"If you don't pray often, you won't gain a love for praying. Prayer is work, and therefore it is not very appealing to our natural sensibilities. But the simple rule for prayer is this: Begin praying and your taste for prayer will increase. The more you pray, the more you will acquire the desire for prayer, the energy for prayer, and the sense of purpose in prayer."
-Leslie Ludy "Wrestling Prayer"

Cool!

Whoa, I accidentally found this!
I think it's the complete Harvard Classics set online, as well as other books (if you go to the main page).

Reading

I finished the section on Benjamin Franklin in the first volume of my Harvard Classics set. Now I'm working on The Journal of John Woolman.
I think I should be done with this portion fairly quickly, but we'll see...

Cuddles

Today I was sitting on the couch to work on schoolwork and Cuddles decided to join me.
I was reading a logic book, and hoped Cuddles would be paying attention to the book as well (I try to make sure my puppy is educated) .
I'm now doubting that she'll be able to learn much from the book. I don't think she's interested in logic. She has a very irrational fear of Frankenstein, and no amount of reasoning with her will convince her that he isn't scary.
And it's a very obviously fake Frankenstein. He appears to be made from polyester, sewn around a wire frame. Obviously her fear isn't logical.
My logic book is on informal fallacies, so that doesn't really cover irrational fears of fake monsters, but if she's so un-logical in that aspect, how can I expect her to be logical about fallacies?
I'm sure she could never spot a red herring. Unless of course there was a literal red herring and she's hungry...

An end of the week update (what a wonderous title).

Well, I finished "Jane Eyre" when I wanted too. It was very good. I really enjoyed it! After that I decided to read "Sarah's Key", which I'm already finished with. I'm not sure what I'll read next. I need to get back to reading my Harvard Classics books (eventually I'd like to have read them all, cover to cover). I'm also wanting to read "Much Ado About Nothing", and I have the SparkNotes "No Fear Shakespeare" version. It's neat because it has the entire original play, along with a modern day translation, so if there's anything you don't quite understand you can check and see what it is. I don't use the modern translation much, but I'm glad to have it if I need it.

I probably won't do too much reading today (other than schoolwork), because I should draft my doublet bodice pattern today. I've been debating between two patterns, and finally decided which to go with. I'm still hoping to have it done for Stronghold, but I still don't have a sewing machine. I may ask my cousin if I can borrow hers again for a few days. Otherwise I'll be brushing up on my hand sewing skills!

And in other news, I seem to have caught a cold. It's annoying since I just had one last month. I've had a terrible runny, sneezy, stuffy nose, and I woke up with a headache this morning, which was very unpleasant. Due to the headache, I stayed in bed longer than usual, and realized that's the latest I've slept on a Friday in months. And tomorrow I can sleep later than usual, too. That's the one plus to no Bristol: I don't have to wake up at 6:45 on weekends!

Reading

I'm so close to done with "Jane Eyre"! I should be able to finish it by Monday.
I'm really, really enjoying it!
I'm not sure what classic I'll pick to read after this one. Perhaps another Jane Austen book? Or maybe some Shakespeare? I've been meaning to read "Much Ado About Nothing".
I'm not at all sure what to read next!
I know that I want to read a book Stefanie loaned me. It's called "Sarah's Key" and Stefanie highly recommends it. I think I'll be able to read it while I'm reading another classic, but I may just read it and finish it before I start on another. It will give me some time to think about what I want to start next.

There's too many books I want to read!

Jane Eyre

So, I started Jane Eyre quite a while ago, and I think it's time to finish! I'm less than 100 pages away from being done (my copy is 476 pages), so my goal is to finish it before I start school (September 13th). I really only have a few days to finish it, since I probably won't be doing much reading over the 3-day weekend (closing weekend of Bristol!). So, I have today and tomorrow, and Tuesday-Thursday of next week to finish. I'm sure that's plenty of time.

Reading

I haven't read enough this year. I used to always read before bed, but stopped for awhile, I guess I just got too busy, but I've been making an attempt to read more before bed, and I'm glad that I am. I missed it! Even if I only read a few pages it's better than nothing.
I'm currently reading several books, which doesn't bother me. I know some people don't understand how I can read several books at once. I've been asked how I keep all the stories straight, but it's really not a problem for me. I keep them all straight because they're all different stories. It's as simple as that!
I should probably finish some of the books that I started a while ago before I move onto more, though. Not because I'll get them mixed up, but because I'll start to forget the beginning of the story if I wait too long to finish it, and then I'll just need to reread the whole thing. And plus, I feel very unaccomplished if I have a bunch of books that have been half finished for weeks or months.

Tuesday?

Tuesday? Really? It feels like it should be much later in the week than Tuesday.
I have no idea what I should do with my Tuesday. Hopefully this Tuesday is nice to me.
I think I'll start off by attempting to pick up my room. I'm sure I'll probably become distracted and it won't end up being picked up today, but at least I'll make an attempt. Maybe I'll read some, too. And work on some sewing. I still have too much sewing to do. I've given up having any new garb done before faire, though. I have enough garb, and Jeremy has some things that will work for now. I'll just work on things throughout the season and they'll get done eventually.

Reading

I finally finished "Pride and Prejudice" (I finished it two days ago, actually). I'd been working on it on and off since last summer (weird, since I normally read much, much faster), but I decided it was time to finish it. I really enjoyed it. I wish I'd finished it sooner, but better late than never!
My next books include (as seen on right side of the screen, which, by the way, you can click on to see information on the books): Jane Eyre (started today), Volume 1 of my Harvard Classics set. It contains works of Benjamin Franklin, John Woolman, and William Penn. I'm currently reading the first section-"His Autobiography" by Benjamin Franklin. I'm also reading "Sister Freaks-Stories of Women Who Gave Up Everything For God". It's a 12 week book, with five readings per week. I've been reading several a day, though. Some of the stories are very good, but a few don't seem to fit with the title (Women Who Gave Up Everything For God). It's a decent book, but I find it somewhat mediocre. I much preferred "Jesus Freaks", which I read several weeks ago.

We're Going to Wisconsin

My Mom and I will be going up to Wisconsin this weekend. Unfortunately Jeremy and Luke are too sick.
We're going up tonight to stay at our friend's house, and then tomorrow (Saturday) I have a Duck bake*, and our friend will be having a book swap at her house. We're hoping to get rid of more books than we bring home; we have too many books (not that there's such a thing as too many, but we have more books than we have space for)! We still have a lot less than we had moving from Texas to Wisconsin. I think we had over 50 milk crates of books then! That may have included National Geographic magazines, though. But we have a quite a bit less now. We got rid of a lot when we moved from WI to IL. We donated them to our library.

*The term "Duck bake" may seem odd to some of you, so I will explain.
Bristol has several casts and guildes. I'm in the Guilde of St. Lawrence; members of St. Lawrence are called "ducks" or "ducklings" because we work at the Dirty Duck Inn.
St. Lawrence provides reasonably priced food for the cast of Bristol. We serve soup, bread, hard-boiled eggs, pickles, nuts, fruit, muffins, and pies (but not like apple pie, we have meat pies and peanut butter pies and all sorts of other pies, I'll get pictures later). We make the pies before the Bristol season starts. All the ducks get together and make the pies, rehearse, learn Duck dances, discuss characters and upcoming events, etc. And that is what a Duck bake is!

From Today's Reading:

I'm currently reading the book "Jesus Freaks" and I came across the prayer of a Russian captain who had just become a Christian.
It went like this:

"O God, what a fine chap you are! If I were You and You were me, I would never have forgiven You Your sins. But You are really a very nice chap! I love You with all my heart!

I think that's just awesome.