Mansfield Park...s. All of them.

I have now seen all three versions of Mansfield Park, and having also read the book, I am qualified in my opinion of the book having never been done anything close to justice in movie form. The version that came closest is fairly old, with bad coloring, horribly unattractive characters and a Fanny that rather annoyed me. Then there was the newest version aired on TV with slightly more attractive actors and actresses, but not as close to the book as the old version (which, despite it's other faults, was certainly diligent in following Jane Austen's storyline). And then there's the version we just watched tonight. Besides the fact that I have a lingering annoyance for Frances O'Connor from her performance in "The Importance of Being Earnest," the screen writer managed to mutilate Fanny's character enough by herself. Not to mention obviously being a feminist and mutilating the entire movie.

I wish Andrew Davies would do a Mansfield Park. He's done my favorite versions of "Sense and Sensibility," and "Pride and Prejudice," and I really liked "Northanger Abbey," "Bleak House," "Wives and Daughters," and "Emma." (Although my favorite version of "Emma" is still the one with Gwyneth Paltrow.) If only he would do "Persuasion" and "Mansfield Park" then one could have an entire Jane Austen movie collection that are almost equal to her novels.

There is hope...

~Lizzie

Gossip and Flirting

Some sins are obvious, and very black and white. At least in the Christian understanding. Or maybe I should just say that they've always appeared so to me. For example, I've always known that any sort of deception was a lie, and little white lies are still lies. Stealing, even if it was just an M&M from a sibling, is still stealing. And so on, and so forth. But two sins I've never quite figured out (and some might say that flirting isn't a sin anyway, but for the purposes of my discussion let's just assume it is).

I will start with gossip. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines "gossip" as:
Function: noun
2 a: rumor or report of an intimate nature

To relate sometimes questionable or secret information of a personal nature
Synonyms: blab, talk, tattle
Related Words: bandy (about), circulate, noise (about), rumor; disclose, divulge, reveal, tell; hint, imply, insinuate, intimate, let on, suggest; inform, report, snitch, squeal, tip (off); babble, spill; confide

A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret. - Proverbs 11:13

A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends. - Proverbs 16:28

A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid a man (or woman, naturally) who talks too much. - Proverbs 20:19 (parentheses mine)

Without wood a fire goes out; without gossip a quarrel dies down. - Proverbs 26:20

My dad has told me that gossip is "saying something negative about a person for the purpose of lowering that person in other people's opinion."

The four Bible verses I have shared say that a gossip "betrays a confidence" (twice), "separates close friends" and "without gossip a quarrel dies down."

So, using all that information above, my conclusion is lengthy. Gossip is anything:
Maliciously negative
Betraying a confidence (secret)
Causing a division between friends
Fueling a quarrel
Questionable of a personal nature

You really have to use a measure of your own discretion, and in cases such as these it is certainly better to err on the side of silence.

Flirting has been more difficult for me to determine for myself, and is certainly something that is harder to conclude.

Once again, the Merriam-Webster definition:
Flirting
function: verb
2 a: to behave amorously without serious intent: to show superficial or casual interest or liking

To show a liking for someone of the opposite sex just for fun
Synonyms: dally, frivol, trifle
Related Words: josh, kid, put on, razz, rib, tease; fool, lead on, string along; play (with), toy (with)

The LORD says, "The women of Zion are haughty, walking along with outstretched necks, flirting with their eyes, tripping along with mincing steps, with ornaments jingling on their ankles." - Isaiah 3:16

My dad has told me that I should just treat guys like I would any friend, and as nothing more. But I've always wondered if teasing a guy is flirting, even if I would say the same thing to a girl? According to Merriam-Webster "tease" is a related to flirting (see above), but is that all sorts of teasing, or a particular kind? To emphasize my point, here is the definitions of "tease."

3 a: to disturb or annoy by persistent irritating or provoking especially in a petty or mischievous way
b: to annoy with petty persistent requests
c: to persuade to acquiesce especially by persistent small efforts
d: to manipulate or influence as if by teasing
e: to make fun of
5: to tantalize especially by arousing desire or curiosity often without intending to satisfy it

Number five, when arousing an impure "desire or curiosity", is obviously part of the more evil type of flirting, but what about all the others? I enjoy employing a bit of harmless and kindly-meant teasing every now and then, especially with my friends who take it well.

I guess what I've been trying to do with this post is figure out for myself what I think is wrong and right. I believe I have never said anything that could be construed as flirtatious or gossipy that I wouldn't have my parents hear, but sometimes I wonder if I merely comfort my guilt with that thought, instead of considering if my behavior really meets God's approval.

You may be wondering that I didn't come to a conclusion about flirting, and that is because I am still pondering it. But my final thought is that what mostly constitutes gossip and flirting comes from your heart, and if your heart is pure and listening to God, then pure behavior will naturally follow, even if your purity looks different from someone else's.

I'm not sure why I'm sharing all this. I guess I'm just one of those people who makes any musing or thought public in hopes that someone will offer encouraging advice, constructive criticism, or possibly, even gain some insight for themselves. If nothing else, writing it all out has certainly helped me organize my thoughts, and I would love hearing anything my readers have to say.

~Lizzie

New Year’s Goals

These are just some things that I’ve been wanting to do. Hopefully they will be much more satisfying than my usual New Year’s Resolutions; which are generally made at 1 o’clock in the morning on New Year’s day while high on chocolate, sugar, caffeine and running on adrenaline, and then dropped after a week of attempting whatever it was. Like, crunches every day. That was a really bad idea. Probably inspired by the insane amount of food I had consumed over the holidays.

Goals have two main differences from resolutions for me. My resolutions are usually something that I HAVE to do every day, or the resolution fails, while goals are either a one-time accomplishment, or something that I want or need to do and can keep working at, even if I don’t succeed every day. And the second difference is, with goals, if I don’t accomplish it I feel like less of a failure, because it was only a goal, and not something that determined the year’s value.
And so, without further ado, my 2009 goals.

Long-term Goals for the year:
Get on a better sleep schedule.
Improve my cooking skills, especially in areas that I don't enjoy.
Find some way of earning income.
Improve my singing ability.

One-time projects:
Finish redecorating the bathroom.
Finish setting up my sewing area.
Finish sewing the shirts Kara, Jess and I began last year.
Get my bookcases organized and neat (this might begin with a post publishing a picture of the very embarrassing condition of my bookcases before and end with a picture of my success... :P )
Begin the skirt I've been wanting to make.

I've been considering these since a little before New Year's, and I've already begun the long-term goals, so I know that I'm serious about wanting to do all these things. Next year we'll see how well I did. :D

~Lizzie

Due to popular demand... pic overload II

OK. Here are my pics from the snow day. Be grateful, 'cause it took me forever to pick out these from the 500 odd pics from that day, even more forever for them to upload, and a slightly less forever for me rearrange them in the right order. (stupid picture uploader...)

My version of that tree...

I like the "no trespassing' sign. :D

Shadow staking birds. She almost caught one too but Lizzie didn't want her to so she scared it off. :(

....and there y'all go. :D

Picture overload

Here's a lot of my pictures... I took about 300. Not including when I stole Sarah's camera and took pictures with her nice expensive camera...

Christmas-y... Christmas is complete, now that we've had snow. :)


Pictures just never capture the moment...


Our dirt road, all covered in snow!

Sign at the main road.


I made orange pineapple muffins.


Then went out and took more pictures.


Our neighbor's red barn.


Our neighbor's little pond.


David and I went sledding on the big hill. (Sarah and Joel wouldn't come... don't know why...)


David getting started.


David made a snow angel.






And ate some snow.


The sun started setting.


We drove down a little ways to get some pictures of the lake and the sunset.







And I got some more sunset pictures at our house.


Snow gear drying by the fireplace.


The view from the window in my room.

Sarah got some good pictures too, which she has put on Facebook... I'm trying to get her to put them on the blog too, but once you do one, you don't feel like doing the other...

I had such a great snow day! It was absolutely perfect.

~Lizzie

AHHH! It snowed!

I can't believe it!! I was completely skeptical. Snow? Yeah, right. But it snowed! Probably because I didn't believe it. And I was so shocked and excited!! I'm going crazy!!!!!!!!! I'll probably post pictures later.

*squeals*

~Lizzie

Slowly but surely...

I've been raised in a Christian home, and I've been told that I asked Jesus into my heart when I was 4. I don't remember it. I spent most of my childhood trying to be good, but not really with the changed attitude that Jesus brings. I truly became a Christian when I was almost 12. And subconsciously I think I expected an immediate change. I was free from sin, right? So all I had to do was choose not to sin. That should be easy. Not.

I continued striving to do what I knew was right, read my Bible, pray and conform my entire life to what the Bible says. Then somewhere along the way, I realized that it wasn't me that was doing the work. Everything I tried to do because I knew I was supposed to failed, but God was doing good. I was trying to change my actions without changing the heart attitude that caused the actions in the first place, and God was changing my heart so that my actions were also what they were supposed to be. But He's certainly not done with me yet.

I'm not sure if it's supposed to be such a long process, but it has been with me, and I've noticed that many things that take a long time are more steady and lasting. For example, I've been staying up way too late for the past year or so, and I took a lot of that year to get used to going to bed at 12-1am. And I've tried many times to trick myself into going to bed earlier by getting up at 7 no matter how late I went to bed, and then eventually I'd be so tired that I would go to bed earlier, right? Well, it would work for a little while, usually until I got a cold (which got a foothold in my lack of sleep) and then had to get extra rest. Getting back to a good schedule will probably take about a year of consistent work. (Kind of daunting...) But if I do take a whole year, it will be easy to go to bed early, and harder to stay awake late.

So here's to slow consistency.

~Lizzie

The Old Theme is Back!!

Thanks to Jos, who edited the template so that the pictures were no longer partially transparent! I'm so happy to have my lovely winter theme back.

And today was such a nice day!

~Lizzie

New Theme *sniffle*

I liked the old one a lot, and I was going to keep it until the weather warmed up into spring, but alas, I post pictures too often to have a template that makes pictures look weird.

Oh well.

~Lizzie

It's FRIDAY!

Here comes the weekend! Only, it's still a weekday, and I still have school. :( So this is a random post that I'm doing instead of school. (Don't worry, I'll get around to school eventually.)

This is my current desktop. It's a picture I took last week when we had all that rain... I like that it's focused on the water drops, but you still get the effect of the the clouds and the color of the sky. I didn't mean for it to focus on the window, but I'm very happy that it did.


Here's the rainbow that appeared on the same day. Unfortunately, it's pretty faint. I wonder if all those pictures of sharp, bright rainbows are photoshopped or if some rainbows really do look that way... this was the second rainbow, we saw another one a couple of days earlier, but I couldn't get a good picture. This is actually a double rainbow...


In this picture the rainbow appears to be ending right at our house. Unfortunately, we did not get home and find a pot of gold.


This was later in the evening, Mom and I went out grocery shopping. Still same day. It was a great day for sky pictures. I love clouds, and I really love it when there are rays shooting out from behind dark clouds. This might be my favorite ray picture ever... were it not for the telephone pole and lines. :|


This one makes me think of the Brandon Heath song, "Give Me Your Eyes" specifically the line: "All those people going somewhere, why have I never cared?"

This picture, to me, is really interesting. I see the clouds and the gold representing the beauty of God's creation, the American flag representing the principles that on which our country was originally founded, and the power lines a harsh reminder of what we have become: a technologically crazed and idol-worshipping nation, with leadership trying to separate us and our country as far as possible from God.


Yeah, I realize that sounds kind of cheesy. You could just say that this would be a great picture without the power lines.

And now I'll get off to something productive.

~Lizzie

P.S. So I realized that my theme messes up the pictures... you can click on them and see a big version. Sorry I don't have time to change my theme now, but I'll try to get around to it later.

The obliviousness cloud has cleared...

I remember when the Northern Wake Tech campus was just a flat expanse of red mud, and Mom was so happy that it would probably open just in time for me to begin dual-enrollment (the year I turned 16). And now, after watching 3 semesters of opportunity for free education pass me by, I've finally come to my senses, only a little late. The late registration deadline for the spring semester is tomorrow. Mom and I went over to Wake Tech today to see if I could get in, and the English class that I wanted to do was completely full.

So now I have the summer classes, fall semester and spring semester before I graduate and have to start paying for classes. I've got a very long list of classes that I was interested in, and hopefully the ones that I was most interested in will fit into this last year (considering prerequisites and all).

And hopefully I will acquire some time management skills... I don't know if it's just a problem that occurs when you get older, or if it's me doing something wrong (like too much computer...? :P) but it seems that 24 hours just isn't enough time for everything I want to do, even if I disregard sleeping and food.

I am pretty excited about these Wake Tech classes now... I'm particularly interested in Cosmetology and Interior Design. So anyway. We'll see if I can get it all in without squeezing out something I'm already doing, like swimming, voice, dance, theater...

~Lizzie

The Sequel to the Vacuum series.

Introducing: The CD Player of Sauron. My luck with electronics couldn't possibly be worse. Sometimes I think my pride in my Irish heritage gives me opposite luck. Or maybe the person who came up with "the luck o' the Irish" was being sarcastic, 'cause frankly, they don't seem very lucky to me.

So yes, before I explain the problem I will confess that I still own a CD player, despite the advent of iPods and their docks which were supposed to replace CD players, not to mention alarm clocks and decorative sculptures. I will also remind you that I don't own an iPod, (I have a Creative "Zen" MP3 player) which is why I don't own one of those nifty weird-shaped-alarm-clock-iPod-dock things that would make my life complete.

Whenever I listen to CD's in my outdated, miserable CD player, I now have to tolerate hic-up-jumps in the music. They have become so frequent that I really wouldn't have cared if the stupid player would just completely break and stop playing music. I removed the CDs and took the casing off, stripped half the screws, observed nothing fixable, dusted it out (how does dust get in there anyway?) and tried to put the casing back on. I nearly ruined the antenna, but that's okay, because I tried to play a CD (I honestly can't believe it still worked at all) and the hiccuping was worse. So much worse in fact, that I have completely given it up.

Oh, woe is me...

~Lizzie

Inconvenient vanity.

I got my braces off a little more than two years ago (wow, doesn't seem that long) and I went to the dentist with my newly straightened pearly whites only to have him mention "Now with a little whitening treatment..." Yeah. His sales pitch almost worked. I mean, no way could I afford his "one hour" treatment that was guaranteed to make my teeth blindingly white. But after that I was no longer satisfied. Who wants to have wonderful straight teeth (after two and a half years of pain getting them) and only have everyone notice that they're not-so-perfectly white? I got whitening toothpaste, I brushed with hydrogen peroxide and used a whitening mouth wash. Then I finally caved and spent $20 on a box of white-strips. And yes, even as I'm typing I'm wearing those little pieces of plastic that are guaranteed to make my teeth blindingly white... for a year. And then you need another box. It wouldn't be so bad they were at least comfortable. But they slide all around, the "gel" (which feels like goo) seems to get everywhere BUT on my teeth, and I have to wear them over and over... for the rest of my life? Yet, after having this conversation with myself again and again, here I am, frozen with my tongue in an awkward position, finally having the strips plastered to my teeth in the proper position, waiting for my 30 minutes to be up so I can go throw the strips out, rinse, and examine my teeth for any signs of hygienic whiteness.

~Lizzie

Mice, ideas and new-found goodies.

I think I will go in reverse order of the title so that thoughts of the rodent and the idea won't obscure the yumminess of the cream cheese brownies I've discovered. No, I'm not taking credit for the recipe, only for finding it on the internet. :P

Here's the recipe from one of my favorite recipe sites, "Joy of Baking" - Cream Cheese Brownies (link). Theirs look better than mine I think, but I can never get my food to look like a piece of art. That's Sarah's specialty. I've made three batches of these brownies so far, and the first time they came out of the pan very well without the aluminum foil (we try not to use aluminum foil in baking because it cooks into the food); I just buttered it very well. For some reason though, the second two batches didn't work out so well. They stuck pretty badly. I'm blaming it on the strange sugar I had to use. It refused to dissolve and made the batter very wet and sticky. We've really enjoyed these brownies though (even the sticky ones with crunchy sugar). This is the first time I've made something where I ask if anyone wants some and even my parents say "Yes!" with hopeful eagerness.

And as for my idea, I've been thinking about doing a review blog. I really enjoy reviewing books and movies, and I get criticized for posting my reviews on my own blog, so I figured if I start a blog for that purpose it'll be better accepted. And then, if it ever happens to be big enough that it could actually be a job (with which I could somehow extract money from people), that would be nice. Probably not though, with the current economy. So anyway, I will be thinking on that. And if anyone is interested in being a writer, just send me a sample review. ;)

I hate mice. It's like my cat knows this and intentionally catches and brings into the house more mice than is natural for any cat. She even takes up the slack for our other two cats who are remarkably less interested in small animals. She doesn't look malicious, does she?

*sigh* So just a few minutes ago she came inside a dropped a mouse and then went back outside. We have our broom/trashcan/scream method all worked out. Except this time we were trying to decide if we should let Shadow (the kitty with kidney problems) have a fresh... treat. *gag* And Mom was holding the broom on top of him while we tried to decide to sweep him into the trashcan or somehow let Shadow eat him without him running all over the house... and decided on the the trashcan, but apparently the mouse had already smothered. *shudder* *cough* *shudder*

*grimace* So... I can't leave you with that... ... I bought a new purse today.

It was on sale, and I just couldn't resist. I really like it. :P

~Lizzie

Well, I was going to call this....

something about the obligatory New Year post, but then I realized that that's Daddy's most recent title. So now I have the beginning of the sentence as my title, which is infinitely more boring, but whatever.

I was sincerely touched by all the tearful farewells on my leaving post. It's so nice to know I was missed. I must contribute so much with my half-unreadable posts and unnecessarily lengthy words. The people on Facebook were equally distressed by my absence. :P

I actually have a whole bunch of posts that I wrote while I was off, but I'm not sure if I'm going to post them or not. *glances expectantly over crowd of readers* *readers respond with thunderous silence* I guess I won't.

Well, if you're still reading, you're now going to get a summary of what I learned from 2008, so this is your chance to run. The exits are located to the top right, top left and top center of this page. They are not lit with bright red "Exit" signs, so proceed with caution. Beware the hole in the floor.

Okay, now I'll be serious. To be honest, 2008 wasn't a great year for me. I spent most of the year in chronic depression and confusion. My faith in God was challenged, everything that made my world secure seemed to crumble, and most of my memories have to do with the most complete sadness I've ever felt. And it seems silly for me to say this, because no one I knew died. Not even our little cat (who had kidney failure). There was really nothing awful; technically I should have had a great year.

It's hard for me to say if it was just my attitude, or if it was maybe some sort of spiritual attack, but whichever it was, I learned a lot of things that made this one of the most meaningful years of my life so far, even if it wasn't packed with fun and pleasure. My faith was challenged, but now it's stronger, I am closer to God for the loss of my worldly security, and through the sadness, God has given my His joy.

I guess I'm finally escaping the horrible teenage years. I'll be 18 this summer, legally an adult, but not able to drink, and older than I've ever been before. I'm going to graduate, but not legally... don't worry, I'll graduate legally next year. I just decided that since I'll finish out this school year 17, that I may as well do another year and graduate at 18 (but then I'll be almost 19...) Yes, it's confusing. If you don't get it, please don't read that paragraph again.

Happy New Year everyone!

~Lizzie