Couples for Couples Tag

Happy Valentine's Day!!! 

If you haven't heard already, Cordy is hosting a month-long "Lovely Blog Party"!

As part of that, she made a "Couples for Couples" Tag. Here are my answers:

Ivanhoe and Rebecca: Name a couple that should have been together

-Mary Poppins and Bert. I defy anyone to disagree.

Jo and Laurie: Name a couple that should have stayed friends...or did stay friends...
-Jack Thornton and Rosemary LeVeaux

Jane and Mr. Rochester: Name a couple that looked like the chances of a happily ever after were next to none!
-Pat Gardiner and Hilary "Jingle" Gordon, from the Pat books by L. M. Montgomery. My goodness, the last chapter never fails to make me cry.

Jane and Mr. Bingley: Name a couple that is just sooo happy!

-Amy Dorrit and Arthur Clennam, at the end of course.

Kit and Ella: Name your favorite fairytale couple
-Elise and Amiri, from the book I'm writing. Haha. Does that count? :p
If not...I might have to go with Anna and Kristoff. They are an ADORABLE couple. 

Molly Gibson and Roger Hamley: Name a couple where the woman is basically ignored by the suitor until the end of the story (frustration at it's finest!! :P :P)
-Fanny Price and Edmund Bertram. The end.

Sarah and Jacob Witting: Name a couple that found love later in life

-Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth. I suppose they found each other earlier in life but they didn't manage to make it work until much later.

Don Lockwood and Kathy Seldon: Name a couple from a musical
-Adam and Milly from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

I mean, once Adam got over his major issues with how he thought of and treated women, they were a great couple. And of course Milly is amazing.

Anne and Gilbert: Name a couple that didn't start out on the right foot

-Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. No tag is complete without a P&P answer.

Faramir and Eowyn: Name a couple with the sweetest love story
-Polly Milton and Tom Shaw. Aaaaahhh. They are the sweeetessst. (An Old-Fashioned Girl. Go read it if you haven't.)

Happy Valentine's Day!!! May you all enjoy discount chocolate tomorrow, which we know is more of a holiday than today for a lot of us. :D

Another Period Drama Tag

Molly Rebekah tagged me in Elanor's tag, Another Period Drama Tag! Thank you so much, Molly!!!

1.  What was the most recent period drama you watched?  Share what you thought of it.

-Oh goodness, I haven't seen a period drama in a little while. I must soon. But the last I remember, I watched two at the end of December: The When Calls the Heart Christmas special, and The Man Who Invented Christmas.

I LOVED BOTH.

The Man Who Invented Christmas completely blew me away a little more than WCTH, but the latter was still a charming, darling episode.

2.  Do you generally prefer period dramas in the form of a movie or a TV series/mini-series?  Why?

-Generally, a TV series/mini-series. They're longer and generally therefore more accurate to the original book. Besides, the more the better! A 5-hour version is nearly always preferable to a 2-hour version. :D

3.  What is your favorite musical period drama?

-I love The Sound of Music of course (see: blog name, page titles). Also Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (which I would say counts, Cordy :), Mary Poppins, R&H Cinderella...I love musicals and a lot of them are set in period drama eras. :D

4.  Read the book first or watch the movie first?

-Generally, read the book. There are exceptions I've made, but most of the time I prefer to read the book first. 

5.  What is a valuable life lesson you learned from a period drama?

-Oh, there's so many. I think I'll go with "He would not be quite so handsome if he were not so rich" from Pride and Prejudice. I think it's important to realize how much economic status matters when choosing a husband and determining attractiveness.

That's right, Mr. Collins. You are not rich, therefore unattractive. You see? Does it make sense now?

Good.

6.  Which period drama hero would you be likely to fall in love with in real life?

-Roger Hamley. 

Yes, yes, he's an extremely frustrating little thang with all the silliness but ROGER HAMLEY. Seriously. He is, himself, the exact type of man I would fall in love with in real life. No, not because I'm likely to fall in love with someone who won't love me back for a while. I'm talking he, himself, the person, the personality, the interests. Etc. He's perfect.

Seriously, he's so sweet and perfect and--I'll do another post about him and Molly later and elaborate.

7.  Do you ever like to binge-watch a period drama series?

-OF COURSE. 

8.  What things go best with watching a period drama?

-A good friend who agrees with and adds to your commentary.

9.  Which period drama do you think you would fit into best?

-I think I'd do okay in Pride and Prejudice, actually. I could be your Elizabeth Bennet or Fanny Price or Elinor Dashwood...wait a second...

Ha.

10. If you could have any period drama character for a best friend, who would it be?  And why?

-My real life best friend is a Jane Bennet, with some Elizabeth Bennet and Molly Gibson in her. So there's my answer. :)

11. Show us a picture of a period drama costume you wish you could wear in real life.

-I love Victorian styles, also the dresses in Cranford. I can't really think of period dramas with the costume styles I love most that I've seen, so here's some of the darling ladies of Cranford.

12. Are there any period dramas you like to watch during a particular season or holiday?
-Not really, no. Just all of them, all the time. :D

13. Which period drama has your favorite soundtrack?
-North and South has glorious music, also "Collins Canon" from the P&P soundtrack. His theme song has bassoon in it, which I think is perfect.

14. Dream cast your favorite actor and actress in a period drama of your choosing; tell which parts they would play and why.
-I've been wracking my brain for days trying and failing to come up with a good answer. My favorite actress and actor are Emma Watson and Tom Hiddleston--what do you think? Who would you cast them as?

15. Are there any period dramas you like more than one version of?
-Sense and Sensibility 1995 and 2008.

16. What are the top three period dramas that you haven't seen on your to-watch list?
-Umm
The Greatest Showman,
Fiddler on the Roof,
???

17. Show a picture of your favorite period drama hairstyle.

I love Emma's hairstyle in my header.

18. What was your favorite wedding in a period drama?
-

One of my favorites. :)

19. What is your favorite biographical period drama?

-Not sure if it quite counts, but The Man Who Invented Christmas.

20. Which historical novel will you forever recommend to anyone and everyone?
-Oh there are so many good ones! I guess Pride and Prejudice I would recommend to anyone and everyone.

This was such a fun tag!!!

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! 

Guess Who Missed Her Blogiversary Again?

Last year, I was three days late, and I put a bit in the end of a tag post. This year I'm only two days late. I was rather busy on Saturday, December 9th, which was the two-year anniversary of my blog.

But anyway, I've been blogging for 2 years! That seems so crazy to me! I can't quite believe it's been that long. 

I sure have come a long way in those two years, though. Dearie me, I was but -- years old when I started it, and that wasn't my best, least awkward age! My writing most certainly was not the best. To be sure, I couldn't exactly say it's improved sometimes, but other times I would certainly hope it has. 

I wrote a whole lot of P&P posts in those days. Of course, I still do, but those were the times when I was figuring out what I wanted my blog to be about, and I discovered blogs like The P&P 95 Forever Club, Wonderland Creek, Sunshiny Corner, and others like those and I thought, "I love Pride and Prejudice, I can write posts like that!"

 

My most viewed post and the first post people really commented on was my Pride and Prejudice "My Face When" post. (I was so proud of it at the time, but I read it again recently and goodness me, a great deal of it is quite cringy and very "wow I wrote that a while ago":) And once I saw how popular that was, Pride and Prejudice my blog became.

I remember finally figuring out that I should have a header (dear readers, one of the most marked improvements of my blog has got to be the design. It started out simply dreadful and tacky. I declare with certainty that once I had a header, my popularity went up, and that it was an influential factor.)

This was the first real header I put on my blog (I had a simply dreadful one for about a day. I shall not include it. May anyone who saw it and remembers it please forget it, thank you.)

Anyway, I put this header up and that's when my blog became more credible, I think. 

Anyway, I experimented with various types of posts, eventually figuring out what people liked and didn't. 

One of the most important things I learned? Comment on other people's blogs. That's how I've made all my blogging friends--comments. Which is quite obvious, really. How else are people supposed to get to know you, and the other way 'round, if you don't communicate in some way? And in the blogging world, commenting is most obvious.

So I started commenting on the blogs I found. I think, if I remember right, I found Naomi's blog through the P&P '95 Forever Club, and Miss March's blog from hers, all through comments. And then eventually I got the courage up to comment on these people's blogs; I believe beginning with Naomi's. And from there, I've made so many lovely friends and discovered so many lovely blogs!

Looking at my posts, I'm becoming fairly certain I started commenting on people's blogs around March of 2016, for that's when people started commenting on my posts, and looking back at those comments, the friendships were just forming! 

For the third time, I mention Naomi and Miss March, because they were pretty much my first blogging friends. You two made me feel so special and gave me such encouragement to see that there were people out there like me! Thank you both so much!

A few others who gave me encouraging comments towards the beginning include Melody, Olivia, Miss Evie, Cordy, Anna, and Abby. Huge thank you to you all!!!

A few more have been around for a while, Esther, Molly Rebekah, Rachel, and Miss Elizabeth--thanks to all of you for your support and friendship!

A huge thank you to all of you who have commented on my blog, so I can get to know you and your blog better! You all are the best.

And also a general huge thank you to all of you who have supported me in different ways through the last couple of years! And not only those who have been reading my blog for a while, but also those who have joined me recently! Thank you, thank you, to you all!

In fact, another special thank you to those who have only joined my blog in the past few months. My dears, don't be feeling left out or unappreciated by any means! In fact, if anything, feel glad you didn't have to see my bad writing first, haha. I'm so happy to know you all, and your support means every bit as much to me! Your comments make my day! I'm so happy to have met so many of you kindred spirits! I would try to list you all, but I would be terrified of leaving someone out, because the numbers grow and it's not so easy to list everyone as it used tobe. But thank you to everyone else who I haven't mentioned! I'm so glad I've met you and thanks for your support and friendship here!

I'm so glad I decided to start a blog two years ago! It's brought me such happiness and fun in my life, and I've found so many people like me! Thanks to you all for being here!

A Calm, Organized, Real Post (No, I'm Serious)

Dear readers,

That last post was indeed a jumbled mess. I read back through it and I don't think my readers believed, after reading it, that I truly had just written 50,000 words of a novel. Or, at least, that it was organized and readable. As to the first, I may assure you, I did write 50,000 words (though I feel I must clarify--I had written some before November, so I only made it to about 43-44,000 in November itself). As to the latter, I may only assure you that a great deal of it was written late at night, and you may take from that what you will. Parts of it, I daresay, are not as clear as they should be.

Now, I shall attempt to write a clear, organized, "real" post (and succeed, of course. I've done so before, haven't I?...Haven't I?)  

Of course you have!
(I declare, this is probably my favourite reaction image of all, in case you haven't noticed already.)

First, I'll give you a little background to my novel. 

I began the original draft of this novel when I was eleven years old. As I recalled when telling the background to another dear friend, it actually began as telling a story aloud to my younger siblings in the car. I believe they even helped a great deal in forming the plot. 

My story began with a man and a woman who lived happily except for the fact that they had no children. Such begins a few tales, and such began mine. It proceeded with the wife falling ill, and requiring radishes, which could only be found in the garden of a Witch (in my first draft, Witch was always capitalised). The Witch, of course, caught the man stealing it, but then did something strange. She gave the man a barley seed, saying it would become a flower when planted, which his wife was to kiss and there would be a little girl, whom she would proceed to take away.

That doesn't make a great deal of sense, Rae's 11-year-old self.

I tell you all this because I completely and entirely changed the beginning in my second draft, which is the novel I just finished. 

But, as you probably guessed, that beginning was a combination of Rapunzel and Thumbelina, and it was the beginning of a novel idea which I have not given up on.

I continued writing that first draft over the last several years. The last I wrote of it was a little over a year ago, and I never actually finished it. I was almost to the end, I had about 43-44,000 words, but when I came around to the idea of writing again this year, there was so much I wanted to change that I wasn't sure it was worth writing an ending to the first draft when it was likely to change.

I began to rewrite my novel, with a completely different beginning.

Good.

And rewriting was something my poor book needed dreadfully. I referred back to my first version several times, and oh, my eyes hurt and my head ached. I believe I wrote a great deal of it around ages 13 and 14, which were not my best times in my writing experience.

And that, dear readers, is all I shall tell you of its content. Perhaps in time snippets shall be shared. Perhaps.

Anyway, now it's written, though I would not call it finished. It needs a great deal more work. 

I'm quite happy that I had the opportunity to do NaNoWriMo this year! It was just the thing to get my book on its way to completion.

There, see, I managed to keep it calm and organized, didn't? I'm amazed at myself, truly. 

Mr. Collins is *~taken aback~*

(At first when I wrote this, I forgot to put pictures in, and it didn't seem like a real post. Mr. Collins helped out quite a bit, no? :)

Also! Who wants to discuss Little Women with me in the comments? I'm rereading it for the first time in several years, and I'm a little ways into part 2. For a long time, after reading it 3-4 times when I was younger, I had a bitter grudge against dear Louisa May Alcott for not putting Jo and Laurie together and also for putting Laurie with Amy. When preparing to read it again, I realized perhaps now, being older, I'd change my mind. Now, I haven't gotten to the part where Laurie proposes yet, only to the part where Jo just went to New York, but I'm already excessively upset at the injustice between Amy and Jo and I already kinda adore the Jo and Laurie ship. I don't believe I'll change my mind. Anyway...discussion on the subject is welcome. Also ranting about how unfair it is that Amy got so much more than Jo when let's be honest, we all like Jo better (well, no offense to Amy admirers of course if you're out there).

Hope you all have a lovely week and a lovely Christmas season!

Jumbled Ramblings + New Old Blog Look

Wellll, y'all, I'm back, and it feels like I've been gone for a long, long time. 

NaNoWriMo completely took up the month of November for me. And then with writing 1-3,000 words per day, by the time I finished, I didn't want to do anything else on the computer and certainly no more writing, posts or comments. There's my excuse, readers, and that's all I've got. 

Anyway, I'm currently trying to at least read y'all's blog posts, and hopefully leave comments, but please excuse if I don't comment on your posts from earlier in the month. I certainly wish I could have, but I must attempt to keep sane, you know. 

On the other hand, I did get to 50,000 words last month!!! Yay!!! So to me, at least, my lack of participation in the blogging world was worth it. :D

(Pretty much I'm literally just switching between writing this post and commenting on posts. Let us all hope I do not mix the two up, though I don't see how that's hardly likely. Though I daresay if I had gotten any less sleep last night I'd manage it.)

Y'all (guys I swear I say y'all more since I moved out of The South) (Wait, y'all don't know where I moved from do you?) (Though really, with you Americans at least, I've said y'all enough to imply that I'm from somewhere in the south, right?) (All right, Rae, enough.)

Well. Now I can't remember what I was about to say when I said that original "Y'all". Oh, well, perhaps it will come back.

(At this point this post is becoming something rather un-publishable)

You must excuse my writing, though. It's NaNoWriMo's fault. You'd think, perhaps, it would make me a better writer, which it did, but only when I'm writing "for real". When I blog that is my time to write freely. Okay? Good. 

Now, where was I?

I think I was going to say something about how I only have five more posts to read. 

Finished. :)

Oh! Yes! So my blog look, I decided to just keep the same one as last year. I love how it looked and I'm not willing to try to beat it. :)

Alllll righty...Have I anything further to say? I don't think so. 

Allow me to apologize for the jumbled ramble-ness of this post and y'all be glad it's rather short. (Even though I've been writing it for several hours. I kept switching over to y'all's blog posts.)

Perhaps I shall get to making a real post sometime. 

For now, hope you all have a loverly week, and merry Christmas season to you all!