My Top Ten Stupidest Posts (Except I Couldn't Choose Just Ten, So There are Eleven)

This morning, Sadie and I were playing our instruments together, like the devout scholars we are, and oddly enough, we shortly found ourselves on the computer.  To keep up the image in my own mind of being a studious personage, I showed Sadie the booklist of my blog.  For whatever reason, (blame Sadie) I found myself looking at my old posts.  They were so incredibly earnest and stupid that I laughed until my sides ached.  With a lot of help from Sadie, I managed to narrow down the ten stupidest posts.  I'm afraid that I have to just use bullet points, because a number of them showed an un-ratable lack of sense. ("Exactly!" Sadie mutters behind my back,) (I am antagonizing you, Sadie)

• Poor Forsaken Mia: Self pity is hideous.  It truly is.  However, if you say it just in the right way, you sound so idiotic, that people are too busy laughing to be judgmental.  Enjoy.
• Fight For Faith: This doesn't make me wince as much, but it is rather funny.  I remember carrying a notebook around with me wherever I went importantly writing this book (there are more chapters), and I thought it would be the next great novel.  I wrote this a month or two after I turned ten.  (Please note the abrupt entrance and the funny phrase, "but I could tell by the shape of the window curtains...")
• Evil Evening: I sure wrote a lot about my burns.  (I have written at least three posts where the soul intent was to inform you about them) And I was such a terrible poet when I wrote about them!
• If I Wasn't Ten: Wow.  Note to readers, I do NOT still want a rock, or the authority to dye a sock, or even the authority to dissect a platypus.
• Summer!: I really couldn't make up my mind in this poem about whether I loved or hated summer.
• A Spring Hopeful "Photo Shoot": Ah, me in my stupidity.  Ignore what I said in the beginning.  I knew NOTHING about photo shoots.  Also, please note the last picture, the way I was very casually, not forcedly at all, leaning back on our pine tree.
• We Go Furniture Shopping: Forty-one pictures.  Forty-one pictures!!! Forty-one pictures... all of which were a) of terrible quality b) for a made-up world which is interesting to pretty much only us and c) of used furniture.  "Here are some of our favorites..." I said.  The shop, mind you, was not that large.  I probably photographed over  half of the furniture in the entire store.  
• Cream of Wheat And Its Uses: This is one of those posts that is very useful if you are stranded on desert island with a surplus of cream of wheat, have no instructions,  but have a computer so that you can look up how to pour water or milk into it to make it.
• I Do Nothing: ...except make myself look stupid.
• A Photo Guide to My Day: Look how interesting seeing Every. Photographable. Moment. of my afternoon is.
• A Tribute: I personally do NOT think this is funny IN THE LEAST but Sadie does.  (We don't really need eleven posts, do we, Sadie?)

(Please, Dear Reader, Do Not Read This If You Ever Suffer From Book-Induced Boredom)

• The Book Thief (Markus Zusak) ★★★★
• The Fault in Our Stars (John Green)★★★
• Paper Towns (John Green)★★★
• Looking for Alaska (John Green)★
• An Abundance of Katherines (John Green)★★
• Great Spy Stories (Allen Dulles) ★★★★(4 1/2)
• The Scent of Water (Elizabeth Goudge)★★★★★ (5 +)
• Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe) ★★★★★
• The Swiss Family Robinson (Johann David Wyss) ★★★★★
• Island Magic (Elizabeth Goudge) ★★★★★
• Northanger Abbey (Jane Austen) ★★★★
• David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)★★★★★
• Great Expectations (Charles Dickens) ★★★★★
• Green Dolphin Street (Elizabeth Goudge)★★★★★
• Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens) ★★★★ (4 1/2)
• Hanna Coulter (Wendell Berry)★★★★★(5+)
• Uncle Tom's Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe)★★★★★ (5+)
• Leap Day (Wendy Mass)★★

These are the books that I've read so far, in 2014. They can be rearranged, in my favorites, as...

1. The Scent of Water (Elizabeth Goudge); Hanna Coulter (Wendell Berry); and Uncle Tom's Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe)
2. The Swiss Family Robinson (Johann David Wyss)
3. David Copperfield (Charles Dickens); Great Expectation (Charles Dickens)
4. Great Spy Stories (Allen Dulles)
5. Island Magic (Elizabeth Goudge)
6. Green Dolphin Street (Elizabeth Goudge
7. Northanger Abbey (Jane Austen)
8. The Book Thief (Markus Zusak)
9. The Fault in Our Stars (John Green)
10. Paper Towns (John Green)

(Okay, here I'm just prioritizing my least favorites)

   

   11. An Abundance of Katherines (John Green)

   12. Leap Day (Wendy Mass)

   13. Looking for Alaska

I've been reading a lot more, thanks to my (unfortunately) "hibernating" computer, and I've really enjoyed reading and writing down in my beautiful black leather notebook what I think of them. As I've read, the standard five star system has altered. When I started rating what I read, I was too generous with my four and five stars and so, as a result, I had to add halves and pluses etc. 

The Scent of Water I loved because the end (SPOILER WARNING!!!) did not come with the problems being resolved. Things didn't work out, but it was okay.  The people that loved each other didn't get married.  The lost child didn't get adopted.  The lonely wife was still not really loved her husband. But the ending pointed me heavenwards, because in heaven, everything would be resolved.  As I've mention, the people that loved each other didn't come to a physical union on earth, they were both tethered to other things.  But in heaven they could love each other and Jesus and everybody else too for all eternity.

Hanna Coulter reshaped my view of the reason an author writes a book in the first person. The protagonist, Hanna, is, in the book, writing a memoir and commentary on her life. Her life is vitally interesting, yet realistic to hear about.  Wisdom is scattered within the pages, and it was a fantastic read. 

Uncle Tom's Cabin, which I finished two days ago, was one of the first books that I completely and utterly could not put down.  I carried it wherever I went and read far too late into the night.  I loved it, and Uncle Tom, and Aunt Chloe, and it as a whole.  It was my Mom's favorite book of all time, and now it is one of mine.

Sorry, dear reader! Now you are probably bored.  Now let's get to the FUN bits. CRITICISM! 

Leap Day is a book that I finished about ten minuted ago.  I won't deny that it was very engaging and, as a result, I read it in a period of hours.  However, it talked with too much frequency, like every John Green book I've read, about things that I was NOT comfortable hearing about.  I read modern novels to try to get a different perspective on teenage life, and possibly to learn something, but I learned nothing and was very uncomfortable with Leap Day.

John Green's books as a whole make me uncomfortable.  For a while I was very interested in him from his CrashCourse youtube channel, but I started to observe things about him.  I noticed that he was barely contained, sometimes.  Like the way he talked about things, the very funny but borderline inappropriate jokes, and the blatantly inappropriate jokes that I tried to ignore.  His books were like that, but without borders.  Now, don't get me wrong.  John Green is, in my opinion, very smart, very funny, and very well read.  His books were some of the better written novels I've encountered,  but they were not appropriate.

The Fault in Our Stars was really interesting.  The heroine, a (beautiful, but didn't think she was beautiful, blah, blah, blah) girl named Hazel, is dying from lung cancer and has a few years (at best) to live.  She is depressed until she meets a "hunk" and falls in love.   This hunk, admittedly, is smart, and kind, and good, and (sometimes) childlike.  I really liked this book until  BAM! they share a bed for a night when mom is away. 

Paper Towns has various profanity and had some bad scenes and was mediocre. An Abundance of Katherines had some really bad scenes and swear words.  But Looking For Alaska took the prize.  There was drinking, smoking, swearing, and explicit scenes, (I've been told, there were times when I had to skip pages)

Please, don't get me wrong. I desperately wanted to love John Green's books, but I couldn't.  Aside from all the bad things, they were so devoid of hope.  John Green has once been a chaplain, and so presumably he had once been a Christian, but he is not now.  The endings are really only empty people with empty lives.

Wow! That wasn't a downer at all.  Fortunately for you, now sleeping reader, I remember what I was going to write about before I started blabbering on.  It was that we are going to Prague! Today! In about two or so hours! Possibly Less! 

For y'all that are concerned that we're cutting class, our school board has made that impossible.  You see, we didn't get spring break, and so we're kind of distributing those days and days of other holidays differently, so that our breaks are a little bit off.

How does Prague relate to books? Well, I though that I'd make a list of the books I'm bringing. I think I will do so. And so I will.

• My Bible
• My What the Bible is All About (Henrietta Mears)
• Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall (Wendy Mass)  I know, I know.  Another Wendy Mass book in a six hour period. But my brain is tired. Now, hush!
• A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
• Pilgrim's Progress (John Bunyan)
• The Scarlet Letter (Nathanael Hawthorne)

Yikes! My Mom says an hour to departure! I will try to post picture on instagram!

Instagram: One Week Later!

My Dear Friends,

There has been a "modification" in my life.  Last week I got an instagram account.  Ever since Sadie turned thirteen and I turned twelve and four-fourths years old, Sadie has been into instagram.  Partly as a reaction to her love of it, and partly because I have a longstanding feud with "selfies", I have been rather outspoken about my disdain for the whole "social media" concept.

However, due to circumstances beyond my control, my chief source of email checking was taken away from me, and so I needed a new way to stay connected.  In a moment of weakness, I allowed myself to make an account, and ever since I have rather enjoyed it.

My instagram name, (if anybody wants to know) is miasusan6, not because I was born in the sixth month of the year, or because my birthday is the sixth day of the year, or even because I live in the sixth most tire consuming city in the country, but simply because I really like the number six. (This love, I might mention, is the sort of pure love that only comes through mathematics, and I would write quite a bit more about the majesty of it and its multiples, but that would bore you.)

I have really (#excusetheitalics) enjoyed keeping up with my friends, looking at their pictures, and being back "in the loop" (she said, hopelessly out of date)  It has been really fun to find gems of wisdom and pearls of beauty in my friends' accounts.  A sunset here, a Bible verse there, and an overcast sky over the horizon.  That makes it totally worth it. However, there is ugly in Instagram.  Praise the Lord, my friends don't add to the ugly, but it is there and it looms like a cloud over the entire experience.  The ugly consists of immodest selfies, just plain selfies, and mean comments, just to name a few.

I have really grown to like Instagram, and look forward to it every day.  It was spooky the way it disarmed me.  Five minutes into my account, and I was hooked.  Every day, the alarm bells in my head get lulled into a false sense of security, and I need to mentally awaken them.  Please, dear friends, keep your alarm bells alert, also.

P.S In the present moment, I am working on a review of The Fault in our Stars by John Green.  It is wildly popular - Never has that good old quote from Julius Caesar had more fame! And I really enjoyed the plot and was emotionally struck at the ending.  But I'm not sure that it was one of those good, pure things that I was supposed to be putting into my mind, and so I think that my book review will be directed towards parents so that I, a teenager, can tell them the pros and cons of what is all the rage.

Goals for 2014 (Amid my Rambling Thoughts)

1.     Be Less Lazy. When I posted this twenty days late, I knew that I had an issue.

2.     Eat No Gluten or Sugar.  Apparently, the root of all my “digestive issues” is Gluten, coupled with sugar, so everything worth eating is off limits to me.  Yay.  Today is our fifteenth day of “Rabbit Food.”

3.     Run Another Half Marathon. I lost a ton of ground because I am lazy, and so now I get to experience the training for a half marathon all over again, from the beginning! Yay!

4.     As for my fourth, and last, goal, it is quite important. Read no More Brain Candy Books. This includes 90% of what I read, and so this will be hard. Very Hard. On the bright side, I only intend to not read my babies until June fifteenth. 

So, as of today, I officially state this this is Day 1 of The Brain Candy Fast: Endured By Mia.  The Brain Candy Fast: Endured By Mia will be hard and painful.  In fact, it will be wrenching.  I will be suffering, so honor my sacrifice by spreading word of it and its nobility wherever you go.  That will be my only comfort.

On another note, I have been falling deeper and deeper in love with my bow as each day goes by, (Thank you, Bekah!) but I am in deep distress. The Netherlands is a petite country.  To give an example, our backyard is slightly bigger than an American bedroom. My bow is a wondrous weapon that could be used to kill many small furry creatures including fat puggles, so I am not allowed to shoot it in the house or outside in our backyard. However, nobody really enjoys watching me ruthlessly take down surprised pigeons, non-existent squirrels, and random dogs, so nobody goes with me to the field often so that I can shoot.

(Actually, truth be told, I have taken down no small furry animals. Namely squirrels, which don’t live in the Netherlands. Also rabbits. I haven’t shot any rabbits. Or dogs. Or pigeons. I’m working on being capable of hitting a side of a house right now. Then I’ll work on hitting inanimate targets. But it’s only a matter of time, squirrels…)

That’s all.

Books!

As of yesterday, it has been brought to my attention that I love books. Of course, I already knew that I loved books from past experience, but my mind was becoming squishier and gushier as each week passed because of the lack of new material, which was entirely my fault.

Over time, I have developed a nasty habit of re-reading ten or so series of books over and over again. I had fallen into a funk of reading only already memorized material, and my brain was starting to get lazy. However, thankfully my mother saved me from drowning in my sluggish-ness.

Every Friday, we study with gusto a passion assigned by my mom. Thanks to constant begging, my obsessive interest, "Wool-Working," turned out to actually be the Passion that I studied every Friday. However, after only two passion weeks, I exhausted all the literary resources related to wool and my mom changed my passion to Shakespearean Literature, which I have now immersed myself in.

My mom was really great in it all. Really. Having chosen a passion for me that was satisfactory, she was so thrilled that she bought be a series of lectures on understanding Shakespeare, (which are very interesting) and even promised me my very own Norton Shakespeare, which I am now buying with my birthday money. Thank you, Mom!

After my brain started to get on the treadmill, and burn off all the damage that reading only brain candy had done to my mind, I realized that I like books, and have had a book in my hand ever since.

My mom and I are mutually delighted, and she has already shown me several reading lists to read in preparation for college. "Don't worry," she reassures me when I get slightly anxious at having to read 500 books, "You have five years."

On a somewhat related note, now there will be an updated page on the blog which tells all that I have read. With a little prodding from a certain somebody, I will also try to post the lists of books that I will be reading in preparation for college. (Which is five year from now.)

CHICKEN COOP! The Sneak Peak

Chicken
Coop

The Almost Entirely True story about the Drama behind closed doors

SNEAK PEAK

Chapter One- Part One

The unnamed, as of the present moment, looked about him with wonderfully cute but malicious, beady eyes.  He was unnamed and unloved, but what cared he for love or names?  Love was nothing and names were simply tools that could be used to inject terror into the hearts of its hearers.  All he knew, in the moment, was that he was evil.  From his birth he was destined for evil, and he embraced his fate and cherished it.

The seconds and minutes passed, but they seemed hours to he that was still so young.  As the time ticked away, a thought bubbled from within him like the start of a fountain, getting bigger and more certain every second.  He was male.  Before that moment he had never really thought about gender, but as the fountain of sureness grew to the size of a geyser within him, he knew it with as much conviction as he knew that he was evil.  He was still growing so much inside, his little spirit still at the stage where it was growing in leaps and bounds, but he knew that the core of his soul was composed of two pillars: his masculinity, and his wickedness.  Those pillars would stand there, strong and steady, for as long as he lived.

Knowing now what it was to discover, he sat there hungrily, waiting in delicious suspense for his next flash of inspiration.  All of a sudden, he had it. It had flashed inside him like a lightning bolt, lighting up his inner being.  But once the quick burst of light ended, he felt cold and empty.  This realization wasn’t half as welcome as the other one had been. It made him feel insignificant and useless, like a worm.  Or rather something that eats worms, he thought bitterly.  And he had been sure that he had been destined for great evil.  His fluffy little wings dropped in sad despair.  For he was a chicken.

He tried to comfort himself.  No, you aren’t a chicken.  You are a chick, and I daresay that when you grow up you will be a very fine rooster.  But there was no help for it.  He was poultry, he was a farm animal, he was an eater of worms.  There wasn’t any point in living.  For, as living deli meat, he couldn’t do any real evil in the world.

Then, his third flash of genius came upon him.  It dawned upon him that being a fowl didn’t dictate his identity.  It didn’t matter who he was, where he came from, or even what he was.  As long as his heart was in the wrong place, he had unlimited potential.  The sagging head and fluffy wings were raised.   ray of purest sunlight seemed to fall upon the adorable little head, making the golden fluff shine like a creature from heaven.  He raised his beautiful little face to the light delighting in his potential.  Life once again was worth living.





Note: I'd love your input, as I'm considering sending it to somebody, so please email me at kittymeowie@gmail.com if you want to read the rest of the story.

A Rainy Day

(Note to Readers: This was written on a rainy day but has nothing whatsoever to do with rainy days)
Dear Friends,

Unfortunately, yet again, I am started out a post along the lines of "I'm so sorry that I have't been posting! Please forgive me!" However, I decided to skip the start of the post, especially the lines which I just wrote, and so here is the middle of the post without the start.

(Note to Readers: I just confused myself as much as I did you.)

Anyway, life here in this rainy little country has continued in a blessedly normal , routine fashion. Sadie and I do endless school work, we eat food, we sleep, and we make almost daily trips to the yarn shop. It is good that some things in life don't change.

But note, dear readers, that I said our lives were back to normal, which meant of course that we had  a few surprises, some good, some bad.

The first of the said surprises was the illnesses which followed us like a large, evil cloud. Several weeks after we arrived in safety from America, my mom got food poisoning, Abe caught a stomach flu virus, and then I got it, Sadie got it, Ella got it, my Dad got it (on our birthday), and my mom briefly got it. That was definitely a surprise.

The other of the surprises was that we got a trampoline! The entire house was thrilled at its arrival, (Barnabas included) and we are standing on pins and needles in anticipation, waiting till we assemble it tomorrow.

On an entirely different note that you don't have to read about, it was my birthday last Sunday! As we did last year, Sadie and I made each others' cakes and a surprise birthday party that scared us out of our wits made it a very memorable birthday. One of the chief presents, curtesy of Mom and Dad, which I received, was a chair, which in my opinion is the best chair in the whole of the universe.

I could write, and index have written in my journal, sheets and sheets devoted to praising the glory of that chair- its graceful curves, its warm color, the way it molds to my back - but instead I shall just show you, and then you can post comments praising it too.

The other presents I got from my parents were skeins of yarn. I have been knitting secret items, so I have been going through a lot of yarn. For the sake of my pocket book, I asked for yarn for my birthday, and, you'll see why, Sadie and Dad didn't get everything on the list.

(Note to my dear readers: I am not selfish or greedy. Really. Or at least not very selfish or greedy. It's just that yarn is expensive.)

Mia’s Birthday List

(Regarding Yarn, Needles, and other oddments close to her heart)

       

*Note to Sadie and Dad (In British English): Items with an * in front of them are the closest to Mia’s heart and thus need to be in the foremost of the shopping list; items with a ^ in front of them are still very close indeed and very dear to Mia’s heart but are slightly, (only slightly) less dear than the former, and items with a ° next to them are still important of an important nature to Mia, but are of the sort that Mia would be able to muster a greater grace in not receiving them than the previous. However, Mia, of course, is so entirely thankful to be getting gifts at all, that she would be delighted to receive anything. (A Pipos gift card would also not go amiss)

Note to Sadie and Dad (In American English): I want the most = *, I want quite badly = ^, I want = °

I.         ° 3 skeins of cream-colored “molly wol” ☐☐☐

II.         ^ 1 (large) skein of black, chunky, wool yarn  ☐

III.         ^ 1 (large) skein of grey, chunky, wool yarn ☐

IV.         * 11 skeins of (matching) tweed-style chunky/bulky yarn: (matching my reading chair)

a.     3x 100g skeins in oatmeal-ish color ☐☐☐

b.     3x 100g skeins in blue-green☐☐☐

c.     3x 100g skeins in moss green☐☐☐

d.     2x 100g skeins in gray☐☐

V.         * 6 skeins of (matching) tweed-style chunky/bulky yarn: (matching the previous)

a.     1x 50g skeins in oatmeal-ish color☐

b.     2x 50g skeins in blue-green☐☐

c.     1x 50g skeins in moss green☐

d.     1x 50g skeins in gray☐

VI.         ° 5 skeins of warm brow molly wol ) ☐☐☐☐☐

VII.         ° 1 skein of Hema fine yarn for accent colors ) ☐

VIII.         ^ 4 skeins of worsted weight yarn

a.     2x cream☐☐

b.     2x royal blue☐☐

c.     4x self-cover buttons☐

d.     15in. square cushion pad☐

IX.         ^ 2x bulky blue Hema yarn ☐☐

X.         ^2x100g balls in white (worsted weight) ☐☐

XI.         ^1xAzure blue embroidery floss ☐

XII.         Knitting Neddles etc,

a.     ^Size 4mm Knitting Needles (U.S Size 6) ☐

b.     ^Size 2.25 mm Knitting Needles (U.S Size 1) ☐

c.     ^Yarn Bobbins☐

d.     ^16 in. square cushion pad☐

e.     a 1.4 mm crochet hook (U.S size 9)

XIII.         ^Simple beads, preferably clear, white or yellow

XIV.         ^Gift card to Pipos (in addition to or instead of some of these things)

XV.         ^You can choose! I would love several skeins of fun yarn in several different weight and texture that match. Also, some plastic meshing (Sadie, I showed you yesterday) would be awesome. ☐