like old times

Christmas has come and gone and I am back in the city for New Years. One of the highlights of my time spent at home was going back to a place I thought had been passed and gone forever. Not the place physically but a place of relationships. I went back to the barn for a visit and found Joan working there again (filling in for a few weeks) and began to work there again myself as much as possible (around family commitments etc). At first it was the same old catch up interaction that I have experienced every year since I left the barn but then we just naturally went back to the way we were for the years I worked there. I never expected to be able to do that and it made me really happy (and really sad that I am not there still). I love it when God surprises us with unlooked-for blessings. He is so good.

doggywog

I believe it was around this time last year that we welcomed Dundee into our home (literally at that point although she's an outdoor dog now). So to commemorate this anniversary, here's a picture of her taken last week.

struggling

It has been quite a while since I have posted a quote from Oswald Chambers. The end of today's entry from My Utmost for His Highest struck me especially because I often think about the reasons to read a book and benefits derived from such an activity:

The Author who benefits you most is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but the one who gives expression to the truth that has been dumbly struggling in you for utterance.

This along with a line at the beginning of the entry reminded me of a comment a friend made last night while discussion types of artists. He said that artists are either Mozarts and Beethovens: either ideas/inspirations come easily or they have to be worked out with a struggle. I definitely see myself more on the struggling side of the line. Unfortunately, in a lot of ways, I would rather not bother with the struggle which is why this following quote is pertinent to me:

If you cannot express yourself on any subject, struggle until you can. If you do not, someone will be the poorer all the days of his life.

Of course, I think this depends on the quality of the sentiment struggling to be expressed...

frozen chicken wire

from the bit of ice storm we had last week

Once more unto the quotes, dear friends...

I realize that I have been behindhand in writing out some of the quotes that I have been gleaning from books and because I am also slightly behindhand in the gleanings I feel a remedy of one might help the other. I have finished re-reading Emma and part of the time I had my quote/note book (I would combine the two words but am prevented by the difficulty stemming from their similarity) with me and so gleaned a few felicitous quotes. I love Austen's style and, although many of her turns of phrase are only seen perfectly when viewed in full context of the plot and what has gone before, I did manage to find some quotes that are quite as good when lifted from the pages and set by themselves.

Having been attending, for the past few months, country dances in my small town, I am finding that I understand and have experienced many of the feelings described as surrounding such events in Austen's work. I believe that I may have posted something further on this topic earlier so I will suffice it to say that now that I am in the habit of attending these dances I gladly put myself in the place of the young people mentioned in this quote:

It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successively, without being at a ball of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mind; - but when a beginning is made - when felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt - it must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more.

Being, as I am, interested in linguistics, grammar, and also the imagination, I laughed at the following quote:

Such an adventure as this, - a fine young man and a lovely young woman thrown together in such a way, could hardly fail of suggesting certain ideas to the coldest heart and the steadiest brain. So Emma thought, at least. Could a linguist, could a grammarian, could even a mathematician have seen what she did, have witnessed their appearance together, and heard their history of it, without feeling that circumstances had been at work to make them peculiarly interesting to each other? - How much more must an imaginist, like herself, be on fire with speculation and foresight!

Finally a quick quote that mirrors what I often experience:

Emma denied none of it aloud, and agreed to none of it in private.

I know this is not a good thing but there you have it.
And there you have three lovely quotes from one of my favourite authors.

Oh, I'm just booking

One of the aspects that I have enjoyed most about this section of my life is the oodles of time I now have to dedicate to reading and discussing books. Any books that I want. Books that I have been meaning to read for ages. Books that I have been acquiring at an astonishing rate at used book sales and the like. This is indeed a recipe for true bliss. The one problem, the fly in the ointment as it were, I am now facing is that my desire to read books has outstripped the time it actually takes to read them. As I am reading (or contemplating reading) one, another pops into my head as a great one to read next and I'm off again. If I read several at the same time I don't feel as though I'm getting through any of them fast enough (and often the less-interesting at the time fall by the wayside and never get read when perhaps I would otherwise have been interested at a later date). But if I read one at a time I feel as though I would find it too narrow to accommodate my ever-changing tastes. So instead of savouring whatever it is I am free to read at the time I spend energy looking forward to what I will be able to read next.

But, to state the obvious, this is a wrong view to take. The goal is not to rush through as many books as possible merely to be able to check them off the list. That I do believe in this viewpoint is evident from the fact that I enjoy re-reading a good book, even sometimes on multiple occasions. I know I should take the time to taste each book as I'm chewing them. I would ideally like to remember enough about any book I've read to be able to discuss it reasonably well with other readers (my poor memory for details often gets in the way of this but I do believe it is something that should be worked on and not merely used as an excuse for lack of intelligence). I do know that there are too many books out there to read within a lifetime. Skipping from one to the next is not the way to garner any enjoyment from them either. It's strange because I generally already have this outlook on most aspects of my life. I realize that I am not able to take every career path of which I can think. I realize that there are pros and cons to everything; things that I would like and dislike in every possible situation and that the best way to go through life is to enjoy whichever situation one finds oneself in at the time. But why is it so hard for me to find a similar contentment with books?

Perhaps this book-ADD stems from the very fact that I have a new-found freedom to read anything. When I was younger I was limited first by age/comprehension, then by resources (I had completely sucked dry the content--this word obviously excludes the multiple trashy series fobbed off on kids--of the children's section of our local library by the time I was twelve), and time (working almost full-time while in High School), and finally at the time when I entered the English program I made a pact with myself that during the school year I would only read assigned books. This is one of the first opportunities where none of these limitations apply and I haven't found another way to narrow down what I am reading. I'm not sure that I want to place limitations but I do wish to start enjoying and remembering whatever book I do happen to have in hand at any particular moment. In general I have a decent attention span, I just need to find it in this aspect of my life.

so happy together

After a hiatus that lasted for months (with occasional, slight reconciliations that only served to highlight the estrangement) I am finally on good terms once more with my camera. I spent the better part of a week back at home and, other activities being suspended while the outdoors outdid itself in its decorations, I spent a fair chunk of the time out and about the house (obviously said in a Canadian accent. How else would I speak?). I think I took around 300 pictures. In looking over them I realize that, as is usual with me, of those pictures approximately thirty percent are of my wonderful puppy, and the rest are of plants/trees/sky/ice/snow etc. Oh, there are three pictures of people on the camera from the week but they were not taken by me and are an unfortunate shade of yellow because the lighting inside was not great. We got a new car this week and, instead of taking a picture to show what it looks like, I instead have several pictures of the icicles dripping from the grill and the hood. I'm hopeless. I have determined to have my camera about me more now that I have resumed my former relationship with it and hopefully this will result in more pictures that other people would want to see, pictures that will be helpful to posterity.
But all this aside I shall post some of the pictures that are not helpful to posterity but that I really like for their picturesqueness.

still life

long roads

Yesterday was a day marked more with discussion than rest but in its own way that discussion was refreshing. I spent most of the afternoon (when not playing a horse in a little girl's game) discussing aspects of running a household with my mom and a mother of ten. In so many ways they posess a wisdom that only comes through experience. I have always tried to learn things without having to do it the hard way and it is true that there is a certain amount of preparation that is possible before going through what they experienced but at the same time I doubt I will ever be able to arrive at the place where they stand without having personally travelled along a similar road to get there. What will life bring?

I'm sinking

I was checking my blog archives (that word gives the illusion in my mind of a much larger body of text than it actually describes) today and have come to the conclusion that my blog is much less interesting these days. It seems as though the less frequently I post, the less interesting my posts become. So this is my way of attempting to rectify the situation: writing a boring post. Good job Janice.

However, I would prefer to think of it as a pledge to try to write better and more frequent posts in future. Wish me luck.

writing

It has happened to me a few times that I have written something and then, on returning some time later to the same work, have completely forgotten about it. Not merely forgotten in the way that one occasionally forgets the ending to a book one returns to after a time of absence from it before re-reading but rather forgotten that it had any connection with me. I have occasionally accused my broter of the authorship but eventually have to believe that it indeed was my own fingers that typed (I would say penned but if that were the true case the handwriting would be a dead give-away) the piece. I find I sometimes forget these things I have written more than things I have merely read. I say this because often when re-reading another's work I have the feeling or knowledge that I've read it before but occasionally my own writing appears as untouched territory to my eyes. It makes me wonder if perhaps I write in a trance or if another part of my brain is working than the comprehension or memory retaining section. The creative process is fascinating--as is the root of that word: the Latin fascinum meaning a spell. The process also certainly may be considered inexplicable. I wonder if others have similar experiences with their writings.

first snow

Two days ago we got our first snow of the year. Well, not counting all the piles of snow that fell in the first half of this calendar year. I suppose I should more accurately have said the first snow of the season.

Yesterday morning I resumed a bit of my photographic habits and stalked around the building looking for good pictures. I was checked a little by the idea of our friendly neighbours not appreciating my taking pictures with their building in truth innocently as the backdrop but possibly construed as the subject. Images of being dragged into a room with a table and a glaring light and having my camera smashed to find the film (my interrogators, of course, are unfamiliar with the new digital technology) and trying to explain in simple English that I wasn't trying to spy on them danced in my head.

None of that happened but it made my adventure feel a little more aventurous. I succeeded in my goal of capturing a few good pictures and so returned, safe, to my room. Here is possibly my favourite from the bunch:

sacrifice

A couple weeks ago I heard a quote I really liked and have since received a copy of the chapter from which it came. I am enjoying the chapter and just ran into the paragraph that I remember so thought I should post it here:

Sacrifice is at the center of the work of salvation. Sacrifice is God's way of dealing with what is wrong in history, which is to say, what is wrong with us, individually and collectively. It is God's way of dealing with sin.

Sacrifice. All the ways we have of dealing with what is wrong with the world, whether that wrong is named "sin" or not, are in stark contrast to this. Our typical ways are through force (getting rid of what is wrong by destroying it or containing it or policing it), by education (teaching people right from wrong, and hoping that when they know the difference they will do what is right), by entertainment (distracting people from what is wrong with the world by giving them excitement and diversion, temporary vacations from the wrong), by economic improvement (providing incentives and opportunities to improve peoples' lives so that they will not out of despair and desparation, anger and retaliation, make a further mess out of things). None of these approaches is without merit. All of them in ways small and large make the world better. But none of them are God's way of accomplishing salvation. God's choice is sacrifice.

This is taken from Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places (incidentally this is a line from G.M. Hopkins) by Eugene Peterson.

clip

Rob Brydon's description of Russell Brand from Annually Retentive--a show of which I would desire to see more.

The view from my window

This is a small part of what I see when I wake up every morning:
I have four windows in my room and I have been able to keep them open ever since I moved in. I love the fresh air and the occasion bits of conversation that blow into my room during the day. I love the sound of the rain or the lonely clacking of a pair of heels that punctuate the darkness as I lie in bed at night. I love the bright sunshine that floods the room every (sunny) day. I love my new room. Perhaps to those of you who have always lived above ground, this pleasure of mine is nothing spectacular but having resided for the past 15 or so years in basement bedrooms this new light is a luxury. I actually believe that this room is quite decent even by above-stairs standards being quite large and having an ensuite bath. I think it might be difficult once I have to move to reconcile myself to whatever room I will have next. I am truly spoiled.

the same paths

This area is beautiful this time of year. I am running along the river every morning and it really brings back those five-year-old memories of when I used to bike every morning along that same river to come to this very place.

I have had no battery charger for the past few weeks but last night I managed to get one that works so hopefully I shall soon be able to document the beauty of this season and perhaps post some of those pictures. But while we're waiting for new pictures I don't mind posting nice ones from previous years.

to brown

Once again I am tardy in my colour change with the seasons. Perhaps, though, I can blame it on the fact that Autumn itself crept up on me and from the other fact that I am not sure which day was the equinox (if that is what determines the change) this year. However I may have been mistaken or misled, it is now Autumn and this is now brown.

I used to dislike brown. I found it to be an objectionable, useless colour along with orange and various horrid shades of decent colours (mustard yellow, olive green etc). I have since then discovered that there is beauty in more than just the obviously beautiful, that contrast adds variety and interest.

I remember a story from when I was young about a silly duck (or goose probably) who thought that some ingredients in cake, being objectionable in themselves, should be removed to improve the taste of the cake. But without baking soda and whatever other ingredients she disliked, the cake was a disaster. I am not saying that brown has a use only as a rising agent, but that often we don't appreciate the workhorses in our appreciation of the more pleasingly showy externals.

So in honour of brown, I shall keep this template until winter breaks through with its icy blue.

closing thoughts

I have finally finished Bleak House but I will quote it one more time before moving on:

[she had] a predestined aptitude for doing something objectionable.

He had so long been thoroughly persuaded of the weight and import to mankind of any word he said, that his words really had come to sound as if there were something in them.

One thing I do enjoy about Dickens is his excellent descriptions and his way of encapsulating the essence of a character within a short sentence or two. There were a few places where the going was heavy but for the most part I think I shall miss ploughing through Dickens as I turn to lighter material in the next little while. I still have to read Dombey and Son and Little Dorrit (I'm possibly forgetting one or two other novels of his) and I'm sure there are many of his novels that I wouldn't mind reading multiple times but there is still something special about the first run through a novel that is usually missing the second time through (even if the plot has been forgot in the mean time). So as much as I am happy that I am reaching my goal of reading all of Dickens, I am also sad that the end is approaching.

It has begun

With the RA-ing duties having commenced a couple weeks ago, I have had the chance to plan and prepare two community dinners. So far they have been successes and I am happy in this aspect of my stay here. I find that as much as I would dislike having to plan supper every day, I rather enjoy planning a large one once a week. I also find that I enjoy following recipes but then, once comfortable with them, of playing with the flavours a bit. I made up a dessert this week consisting of oatcakes covered in peaches with caramel sauce on top. I must say I love the caramel sauce and am quite pleased that there is now a jam-jar full of leftovers to dispose of in some way or another.

Another new development is that I have been running most mornings. This is quite singular for me because I hate running. I love biking, skating, walking, playing sports in which one must run, crawling, rolling down hills, dancing, singing... wait. Anyway the point is that I do enjoy active activities for the most part but I have always preserved that little place in my hate for running (or jogging if you like). Why this new development you ask? Why indeed! I can't quite explain but since I've started I have decided to give it a running chance and try to get over what I can only figure is a mental block that tells me I hate it. The consequences might be interesting. Stay tuned.

Jane of many talents

:)

She works both as a finger puppet and as a fridge magnet. Does it get any better than this?