It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

From the Kitchen:

For the past two days I've been busily baking. Really, yesterday I was in the kitchen from as soon as I hopped out of bed, till nearly two in the afternoon. I made pizza dough, and at least three different batches of cookies. I wish I had taken a picture, I had four huge plates piled with cookies. Sadly, I handed off about half of them before even thinking of it. This morning I got up and made banana bread (which I just pulled out of the oven. Perfect for a yummy afternoon snack, along with coffee, before going off to work.)

I'm listening to:

Cold December Night. I love this song. Really I do.

I'm thinking:

The other day I was thinking on words. Actually, this is something I think on quite a lot. If you know me you will know that words are something I love, and consequently they are something I talk a lot about. (Goodness, I even named my last blog Meaningful Words, and my first post was on how we should choose our words carefully, because each word means something.) I was thinking about this program which you can use to see what your say ten, fifteen, twenty most frequently used words were on various websites. It's interesting you know, seeing what words you use the most often. Are they nice words? Words that give you a nice happy feeling, even as they are, disconnected from each other and any sentence that they might have been put into. I was thinking about if you could gather all those words that you spoke as well as wrote, what words would they be? I know the sort of words I would want my vocabulary to be summed up with, the question is, whether I live up to that. I certainly hope my words are ones that are kind and meant to bring joy to those with whom I'm talking, and those words that I have spoken that do not live up to this goal, I hope that I might eliminate in future.

Anyhow, this is a word cloud of a collection of words on this blog.

One of my favorite things:

The week before Christmas. I just want it to last forever. I just want to stretch out these days in which we get to finish up on Christmas presents, baking Christmas cookies and making Christmas crafts. On which topic, here's a picture of my favorite Christmas craft of this year

 

Isn't it just lovely?

 

 

I'm creating:

 

A couple days ago I embroidered the facial features on my knit doll, and I'm just finishing up the red dress I made for her. I'll post a picture after I sew on the arms, as the arms really are necessary. I am a little nervous to actually sew them, because I've worked so hard on her and I don't want to mess her up. I've also named her Lorna, after Lorna Doone, so I'm trying to figure out a way to incorporate her name onto a tag of some sort.

 

I'm hoping:

 

For snow. I hope it will snow. Please? Please let it snow?

 

I'm reading:

 

The Book Thief. I'm actually really impressed by this book so far. It's one of the best written books of a recent publishing date that I've read.

 

I'm wearing:

 

Sweat pants, a green t-shirt and a jacket of my Dad's that is immensely to large for me. Yes, it is noon. Yes, I do have to work soon. No, I shan't be dressed in such a manner very shortly. However, too large jackets are really warm and cozy. Jackets that fit just aren't this cozy. They're really not.

 

 



A New Year- A New Blog

I have to say that the beginning of this new blog does rather have the affect of making me feel rather fickle-minded. Especially considering the vast amount of time I spent perfecting my last, but that is in fact the real reason I have decided to create a new blog entirely. I think most bloggers, when they get tired (as everyone eventually does) of their theme, or their title, or any other aspect of their blog, simply make the few editing changes and voila! enjoy the delightful newness of it all. (Newness doesn't seem like it ought to be a word, does it? I have just assured myself that it is indeed an actual word, in the dictionary no less, but still, there is a discordant sound to it. I'm not sure why this is. If I had not decided to remark on it I would most likely change my word choice, but having pointed it out the word shall stay.)

Of course, I could quite easily do as I was just supposing that other bloggers do; namely, do a little editing and change it all up. The trouble is, while I desperately want something new to look at and create posts for, I really do love my old blog. I spent hours fiddling with the settings, learning how to create it into what it is now. I went through dozens and dozens of pictures to find just the right ones to turn them into my header, and spent much thinking time on coming up with a title I liked properly. I don't want to let go of any of that, and I rather want to have it to go back to, thus my reasoning of creating a new blog entirely.

I don't mean for this to seem as if I were giving up on that blog- moving on is a better way to describe it.

I feel as if I were a different person, needing a different sort of blog and for a different sort of reason. (Not to mention my other blog was beginning to feel just a little cluttered to me. I wanted something with cleaner lines, simpler, less cluttered if that makes sense. I'm also going to try tagging my posts properly with this blog, don't even ask my about the tags on my other, they were a hopeless mess!) This year, my last year of high school, I want to spend some more time blogging, but writing up lengthier and more frequent posts. Perhaps they will be a little less well thought out, as I'm also planning on attempting to sit down and write and then post, rather than thinking over an idea for weeks and weeks and perhaps never actually writing it up (yes, this was a great difficulty of mine last year.) and I needed some change to inspire me.

Sometimes change is such a nice thing. (This is why I have a habit of moving my bed around the room every few months or so. I like looking at different corners of my wall. It feels like an entirely different room looking from the right side as compared to the left side. Really, it's remarkable.) I like the feeling of starting something new, of beginning over, of opening a new book. It's the most discouraging thing in all the world if you are to open a textbook from last year and have to start up in the middle. You have all your smudges and mistakes and misspellings to come back and haunt you as you turn the pages. Opening a new book though! A thing most delightful! Glancing through the crisp unmarked pages, taking out that first sharp pencil, it is those things that make starting up school again in the fall a thing of joy!

All this is to account for the reasoning behind a new blog.

Those ardent admirers of Lucy Maud Montgomery will note that the quote (and title that finds it's origins in the said quote) are to be put under that great lady's name. I always liked Anne's ramblings about the 'bend in the road' and 'one chapter ending the next begining' (she says something like that towards the end of Anne of Avonlea, doesn't she? It's one of my favorite scenes.) This particular quote is to be found in the first Anne book, Anne of Green Gables, if anyone happened to be in doubt. All of which reminds me (as did looking through my copies to find the right quote) that I really must reread all of my favorite L. M. Montgomery's sometime very soon. It's been too long. For now- bed. There shall be time for more post writing, quote infatuation, book love, and general ramblings tomorrow.