Have you ever taken credit for something you didn’t do or was out of your hands to create?
It’s not to say that you were trying to steal someone else’s thoughts, creation, or work. It’s just you are trying to take full credit for something you really had no true control over.
Well then you are just like Emma when she believes she is the one who brought Miss Taylor and Mr. Weston together.
Now a lot of people laugh at how conceited Emma is in this scene, but this is actually something a lot of people fall into.
For all you sports fans, think about the last game you saw in which your team won because “you wore a special shirt or socks”. Or how about the fact you won a prize because you chose your “lucky number”? Or the time you won a game because you “blew luck into the dice”? Or getting a certain space in Monopoly because you “claimed” it? Or the time you passed a test because you wore a “lucky” piece of clothing? Yep, we humans love to claim that some act we did caused a realignment in the cosmos and brought about something we desired.
In reality, none of our little “lucky” things or claims did anything to affect it. It was out of our control the whole time, but we feel better having done “something”. It makes us feel in control.
In Emma, Emma Woodhouse’s governess and best friend has just married the widower Mr. Weston. Emma is convinced that she is the one who made it all happen, as four years ago when everyone said Mr. Weston would never marry, she was determined to prove them all wrong.
However, there is a huge problem with this thought. In thinking that she did everything, Emma is totally disregarding the feelings of her mentor and Mr. Weston. Because she was lucky in her guess, she believes she is the one who made all the decisions, a true puppet master.
Sorry Emma, that’s not how it works. People are like cats, they don’t do something because you want them to. They do what they want to do.
If they want to be together, they will try to get together. But if they don’t want to get together, then it’s not going to work out.
As Mr. Knightley says it:
“I do not understand what you mean by ‘success’, said Mr Knightley. “Success supposes endeavor…But if, which I rather imagine, your making the match, as you call it, means only your planning it, your saying to yourself one idle day, ‘I think it would be a very good thing for Miss Taylor if Mr. Weston were to marry her,’ and saying it again to yourself every now and then afterwards, why do you talk of success? Where is your merit? You made a lucky guess; and that is all that can be said.”
Unfortunately, like most people, Emma won’t listen to him as she is adamant that her thoughts and suppositions had a true effect on the real world.
And is now determined to set her sights on someone else, fixing them up and proving to Mr. Knightley that she is in control.
And how will this turn out for Emma? Keep following to find out!
So I don’t know about you all but my family actually cuts down our Christmas Tree. We always go the day after Thanksgiving to the black friday sales, and then a few hours to the forest to cut down our tree.
Now some of you may wonder why we would go through so much trouble? Why not buy a fake one? Well I’ll tell you why:
1) The permit to cut down a tree only costs $10. That means you can get as big a tree you want for only ten bucks! For instance we got a 12 foot tree for 5% of the cost of buying one from a lot.
2) Cutting down your Christmas tree is very good for the environment.
I know many of you have just read that and are probably saying to yourselves this girl is stupid, but just hear me out. You see trees grow in clumps and while that is a great thing as they share resources, protect each other, pollinate each other, etc. However, at times this can be bad. Sometimes trees grow too close together that they are unable to get their share. Often times one, or all, the trees will die as there isn’t enough to go around. Cutting down your own Christmas tree from one of the clumps means that one side might be a little thinner (you just aim that side in the corner) and it helps the other trees grow big and strong. Also periodically clearing out sections of trees protects them in the summer when there are threats of forest fires. And of course, this cutting isn’t a free for all. You can only cut from certain sections, therefore protecting a wider majority of trees. You also have restrictions on the tree size. Your trunk can only have a diameter of 6 inches and there is a restriction of high the stump can be. These regulations keep older trees protected, along with making sure people are not cutting off the tops and leaving the rest of the tree.
That’s a lot!
3) Cutting your own tree means that it will last longer. You see one of the biggest problems with tree lots is that these trees are cut at the end of November, shipped over to the city they will be sold, and hanging around on pavement until they are sold. They are not getting the same TLC or water and a lot of them die really early, shedding tons of pine needles along the way. Now when you cut your own tree, it is nice and fresh and lasts much, much longer. As I said we always get our tree at the end of November and take it down at the end of January. We could keep it up longer, but usually by February we are packing up our Christmas stuff. Besides longevity, it also smells absolutely wonderful.
And with cutting down your tree there are always adventures. Three years ago I went with my parents and we brought my two nieces, my nephew, and our dog. We hiked all over the area in the snow looking for the perfect tree.
We finally found it and my dad cut it down using a manpowered saw rather than a chainsaw. I tried to help him but it was hard work and both of us were pooped. He was really tired so I had him rest and had to carry that tree on my own. Let me say, I’m never doing that again. It was sooo heavy! I don’t know how I was able to carry it even for a minute.
After my dad’s rest we finished moving the tree to the truck. After that I had to carry the three kids as the snow embankments had grown larger, and they wouldn’t be able to make it out. Yep, every time I feel like something is too hard, difficult, or heavy, I just remind myself that I carried a tree down a mountainside. I rule!
And this year wasn’t any duller. There was no snow as we’ve been suffering some strong dry spells, but we still had a lot of fun hiking up and down the mountainside for that perfect tree. When we found it we cut it down (using a chainsaw this time) and started to head down the mountainside. Now, we’ve been doing this since I was like 13, but this year something happened that had never happened before.
As we started down the hill trying to bring the tree to the truck, my dad yelled at us to turn the tree as he wanted the weaker side pointed to the ground as that side was to lay in the flatbed. As we turned the tree, BAM! SMACK!
The tree branches kept smacking me in the face. And when I mean kept, I meant it didn’t stop. I guess it was the section of the tree I was in, but I couldn’t see a thing, just branches and branches smacking me in the face.
I felt as if it was like in The Wizard of Oz when the trees come to life and start smacking Dorothy.
It was almost like it was mad at me for me cutting it down.
When we got home we got it out of the truck and was taking it into the house and had to turn the tree again. Now this time I had stood on the opposite side of the tree, hoping that would keep it from hitting me, but now once again tree slap.
Hair everywhere, I can’t see a thing, I’m afraid my glasses might get knocked off and go flying, and I am praying so hard that I do not fall in our pool.
Luckily we get it in the stand and straighten it out. And boy does it look lovely. It kind of makes up for the abuse it gave me.
Now my abuse from the tree branches doesn’t end there. Oh, no! You see after I graduated and interned this summer; I moved back home. I’ve been trying to find a job, but this is pretty much what it is like.
So to fill the time until I am hopefully hired, I am volunteering at quite a few places. One of which is my local museum. So last week I headed down there as it was my turn to work the desk. I brought with me some pine clippings from our tree as the museum was decorating for Christmas. Well it turned out that they didn’t have as many volunteers as they hoped, so they asked me to help with the decorating. I thought okay, it will be fun.
So I thought decorating meant we were going to hang ornaments on the tree.
We were making these giant wreaths.
So I was paired with one of the volunteers and let me just stop and share something with you. Most of the volunteers at the museum are older, like 60+. So the woman I had wasn’t the most helpful. You see you take branches of the tree and put them on a plastic doughnut, tying them down with string or wire as you go along. Adding more and more branches until it is filled. However, that’s not what happened here. My helper laid tons of branches down and then sat down as she couldn’t tie them on. I tried to tie the branches down, but the wreath slipped and they all went crashing to the floor.
Noooooooooo!!!!!!!
Yep, I had to do everything over, but this time I did it right. As I continued, more people came and helped out which was nice. It was a really hard process though as it had rained for the past three days, and all their tree clippings were soaked, making the already hard job of trying to tie them down even harder!
Replace Rothbart with wreath
Finally we had completed it and I was tired. It’s a lot of bending over and being pricked/stabbed by the wire and tree branches. I sat down for a bit but then had to move on to making garland.
OMG it was so hard. You have a piece of rope and have to twist tie the branch to the rope. Yep, those flimsy little twisty ties. IT TAKES FOREVER! You keep placing branches over and over each other to make it fuller and until you cover the rope. This is extremely hard. At times I was trying to use one of those flimsy things to tie three branches together! And because a lot of people had to leave, I had to do it all on my own. By one fourth of the way I wanted to burn the thing.
We had a time limit to this as at noon the county was sending over free labor and the right machine to hang this things high up on the walls. So when every team completed theirs and saw I wasn’t even at the halfway point they all descended on me to help out.
Now you think this would have been nice, and it would have if it was one or two, but there were like five trying to take over the tying or telling me what to do. It made me feel kind of surly:
But I just kept to myself, trying to be professional.
After that my shift was over and I headed home, bearing more battle wounds that those brought on by the slapping tree. My hands were covered in cuts and they hurt sooo bad, my back was aching from bending over, my feet were sore from standing, etc. But hey beauty is pain, and the place sure did look amazing!
So if you have been following me for a while, you are quite aware of the fact that I am a huge Batman fan. For any superhero fan you have got to have a favorite villain. And mine is Poison Ivy.
I’ve always loved how she is this super stong feminist, girl-power; yet at the same time isn’t above using seduction and feminine wiles to get what she wants. Plus, I don’t know, she always seemed so cool. So back in April my friends and I were discussing Halloween costume ideas and that’s when I decided I was going to be Poison Ivy.
But then I ran into a few problems with the putting of the costume together. You see her original outfit is like a green sweetheart leotard, tights, and boots. Not a lot there and October is cold. I wasn’t going to do a leotard and tights. That’s crazy!
So I decided to reimagine her outfit. Instead of the tights and leotard I decided a corset top, shrug with a high villaness collar, green leggings, and my yellow 5 inch platform shoes.
But things didn’t quite turn out as I planned.
The corset and shrug looked awesome, it was the leggings that ran into some issues. You see I have a large butt.
And I do like it, but it can cause some problems. One of which being that leggings don’t always cover its ampleness like they should.
So then we had to change plans. I was going to go with a skirt and tights, although it wasn’t what I really wanted. I wanted pants because if I was an evil villian that is what I would wear. I would want to be able to kick somebody. Luckily my sister heard of my dilemma and told me she could make me some pants.
Everything was going according to plan. The only thing left to do was my hair. And we know how that usually goes.
But it went better than I thought it would. You see I had thought about using a wig, but they are so itchy I decided to dye it instead (temporarily). I went to the beauty store and was warned my hair was too dark of a color the red wouldn’t show. I told the workers I understood that, but I didn’t want bright Ariel hair, I was hoping for a more auburn-y color.
So I ask my sister to help me as she has died her hair multiple times. She went to work and the results were…well let me start that by saying my hair is unusual.
Yeah, it doesn’t do what most people’s hair does. Even my hairdresser has remarked on this. When you want it to be wet, it dries instantly. When you want it dry, it is resistant to the hairdryer. When you want it parted on one side, it flips to the other. When you want it pushed back, it wants to go forward.
So she was trying to slick my hair back to put the dye in, but it kept going forward. Luckily, I had read online that when you dye your hair you should put vaseline along the hairline to protect the dye from staining your skin. It was a good thing I had read that, or else I would have come out looking weird.
When my sister was done putting the dye in. She showed me her gloves and it looked like we had just murdered someone, the way the dye had gotten everywhere. It was like a Dexter episode.
Ayways, after I sat the most time allowed, we washed my hair. Sadly it looked like all the dye was running out into the tub and that my hair was the same color.
Noooooooooo!!!!!!!
But I figured, oh well. If nothing happens, then at least I have a great story to blog.
Well, I was wrong. Not all the die did wash out. It still looked red!
I really liked how it came out. You see my hair is a golden brown with blond and copper natural highlights. The whole mane ranges in lights and darks. The dye came out really cool, witth some areas being a really dark brown, auburn, red. While others were much, much brighter. I actually really like it and am considering dying it permenantly. I could totally pull it off as I have the two thinngs needed to be a sucessful redhead. 1) I have light eyes-green. 2) I do not tan at all, but remain white year round. The only issue I face is money!
So here’s the pic of my costume and hair. My sis and friend went as Catwoman and Harley Quinn, making us the three tantilizing women of Gotham.
janeaustenrunsmylife 