Autumn Modest Fashion Showcase - Day 1

Here's the outfit I wore to church this morning.  I dressed up a rather basic sweater and denim skirt with a piece of handmade (not by me - by a lady at a craft fair :D) jewelry and some cowgal boots.

∞ The Specifics ∞

Sweater - Merona / Got at Land's End (?)

Skirt - No Boundaries / Thrift Store

Necklace - Handmade with a picture jasper stone / Craft Show

Boots - Mossimo Supply / Target

∞ Today's modesty quote ∞

"Your dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman and loose enough to show you're a lady." 

- Edith Head

∞ Today's fashion tip ∞

If you're sick of dressing like everyone else, look for a handmade piece of jewelry or check out your local thrift store.  You never know where you might find treasures! Oh, and a lot of you sew, so that takes care of that problem :)

Love,

Ellyn

Here's our lovely host of the Autumn Showcase.  Join the fun!

http://marieloves00.blogspot.com

One Cutie

Here are some pictures of my little cousin, Sanny.  She's almost five, but really small for her age. :)

We were playing with the big blue ball on the trampoline....it's fun to hear her make up stories about the game.  

At one point she stopped dodging the ball and announced, without moving her lips, "I hash to shpit." "Ok," I said.  "You go right ahead."  

Another one of our favorite games to play when she comes over is toy horses....we've got all the babies in the "horse preschool".

She saw the above picture and said, "Who's that?" "You," I said.  "Oh." Silence.  "Why is my hair like that?" 

Have a great day! It's lovely, crisp, and 53ºF here :)

Love,

Ellyn

For Lack of Anything Else...A Tag

A Simple Tag :D 

When can you remember laughing the hardest?
When my brother was gesturing about something at lunch and he had a cup in one hand, so he poured his milk right over his shoulder.  

There was also the time when we had pea pods for lunch, and we were eating off these tupperware plates with a bump in the middle.  My other brother pushed down the bump, but then the bump popped up and all of his pea pod ends skyrocketed into the air.  The look on his face was soooo funny.  I'm laughing now thinking about it.  

What is one thing you're excited about for tomorrow?
My friend's birthday party! And going to ride my other friend's horse Honee this weekend.  

How many posters are in your bedroom?
Well...three, I think.  I also have a fancy horse decoration, a whiteboard, and a mirror.
What is one place you'd rather be right now?
Hm.  Wearing a long medieval dress and galloping away on a destriar.  So...middle earth?
What can you smell right now?
Air.  

I just smelled the computer to see what it would smell like.  Weird ;D
Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?
Uh....my friend Whisper, I think.  (fake name, obviously)

What is the corniest movie you've ever seen?
I...don't know...I thought When in Rome was kind of corny :)
If you could choose one food to live off the rest of your life, never mind nutrition, what would it be?
French fries!
Where are you going next?
Probably to practice banjo or have family prayers in the living room.

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I tag:

Anyone who is now in the middle of writing a book! :)

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By the way, I will probably be posting more infrequently because of a sudden increase of school.  :P I'll get to it, though, don't worry!

Love always,

Ellyn

Peace Like a River - Leif Enger

This book is like a blueberry muffin – tasty, yet filling. The writing style is the tasty part. It wraps the story in memoirs of the characters (like Dad walking on the hand of God), humorous narrative, and unique and creative descriptions of the characters. (“A practical build, big up top, one of those men you realize why it’s called a chest – you had the feeling he had all the tools he needed in there and all in working order and daily use…” pg. 227)

The characters are wonderful. I shall now introduce to you the Land family. Dad is a man of few words who has an amazing relationship with God. Davey is a driven, determined older brother. Swede is nine – a lovable kid sister who is a precocious writer and a lover of the Old West. Reuben leads the story in first-person – he is a deep thinking 11 year old who has suffered from asthma attacks ever since birth. Throughout the story, more characters come in who are equally well developed.

A “special-feature” to this book is the scattered collection of poetry written by Swede. Her hero, Sunny Sundown, battles his way through various western adventures in pursuit of the elusive villain, Valdez. The rhythmic poems inspire some funny talks between Reuben and his sister, and also tie in to the main plot line.

Because of all this, you realize why this book is so filling. You can only read so much at a time without being overwhelmed. My problem was that I took too long of a break between readings, so at one point I had completely forgotten who one person was and why the main character was mad at him. For this reason, the book is going on my re-read list.

Concerning the plot-line, it is a relatively simple one – outshined by characters and narrative. But don’t take that wrong, it is perfectly acceptable in such a case. When two boys attempt to take down Davey’s girlfriend Dolly in the locker room, Dad’s there to knock their heads together and shoo them away. The two boys, however, threaten to get back at the Lands, and during one of their tries, Davey shoots one boy clean dead.

Davey is taken to jail, in spite of the consternation of Reuben and Swede. When he escapes before his trial, the family sets out in an old Airstream trailer, in hope of seeing God work a miracle in their lives.

And in the end, He does the greatest miracle of all.

"A Memory of Trees"

I took advantage of the beautiful sunset and fall scenery these past couple days.  All the photos were taken in our yard.  Really, I only snapped the picture.  God's the real artist here.  :) Which one is your favorite?

Fire-Bottom Clouds :)

Grand Silhouette

Pond Reflection

Reeds against the water

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Just a Glimpse

Rainbow

Looking Upward

Fistful of Autumn

Looking Upward II

Black and White

Hannah from Aspire is hosting a black and white photo contest.  Go here to enter! :)

Here's my entry.

Character Organization

Thanks for all your comments on the last post! I was too excited to show you the organizing method, so I'm not going to wait until tomorrow.  :) My friend Sarah gave me this.  (She wrote a book about a blog, but she doesn't have a blog.)

Basically, you just give your characters labels.  A character can be more than one of these, too.  I'll give you the list and then explain the hard ones.

- Protagonist
- Antagonist
- Conscience
- Tempter
- Buddy
- Gamepiece (I added this one)
- Skeptic
- Emotionalistic
- Rationalist


Ok, so you have your basic ones at the top, and then after that is the conscience.  The conscience is like the person who makes the protagonist really think about what he/she's about to do.
The tempter is someone who tempts the protagonist. (duh.)  Sometimes it's the protagonist him/herself. The buddy is the best friend...I'd say that the buddy is usually a static character who doesn't change through the story, but I've seen books which don't have that.  Just an opinion there.
Gamepiece is the person who gets taken advantage of for the profit of the antagonist. (usually)

Here we come to the three that Sarah deems the most interesting.  They are also the three that I found hardest to understand.  The skeptic is the sarcastic person who questions what he/she observes.  The emotionalistic person just jumps right into things without thinking about them.  Goes by the "emotions", get it? :) The rationalist is the person who always has a well-thought out reason for what he/she does.

I'm getting really sick of saying he/she......

Anyway, I'll give you my lists for both stories.

Torn Heart

Protagonist: Jacha
Antagonist: Queen Livia, Lark, Vorrda
Conscience: Mala
Tempter: Jacha
Buddy: Violet
Gamepiece: None...Jacha, sort of....
Skeptic: Kiann
Emotionalistic: Jacha
Rationalist: Oren

New Story (Seaspear)

Protagonist: Ren
Antagonist: Captain Shiloh, SAMA
Conscience: Grailyn
Tempter: Captain Shiloh
Buddy: Grailyn
Gamepiece:  Merriam
Skeptic:  Grailyn
Emotionalistic:  Sahmo
Rationalist:  Grailyn

You can kind of tell which characters are more developed, can't you? :P But really, this is so much fun.  It makes me want to pull out my favorite books and classify all the characters.  So, hop to it, fellow writers! I'd love to hear what character classifications you do for your stories, if you'd like to share.  :)

Love,

Ellyn