Words That Have Lain Fallow

Writing and Reading WORDS

A little blog for the enjoyment of writing good words and reading even better ones.

I have a another blog dedicated to words. It has lain fallow for a year or so and I really should continue my quest there as well.

Today I have copied one of the entries. I hope you will enjoy it and that it will give you one more reason to pick up a good book to read today.

Things to say about books you have never read

How well read are you? Do you have conversations at dinner parties about books old and new? How do you get round discussing the books you haven't had the time or need to open yet?
There are so many books - good books - interesting books - eye-opening books - entertaining books - educational books - heartwarming or thrilling books. You cannot read them all.

I have friends who devour several books a week. Fast readers? Yes, but also with temporarily life situations that allows time to spend hours reading every day. I take longer, there are many other things on my daily schedule as well.

I just read an interesting article about what to say about books you have never read.
It's simply impossible to read all books. So how about learning a summary of classic books to make interesting conversation? It's like having an opinion about a movie you haven't seen, but only read the review.

I have discovered a fun way to remember books I have read. I have a beautiful little note book where I write my own book reviews. I write down the title of the book, the author's name, year published, a synopsis, my review, and when I read it. I enjoy flipping through and remembering good books and recommending them to others.

Last entry of my personal book reviews is this:

"Dissolution" by C.J. Sansom (2003)

Set in an exciting period in history during the dissolution of the monasteries. Shardlake is a likable and clever investigator. It is well written. I was there - at Scarnsea - seeing, smelling, and feeling. I am excited to read the other 4 mysteries with Shardlake; Dark Fire, Sovereign, Revelation, Heartstone.

Story: 1537. Matthew Shardlake is a lawyer in the service of Cromwell, King Henry's VIII's vicar general. He is sent to investigate a murder in a large Benedictine Monastery in Scarnsea, on the south coast of England.

Read September 2012

Magic Wands and Brooms

I would have more time on my hands for fun projects and special activities if I had only had a magic wand and a flying broom.

I have one broom--two, in fact--two brooms that look a little like flying brooms, although not quite as fancy as Potter's Nimbus. I have written about the advantages of having a magic broom before in blog entries Petition for flying Brooms and Witch of the Reier Forest. I am still hoping that God will grant me a flying-a-broom lesson one day, and I still keep reading, studying, and writing about witch hunting. I find it fascinating, interesting, and scary.

Book number two is currently being written on my fancy little laptop, articles are sketched out for a historical magazine--in other words, the projects are lining up every day. So what's wrong with wishing for a magic wand? With a swish of my hand I could point the wand at the bathroom, laundry basket, floors, boxes of things, and voila! I could continue writing, and my house would magically be cleaned and organized.

Maybe for now I should just train Hector, the Wheaten Terrier, to help out with the household chores. He spends a lot of time sleeping.

Christmas is coming up in a couple of months. On my wish list still--a magic wand, a broom, and a gardener!

Photo today is the weather witch on top of the garage here at the Duck and Cherry.

How Many Words Are in Your Head?

When I fall asleep at night, Arnfinn reads. When I wake up in the morning, he reads.
One morning, groggy, eyes narrow, I asked, "How many words are in your head? You know, roughly estimated?"
He answered, "How many years do we go back?"

As if he knows from year to year how many words have accumulated in his head and how much of the written word he has devoured.

Reading is a fascinating adventure, a learning  process, a necessity. I have an aunt who doesn't read books. I would feel I missed out on a wealth of treasures if I did not read. Living in Louisiana  many years ago, I got to know a woman about my age. She was illiterate. I tried to imagine her life; not being able to expand her thoughts, her knowledge, her life, with the witten word.

What to choose? There's a big difference between a volume about technical engineering and a romantic historical. A children's adventure by Swedish authoress Astrid Lindgren is very different from reading religious works by Hugh Nibley or Neal A. Maxwell. There are poems, short stories, biographies, history books . . .

So much to choose from.

Be picky. The words and stories you place on the hard drive in your brain stays there. What do you really want to fill your head with?
Read to learn, to expand your vocabulary, to enlighten your mind.
Read to go to new places, adevnture into unknown realms.
Read to relax.

My other blog Reading and Writing WORDS is about just that . . . the enjoyment of writing good words and reading even better ones.

Do you have favorite words?
An American friend of mine lived in Norway for a few years. Her favorite Norwegian word was strømpebukse, which means pantyhose, just for the fun of trying to pronounce it.
Try saying refrigerator in Spanish, pronouncing Dutch and Swiss words, or making gutteral utterings and clicking African sounds.

My father was so funny when he tried to speak foreign words. They turned out more complicated and strange than they originally were.

Right now I am delving into Citadel by Kate Mosse. I love it. I see Sandrine and her friends, I imagine the places they travel, I hear their voices, I go where they go and feel what they feel.

So read a good book today and enjoy it.

Today's water color is of a reading fairy.

Burgruine Schaumburg and Other Fun Places

Not many minutes drive from our home of five years in Austria lies a ruin, the remains of a fortress built some 860 years ago (1154-1161), and once the largest fortress in Oberösterreich.

It's on a hill, the view is spectacular, and definitely a trip worth while for history buffs like me. The name is derived from the words "vom Berg schauen", which means view from the hill and was through the years--through the centuries, rather--owned by various counts, struggling to keep it, struggling for power and position.


Why am I bringing this up? Many fortresses and castles are far more beautiful, even better kept.

I love history. For some reason, I imagine that other must, too. But the truth is, not everybody has a passion for it like I do. A few years ago I presented a distant relative across the sea with an extensive genealogical paper on her ancestry, names and dates and stories I had collected and worked on over many, many years. She did not thank me. She was not impressed with all the hours of research. She was not the slightest interested in stories of people in whose footsteps she is now walking. She simply said, "I am not interested in dead people."

Well, I am interested in those who walked before me and in the lives they led, places they lived, things they did. I love art history with boundless enthusiasm, studied that and the history of clothing at the university. I loved history in school growing up, started family history research as a fifteen year old, and when I enter a bookstore I automatically steer towards the historical fiction section.

When I visit an old fortress, church, or castle I imagine being there among the people who lived there centuries ago. It's fun to employ the imagination and hear the sounds, sense the smells, and capture the daily life of young and old. How can anyone not enjoy that?

The photo of Arnfinn after the bicycle race in the blog entry "Clean" from last week was taken at the fortress of Fredriksten in Halden, Norway, the finish line of the 80 km race. The fortress was designed in 1661 by my 9th great-grandfather, Wyllem Coucheron. How cool isn't that?

I have learned a lot about him, but wish I knew more.
Photos from Internet of Schaumburg Ruin and also Fredriksten Festning (Fortress), below, taken last Saturday.

http://www.cusoon.at/ruine-schaunburg

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgruine_Schaunberg

Bookmarks

Bookmarks. I like bookmarks. Is that a little strange?

Me drooling over pretty bookmarks at the store - Linnea says, "Mamma, you don't need another bookmark."
But I do.
I like to have a bookmark that matches the book I read. (That sentence just gave away that I have more than one or two bookmarks.) I love to read and different bookmarks are an added little pleasure when I open the book.

So to have a variety, I make my own. I bought a laminating machine a few years ago. What a fun thing. I laminate many things, including bookmarks.

One day I laminated 80-some bookmarks for a women's convention. Arnfinn shakes his head. He would never have come up with that idea....He is a little worried I might laminate him one day.

I still like to buy a pretty bookmark in a store and love it when I get one as a gift.

This Saturday morning Arnfinn wakes me up to say he's ready to go.
Me, my usual sleepy-confused in the morning, "Where are you going?"
He patient, knowing I actually know, but too tired to register, "I'm off to the car wash to get it ready for polishing today."
Hector jumps on my bed and I know sleepy time is over.

Oh, that's right. Today we polish car.
I get up and Arnfinn has a lovely fire going in the fireplace in the living room. What a sweetheart.

Maybe I can get in a few minutes of reading before he returns from the car wash.

This is not what I signed up for

Do you sometimes experience trials and difficulties in your life? Do you feel it's unfair? Do you catch yourself saying: Why me?
I read a wonderful little book by Dieter F. Uchtdorf talking about life and how we all have to go through rough times. He compares me and you to the princesses of the fairy tales. Here are some of their problems: ate a poisened apple and dropped dead (at least for a while), was poked by a spinning needle and made to sleep 100 years, had to choose between a grandmother and a wolf and made the wrong choice (amazing as that sounds), was ridiculed by step-mother and step-sisters, and the list goes on.
There is a "happily ever after" for each one of us if we make good choices in life. Our once upon a time can end up with exactly that, if we do our best. If we do our best, we have not failed.

And maybe, before coming to this earth, this is exactly what we signed up for. We know we learn from trials, we know we grow from difficulties. Choosing to be better, is a good thing after all.

Today's water color is a happy fairy called "Blomster-Line". Enjoy!