So this recipe comes from my sister blog MysteriousEats.wordpress.com. Typically I just reblog her posts onto my site, but I noticed that they don’t look the best and kind of come out weird looking. So instead I decided that I would just copy and paste her post onto my site. Here we go.
Ready for scones & tea.
So we were having a tea at church and I needed a scone to go with our food. I had already decided on a savory (will be posting soon), but needed a sweet scone.
I started scouring the internet when I came upon this recipe on The King Arthur Flour website. Everything I have made from them has been fantastic so I thought I would give it a try.
Ingredients:
2-3/4 Cups of King Arthur Unbleached Flour or Regular Flour
1/3 Cup of Sugar
1 Tablespoon of Baking Powder
3/4 Teaspoon of Salt
3/4 Teaspoon of Ground Cinnamon
1/4 Teaspoon of Ground Ginger
1/4 Teaspoon of Ground Nutmeg
1/4 Teaspoon of Ground Allspice
1/2 Cup of Cold Butter
1-2 Cups of Chocolate Chips
2/3 Cup of Canned Pumpkin
2 Large Eggs
Cinnamon sugar (1 Tablespoon of Cinnamon and 1 Tablespoon of granulated sugar), for topping
Milk
Directions:
In a large mixing bowl; whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and the spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, & allspice).
Work in the butter until the mix is unevenly crumbly; it’s ok for some larger chunks of butter to remain unincorporated.
Stir in the Chocolate Chips.
In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together the pumpkin and eggs till smooth.
Add the pumpkin/egg mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until all is moistened and holding together.
Line a baking sheet with parchment; if you don’t have any use the sheet without parchment,but don’t grease it. Instead sprinkle a bit of flour on the parchment.
Scrape the dough onto the floured parchment or pan and divide it in half.
Round each half into a 6″ circle, about 3/4 an inch thick.
Brush each circle with milk and sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar mixture.
Using a knife, cut each circle into size wedges.
Carefully pull the wedges away from the center to separate them just a bit, about 1/2 inch space between them.
Place the scones in the freezer for 30 degrees uncovered. While the scones are chilling, preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
Back the scones 22-25 mins or until golden brown and toothpick inserted into a center of one comes out clean. The edges should be baked through.
Remove from the oven and serve warm.
THOUGHTS AFTER BAKING:
I loved them! They were perfect!
They were just so delicious everyone ate them right away and wanted more.
I cannot recommend more strongly that you should definitely make them.
I wasn’t really planning on including this in my Christmas countdown, but hey a post is a post so it needs a song to go with it.
So I had never heard this song before until the other when I was driving to work. At first I was like what is this? Who is Dominick the donkey?
But then as I listened, it quickly grew on me. So much that I actually listened to it later at home and decided to include it in our countdown. After all, donkey’s need love too.
So this song is called Dominick the Donkey and was written in 1960 by Ray Allen, Sam Saltzberg and Wandra Merrell. It was recorded by Lou Monte and is about a donkey that Santa owns, used to help deliver presents to children in Italy as reindeer cannot climb the mountains.
Day 1) A is for Apocalyptical: Choose a book with an apocalyptic theme
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Fahrenheit 451 is one of my absolute favorite books. I first was introduced to it at the age of 10, when I came across my parents watching the German film. I didn’t quite understand it, so my mom gave me the book to read. Since then I read it at least once a year.
Or 10th, 50th, 100th….
Every time I read this book it shocks me with how accurate it is in portraying the culture of today. I was amazed at that age, but this most recent time when I read the book, it really struck me with exactly how spot on it is.
The book was published in 1953, and is set in a Dystopian future. No year is given, although it is done after 1960. In this future reading is outlawed
Books are an illegal substance,
and the firemen’s job is to burn the offensive material.
AAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don’t know about you all, but a world without books sounds like a catastrophic end of the world to me. After all:
Guy Montag has always lived life the way culture dictates; has a good paying job, married, no kids as they are bothersome and their are already too many, multiple wall screens to stream TV, etc.
Sound familiar?
But then one night everything changes. He meets the daughter of his new next door neighbor, Clarisse, who doesn’t like firemen.
“And you must be-…the fireman.’ Her voice trailed off.
‘How oddly you say that.’
‘I’d- I’d have known it with my eyes shut,’ she said, slowly.
‘What- the smell of kerosene? My wife always complains,’ he laughed. ‘You never wash it off completely.’
‘No you don’t,’ she said, in awe.” [pg. 4]
She starts talking about all kinds of things, like how firemen at one time didn’t burn things but helped stop fires. She even questions whether he ever reads the books he burns.
Clarisse is completely counter to the culture of the day and a throwback to the past.
For instance, she doesn’t like this obsession with everything has to be in a hurry, driving all is blur with no one taking the time to look, examine, or have have patience. In fact her uncle was jailed for driving 40 mi/hrs, as it was far too “slow”.
Clarisse also likes to go out for walks and and look at the sky, stars, or moon. Something else everyone finds as weird or odd.
This reminds me so much of our culture today. Everything needs to be instant-instant news, fast food, all TV shows, etc. No patience, no waiting. My niece and I were watching a show on Netflix, and she asked me why they would have these moments where they pause, go to black, and then do a review of what we already seen. I actually had to explain that they used to show these episodes on TV, and there would be commercials in-between. Because you might get people who just tuned in and didn’t see the beginning, and were unable to see the beginning (unless they purchased it on VHS or DVD, they would repeat it for them. And then I had to explain that streaming is something new, prior to it you had to wait a week for the next episode; and when the season ended you had to wait 6 months to a year for the next season.
Now here is a child who has grown up on the world of streaming and the internet and never, ever experienced having to wait for something.
Just like in this.
Anyways, when Montag returns home he finds his wife, Mildred, almost dead, having sucked down a lot of pills. He calls the hospital and they don’t even bother sending an ambulance. So many people these days are trying to kill themselves and end their life with pills, they have a machine like a black snake to pump the stomach.
The next day, Mildred doesn’t remember anything about what happened that night, and all she cares about is her “family” a TV show she follows.
There are all kinds of people suffering in the world or “real issues” that need to be talked about, but are all glossed over by entertainment. All people care about is the TV screens, wanting this giant Wall to Wall circuit. And the shows they watch have no real themes or content to them. Just mindless chatter.
When I reread this, it made me think of the reality shows we have that are just the same thing again and again, no real changes or real content. Keeping Up with the Kardashians for example. Or the endless dating shows looking for love like Flav O Flav, My Fair Brady, etc. Or The X Factor, The Voice, American Idol, etc, And people care more about these shows then real things.
We are strange people.
Then Montag runs into Clarisse. She talks to him, really talks just about anything and everything. Because she isn’t “normal” they force her to o to a psychiatrist.
“They want to know what I do with all my time. I tell them that sometimes I just sit and think.” [pg. 20]
In fact that is something she and her family like to do, just sit around and talk no devices, go out and walk just talking. In this world conversation is dead, no one really talks anymore. Sound familiar?
“He laughed.
She glanced quickly over. ‘Why are you laughing?’
‘I don’t know.’ He started to laugh again and stopped. ‘Why?’
‘You laugh when I haven’t been funny and you answer right off. You never stop to think what I’ve asked you.” [pg. 6]
It gets him thinking, and thinking is dangerous in a dystopian world.
“He felt his body divide itself into a hotness and a coldness, a softness and a hardness, a trembling and a not trembling, the two halves grinding upon the other.” [pg. 21]
Clarrise is a great character because she represents a type of person that is fading out. The one who is still holding on to the values of the past. A type of person who wants to think for herself instead of being spoonfeed an idea from the Internet, government, or teachers.
“I’m antisocial, they say. I don’t mix. It’s so strange. I’m very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn’t it? Social to me means talking to you about things like this…But I don’t think it is social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you?…We never ask questions…they just run the answers at you, bing, bing, bing…It’s a lot of funnels and a lot of water poured down the spout and out the bottom, and them telling us it’s wine when it’s not.” [pg. 27]
The other thing I love about Clarrise os that she is so easily relatable, at least to me she is. She is disconnected to her generation because she doesn’t have the same values as they do she is more old fashioned, and because of that she is an 80 year old in a 17 year old’s body. I know exactly how that feels. I love reading, creating things by hand, having things until they wear out, not getting the newest stuff. That’s how I been my whole life which makes it hard to find others who value the same thing. I mean I read Emily Post.
“You sound so old.’
‘Sometimes I’m ancient.” [pg. 27]
Clarrise hates this world of blandness and nothingness.
“People don’t talk about anything.’
‘Oh, they must!’
‘No, not anything. They name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming pools mostly and say how swell! But they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else.” [pg. 28]
Clarisse opens Montag’s mind up to the way the world is and how it should be, and before he knows it, she and her whole family are gone.
You question in a dystopian world and you are gone.
He asks Captain Beatty if it is true that fireman used to stop fires instead of creating them.
Not good
The rest if the firemen are uneasy, but Captain Beatty knows it is natural for at one pint a fireman to question things. He shows him the history of the firemen and when they were first established.
“Established, 1790, to burn English-influenced books in the Colonies. First Fireman: Benjamin Franklin.
Rules
Answer the alarm quickly.
Start the fire swiftly.
Burn everything.
Report back to the firehouse immediately.
Stand alert for other Alarms.
Before anything else can be done, an alarm sounds and the group heads out. They reach the place and apprehend a women, demanding to know where her contraband is. She won’t tell them but quotes Hugh Latimer.
“Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”
The fireman don’t understand this, but Hugh Latimer was executed for his protestantism, under the ruling of catholic Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth’s older sister. He was burned alive for his beliefs, which is foreshadowing as to what is to come.
They find the books and are going to burn them like they always do, except this night is different. This woman, Mrs. Blake, stands their silently judging them.
Montag begins burning everything, but instead of just being things, they feel more alive, like killing animals.
They burn everything, ready to decimate the building, but Mrs. Blake won’t leave. She refuses to give up her books. The fireman leave, ready to let her die; but Montag tries to help her. She refuses as she holds in her hand a match.
Not good
Willing to die for her beliefs.
I think that is why I love this book so much, the fact that it truly explains a connection people have not just to the book but to the author’s thoughts and ideas. Destroying a book is more than destroying a physical object, it is trying to kill the person who created it.
“It’s not just the woman that died…Last night I thought about all that kerosene I’ve used in the past ten years. And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books. A man had to think them up. A man had to take a long time to put them down on paper. And I’d never even thought that thought before…It took some man a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life and then I come along in two minutes and boom! it’s all over.” [pg. 49]
Montag returns home after the horror with a secret:
“His hands had been infected, and soon it would be his arms. He could feel the poison working up his wrists and into the elbows and his shoulders, and then the jump-over from shoulder blade to shoulder blade like a spark leaping a gap. His hands were ravenous. And his eyes were beginning to feel hunger, as if they must look at something, anything, everything…He balanced in space with the book in his sweating cold fingers.” [pg. 38]
Montag realizes how empty his life is, he married his wife ten years ago, but can’t fathom why. He doesn’t love her and she doesn’t love him. They don’t talk, they spend no time together, and all she does is watch TV or listen to her device with her little seashell headphones that go in her ears practically disappearing from view. Both people are empty, full of nothingness. There is countless walls between them through the TV shows she watches and she is more connected to those fake creations on the screen than her own husband.
All Mildred does is watch TV, yet even that is so empty that you if ask questions what is it even about Mildred doesn’t know. Mildred doesn’t know anything. It’s like she is on drugs, the way her memory and mind is so foggy.
She is like a zombie.
The next day Montag is sick, not physically but mentally, and philosophically. The death of the woman has troubled him dearly and he can’t understand it.
“You weren’t there, you didn’t see,’ he said. There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.” [pg. 48]
Mildred doesn’t understand it and think that Montag is crazy for taking the death of a stupid radical this way. He should focus on work, on making more money, so they can get more things and TVs and such.
“Let me alone,’ said Mildred. ‘I didn’t do anything.’
‘Let you alone! That’s all very well, but how can I leave myself alone? We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long has it been since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?” [pg. 49]
Then Beatty shows up as Montag has been missing from work. He figured it out that Montag has been questioning the world they live in. So he gives them the spiel he gives out to bring those on the edge back to reality.
“Once, books appealed to a few people, here, there, everywhere. They could afford to be different. The world was roomy. But then the world got full of eyes and elbows and mouths…Films and radios, magazines, books leveled down to a sort of paste pudding norm…in the twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests. Tabloids…Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve line dictionary resume…
Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click, Pic, Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out, Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop, Bing, Bong, Boom!…Whirl a man’s mind around so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters, that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought.
…philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?” [pgs 51-53]
Life today. Now this part here really gets me with how PC you have to be 24/7, the littlest infraction and you are out.
“Now let’s take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don’t step on the toes of the dog-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico…The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean.
Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca…But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic books survive, And the dimensional sex magazines of course.
There you have it, Montag. It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick…Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time…
With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word ‘intellectual’, of course became the swear word it deserved to be…
We must all be alike. Not everyone was born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man in the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, judge themselves against…”
Horrifying, yet that is the world we live in. You don’ like it, they destroy it; and that is happening now. A book about George Washington’s slave, who liked him because she saved his life from an assassination plot, making him a birthday cake was pulled because it isn’t p.c. Uncle Tom’s Cabin? No longer read because it is portrays African Americans in a bed light when it didn’t, Uncle Tom was an extremely powerful character. People don’t even read the book, but destroy it because it might hurt someone’s feelings.
Captain Beatty lets them know they got rid of the girl as she was too crazy and out there.
Life’s better bland, nothing to worry about, pleasant life, no problems, no nothing.
He tells Montag it is okay to check out a book, just one, as there is nothing in there. He’ll read it and burn it afterward.
After Beatty left, Montag is furious, but instead of taking something to make him happy, he has 20 books hidden in the house. He has decided to read them, sharing them with Mildred.
Montag goes to see Professor Faber, a man he ran into before. Faber used to work at a liberal arts college, but they closed it down as it was no longer important. He wants to know how to understand the books, to learn and Faber is the only one he has left.
Faber tells him we need three things in life:
“Number one: Do you know why books such as these are so important? Because they have quality…This book has pores…You’d find life under the glass, streaming past infinite profusion…The good writers touch life often.” [pg. 79]
And the second? Leisure. Now Montag brings up that we have plenty of leisure, but he means actual time set aside to read, not bombarded with all types of things.
“You can’t argue with a four-wall televisor. Why? The televisor is ‘real.’ It is immediate, it has dimension. It tells you what to think and blasts it in. It must be right. It seems so right. It rushes you on so quickly to its own conclusions your mind hasn’t time to protest, ‘What nonsense!’
‘…You can shut [books], say ‘Hold on a moment.’ You play God to it. But who has ever torn himself away from the claw that encloses you when you drop a seed in a TV parlor? It grows you any shape it wishes! It is an environment as real as the world. It becomes and is the truth. Books can be beaten down with reason. But with all my knowledge and skepticism, I have never been able to argue with a one-hundred-piece-symphony orchestra, full color, three dimensions…” [pg. 80]
And thirdly the ability to carry out the actions learned from it.
Montag thinks they can change the world by planting books on all the firemen, to bring them down. But Faber knows it won’t help, it isn’t the fireman that created this rule but the public who wanted people to stop reading.
That’s right, we did when we stopped reading.
Montag is afraid to go out as Beatty might mix him up again. Faber gives him these devices so he can put it in his ear so that he can hear Faber. That night he goes home and sees that Mildred is having a party.
Montag is horrified by these women. One just marries, divorces, marries, divorces, no emotions whatsoever. The other has kids who are in school constantly, and never sees them as she doesn’t care. They discuss politics. voting for people based on how they look and their names, rather than what they actually say or want to do.
Montag reads to them but they don’t understand. They’ve been too distorted with TV and the culture with no substance.
Captain Beatty knows that Montag has been reading and plays with him, using the books he clings to to rebut his arguments. They leave as they have a call, and it turns out that it is Montag’s house
Mildred put in the alarm and she is heartbroken. But what saddens her the most? Losing her TV family
Yes, not her husband, home, etc.
Montag is forced to destroy his own home, and afterwards destroys the firemen. After all, his whole life he has been taught, you have a problem, burn it.
He has now become a fugitive and runs. Not knowing where, but just continuing to run.
After running, he plants the books in other firemen’s houses. Montag stops to see Faber, finds out the Hound (the firemen’s robotic assassin) is after them, and continues to take off. Never knowing where he is to go next, but running.
He runs into the country until the end of the all known. He stops when he reaches an area with men siting near a campfire and TV set. They give him a potion to change his perspiration, but it is’t really necessary. The Hound needs to find someone, as after all this is TV, the people need the answer.
They find some poor sop who looks like Montag and kill him to save face.
These men are former professors , intellectuals, etc; who have been running from the law. Each one has taken in a new life, the life of a book. These books are locked away in an area they can never be taken from. The mind.
Eventually the hope is to one day reenter society and bring the books they have been passing orally to the world.
“Do you really think they will listen then?’
‘If not then we’ll just have to wait…you can’t make people listen. They have to come around in their own time…” [pg. 146]
And what book does Montag choose to be? Ecclesiastes.
Besides this fantastic story, we have the amazing language and the great way it was written. Take the beginning:
“It was a pleasure to burn.
It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history. With his symbolic helmut numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted above all, like the old joke to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping pigeon-winged books died on the porch lawn of the house. While the books went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.” [pgs. 1-2]
This book is only 158 pages, barely any pages, but there is so much power is in that. Amazing amounts of power. I just love this book.
Remember:
Turn your TV, computer, cell phone, and any other device you have off for a while and pick up a book instead.
So last year I posted a Christmas Carol every day in December and I really enjoyed it. I had so much fun picking out the songs, I decided to bring it back.
So with everything going on in the world, and the way people have been acting: I think we need a little Christmas in our lives. So I choose that song.
We Need a Little Christmas is from the musical Mame based on the novel Aunt Mame. In the story Mame gains guardianship of her nephew and starts to raise him. At this point in the musical, Mame has lost everything in the stock market crash of 1929. With everything practically gone, she decides to have Christmas early as she doesn’t know what will happen.
Of course that isn’t the end of the play as Mame has many more interesting antics. However, this song is great and just the right thing to put us in the mood.
This version is sung by Angela Lansbury, from the first musical cast of Aunt Mame.
So I know I haven’t gotten to Star Trek in my fangirl posts, do you might not realize this about me:
And as this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Original Series, I decided that how last year was on Back to the Future, this year will be on Star Trek. And next year can be Star Wars as it marks the 40th anniversary of that film. But enough on that, let’s get to our year in review!
This is a time to reflect on what the past year held for us, the big posts, what’s new, and what you all seemed to like the most.
This post will only cover a few things, you really should check out the year for yourself. To start at the beginning go here.
The Views
This year I had 68,000 views!
Last year I had 31,000 and I thought that was a lot. Thank you buzzfeed, pinterest, facebook, twitter, and readers who practically doubled my views.
The most viewed day of the year was June 19th, in which I posted Drug of Choice.
The Number One Post
Strangely, my top posts had nothing to do with anything posted in 2015.
But you all like what you like!
So the number one post was from my Romance is in the Air Valentine’s countdown from 2013. That post was Fulfilling the List: A Walk to Remember, and I think I need to post on it once again.
So this community has really grown in numbers and I can not describe how pleased I am about that. We have gone from 14 followers in 2012 to 42 followers in 2013, 169 followers in 2014, and are now at 439. That’s amazing!
So enough about the statistics and numbers! Let’s move on to what was covered this year and what changes I have made to the blog
This year I continued my fandom posts, posting on Sundays. This year I wasn’t as faithful, as sometimes life would throw me a curveball, but I am getting closer to completing it. I just have to stop adding things.
So far this year I have covered: Amazing Phil/Phil Lester, Audrey Hepburn, The Baby-Sitters Club, The Beach Party Series,The Brady Bunch, Brotherly Love, The Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales, Captain Planet, The Cat Who Mystery Series, Cinemasins, Clint Eastwood, Daredevil, Death on Demand Mystery Series, Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, Dr. Seuss, Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, 8 Simple Rules, Elvis Presley, Eureka,Everyday Sunday, The Fast & the Furious franchise, Foreigner, Full House,Gargoyles,Grimm, Growing Pains, Guardians of the Galaxy, Hans Christian Anderson, Harry Potter, Hawk Nelson, Hell on Wheels, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, The Highlander, How I Met Your Mother, How It Should Have Ended, The Hunger Games, Indiana Jones, James Bond, Jimmy Stewart, Journey, The Kinsey Millhone Mysteries, Las Vegas, Leverage, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Lord of the Rings, Madeleine L’Engle, Make It or Break It, The Mentalist, Michael Crichton, Michael J. Fox, Midsomer Murders, Murder She Wrote, My Chemical Romance, Nancy Drew, The Nanny, NCIS, North & South, The Nostalgia Critic, The Office, Once Upon a Time, The Phantom of the Opera, Pokemon, The Princess Bride, Psych, Ray Bradbury, The Riyria Revelations, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
So I was trying to get a job with Buzzfeed and posted a few things as it was part of the application process. However no one was really interested in my lists so I decided to bring that style here. I only did one, Heaven on Earth, in which I listed the best fictional libraries; but I’m thinking of doing a few more in the future.
So last year I talked about reviewing Sense & Sensibility, along with all those based on the works or rewritings. I talked about the girls’ older brother John, and how he severely let these girls down in Promises Were Made to Be Broken. The joys and horrors of sisterhood and how the two act as a unit in Sisterly Roles. Edward Ferrars’ arrival into the house and being the one that brings peace to the house in The Eye of the Storm. On Elinor’s views of Edward, in To Edward or Not to Edward? How young girl’s views of the perfect man haven’t changed in 200 years, in Some Things Never Change.
With Disney’s new Cinderella live action film, I felt the need to call out to the cynics and naysayers, and prove that their smack was unfounded and Cinderella is actually a pretty awesome story.
Like I did with Sense & Sensibility (see #4), I decided that I would begin going through Emma, along with reviewing any adaptations or retellings of this story.
So I started off talking about the uniqueness of Emma Woodhouse among the other Jane Austen heroines, in One of a Kind. How loneliness severely affects the character of Emma and explains her actions, in All By Myself. How easy it is for people and Emma to take credit for something they actually have no control over, in Credit Where Credit is Due. On how Mr. Weston is a great man but no one ever talks about him, in Unsung Austen Men: Mr. Weston.
I also reviewed the book Mr. Knightley’s Diaryby Amanda Grange, a book that looks at the story of Emma from his point of view.
I didn’t do any posts on Pride & Prejudice the book as I was going through Sense & Sensibility and Emma. However I did review quite a few novels that are based on or retellings of Austen’s work.
There was Fall for You by Cecilia Gray, in which all your favorite Austen heroines attend The Jane Austen Academy boarding school in California together. This year the school was bought and has some major changes, allowing boys to attend! How would these girls get along in a modern world, follow this link to find out.
The Accidental Bride: A Romantic Comedy by Janice Harayda; is the story of a Jane Austen devotee set to be married soon, when she suddenly has second thoughts. With everyone pushing her in different directions, she relies on her love of Jane Austen to help her through. To read the review, follow this link.
Mr. Darcy Broke My Heart, by Beth Pattillo, is the tale of a non-Austenite; filling in for her sister and taking a class along with presenting a paper on Austen. She also gets caught up in spylike drama when she becomes the owner of secret Austen papers. To see what I thought of it, follow this link.
Pride & Prescience (Or A Truth Universally Acknowledged) by Carrie Bebris, is a mystery with supernatural elements. Caroline Bingley bags a wealthy American and marries him right away. But after the marriage she starts acting strangely. It is just nerves or something more nefarious at play? It’s up to Elizabeth to find out. Follow this link to read more.
I reviewed the book Fall for You by Cecilia Gray, and while I didn’t completely roast the book, I wasn’t the kindest. But Cecilia Gray took it in stride and retweeted my review, urging others to check it out. I’ve given a shout out before, and just want time to thank her again.
14) 30 Years Has a Nice Ring to It
My post She’s Still Preoccupied With 1985 is an ’80s lover’s dream. In it I detail every amazing ’80 thing that I love that turned 30 in 2015.
I did a post on some cool Monster Movie action figures I found, in Monster Mash. And I listed five of my favorite song to listen to on Halloween, in Haunted Harmonies of Halloween.
18) 25 Carols of Christmas
This year for Christmas, I did a Carol countdown. Everyday I posted on one of my favorite Christmas carols.
I wrote a post comparing all the Austen characters to Disney ones. It took months to complete but I think it was pretty awesome. You’ll have to tell me what you think. Check it out in Waiter, There’s Some Disney in My Jane Austen.
So what will this year hold? I don’t know. I guess you will have to join my expedition to find out.
For the past two years I have done a countdown post of 25 of my favorite films that feature Christmas. I was going to do another one this year, but was too tired from yesterday’s post. So instead I am going to do something different, I’m going to finish up our 25 Carols of Christmasposts.
But before I do that, I want to stop and acknowledge who’s birthday today is, other than Jesus. Today marks the 200th birthday of Emma.
This book was published in 1815, and changed literature. Yes, what started out as a character that only Austen was supposed to like, turned into something beloved by all.
From her radical views on marriage and love:
To her crazy schemes that always ended comedically.
And let’s not forget the handsome Knightley, the purveyor of common sense and one handsome hunk.
Now for today’s Christmas Carol. It was hard to choose the final one, but in the end I decided to go with my absolute favorite Christmas Carol, We Wish You a Merry Christmas.
This Christmas Carol came about from the tradition of wealthy Englishmen giving treats to Christmas carolers, such as fig, raisin, or other type of pudding.
I just love the beat and the lyrics. This song is so much fun and truly helps you wish a Merry Christmas.
“And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
Christmas is coming, and you all know how much I love it! The tree…
The parties!
The Christmas baking!
The holiday cheer!
And of course, the Christmas carols.
And I have tried to do something every year here on my blog. The only problem is that I get so busy.
So many things come up around the holidays. My first year I tried to do the12 posts of Christmas, reviewing a different Christmas film in the 12 days leading up to Christmas. It didn’t go as planned.
Besides all the other Christmas things I was doing, I ended up getting sick doing only 7/12 posts.
The next year I tried to do a countdown, but it didn’t work out, so I did a singular post (like my Saint Patrick’s Day ones) in which I talked about 25 of my favorite films that have something to do with Christmas. I repeated it again for last year.
However, this year I decided I would try my best to do another countdown. At first I wanted to do The 25 Episodes of Christmas, reviewing my 25 favorite TV episodes. But when November 18th rolled around and I had yet to review even one, I decided it was best to scratch that idea, at least for this year.
But then I got another idea. Why not review a Christmas Carol everyday? Do the regular posting as well, but just include a carol at the bottom of the post?
So that is what I am going to try to do. Fingers crossed that I will accomplish it.
So get ready for some Christmas songs headed your way!
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