Hmmmm...

I am sorely tempted to don my piratey garb and travel throughout the neighborhood, knocking on doors and asking for candy tonight.
"Oh, what a nice pirate! But why are you out trick-or-treating today? Halloween isn't until tomorrow."
"THIS is my practice run. Tomorrow I'll go through officially, and then on Sunday I'll clean up the leftovers."
Very sorely tempted.
~Kiwi~

p.s. go check out my last post, if you haven't already done so.

The Jane Austen Handbook by Margaret C. Sullivan

At my library I found this amazing new book called The Jane Austen Handbook: A Sensible Yet Elegant Guide to Her World. It is a small book with almost anything you'd need to know if you were to go back in time to the Pride & Prejudice era. It is 175 pages long, plus 48 pages of appendix, bibliography, and acknowledgments.
Here are a few of the chapter titles, and a few choice paragraphs.

• How to Become an Accomplished Lady
• How to Spend Each Season
• How to Write a Letter
• How to Ride Sidesaddle
• How to Keep House
• How to Plan a Dinner Party
• How a Lady Might Earn a Living (If Necessary)

(and my favorite section ;)

• How to Choose a Prospective Husband
• How to Indicate Interest in a Gentleman Without Seeming Forward
• How to Marry Off Your Daughter
• How to Decline an Unwanted Proposal of Marriage
• How to Carry On a Secret Engagement
• How to Elope to Scotland.

Those are a few of the chapters. There are 4 sections, with a total of 36 chapters.
An abbreviation of the chapter "How to Indicate Interest in a Gentleman Without Seeming Forward:"

1. Flatter his vanity. Listen to everything he says with great interest, admire everything he does, and agree with him on all subjects. If he disagrees with something you have said, turn your own words around so you sound as though you actually agree with him. [Note: If I remember correctly, What's-her-face from Pride & Prejudice didn't follow this very well! She definitely had her own opinion!]


2. Talk about him to his relatives. They might take the hint and pass it on to him. You know how siblings like to tease!


3. Offer to perform little services for him. Mending his pen might be one step from mending his stockings.


4. Keep your cool. If he shows interest in another young lady, pretend that you do not care. Tease him about his "conquest" and ask when you might wish him joy. [Oh, no, that's not 'forward' at all!]


5. Mirror his actions. If he is reading a book, take up the second volume. If he is playing cards, help make up his table. If he is going for a walk, declare that it is time for your daily stroll in the shrubbery. [You'd think he'd notice you following him like Mary's Lamb after a while. And if that isn't 'forward'....]


6. Find him irresistible. You will become so yourself. [Awww, idn't dat thweet!]

So now that we know how to catch him (Oh, and to the guys who read this; now you know how to detect such things :P), what do you do next? Shall you elope to Scotland (Gretna Green, Scotland, to be exact. Apparently they dealt with that sort of thing quite often), keep the engagement a secret, or what? The book tells you how to do any of those things.
And then, once you have a place of your own, it shows you how to decorate (with light, elegant furniture and colors), plan a dinner party (lots of work!), and improve your estate ("Add rustic touches. A hermitage is lovely--recruit an actual hermit to live in it for full realism....Let sheep roam wild, preferably in groups of three or five, with a sunken fence if you'd prefer to keep them in one area without ruining the view.").

I found it a very entertaining book. Margaret Sullivan is a good author, because she writes it interestingly, with humor in it. It would have been very easy to just write a dry little book about Jane Austen, but Margaret Sullivan wrote it with humorous little tidbits, and Kathryn Rathke did some great illustrations. (Especially the one in "How to Decline an Unwanted Marriage Proposal")
I could have sat here and typed the whole book up for you, because it's all so interesting, but I won't. First, that might qualify as a copyright infringement, and second, then you wouldn't want to get it yourself!
Note to those of you who use the same library as I do: HANDS OFF! This is MINE until November 12th. Then I shall renew it for three (3) weeks. After November 12th, y'all may start placing holds on it. UNTIL THEN....stay away.



Thank you, Judy, for this award!
It is an award for (as it says) Sheer Awesomeness.
This is the first award I've gotten in a while! Thanks, Judi!
And in return, I'll award it to:

Zazzamarandabo
Guitargirl
Zoe
HKSmitty
Heather
Kristen
KK
SS
JS
Pooky's Girl
Queen Lucy
Alena (Lady Florimel)
Elizabeth
and Julia.
I'd give it to Judi and HMS Avalon, too, but I don't know if yer s'posed to give it to people twice.

Thankee very much!


And now I shall toodle off into the sunset.
g'bai!
~Kiwi~

guess what! Guess what!

I get to cross two more things off my To-Do List!
1: bike down the great-grandaddy of all hills at a fairly high speed (this past Sunday)
2: win a big contest, like a cruise or something! (Wednesday afternoon)

No, I did not win a cruise. :( Nor did I win a flight to the concert of my choice, or get to have Mark Schultz come perform in my living room. :'( Nay, I won something else entirely. Take a look at this excerpt from the email (the red and bold letters were neither red nor bold before I tampered with 'em):

Subject: Hehey winner!
"Kiwi Fruit = you are a winner!


Just stop by the station and tell Sherry your name and you have won 4 tickets to Michael W. Smith!


Enjoy!!

(station dude)"


Hahaha!!!! I winned!
You see, one of the radio stations I listen to had a contest. You were to email them with "Why I Like Mike," then they would randomly select five entries, and those people won 4 tickets to the Michael W. Smith New Hallelujah World Tour stop in Dekalb, IL. It's a ways away, but hey! I just won $86-worth of tickets!
I entered just so I could say that I tried, 'knowing' I wouldn't win, because I've never won anything like this before!!!!
And then I opened my email-box, expecting an email from Queen Lucy and nearly had a heart attack when I saw that instead!
Here is my entry:
"I like Mike because he has an amazing voice. He's one of the few artists whose songs I could just sit and listen to over and over. And, his songs mean things, they aren't just nice words and catchy tunes.
One fun thing is that my Mom and I have very different musical tastes (I like slightly more rock songs, while she prefers gospel and hymns), but we both like Michael W. Smith! If I win the tickets, I can't wait to take my Mom and Sister with me.
~[Kiwi Fruit]~"

Then they sent me the afore-quoted email, saying I'd won.

"Thank you so much! I entered, and did not think it the least likely that I would win!!
~[Kiwi]"

The station dude replied with "Welllllllllll when you mentioned your Mom.....yah know... :D :D"

So that's been the highlight of my week. :D (I still can't believe I won something! :)
What about the rest of you? What's the most exciting thing that's happened to you?

~Kiwi da Ebullient Fruit~

p.s. I regret to inform y'all that for a few days, at least, I can't read some blogs. Mom and Dad set up some 'Parental Controls' on the computer that require them to unlock some sites. And as of yet, Mom and I haven't had the chance to sit down and unlock all the blogs. :( so sorry! You'll have to comment on here if anything really important comes up!

P.P.S. Ladybugs! (see the last paragraph of the post)

Earth's Enigmas

My friend loaned me an...interesting...book the other day, and I thought I'd share a few parts of it with you-all. The book's title is Earth's Enigmas, by Charles G. D. Roberts, and was published by L. C. Page & Company in May, 1903. Here's the "prefatory note." (everything in red is my input)

"Most of the stories in this collection attempt to present on or another of those problems of life or nature to which, as it appears to many of us, there is no adequate solution within sight. Others are the almost literal transcript of dreams which seemed to me to have a coherency, completeness, and symbolic significance sufficiently marked to justify me in setting them down. The rest are scenes from that simple life of Canadian backwoods and tide-country with which my earlier years made me familiar.
This edition (the book was published twice, the first time was in 1895 by Lamson, Wolffe and Company) is enlarged by the inclusion of three new stories, entitled "The House at Stony Lonesome," "The Hill of Chastisement," and "On the Tantramar Dyke;" and what is more important, it is enriched by the drawings of Mr. Charles Livingston Bull, for whose sympathetic interpretations I take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude.
C. G. D. R.
New York, April, 1903"

Now, I will not type out the whole book for you, or at least I won't do that today, but I will share a story or two. Let me warn you, though, that they are mildly morbid! Just a little on the weird side. I'll start with one of the ones I am pretty sure was a "transcript of [a] dream."

In the Accident Ward

The grass was gray, of a strange and dreadful pallor, but long and soft. Unbroken, and bending all one way, as if to look at something, it covered the wide, low, rounded hill that rose before me. Over the hill the sky hung close, gray and thick, with the color of a parched interminable twilight. Dew or a drop of rain could not be thought of as coming from such a sky.

Along the base of the low hill ran a red road of baked clay, blood red, and beaten with nameless and innumerable feet. I stood in the middle of this road and prepared to ascend the hill obliquely by a narrow footpath, red as blood, which divided the soft gray bending of the grasses. Behind me the road made a sharp turn, descending out of thick clouds into a little blood-red hollow, where it was crossed by an open gate. In this gate, through which I had somehow come, stood two gray leopards and a small ape. The beasts stood on tip-toe and eyed me with a dreadful curiosity; and from somewhere in the little hollow I heard a word whispered which I could not understand. But the beasts heard it, and drew away through the open gate, and disappeared.

Between the footpath (which all the time gleamed redly through the over-gathering grasses) and the rounded brink of the gulf there seemed to be a fence of some sort, so fine that I could not quite distinguish it, but which I knew to be there.

I turned my eyes to the low summit of the hill. There I saw a figure, all gray, cleaving the grasses in flight as swift as an arrow. Behind, in pursuit, came another figure, of the color of the grasses, tall and terrible beyond thought. This being, as it seemed to me, was the Second Death, and my knees trembled with horror and a sort of loathing. Then I saw that he who fled made directly for me; and as they sped I could hear a strange hissing and rustling of their garments cleaving the grasses. When the fleeing ghost reached me, and fell at my feet, and clasped my knees in awful fear, I felt myself grow strong, and all the dread left my soul. I reached forth my right hand and grasped the pursuing horror by the throat.

I heard the being laugh, and the iron grip of my own strong and implacable fingers seemed to close with a keen agony upon my own throat, and a curtain seemed to fall over my eyes. Then I gasped for breath, and a warm pungent smell clung in my nostrils, and a white light swam into my eyes, and I hear a voice murmuring far off, but in an accent strangely familiar and commonplace, "He's coming round alright now."

I opened my eyes with a dim wonder, and found myself surrounded by the interested faces of the doctors and the clean white walls of the hospital ward. I heard a sound of someone breathing hoarsely near by, and a white-capped nurse with kind eyes stepped up to my pillow, and I perceived that the heavy breather was myself. I was lying with my head and neck swathed in bandages, and a sharp pain at my throat. Then flashed across my memory the crash and sickening upheaval of the collision. I wondered feebly how it had fared with my fellow-passengers, and again I saw that instant's vision of wild and startled faces as the crowded car rose and pitched downward, I knew not whither. With a sense of inexpressible weariness, my brain at once allowed the terrible scene to slip from its grasp, and I heard a doctor, who was standing at the bedside watch in hand, say, quietly, "He'll sleep now for a couple of hours."

The End.

Different, isn't it? That sounds just like a dream; confusing. I think that maybe he could have let up a bit on the details of his surroundings at the beginning. I would go ahead and type up another story, but I think two dream sequences in one post would be a little confusing, don't you? And my fingers are getting tired. So I don't think I shall type up much more tonight.
so how are you-all doing? I haven't been getting many comments lately...*cough*...so I don't know what y'all are up to, or what you think of my blog, or anything! Speak up! :D
And I'll leave it at that. There ought to be a picture post on my photo blog within the hour; go check it out!
~Kiwi~

Three more things to check off my To-Do List!

The barn dance was fun!!! My feet were killing me by the end, but it was worth it! I danced the first dance with Kristen dancing the man's part (Did I mention in my last post the severe lack of young men??), and that was great. We added our own little doodad to it; a twirl after promenading home. For the second dance, I thought Kris and I were dancing again, but she thought I was dancing with someone else, so I saw her go off with Mike. Thankfully, Scott saw me looking lonely and partnerless and asked me to dance. Er...more like dragged me off to dance. :D T'was fun. He's a pretty good dancer (he only stepped on my feet once! ;), once we got going well. The third dance was with Jumbo Shrimp a bit, then Sis, and for the 4th, Kris and I were back together again.
It was so much fun!! And I can't wait until next year, so I can do it again!
So that took two things off my List: Learn to square dance better and Find someone to square dance with me.

Saturday, Sis and I drove to a Gem and Fossil show. That was really interesting, with all the different gem stones all over, and tons and tons of fossils. What I liked best was the fact that you could touch most things. I love to touch and feel things, not just look at them. (that's why museums are rather dangerous for me!) And they had trilobite fossils that you could look at, or pick up and turn over, or whatever. I could have bought some, but they were on the expensive side. (Check out my Photo Blog in the next few days for pictures of the rocks!)

Sunday, part of the volleyball group got together at Kiwi's Konfusing and Krazy Korn Maze. Hence the third thing checked off: Get lost in a corn maze, and I mean Really Lost!
Oooo, wait, I should write this into a story! And I'll use the flash-back method, to add Drama. *Ahem*

There the five of us were, surrounded by tall green stalks of corn and barely able to see the tops of the stalks, much less the grey clouds threatening rain. Evan looked at the map. Then turned it upside down. And tried sideways. Maybe the other way would work better?
"We're lost." He finally admitted.
Actually, we had been pretty much lost for quite a while, but now it was official. We were now in an area (hopefully on Earth) never mentioned by any cartographer. Ever.
You see, we had had the grand idea of going through a pair of local corn mazes. It started out well. The day was a Sunday, rather grey and chilly. The time: 2:30 pm. The location: Kiwi's Konfusing and Krazy Korn Maze. The participants: five young adults who went to the same church. No, wait. We had started off with a few more, four more to be exact. Who knows where they were by now....

~~~~~~~~~~Two Hours Earlier~~~~~~~~~

Sis, Bekah, and I arrived on bikes at 2:20, ten minutes early, but most of our party was already at the Farm. Evan, Andy, and Lisa were standing out in the parking lot, shivering already. As we bought our tickets, the other half of the group arrived: Steve & Julie and Erick.
Excited, we headed into the Impossible Maze.
"Impossible? Nah, we can do it." Evan scoffed at the sign.
"No maps!" ordered Julie, but we took them anyway. The goal of the maze was to find your way to each of the twelve checkpoints and get your card punched at each one, to prove you'd been there. We decided to race our way all through the maze. Steve, Julie, Lisa, and Erick took off in one direction (mapless), and the remaining five of us strolled peacefully to checkpoint No. 1.

We didn't use the map. We could find our way to most of the checkpoints easily, we thought. Andy led us straight to 3, skipping 2 on the way. Then out came the maps.
"According to the map," said Evan, looking left and right, "This way ought to be a dead end." Bekah jogged down to check.
"No, it's not a dead end. It takes you in a circle. The map must be wrong."
We scratched our heads and bent over the map again.
"It's is wrong! They gave us phony maps, just to make it even more impossible! How cruel!"
All five heads shook slowly.
"Well," Andy took out his map. "It was correct about the basic placement of the first three. It's just wrong with the exact paths. So, number 4 is up that way," he pointed north, "and a bit that way." His finger moved a bit eastward.
Off we trooped, up one way and over another way. Sis and Andy disappeared behind us, and, with a cackle, Evan lept ahead and vanished around the corner. Bekah and I gave a shout of dismay and raced after him. But he wasn't there.
"Perhaps (puff puff) he's around the next (wheeze) corner!" I said, trying to run and talk at the same time. We dashed around it, and came face-to-face with.....a dead end. "Back track! Turn right!" I cried, thoroughly lost. Flying around the corner, I nearly ran into a calm, composed, smirking Evan.
"Hello. I was wondering where you guys were."
It took self-control to keep from slinging mud at him.
We meandered through the maze until we reached the next checkpoint entirely by chance. And so we continued until we met No. 8. Number 8, over half-way there. Number 8, only four more to go. Number 8, not connected by any pathways to Number 9.
We passed the same puddle 6 times. I know because I counted. I can describe it to you, too, if you wish. This mud puddle was straight down the middle of the path, right after a T intersection. If you turned left, it would take you to a dead end. Turn right, and you splash through the long, skinny corn leaf-filled puddle, if you aren't careful.
We went to Number 8, and then tried to follow the map to Number 9. We couldn't get there. So we turned around, returned to 8, and went a different way. Closer, but still no cigar.
Finally, through some....ingenuity...., Evan, Bekah, and I made it to the 9, leaving Sis and Andy to find their own way. Sadly, er.... Thankfully, they caught up quickly.
After Number 9, we had no more troubles, and got out quickly.
Total elapsed time in the Impossible Maze? 2 1/2 hours.
Did we win the race against the other team? It depends on what you mean by 'win.' If you mean time-wise, Steve & Julie's team won. If you mean 'winning-by-getting-through-the-maze-with-all-the-card-punches,' uh, no. They just tore through randomly and gave up halfway through. Then went all the way through the other maze while we were still in the Impossible one.
So to rejoice in our victory, the five of us plus Lisa went in for some doughnuts and apple crunch.

:D

Sorry, it's not the best story ever written. Not even the best one by me! The problem was that I had the idea, but kept getting interrupted before I could put it all down on paper, and because of that, lost the vision for the story. I'll try re-writing it for my next blog post, maybe.
Or perhaps I shall let you readers do that!
Yes: 25 blogger points to whoever can come up with the best version of the story and post it on their blog.
Rules:

• You must include the following characters: Steve, Julie, Erick, Lisa, Andy, Kiwi, Evan, Bekah, and Sis.
• The story must take place at Kiwi's Krazy and Konfusing Korn Maze and Farm Market.
• You must have my team in the maze for 2 1/2 hours.
• You may not leave out any of the following details: place, names, time taken in the maze, the fact that we got lost, the fact that my team won.

Other than that, you may use your imaginations! Entries are due by Saturday at 12:00 pm CST.
Have fun!

(Pay attention to my photo blog, pictures from the maze ought to be on there by Sunday.)

And so long folks! I'll talk with y'all later. 'bye.
~Kiwi~

I'm Ba-ack!

I'm back! We have the computer back now, so I'm happy. :) However, I seem to have lost my ability to write interesting things. I'm not feeling very creative today. But I shall do my best!




Tonight is the Kiwi's Church Annual Barn Dance!! I'm looking forward to it very much. I hope it's even more fun than it was last year. Last year it was the first church event we'd gone to, so I really didn't know anyone that well at all. And I danced with someone I didn't even know, which was weird. (he's not weird, it's just that I didn't even know his name. And he's twice my age. :P) Anywho. I got a 'new' plaid shirt, a denim dress, and some brown boots, and I'll do my hair in two curly pony tails.BUT, the weather isn't cooperating very much. It's chilly and rainy and cloudy, and tonight the low will be around 45. Brrr!




Sunday afternoon will hopefully be warmer and drier. The volleyball group is going to Kiwi's Farm Market (boy, I like all these places named after me! lol ;P) to go through their corn mazes, instead of playing volleyball. I wish there was some way to do both, but we couldn't figure out how. I've never been in a corn maze. I've always wanted to do one, but we have never lived within a mile of a corn maze before! I wonder how easy it is to get lost in one? Hmmmm......That would be fun. I could cross off another item on my 2009 To-Do List. All in favour of getting as lost as possible, raise your cursor and say "I"!



Well, I'd love to spend more time with y'all today, but I have stuff to do to get ready: shower, cook (It's a potluck, too), change clothes, do my hair, admire myself in the mirror, polish up my line dancing skills......*ear-to-ear grin*
See y'all later!
~Kiwi~