Shall We Dance?

Shall we dance? One...two...three...one...two...three

(Picture from children's book by Libba Moore Gray)

"With a grin and a giggle, a hug and a whistle, we'd slap our knees and Mama would say: 'Bless the world it feels like a tip-tapping song-singing finger-snapping kind of day. Let's celebrate!"

I've always loved drawing people dancing. The gentleman bowing, the lady curtsying. Of course they were dressed in the proper attire, he with his cravat tied just so, and she with her elegant ballgown twirling around her.

(I remember being so proud of this drawing when I first drew it as a little girl!)

Then they would dance away.

Twirling around the dance floor, around and around.

Perhaps I've always loved this since I've always loved to twirl. I have always loved those very full skirts that flare out as you spin around in them. I've always loved that exhilerating dizzy feeling as the room spins around you.

I've always loved to twirl.

I had to post this video! I am in love. I don't think I can watch this too many times!

Shall we dance? One...two...three...one...two...three

NaNoWriMo ends; December begins

November has been here and gone (can you believe it?) and the last day of Nanowrimo has passed away! I finished off at 25,085 words. So I made it to the half way mark which was my goal! I’m really so bouncy and excited about it! Now, I know that my little half way mark is very little compared to what some wrote over the month of November, but I couldn’t be happier with my little 25,085 words. Really, I am quite proud of myself *pats self on the shoulder* this is the most I have ever written on one story, if you can believe it! Out of all of the hundreds of saved word documents in all the years that I have been writing busily away, I don’t think I have ever written that much on one thing, and much of it I wrote by hand.

I couldn’t be happier about reaching my goal for this story, for I really did have to work very hard to get there! What I would really like to do now, is to be able to print it out and see it all typed up! I still have a few ideas on where I would like to take this story, I didn’t finish it off just because I met my goal, I wanted to keep working on it. Though maybe not quite so quickly! And then I have to go back and edit it, my heart quails at the idea *mock horrified look* Actually, I will enjoy editing it quite a bit. I enjoy going back and messing with commas and semicolons, but sometimes I get so caught up in that, I am afraid I mess with the story. So I shall try to restrain myself.

The other thing is, now that Nanowrimo is over and November too (the two shall be forever fixed together in this post) it is now December! December is here, and you know what that means! Advent began last Sunday! Oh I love Advent! I love preparing for the birth of the Christ Child! Saying our Christmas novena each night as we gather around the Advent wreath and then singing ‘Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel.’ Well, we sing the first two stanzas; I don’t think we know the rest by memory! I love listening to Christmas music, and decorating our home. I love the nights with cold air coming in through my open window and looking out in the morning to see the pond just covered with a thin layer of ice! I do hope we will have snow soon!

And last of all, I do believe I shall share a song by Michael Buble that my Mom and I have both been enjoying. Now, of course, when I listen to it, I will always think of taking a drive somewhere with her, sipping coffee in the passenger side, and reading my book. Such lovely thoughts indeed!

Journaling Page

My Monday journaling page which I haven't posted until now!

Monday, November 28, 2011

Outside my window…It’s almost December already, just two more days, and it is surprising to look out my window and realize that it isn’t raining. The sky looks calm, with its unmoving clouds of light grey. Like someone who has cried all their tears and is now still and calm, listening to their own breathing, in and out, as they find they can cry no more. Why is it that rain and tears will always be compared as one? There are times when they seem very alike, when it feels like the clouds are crying down all their sorrows, but rain isn’t always like tears. I love rain, there is something so very beautiful about it, as if it were washing away all the dirt and grime and leaving the world clean and new once more. My very favorite short story by G.K. Chesterton is about looking at rain in that way; as a cleansing shower. There is something so very peaceful about listening to rain falling outside your window, listening to it falling on the rooftop and on the pond outside. There is nothing better than a hard rain shower, except we are always trying to avoid it. We ruin it by tucking ourselves under umbrellas and throwing coats over our heads so we are quite miserable if we get wet for all of our attempts otherwise. Next time it rains I think we should all walk out our door, throw up our heads and let the rain just fall down on us. Revel in the rain itself, go “singing in the rain”. Except it wouldn’t be that we were in love so we didn’t care how wet we became, it would be because we were in love with the rain itself, but enough about rain. It’s December, it’s not rain we’re peering out our windows hoping to see that’s snow. Snowflakes all white and sparkling and beautiful coming down, I wonder if we’ll see any soon?

I’m reading…a book by Georgette Heyer, which by the way I would really love to go read right now. I am beginning to want to start reading more Agatha Christie’s. I challenged myself, you know, to read all eighty-seven of her books. Just the fact that she had written eighty-seven books simply called to me, the fact that there were so many books by this author that I hadn’t read was like a challenging flag calling me to battle. I suddenly longed to be able to say, quite carelessly, “oh yes? Agatha Christie? I’ve read a few of her books…all of them I believe.” I printed out a list of titles and have been working my way through them, highlighting as I go. I think my currant count was thirty-four but I shall have to go back and count again, it’s been a while. My favorite is still “The Secret Adversary” mostly because of the main characters, Tommy and Tuppence. For me to love a book I must love the characters, I think that’s why my stories are always very character driven. Little to no plot (plot has always been a struggle for me) but my characters! They have my love, I love focusing on their personalities, their likes, their dislikes, little odd things that make them truly themselves. It’s interesting thinking about different people and what makes them unique and their own beautiful soul, and it’s because I love writing on that strain, my stories have always been very focused on the characters rather than on anything else.

I’m thinking…prepare yourself now, for this is the time where I am going to go off on a ranting monologue on NaNoWriMo. Once started I may never stop. You have been warned! First of all NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Best start at the very beginning you know. 50,000 words in a month, now that is a very large goal. For myself I set a smaller goal, half of the 50,000. I wanted to get to 25,000 words by the end of November. I have really never written that much on one story, and I’m almost there! Yes, dears, I know only two more days till December, as I have already stated above, but I only have 3,000 more words. Quite easy, really. Oh my! And I think this is the most I have handwritten on one thing before! I have been handwriting a lot on it, because we are on the road so much these days I have taken advantage of that and whenever we got in the car to go somewhere I would bring along paper and a pen and write and write. I really think this has been very good for my writing. The point of NaNoWriMo is that you write your first draft of a novel in a month without editing. To simply get yourself writing in large amounts and do your fanatic editing afterwards when you had actually gotten beyond that first paragraph. Which may not sound hard, but it is very. There were so many times I wanted to go back and use the backspace key unreservedly, and I must admit, there were a few times I did. I couldn’t help myself. Some of it was just too much for me, I had to change and erase. The inner editor forced me to do it! That nagging little editor just wouldn’t let me get past that paragraph back there, where I completely messed it up and so *hangs head ashamedly* I went back, and I changed it. I am a bad girl, I know, which is why the goal I set for myself was 25,000 rather than 50,000. Perhaps, who knows, next year I might make it to the full 50,000! 

Stylish Blogger Award

Oh my! It’s been a long time since I have posted anything! This is something I must fix, and quickly. Prepare yourself for a storm of posts with topics on everything and anything!

First of all, I just have to make reference to Victoria’s post where she was so very sweet as to “award” me with the “stylish blogger award” *warm fuzzies* http://raindropsandmoonlight.blogspot.com/2011/10/stylish-blogger.html

I think this is such a sweet idea; it’s basically way of telling people how much you enjoy reading their blogs and how you look forward to their posts. (Which you aren't able to do very often. For the most part you can’t just hop from blog to blog, commenting on posts by going completely off topic and gushing about how much you love that person’s blog. You want to stay on topic and comment on the content of the post, because otherwise you would be spamming. )

This is why this made me so warm and fuzzy and happy. It’s such a delightful feeling to know someone is reading your posts and enjoying them. When I saw her post I went running about the house with the laptop clutched in my hands “Do you see? Do you see?” yes, I was rather proud and quite bouncy and excited!

Now, the rule is I must now tell you seven things about myself, so *prances*

1.   I play both the piano and the violin. I have played the violin much longer, though at the present I am rather rusty on both due to *lowers voice* alackofpracticing. My favorite sheet music to play from is the ‘Phantom of the Opera’ for the violin. Really, the music for the ‘Phantom of the Opera’ just gives me little thrills.

2.   I am very bad at managing time. This is something I need to work on. I am little miss la de da and I’m always so busy thinking up stories, blog posts, or poetry I often forget there is such a thing as time at all…which can be bad…because you end up late for things.

3.   I love pretty scarves. Whether they are warm and knit or cool and flouting. They make me happy.

4.   Sharp pencils! I love sharp pencils! There is nothing better than a really sharp pencil writing those first words on a page.

5.   I have always loved bunnies. I have numerous little stuffed animal bunnies around but the one I love very best would be the one that stays forever in my room, she is up there right now, sitting floppily on my bookshelf. I named her Dr. Emma Rose Cottontail and I still love her, though the velvet on her nose is now rough, and her soft fur is now worn from limitless cuddling.

6.   My favorite book is Persuasion by Jane Austen. You just knew Jane Austen would make her way into this post somehow, didn’t you? Yes, I am obsessed.

7.   I love tea parties. For my birthday almost every year growing up we had a tea party, where we all dressed up in pretty dresses and sipped tea from lovely teacups.

Now the next thing you are supposed to do is to pass on this award to five other bloggers. I think you are supposed to choose people who have not been given this award already, but don't think I know enough blogs to pick and choose. So I'm not going to worry about whether or not they have already been given it, but use it as a way to tell them how much I like their blogs. I shall choose my very favorite blogs, the ones I love, whether they have been given this award or not, just to say how much I really do love reading what they write!

 Adela’s blog was the first blog I ever really fell in love with. One of the first reasons I started one of my own. I’ve always loved hers. The Artist's Desk

Victoria’s is definitely the one I haunt the most. The one I am constantly checking to see if she has posted something new recently. I love every one of her posts. Raindrops and Moonlight 

Madeline’s posts always inspire me to do some deep thinking, some real contemplating, and she always makes me laugh! Invisible Insanity

Imogen’s blog, which I have just started reading *prances* I love finding new blogs! Especially such lovely ones Dancing with Dragonflies

And though I know Jocy will never read this, I have to add her blog since I don’t think my list would be complete without hers. Seeking a Vocation

Fall Rambles

I’m thinking…this morning I feel in a very rambling mixed up mood; one of those moods where I go rambling from one topic to the next with very little warning. Who knows what sparks such a mood, it’s such a pleasant mood where I feel I could write and write about this that and everything. Write about simple nothings, let my pen dwell on silly little things and find things to ramble on about on them. It’s one of those days. I lean back in my chair, my fingers hovering over the keyboard and I wriggle expectantly thinking about all the things I could write upon. Oh I do think today I shall skip from subject to subject and not try to hinder myself, be warned!

I’m listening to...the Regina Spektor radio on Pandora, at the moment ‘Mr. Blue’ is playing, somehow this type of music is fitting with my mood right now. It matches with my mood; it’s peaceful, rather quirky and just a bit rambling. It’s very good writing music, most music is hard to write to, it’s distracting- you tend to go to thinking about the song playing and stop thinking about what you are writing- but this music plays in the background as you write away. Your thoughts flitter from this to that, and when you come to a pause, one of those moments where you sit back searching for a word or a sentence that will express what you wish it to, you can wander into listening to the song playing and wander back into your thoughts while listening. Sometimes Regina Spektor’s songs seem to flout of into nonsense that doesn’t seem to make any sense, and I’m not sure why but I like that. It seems rather strange that I like that, because for the most part I don’t like nonsense, Alice in Wonderland sort of nonsense. I’ve never liked that sort of thing- Alice in Wonderland has always just seemed so odd to me, so weird and strange. I like fairytales and fantasy, both of which can be filled with nonsense and I enjoy it, but I don’t like odd. I think it’s that I like pretty nonsense. I like nonsensical images that play with one’s imagination, but I don’t like strange or weird images, and I think why I like Regina Spektor’s type of nonsense is because even when it steps into nonsense it just flows. Her lyrics flow away into un-understandable poetry where the syllables are even and it has just the right amount of rhyming. So even when it doesn’t make sense it flows- it sounds beautiful to the ear- and I love the background music that flouts along and is relaxing and at the same time thought inspiring. Beautiful nonsense, it’s like those times when you feel like writing about the flower on the hilltop with butterflies and bees and suddenly snowflakes flutter around the flower; winter mixing with spring. Nonsense- but nonsense that leaves you with a beautiful image in your head. Yes, it is very good writing music.

Outside my window…Even as I write more and more morning sunshine is peeking through the clouds. When I first began the sky was a dark gloomy grey but the clouds are breaking and showing a white side to themselves. They break and they show glimpses of blue sky and sunshine. Not a warm sunshine, the sunshine of spring or summer, but a chill brisk sunshine that comes with fall. Oh! As I look out my window a little golden brown leaf fluttered down and landed there on the grass! Oh I do love fall! I love windy cool days, yes, I love the wind! I think I’ve said this before, and maybe I’m simply repeating myself- sometimes I find myself doing that…I wonder if this was something I’ve actually written or said before, if it was something I had put into words, or simply a thought that had gone swirling through my head one day. Thoughts tend to come to me like that, and I will play with them and let them simmer and swirl as I do other things, and then I will be writing or talking to someone and the thought will come back and I will wonder if I’ve put this thought into words- but today I don’t mind repeating myself. It doesn’t really matter if this is a thought I’ve had while shelving books at the library, or if this is a sentence I’ve put into voice in one of these journaling pages before. I don’t think I could ever grow tired of writing about fall and the little golden leaf fluttering to the ground, or the little bird landing on the branch above the pond and setting it bouncing up and down. I am sometimes hesitant of writing all these thoughts because of a fear of growing monotonous and repetitive, if one doesn’t have anything new to say one shouldn’t say anything at all, right? But sometimes talking about all those old thoughts, they grow into something new, they grow fuller and better thought out, and so if I wish to dwell on an old thought and write about it I think I will let myself unrepentantly! Here I come back to my original thought of how much I love watching the wind, and just fall! I love watching the trees sway to that fall wind and gently letting loose of their tight hold to their golden foliage! Oh that’s a word that I just love the sound of foliage! It just quivers and vibrates of poetry and beautiful words grouped together like beads slipped together on a string, with ‘foliage’ being that lovely beautiful bead that somehow stands out among all of those other lovely words. Somehow that words gives you in an instant a lovely image in your mind’s eye of a stretch of trees- a large grouping of them- all with golden orange and red leaves rustling together and coming off in large swirls that blow around and around that grouping of trees in the empty hillside and coming to rest on the grass. Oh dear, I think I’ve really rambled on a bit much here and should perhaps move on to the next prompt and try to be a bit more to the point and direct, but it’s just so much fun to ramble on, isn’t it? Where is the fun in an ugly outline numbered neatly from one to three? There isn’t- for the author at least!

From the kitchen…I have just gone and refilled my cup with coffee, more for the feel of the warm cup in my hands as I contemplate my thoughts and for the delicious smell of coffee flouting around the room as I put those thoughts into words, for the general ambiance of the coffee, rather than the coffee itself. There was something about the atmosphere in the air of this fall day as I ramble away writing on my journaling page that called for a steaming cup of coffee beside me as I mutter away. Oh it’s simply a lovely day all around!

I’m wearing…There isn’t much I can ramble on about in describing what I’m wearing, is there? Wrong! You belittle my powers of talking about nothing! I could say flatly I’m wearing a long sleeved-hooded shirt, jeans and a pair of slippers, but I can add that my jeans have a stain of flour that I rub from making pizza yesterday, that I rub off after spotting it just now. That my shirt is warm and cozy and navy blue in color, it feels like it could be a sweater it’s so warm and cozy yet it isn’t, and my slippers? What can I possibly say about slippers that could stretch a description of them more than stating they are indeed slippers? Oh the best for last, dear reader, the best for last! *takes a sip of coffee to prepare self for the ensuing burst of words* these slippers are slippers from a few Christmases past, because they are Christmas slippers they are quite obviously colors that speak of Christmas: red and white. The main body of the slippers is red and of a knit fashion, as if someone decided to turn their knit sweater into slippers and the white belongs to a fuzzy material that pokes around the edges and warms my feet. This fuzz has a queer way of deciding to leave my slippers and flout around me when it chooses to escape. It is fuzz that is quite interesting to watch as it drifts here and there, never quite setting. Now it sounds like I am shedding hair like some little doggy wandering around, but that is not so, you see it is just a very little bit of fuzz, but fuzz is worth describing in my opinion, even just the little bit that comes of my slippers, so I did so.

I’m reading…at the moment I’m still reading Jane Eyre, Oh for the days when I read Pride and Prejudice in a day, because I was able to spend all of time reading! Oh to be able to do that today! But no, this is a busy little life and I’m a busy little girl, with things to do and places to run off to and only a little bit of my free time to dispose to reading. Why I must even think and choose what I want to do most with my free time! I have to solemnly weigh the pleasures of cuddling up with a book, a ball of yarn and knitting, a sketch to work on, or piece of paper and a pencil and words to put into sentences, oh writing! One thing I have noticed that has come as a consequence of reading Jane Eyre, is the habit of addressing you, dear reader, as just that “dear reader” it is quite pleasure-full I must admit. It gives you the feeling that you are addressing a large group of people all interested in what you are saying, oh dear it is a bad habit inspired to give pleasure to one’s vanity! Bad habit, indeed! Dear reader, who readeth this (you see how it is a bad habit? It inspires me to add “eths” and “iths” to words that do not call for it, as if I were aspiring to mimic Shakespeare in his speech!) you must forgive me for “selfishness must always be forgiven, you know, for there is no hope of a cure” Oh dear did I just quote that insufferable creature ‘Mary Crawford’? Oh my! I really must stop this addiction to ‘Jane Austen’ before it gets out of hand (I think it already is, dear reader) because I can quote- not only quotes that I love from characters I like, but I can quote  bad and quite stupid sentences by character nobody is meant to like or respect at all! Moving on now…

One of my favorite things…I sit contemplating this thought, one of my favorite things, my eyes glance up to the wall where I have hung the fan I bought in Spain, it is red with flowers painted all across it- one of my favorite things…oh the color red! It is so bright, bold and cheerful! It makes a statement, bold and shocking! For the most part I like colors more laid back, gentle and sweet colors that are soothing and calming, but there is something about the color red as it stands out on my wall, and I have to say it’s one of my favorite things! Well, perhaps I should just say one of my favorite things is all colors, colors are so beautiful and I don’t know how you couldn’t! Perhaps not a very original statement, but just think how horrible it would be to be color blind! You wouldn’t see the beautiful colors that shine out there on this beautiful fall day! Not to see that golden orange color of the trees as the sun hits it! Oh if we could only always appreciate fully these little gifts that God has given us that we take so much for granted! “One of my favorite things” isn’t it sad that we really have to think about this question? Trying to come up with an interesting original answer- how about a very obvious one- like: being able to walk? Does anyone really say that? One of my favorite things is being able to walk? Unless you are in a wheelchair and you can’t do it anymore you take for granted walking like it was just something so every day and ordinary- which it is, and that’s the beauty of it! Have you ever stretched and paused for a moment “oh! Isn’t just amazing to be able to stretch out my arms like that?” I think we all need to spend a few moments in our days just thinking about things like that, feeling grateful for such amazing incredible things like life itself, walking, and stretching! We would all be so much happier in life if we would stop more and think about our little blessings that we take for granted. Stretch out your arms and wiggle your toes and think “Oh it really is a beautiful thing to be alive!”

I’m creating…up in my bedroom, under my bed a stack of paper lies. I have begun a sketch that may turn into something- but it may not- I never quite know. All I know is that the image for the sketch was just beautiful in my head and I won’t ever be able to capture the sparkling image that had come to me! I will try though, the idea of it is to have a staircase that starts out as a marble looking flight of stairs with a cream railing and rounded steps and it slowly fades into a concrete ugly looking set of steps like one sees everywhere, the type leading up to a grocery store. On the top of the stairs a girl is going to be standing, dressed in a trailing regency gown and a hand on the banister, and at the bottom a few “modern” young people will be standing around looking bored in skin tight skinny jeans and short-shorts, and I’m going to write at the bottom something like “Did you ever feel you were born in the wrong time period?” in a sort of script-y print, it was just a pretty image in my head the way it fades from the marble banister at the top of the staircase to the hard metal at the bottom.

A few plans for the rest of the week…why is it that in this moment I don’t want to think of any plans? Normally I love thinking up plans of what I am going to do with the rest of my week, but right now I don’t want to think of any. I am nearing the very end of all prompts I have for this journaling page, but I want to stretch it out as long as I can. I want to keep sitting here, conscience free, writing out all my thoughts and ideas in this moment- not thinking of what I shall do in tomorrow or the next day! I’ve had such a pleasant time of it this morning writing on, sipping my coffee and listening to soft music in the background! What a beautiful morning it’s been!

Around the house…oh around the house so many things I would like to do! How can I narrow it down to just one? I think I want most of all to curl up in that nice comfortable chair in my room and work out the plotline a little more in a story that is flitting around in the recesses of my mind. Yes, I’m still in my rambling mood, my mood for writing and I think that’s how I will be all day long! Ah well! I shall simply wait for evening to come, after all the business of the day and then I shall curl up in the darkening light and write then. For now around the house I will finish this journaling page and then I will go over to the table and work on Math with Eli. Put on my little granny glasses grab some knitting and sit in the corner of a little chair tutoring my little brother in a math lesson. The little granny math tutor I shall become! Why does that image suddenly appeal to me? I think I would quite like being a little granny in a rocking chair with some knitting and snow white hair…oh dear-y-o! *contemplates* I do believe I like the image but I shouldn’t like the actuality…well I would…but you see, I should like pretending to be a little old granny but not really one…

A Picture thought I’m sharing…Here I go scuffling outside, getting my little cloth slippers all sopping wet with dew so that I can get some pictures of the view outside my window, those pictures seem to be the best way to close up this journaling page. Pictures of a gentle fall day outside, to close up my rambling, wandering contemplations of my morning, my rambling, wandering lengthy contemplations! Pictures of the subtle indications of fall! Oh my! In uploading the pictures from the camera I found a picture Mom had taken of our fall table setting, I do believe I shall add that as well, it just goes so perfect! Notice the battered copy of Jane Eyre in the background? So picture credit goes to my creative Mama with that one :p That sums up my entire journaling page in one simple picture. Remember the saying “A picture says a thousand words” (I may have the wording off just a bit but close enough) that single picture sums up this entire long journaling page of words…which is now…3,008…my! I need to stop writing now!