Brothers and sisters...

Happy Siblings Day to my brother and sister (and brother-in-law, too!) 

You guys are so absolutely positively wonderful and I'm so very blessed to have you in my life!

I thought the following to be rather true of us and they made my think of you :)

 

 

 

 

(No, names mentioned...you know who you are)

 

 

 

 

xoxo

 ~Emma

Words, pages, paragraphs

Helloooo,

I love how I always have these spectacularly wonderful ambitions that never quite come about in a timely manner.  It's great, it really is.  Take this post for example, it probably would have been far more relevant had I written it last month when 2017 had just ended and everyone was still interested in what happened during the span of that year.  

Well guess what, I still care.  And because I care, I'm still going to tell you about all the books I read last year! So ha! (If you do not care, I encourage you to discontinue reading this now.)

There, now we may proceed!

 

 (I can only make out "David Copperfield" in this picture, a book I am not particularly fond of, but they all look so pretty! They must be good books, heehee)

You're going to be just amazed when I tell you how many books I read!  It is shocking, absolutely shocking!  You ready?

23!!!!!! (boo, Emma, boooo!)

 One of my go-to quotes, ask my family ;)

I know, not a lot.  Oh well. I don't really know how that happened, I mean, other than the obvious fact I just didn't read many books.  I think I read almost twice that many in 2016, so I'll have to try to beat that score this year!  (Because I know I don't have a chance at beating my brother!)

You might be thinking, "That's still a decent amount of books, Emma, it's okay!"  But here's the thing, a rather large majority of them were school books or picture books.  (What can I say?  I have a thing for rereading Beatrix Potter stories (maybe in accents...)  My dear sister will back me on this.)

  

Anyway, onto the books I read!

I'll spare you the textbooks and such, I don't think they'd be of much interest to you.

 

The first real book I read was "The Hidden Treasure of Glaston" by Eleanor Jewitt.  It was an adventure story set in medieval  England about two boys living in Glastonbury Monastery who search for the Holy Grail of Arthurian legend and uncover many more hidden secrets about themselves along the way.  I enjoyed it!

Also:

• "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte.  If you liked this book, I would like to shake your hand.  If you love this book, we need to talk because you need to tell me what you see in it.  Sorrow, depression, death, wasted lives, more death.  What's not to love, right?

 

• "The Twelve Dancing Princesses"~The Grimm Brothers.  Um...interesting concept.  In a nutshell, *spoiler alert* king hires old (broke) soldier to follow his twelve rebellious daughters around at night to a magical dancing land that they disappear to.  They don't know they're being followed, he tattletales on them to their father, instead of punishing the naughty princesses, the king let's the old (broke) soldier to marry whichever daughter he chooses as a reward, he marries the eldest because "she's closest in age" (ever though I'm pretty sure he liked the youngest one best), The End!  How'd I do?

• "The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck" (my favorite), and "The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin", both Beatrix Potter.  We know those are always good, though!

•  "Weddings In the Family"~Dale Fife.  A sweet story told from the perspective of a little girl about each of her quirky Alsatian relatives' weddings and the hilarity often surrounding each of these events.

• "Lay Siege to Heaven"~Louis de Wohl.  The semi-fictional account of the life of the great Saint Catherine of Siena.

 

• "Number the Stars"~Lois Lowry.  A moving fictional story about a girl living in Denmark during the Nazi invasion of that country and how she helps to save Jewish refugee families escape capture.

• "The Great Gatsby"~F. Scott Fitzgerald.  This.  Book.  Is.  Wonderful.  If you haven't read it, you must do so.  If you have read it, tell me what you thought!

• "The Hundred Dresses"~Eleanor Estes.  I liked this book slightly less than her others, (The Moffats, Pinky-Pie ) but overall it was an enjoyable story.

• "'The Awakening of Miss Prim"~Natalia Sanmartin Fenolerra.  I enjoyed this book more than I expected to initially.  (What can I say, I judge books by their covers.)  If you love "Pride and Prejudice", "Little Woman", and constant intellectual Latin quotations, you will probably love it, too.

• "No Plot, No Problem", Chris Baty's wonderful accompany to doing NaNoWriMo, sooo worth the read!  I actually bought my own copy of the updated version so I'd have it next time around, it was that helpful.

•   "Saint Patrick and the Peddler"Margaret Hodges.  Confession: this was a picture book.  But it was a really good, Catholic picture book!  I read it to a bunch of kindergartners and kind of fell in love with it, the pictures are gorgeous!!  (And it was Ireland, so I mean, there was no way I wasn't going to read it ;) )

• "Black Heels and Tractor Wheels"~Ree Drummond.  (Not as edgy as it sounds, I promise.)  Anybody know Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman?  She's a cook, author, cooking show host, and really funny blogger.  This was a (sort of) dramatic biography of how she, a city girl through and through, met, fell in love, and married her cowboy-husband and all the crazy stories she tells surrounding those events.

And finally...

• "Rifles for Watie"~Harold Keith.  This is my brother's favorite book, he actually read it out loud to me!  I promised him I'd write a special post about it and about the new holiday we invented in honor of it, the NFRD or, "National Rifles for Watie Day".  More on that soon :)

Stats:

In conclusion, (if you stuck around this long) I read,

 23 books in 2017,

4,583 pages,

the longest book I read was "Christ And the Americas"~Anne Carroll, at 440 pages.

And my favorite book was "The Great Gatsby".

So I didn't win my family's reading challenge in any category last year, but I've got dibs for this year!  I'm going to try, at least!

What books did you read in 2017?  Did you have a favorite(s), least favorite(s)?


Always,
~Emma

Happy Anniversary!

Wishing my Favorite Sister and Wonderful Brother-in-law a happy 1st wedding anniversary!

 

May God continue to bless your marriage in the years to come as fully as in the preceding one!

~♥~

Always,
~Emma

In Honor of St. Catherine

    
     Being one of my favorite saints, I wanted to make sure I got in a quick little post about Saint Catherine of Siena before too much time had gone by her feast day.  Only two days, I don't think I did too bad :)

 

St. Catherine of Siena, 14th cen. philosopher and Doctor of the Church

     I apologize in advance because this post is less of me writing about this amazing saint and more my overwhelming you with a gazillion beautiful pictures and quotes.  Sorry about that ;) But I'll let her speak for herself, her writings are simply incredible and her life even more so!

  

 ~~~

 

How important to remember, yet so easy to forget! 

 

~~~

 

Growth through temptation and trial... 

 

When St. Catherine was 14, her mother arranged a betrothal between herself and the son of local merchant.  Catherine, however, had no wish to be married as she had already promised herself to Our Lord as His bride, so she cut off her beautiful long hair with her mother's sewing scissors to make herself undesirable to her suitor.

 

~~~

 

~~~ 

Fear is understandable and silence is easy but it is only through truth and bravery that one will succeed.

I'm sure we've all heard this one... 

     I hope you survived my wordy ramble!  If you still want to know more on the life St. Catherine of Siena, I recommend you take a look here, here, and here.  Enjoy!

 Always,

~Emma