FL
Cochranville, PA
Gulf Breeze, FL

(My dad was in the military. ;-)

Places I have visited:

All of England, Scotland, and Wales.
Parts of Ireland
France
Germany
Italy
Austria
Holland
The East coast of the USA
PEI
Nova Scotia
Hawaii
Japan
China
Korea

Jobs I have had:

nanny, assistant kennel manager with a group that trains service dogs, babysitter, teacher, tutor, cashier and floor worker at WalMart.

This was so much fun! I'm just going to let anyone who wants to do this meme instead of tagging people. Just post your link in the comments.



Tiffany

In Honor of the U.S. Open

Golf:

An attempt to place a small white sphere....

in a slightly larger hole....

with utensils totally unsuited to the task.

Woodrow Wilson

Meanings

Our pastor has been preaching through Genesis for the last four years. Three weeks ago he start the story of Joseph.

He emphasized a verse that I have heard quoted often, but not with the same meaning that is written in Scripture.

I have often heard people say, "What men do for evil, God uses for good" paraphrasing Genesis 50:20. But what the verse actually says (and what Pastor was emphasizing) is "But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, so save many people alive." (emphasis mine)

God doesn't just take the evil that men do and turn it in to something good. In His sovereign plan God means for those things to happen to "save many people alive."

It's comforting to me to know that even when bad things happen, God isn't just going to turn them into something good, but He meant for them to happen to fulfill His purposes.

Tiffany

Tag-You're It!

I just got back from a beach sleep-over with the ladies at our church. Well, I just got back about 5 hours ago. Let's just say that getting up at 6 in the morning, even if I did get to see dolphins and a gorgeous rainbow and go kayaking for the first time, isn't my cup of tea. But I came home took a nap and am now sitting at the computer wiping away sand (how does sand get everywhere?) and getting ready to play tag.



I actually got tagged twice! Once by my sister Shannon and again by Clare. It's a book meme and I'm so excited about that, I love books.



Rules

Link to the person that tagged you, post the rules somewhere in your meme, answer the questions, tag six people in your post, let the tagees know they’ve been chosen by leaving a comment on their blog, let the tagger know your entry is posted.



Who is your all-time favorite author and why?

That's easy, C. S. Lewis. I fell in love the Chronicles of Narnia when I was 7 and have loved him ever since. I love the way he writes. Every time I reread one of his books (and I do read more now than the Chronicles, my favourite "adult" book of his is Till We Have Faces) I find something new. Some of his books I have been reading for years, so it takes a great author who can still make it new for me.



Who was your first favorite author and why? Do you still consider him/her to be among your favorites? Well, I think this is also answered in the first one. It's hard to beat age 7 and obviously he's still a favourite. But to give a different author I would have to say Ruby Ferguson. You probably don't know who she is. She wrote a really delightful series of "Jill" books. They're about a girl named Jill (I know you were surprised by that!;-) who loves, owns, rides, and shows horses. I discovered them when we lived in England and positively devoured the books. Sadly I only own two of them and they are permenantly placed on my shelf because I have loved them almost to death. About the second part of the question.....I don't know. She is still among my favourites in that I have such fond memories of reading the books, but I don't usually list her among the favourites.



Who is the most recent addition to your list of favorite authors, and why?

Ooh, this is hard. I think I would have to say P.G. Wodehouse. I've known about him for a while now, but I don't like to branch out into new authors much. :-) I first saw the series of Jeeves and Wooster and then went on to read some of the books. My senior recital at college was "The Man Upstairs" which is my all time favourite Wodehouse. I still have a few more of his books to read.



If someone asked you who your favorite authors were right now, which authors would first pop out of your mouth? Lewis, Tolkien, Austen, Wodehouse, Wilkie Collins, and Agatha Christie (I've been on a serious Agatha Christie kick lately).



That was fun! I tag:

Laura at Quietude

Lauren at With Humility, Thankfulness, and Rejoicing

Cheri at A Joyful Handmaiden



This is very sad, but I don't read enough blogs to fulfill the quota of six. Even a couple of the ones I have tagged have already been tagged by Shannon. I guess that what you get when you all read the same blogs.



Tiffany

June Roses

At the end of teaching last year, I was given a miniature rose bush by the family of one of my students. It had gorgeous little deep red blooms on it.

My dad planted it for me, and I (knowing nothing about gardening and especially about roses) just weeded it every once in a while and helped my dad keep it watered. Because of my noviceness (I think I just made up a word) I didn't think I would get any blooms on it.

But the other day Dad casually mentioned that I had two roses on my bush. Out came the camera and here are the results.

Isn't it lovely?

I think I missed this one at its perfectness, but I love it as well.

I am ridiculously happy over these roses. Thank you to the family for the plant.

Tiffany

BTW, is anyone has any helpful tips or resources for caring for roses, I'd be glad to know about them.

Regency Fair

Well, after a delay, I welcome you to the Regency Fair!

Starting us at the Fair today we have Aylwen. She has a lovely website that has some gorgeous gowns on it. I'm definitely adding it to my favorites for inspiration. And, oh, if I only lived in Australia, I would definitely attend one of the Jane Austen Festivals she and her husband put together.

Second, we have the wonderful Claire. The dress she wore to her tea-party is scrumptious. I love that color on you Claire!

Jordan also sent me a lovely post with pictures, but for some reason I can access it now. If you re-send me the link, I'll try again.

I got all the way through writing this out and then realized I didn't have anything myself! Uh-oh! So I'm just going to reuse a couple of pictures from before.

The first one is a picture of me on a bridge in the San Antonio boardwalk. I had so much fun dressing up at the SAICFF.

And the second is a nice group picture of all the ladies from the Sense and Sensibility forum that we met while we were at the SAICFF.

I hope you enjoyed the fair!

Prince Caspian Review

All right, I've been putting this off, but after reading other reviews out there, I feel like I need to stand up for this movie a bit.

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. I went in expecting something that was totally not like the book, but came out deciding that they had done a fairly decent job. Yes, things were changed, yes things were added, but on the whole, they kept with the spirit of the book.

I have been reading the Chronicles once a year since I was 7 (18 years ago!) and from the first time I read them, Prince Caspian was my favorite.

In spite of that, I really liked the movie.

Yes, they changed alot. No, I didn't like the Caspian/Susan romance (what there was of it). But I really enjoyed the different take on it.

I even enjoyed most of the character changes.

I'm one of the few people (that I have found) that really actually liked Trumkin's story at the beginning of the book. But I didn't mind the changes to the story plot.

MAJOR SPOILERS

I loved the music. I think the use of so many themes from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe really made the audience feel as though we were in Narnia remembering the last time we had visited. I don't buy many soundtracks, but this one is definitely on my list.

I thought some of the shots were just amazing. The angles of the camera and the panning shots. Absolutely breathtaking.

I liked the nod to those things that are in the books: Pattertwig, Bulgy Bear, Lucy eating an apple at Cair Paravel.

I found that the biggest changes that were made were to the characters. Some I liked, some I didn't.

Trumpkin wasn't at all what I had expected him to be. I envisioned him more jovial and not quite so cynic. But I could live with him. And some of his one-liners were great.

Reepicheep was almost exactly what I expected him to be. I think they could've added more about his "honor and chivalry" and such, but not too bad.

Prince Caspian....hmmmm. Well, you immediately run into troubles as soon as you raise the age of a person that much. (For those who haven't read the book, he's around 13 and in the movie he's somewhere are 20.) I think his character is one of the weakest, which is sad since he carries the title. There doesn't seem to be any change in him. He is practically the same throughout the movie. He's fighting with Peter practically the whole time and not being humble and realizing his situation.

Speaking of Peter.....

One of the biggest changes in character was Peter. He wasn't the young man who comes to Narnia and is there to "put Caspian on the throne, not take it himself". I thought it made sense for him to be having a hard time adjusting to being a king and then a kid in school. His jumping at the chance to prove himself in Narnia seemed to be a natural out flowing of that. Also, because of his choice not to wait on Aslan and the disasterous results, he learns (the hard way) that Aslan knows what he'd doing. That was a powerful reminder to me to trust in the Lord even when I don't know what's going on. There is a definite moment when he changes missing from the story, but I don't think many (if any) of my personal character changes have had one defining moment. Often, all I can do is look back on what I was and look at what I am now.

Susan. Well, I already said that I didn't like the Caspian/Susan romance, but I have to say that it really isn't played up at all. I mean it is so subtle that when they kiss it almost seems ludicrous. The second time I went to see it, the audience laughed at the scene. It really is laughable. But I really understand now, after watching her character, why Susan doesn't come back in The Last Battle. You can tell with the changes made to her character that she was already not as attached to Narnia anymore. I appreciate them taking the initiative to introduce that part of her character now rather than wait until the Last Battle and she doesn't turn up.

Lucy was just Lucy. So faithful to Aslan. Willing to wait for whenever Aslan chose to appear. Willing to go look for him and risk her life doing so. Willing to stand up to the enemy, knowing that Aslan was with her.

I left Edmund for last because I was so pleased with his character. I love Edmund in this book. In fact, it's his complete change from his character in LWW that made me like this book so much. I was very pleased to see that they allowed his character to change. I was very happy when he killed the White Witch. And I was even more happy that he didn't boast about it, but just had a quick quip for Peter.

Overall, I love this movie. I would actually pay to see this movie in the theatre again. I don't do that often. In fact this would be the first.

I'm okay with the changes overall. The storming of Miraz's castle didn't bother me much after I read that Adamson (the director) came up with the idea from the books mentioning that there were fights almost every night and the particular mention of one that didn't go very well.

Well, that's all. (For now.) I'm sure I will think of plenty of other things to say, but I'll go ahead and post this for now.

Tiffany