Winter Ball (+ random things)

Two weeks ago, I attended a Winter Ball, and it was the most glorious dance I've ever been to. 

I began making my ballgown the day after I found out about it, and here is the result:

The bodice is designed to echo 18th century French styles

While the skirt is meant to be more modern to keep it from being a completely period piece.

I designed it myself, with the aid of a pattern for sizing and things like that for the bodice, and for the skirt I copied (to a point) a gown I saw on Pinterest. 

The ball itself was wonderful. Ladies, they had dance cards. Isn't that splendid?

I also met some charming gentleman, one of whom friended me on Facebook afterwards, hehe. :D

 This one is one of my favorite pictures:

(My younger brother took pictures for me the next day, when we got some snow! I was thrilled with the results. He did an amazing job.)

It was a marvellous night! 

Now, it's been a while since I've been active in the blogging world, yikes. The last time I posted was over a month ago, and I haven't commented on y'all's posts for a while! My apologies if I don't get to all of them!

Another thing that's been keeping me busy (besides and after I made the dress, which took about twenty hours) is starting a homeschool choir! Where we moved to has a huge homeschooling community, and we have 41 kids aged 8-18 in our choir! It's exciting, and it's been a lot of work, as I made an agreement with my mother: I'll do all the organizing, communicating, etc., if she directs the choir. So it's kept me busy! 

Other updates on my life, which is really rather boring:

-This new place is turning out to be rather nice, really. It's growing on me. One thing I love, that I briefly mentioned before, is the homeschooling community. I've made so many friends who are homeschooled; way more in the past few months than all the years where I lived before! 

-With that, yes, I'm making friends here--miracle of miracles! It's such a blessing and answer to prayers.

-I sing tenor in our homeschool choir, which I love. I can sing soprano, alto, or tenor, and as the tenor section was smallest of those (unsurprisingly), I chose tenor. The other tenors are lads aged 10-14 and it's fun to sing with them! 

(The bass section is, also unsurprisingly, the only section smaller than tenor and I, sadly, cannot sing bass. :D)

-I started re-reading Pride and Prejudice yesterday, and I declare it gets funnier every time I read it! It is a masterpiece of literary comedy. 

("The astonishment of the ladies [upon finding out Mr. Bennet had visited Mr. Bingley] was just what he wished; that of Mrs. Bennet perhaps surpassing the rest; though when the first tumult of joy was over, she began to declare that it was what she had expected all the while.

'... But I knew I should persuade you at last...'"

"You mistake me, my dear. I have I high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.")

Gold.

-I am truly enjoying my year off from school. I decided not to start school this winter semester either and I have no regrets. I feel like I've been so busy with schoolwork for the past so many years that I haven't had time to be busy with anything else. Now I get to keep busy with all kinds of different things! I plan to go to college this fall, but for now, I'm loving it. 

-This was a looong while ago, but my sister and I went to see "The Man Who Invented Christmas" the day after Christmas, and it was brilliant.

Seriously. It was beautiful and amazing and really, the word that kept coming to mind was brilliant. It had an amazing storyline and the production was gorgeous and it had all the emotions; funny, sad, excited, frustrated, happy, joyous, awed. 

Did anyone else see it? If not, if you get an opportunity, watch it.

(It's very family friendly, too. We came home and I immediately recommended it to the rest of my family and they went the next day. There are a couple "minor" swear-words but they're honestly pretty easy to miss, too. It's rated PG.)

I hope you all are having a lovely new year! To those of you starting back up with school, good luck! How are you all doing?

Love to you all!