Our House

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That’s our house. Actually, if you look a little NE of the red tack, our house is the lighter colored one. You can see the deck on the left side of the house. It’s a nice deck. We inherited a bird feeder that hangs from a hook on the deck. It’s not something I’d ever have thought of buying myself, but once I saw we had it, I bought birdseed for it. I keep checking to see if any birds have found it. If you look to the right of the house, you can make out the blackish-looking parking slab. This photo must have been taken before they cemented over it, because it doesn’t look black now. It’s a bitch to park on, because it’s not very even, there’s a precarious drop-off, and there’s a rather pretty tree with purply-white flowers that grows right where the driver’s side door opens. It drove me nuts that I didn’t know what kind of tree it was, so I hunted it down on the Internet, and it appears to be a white hibiscus. The flowers and leaves look just like this photo:

The houses next to us and across the street from us have been made into duplexes. The room that juts out in the front is the kids’ room. As you can tell, it’s pretty big. We figured they needed the space, though.

We’re settling in, but still unpacking. I have a really nice kitchen with lots of light. Sadly, there is no dishwasher or disposal. But I’ve been managing! I’m cooking a pot roast in my crock pot right now, and it smells great. Let me say here and now, I’m not a real homecooking kind of girl. I am a pretty good cook, but rather unenthusiastic about it, especially when I’m working. Seems like one more chore. But fixing that roast today, checking on it as it simmers, and smelling it throughout the house — it makes me feel proud for some reason. I know that’s silly.

This whole house is much “lighter” than our former home. Everything was so dark, from the cabinetry, to the flooring. There weren’t a lot of windows, and those that existed were darkened by tall trees in our yard. We have plenty of tall trees here, too, but they don’t obsure the light coming into the house. I really like all this light. I think the dimness can impact how you feel, sort of like Seasonal Affective Disorder. It kind of reminds me of my parents’ house. Their house is beautiful and full of light. The home they lived in when I was in high school, by contrast, was much like our old one — very dark.

We have a nice-sized backyard with encroaching kudzu. I was thinking the other day that a small swing set might be nice. We MUST get patio furniture so we can enjoy that nice deck properly. Maybe even a porch swing. I’ve always wanted a porch swing. My dream home is probably one of those old Victorians with a wraparound porch. I used to think I wanted hardwood floors until I had them at my old house. I prefer carpeting! Hardwood was impossible to keep clean. There was always some sort of dirt on the floor. I couldn’t keep it swept up no matter how I tried. Vacuum cleaners pick up all that stuff.

Well, I need to get back to work.

Want to see if you can find your house?


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The Pensieve

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Okay, so even though the content isn’t really finished, I am announcing that I have a new blog called The Pensieve, where I will confine my Harry Potter obsession.

I while back, I asked the folks at Mugglenet if I could do a regular column about the many allusions and references, both literary and historical, in the Harry Potter books. They agreed. I wrote my first column about Sybill Trelawney. We got stuck trying to come up with a name for the column (The Pensieve is perfect, but already taken over there). So I was eventually forgotten, and my column never appeared. I decided I still wanted to do it, though, so I decided I would create a forum for it. I know that not everyone who reads this blog would necessarily be interested, so I decided to keep my Harry Potter-iana in another place.

I’m fairly happy with the look of it. I made a collage for the title masthead in Photoshop. I scoped out my favorite links to share. I created several pages of content, but the columns, or whatever else I choose to share, will be in blog format on the main index page.

Now that I have taken a little break, I need to get back to unpacking and laundry.


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Icons

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From Dana’s diary comes a nifty little icon creator.

This is me:

A pretty fair likeness, actually.

This is Steve:

Sort of okay likeness. He isn’t shaven-headed right now, but they didn’t have his hair. When he is shaven-headed this is a much more accurate likeness. I wasn’t completely happy with how the features came out. But it was fun to play with.


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It’s Good to Be the King

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First of all, we finally finished moving after two twelve-hour days. Steve has to be exhausted. I don’t think we can do this again on our own. Steve’s strong, but he’s one man, and one man with MS at that. Next time we have to move, whatever the cost, we’ll have to hire movers. But we are in our new domicile, and life is good. All of my muscles ache and I have a giant migraine, but life is good.

Cranky Dragon is having codeine-induced dreams about Elvis. Inspired by the nocturnal ramblings of the Cranky One, I have an all-Elvis set list for my radio blog. Please check out this really cool Elvis site, where you can listen to 30 number-one hits, learn about their recordings, read Elvis quotes, and learn all about Elvis. Maybe you can even find out if he ever owned a green mustang.


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Harry Potter-iana

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Oh my Lord, this was too hilarious! Thank you, Vickie, for sharing the link.

And check out Icy Azalea’s Harry Potter Livejournal Icons. They’re spiffy:

Since I haven’t plugged her in a while, check out my favorite Harry Potter fan artist, Laura Freeman. A sample:

Addendum (7:02 P.M.): As soon as I have time (read after we move), I am thinking I’ll put up my Harry Potter links page again. I really need something original for that page. My old one had my whole family sorted into various houses and predictions for Books 6 and 7. I just can’t think of anything to add. It seems like there is so much out there, and more well done than I could do. Any suggestions are welcome.


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King Arthur

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If things go well as we move, I hope to be here on Sunday night. I imagine I can catch a repeat if it doesn’t work out.

My new friends don’t know about my King Arthur obsession. One of my unfinished early forays into website design was a King Arthur index — characters, places, etc. I hate to sound all boastful, but I usually don’t learn anything new anymore when I watch programs like the one the History Channel will be showing, but I watch them anyway. So yeah, I will be here on July 7 or shortly thereafter, too.

I digression before I move on — it ticks me off that you have to subscribe to Britannia’s History Club in order to look at anything. Sigh. Didn’t used to be the case.

Anyway, these are my King Arthur recommendations:

Books

  • My favorite King Arthur book, hands down, is The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Besides being comprehensive enough to cover most of the Arthur legends, it puts by far the most refreshing twist on the King Arthur story. No one since, in my opinion, has topped her.
  • Le Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory has been the definitive work for over 500 years. Period. Even if it is not the original source for the legend, it is still required reading for anyone who wants to acquaint themselves with the legends.
  • Geoffrey of Monmouth introduced the world to King Arthur in his History of the Kings of Britain. There are some great stories in this book.
  • Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s romanticized poems in Idylls of the King are essential.
  • Read the collection of legends and romances in The Mabinogion are the earliest stories of King Arthur. These stories predate Geoffrey of Monmouth.
  • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is probably my favorite of the Arthurian romances.
  • Tristan by Gottfried von Strassburg was my introduction to the story of Tristan and Isolde, and it’s a good one.

Movies

  • While not as faithful an adaptation as I’d have liked, the movie version of The Mists of Avalon is still a great movie.
  • Excalibur remains a faithful rendering of the legends.
  • If you’re going to deviate from the Arthur story, the key is to change perspective and tell it from another viewpoint so Arthurian scholars nuts like me don’t get their panties in a twist. Merlin accomplished that. Great film; visually stunning.
  • Terry Jones of Monty Python is actually a medieval scholar of some renown. That is why Monty Python and the Holy Grail is one of the better and more faithful renderings of the stories.

Web Sites

Artwork (I’m partial the the pre-Raphaelite vision of the Middle Ages)

That said, my absolute, personal favorites:

  • Knight — Sir Gawain
  • Story — The Lady of Shalott
  • Peripheral Arthurian Romance — Tristan and Isolde
  • Book — The Mists of Avalon
  • Movie — Merlin (at least, today it is)
  • Female character — Morgan Le Faye
  • Painting — Currently The Beguiling of Merlin, but that changes.

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The Lady and the Unicorn

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I have completed The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier. I did not like it as much as I liked The Virgin Blue, but I still found it enjoyable.

It was interesting to learn how tapestries were made. I have never given thought to the months or even years of work involved. On her website, Chevalier has included images of the tapestries that inspired the novel. They are beautiful. I think I have seen a reproduction of at least one of them before.

This novel is different from The Virgin Blue in that it is set entirely in the past — the late Middle Ages (1490-1492). The Virgin Blue is set in two times: the present and 400 years in the past. I will say that I think Chevalier does her research well. She carefully renders her setting so you know you are in the past without letting it overwhelm the plot. That’s not easy to do — I allowed myself to get carried away describing the setting in my own book. It’s hard, because on the one hand, you want to prove that the characters are really in the past, so you show the reader — look, see this detail? On the other, all the reader really needs is a feeling and his/her imagination can do the rest.

I absolutely detested one of the main characters, Nicolas des Innocents. I thought him a lecherous rake who cared nothing for anyone but himself. He was a preening peacock of a man. I couldn’t feel badly for him at all when he suffered disappointments. In fact, I found myself feeling glad and thinking it served him right. Actually, I didn’t like many of the characters. The weaving family in Brussels were probably my favorite characters. I liked Aliénor, but that was because she was strong and intelligent without being snotty. I think that Claude was snotty, and I honestly didn’t feel sorry for her when she was disappointed either. Regina Marler’s Amazon review makes it sound like the reader might actually root for Nicolas and Claude: “Their passion is impossible for their world — so forbidden, given their class differences, that its only avenue of expression turns out to be those magnificent tapestries.” In truth, I couldn’t see that there was much passion between them — at least not any more than Nicolas showed toward every other female who crossed his path. If it had been requited, Nicolas would have discovered, I think, that he didn’t care any more for Claude than he did the multitude of other women he had sex with. Ultimately, the main characters in this story are the tapestries themselves. I found myself wanting to read on to see how they fared. The weavers worked at a frenzied pace to finish on time. I didn’t feel Jean Le Viste appreciated the work that went into them at all. If anyone did, I think it might have been Léon Le Vieux, who worked with Jean Le Viste on the commission, even though he never outwardly expressed appreciation for them. I don’t know why, but that’s the feeling I get.

I would read another book by Chevalier. Her writing is very good. Very well researched. I don’t know why she doesn’t make her characters more sympathetic. It is a good writer who gives her characters flaws to make them human and accessible. But I think she takes it a little too far. Her characters have too many warts to make me love them. I didn’t feel this way about most of the characters in The Virgin Blue. I’m willing to give Girl with a Pearl Earring a try.

Addendum (7:35 P.M.): I have just realized where I’ve seen the tapestries in this book before. They decorate the Gryffindor Common Room in the Harry Potter movies. I’m kicking myself for not picking that out right away. Oh well.


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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

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I know what you’re thinking — as big a Harry Potter freak as you are and you haven’t written about the movie yet? Well, I hadn’t seen it. At least not until yesterday. You see, I have these two small people living with me. It’s weird how much of my time they take up. It’s also crazy, and you won’t believe this, but they aren’t quiet or still in the movies when I take them!

So we had to wait until the little monkeys were staying elsewhere — in this case with my parents — before we could see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. We saw it yesterday afternoon. AT LAST! Waiting that long was agony.

My verdict is that it was great. I think it was faithful to the book with a few small exceptions. I’m not sure what purpose the shrunken heads served, or why the sudden ban on underage wizards in the Three Broomsticks. I really liked the fact that the kids wore street clothes a lot, which made them look like normal kids. I didn’t get to see as much of Hogsmeade as I wanted to, but what I saw was really interesting. I hope the DVD puts in some of those things that were cut.

I rehashed the movie with Steve yesterday. I think we agreed that the actors just keep getting better looking as they grow up. They will be very nice-looking men and women soon. I was a little worried about how the story would fare in the hands of a new director, but I think he did a good job. The movie had a different look, but not so different as to be unrecognizable.

I enjoyed it immensely, and my first thought was that I wanted to see it again immediately. I love losing myself in that world.

I need to get some work done, so I need to get off this computer. I spent way too much time today at J.K. Rowling’s Official Site, which is easily the best writer’s site I’ve visited.


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What It Means to Move

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I suppose I have contemplated my blog moves over the past few days for several reasons, one of which happens to be that we’re preparing for a physical move.

I am happier here, on my own domain, for several reasons. First of all, I can do whatever I like, and there aren’t limits. No one tells me what kind of files I can upload or how much space I can take up. That’s dictated by how much space I’d like to buy. I bought plenty for much less money than some of my old friends pay to be limited by an old diary service I used to use.

The first time I moved, I didn’t really want to, because I knew it would cost me. But I felt it was necessary, so I did it. And it did cost. It’s weird, but when other people had moved away from Diaryland, I didn’t really keep up with them unless I really wanted to. In fact, Cranky Dragon and Anne are the only examples I can think of. I tried to keep up with others, but I was lazy. Diaryland makes it easy for you to check and see if your favorites have updated — as long as they are also Diaryland users.

So it cost me some readers, because despite the fact that some of those people indicated they wanted to continue to read my writing, I know they didn’t. After some time, I stopped reading theirs too. It was too hard to keep up. And with the exception of about two people, I did give up. No one over there pings Weblogs.com or Blogrolling.com when they update. Yeah, all I have to do is click a link on my blogroll and check, but I don’t do it. Frankly, it would be easy for them to check my site for updates, and they don’t either. We like things simple. We’re lazy. The fact is, I have begun to find myself more attracted to blogs than diaries. They’re shorter, so the investment to read them isn’t as great. Most bloggers I read tend to know more about the web and HTML and produce really interesting sites. When I first started my Diaryland diary, like most people, I didn’t know any HTML.

I really don’t miss it anymore. For a time, yes, I missed being part of a community. After a while, especially once I had my own domain, I realized how limiting a service it was, and I would never go back. Users over there pay more per year for less than I get at my own domain — less space, restrictions on allowable files, restrictions on what you can do, from creating .htaccess files to cgi. They also get horrible customer service. The two times I’ve had to contact the people who host my website, I’ve received immediate response. I’ve never had any problems trying to get access to my site or post an entry, which I cannot say about Diaryland. So for those reasons, I really can’t recommend going to Diaryland for any of you who might not have a diary/blog, but are thinking of starting one.

I’m sure there are other services out there that are pretty good. I haven’t really checked. Upsaid is very good, but they are no longer free. They only cost $2 per month, which is much cheaper than lots of sites, and only a little less than I pay for my server space, which is $3 per month. Upsaid allows lots of different types of files to be uploaded, but there is necessarily a limit on space.

I wanted to tear my hear out trying to install Movable Type, but once I got it running, it was running smoothly. I love it. It’s very easy to use. I like the CSS-rich templates. That makes it easy to change things across multiple pages, which was not true of Upsaid necessarily.

So I guess what I am saying is that this change has been good. I’m really happy here. I can do lots of things with this place if I want to. Or I can just sit here, at my little blog, and be content. It’s whatever I want it to be. And to me, that’s what home should be.


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