My Two Blessings

My Brother - The Baron Yes, my brother is a Baron. On March 8 th , He and his wife were installed as the Baron and Baroness of Ered Sul. They are in charge of a mini city in itself, which encompasses 4 counties in Northern Arizona . He is also a Bard and writes and performs songs to entertain the masses. Plus, he does all the sword fighting and battles. The Baron and Baroness His Excellency has been a member of the Society for Creative Anachronisms (SCA) for the past twenty years or so. My parents, who live in Arizona , attended the Investiture ceremony, given ceremonial garb to wear and presented to the court. Aren't they cute! Congratulations Baron Christopher Fitzarthur and Baroness Lady Miana nic Chonnagain Long may they reign!

Blood Ties By Lori Armstrong I happened up First Offenders blog while exploring sites for writing advice.I loved the site, then lost it. Yes, I forgot to bookmark it, plus my history was only set up for one day. I tried finding it and due to pure stubbornness found it a week later. I made sure to bookmark it with a note to myself to “never never delete.” I have a habit of going through my bookmarks and doing a huge housecleaning. Then I regret it later, because of course, something will come up and I will mourn and hit myself on the side of the head, because I can’t find it again. I digress. First Offenders is a blog site for 4 mystery writers who got together and started in 2005: Lori Armstrong, Karen Olson, Jeff Shelby and Alisin Gaylin. They are amusing and informative and their books look pretty interesting. Lori’s first book, Blood Ties intrigued me due to the cover. I read through the reviews, Amazon and her website and even though the book looked good, I almost passed...

Spring Reading Thing March 20 - June 19 It's that time of year and Callapidder Days is hosting Spring Reading Thing 2008. I learned my lesson from the fall reading challenge and decided not to go overboard with my choice of books. During the last challenge, I discovered so many new and interesting books, like the Twilight Series, that I didn't get through my list. Books I had chosen seemed dry and pale in comparison to the new discoveries and I lost interest in my chosen books. So I'll start with just a few and may add more as time goes on. There are certain authors I have fallen in love with over the years: Bodie Thoene, Dee Henderson, Ted Dekker, Frank Peretti, Wayne Thomas Batson, Stuart Woods, Dale Brown, Terri Blackstock and John Grisham to name a few. Once I discover an author I like, I devour all their books. I'm enamored with Nora Roberts right now. Her trilogies are well written and leave you with such a warm, happy feeling at the end. I've rea...

Come One Come All Introducing The Stupendous Amazing The Fearly Frightening Humongous and Colossal loquacious and eloquent Absolutely wonderful and thoughtful James Godzilla Page

We had an exciting, yet noisy weekend. The Blue Angels were in town for the Air show and the roar of airplanes for the past few days has been very distracting. We are a couple miles from the air field and had the planes flying over our house and around our neighborhood Thursday through Sunday. No - we didn't get much done in the way of lessons Thursday and Friday. We took 100's of pictures with our new Nikon D80. Father had a blast clicking away. Our culdesac looked like a photographers convention with all the neighbors out with their long lense cameras shooting pictures.

When I first heard about the ruling from the California Court of Appeals that they had declared that almost all forms of homeschooling in California was in violation of state law, I actually didn't give it much thought. What crossed my mind was there they go again. I knew the ruling would be automatically appealed and until such time that someone came to my door to tell me I could no longer home school my child, I would just keep on doing what I have been doing. Most would think it is lackadaisical on my part to not be concerned, but I really wasn't. I guess it comes from being familiar with the legal process and knowing that one courts decision is not the final word. The Home School Legal Defense Association has decided they will file an amicus brief on behalf of all their member families (which we are part of) to ask for a proper interpretation of the law and if that fails, ask that the decision be depublished. Depublishing the law means the decision will apply...

What am I supposed to be doing right now? Reading! " Heart of Darkness " By Joseph Conrad It's assigned reading this week for my film and literature class. After I read it, then I have three discussion questions to answer: 1 - Discuss Marlow’s journey and the significance of the characters he meets: the manager, the accountant, the brick maker, Mister Kurtz. Discuss how the journey is both a psychological and geographic exploration into darkness and evil. 2 - Discuss the theme of obsession with relation to the characters in the novel. 3 - Describe your interpretation of Kurtz’ statement “The horror, the horror.” My professor likes it when everyone starts posting replies to the discussion questions early in the week. I've already disappointed him (once again) because I haven't done it yet. But as of yesterday, only one person had posted responses so I think I still safe. After we finish discussion the book, we have to watch Apocalypse Now a...

Here is something to amuse and amaze and possibly annoy. One humongous run on sentence from "A Remembrance from Things Past" By Marcel Proust. Good Luck! Their honour precarious, their liberty provisional, lasting only until the discovery of their crime; their position unstable, like that of the poet who one day was feasted at every table, applauded in every theatre in London, and on the next was driven from every lodging, unable to find a pillow upon which to lay his head, turning the mill like Samson and saying like him: "The two sexes shall die, each in a place apart!"; excluded even, save on the days of general disaster when the majority rally round the victim as the Jews rallied round Dreyfus, from the sympathy--at times from the society--of their fellows, in whom they inspire only disgust at seeing themselves as they are, portrayed in a mirror which, ceasing to flatter them, accentuates every blemish that they have refused to observe in themselves, and makes...

"Do or do not. There is no try" Remember those sage words of advice? James and I watched Empire Strikes Back today. Thoroughly enjoyed watching it. The first time the movie came out back in 1980, it had been exciting and entertaining. It still is. We are getting a kick out of watching the old star wars movies again with James. He has been reading all about the movies at starwars.com The dvd comes with both the old version and the new digitally remastered with extra scenes version. We watched the old version today and tomorrow we'll watch the new one and see what they added. In the newer version of Star Wars IV, they added a bunch of detail to Mos-Eisley spaceport with all kinds of alien animals and people in the background running around and additional detail to the bar scene. Just extra touches here and there. If you had never seen the movie before, you wouldn't know there were any differences. The movies are still as enjoyable today as they were ...