113 Days, 6 Hours, and 11 Minutes....

Yes, the countdown is ON! It's actually been on for quite a while now in our household, but with the new cover art being released this week, we're all in a flurry.

What's it all about? Harry Potter, of course!

Yes, the Scholastic cover art for the seventh and last book was released this week. E has been hovering over Mugglenet.com, analyzing the details of the illustration as well as checking out the UK versions (both children and adult). All kinds of clues to the events of the seventh book abound: Why is Harry wandless? Is he in a coliseum/arena? Who is the creature on Harry's back with a dagger? Where is all the treasure located? What's the reflection in Harry's glasses? (Those last three stem from the UK cover art.)

E and I have gone around and around, guessing and surmising about the seventh book and what will happen. Will Voldemort be defeated? (YES!) Will Harry die? (Hope not, but how else will she avoid writing more HP books?) Will Hagrid die? Ron? Ginny? Hermione? (Not Hermione!!!) Will Snape turn out to be a good guy or is he as bad as he appears at the end of the sixth book? (I think he'll turn out good, much to my chagrin.) How will Dumbledore return? (I'm betting on the portrait or something to do with Fawkes, somehow.) Will Harry locate all the horcruxes? Will they return to Hogwarts at all? (Hope so, at least to visit Dumbledore's portrait.) What role will Draco play? Will he come over from the "dark side" and fight for what is right and good?

And I'm not even considering all the surmises and questions E haas related to me from Mugglenet....

The summer release of the Order of the Phoenix movie is thrilling, but it's the Deathly Hallows I can't wait for. After much debating, I've decided to let the speedier reader get the (already pre-ordered from B&N) book first. All I can say is that E had better read FAST (and keep her mouth shut!) until I can get my hands on it....

Also 'Tis the Season

Spring brings my favorite holyday, or should I say week?

I love Holy Week! After the contemplation (something I hope for but never quite attain with four children at home!) of Lent, the extra time in devotionals, prayer, confession, and God's Word, I'm ready (or as ready as I'm gonna be) to walk in Jesus' footsteps during Holy Week.

Palm Sunday isn't Palm Sunday without palms. Pastor Rollo started us off with palms about five years ago, and they've appeared most years. Before Rollo covered the aisle with palms, Palm Sunday was no different from any other Sunday, a fact that drove me crazy! So I'm hoping, even with Pastor Steve out of town, that someone will strew palm fronds around the auditorium. Fingers crossed and hoping hard....

On Wednesday, I hope to attend an instructional Passover Seder with Alpine Anglican. Last year we had one at Lake Murray that was tremendously well done, but this year our pastor and 15 other guys are on a missions trip to Idaho, so no Seder. Rollo had started us off with a Seder a few years ago, and I've found it has become an integral part of my Holy Week remembrances. The symbolism, the Scriptures, the connection between Old and New Covenants, it's all unbelievably memorable.

Maundy Thursday has always been a favorite Holy Week service. This will be the third time I've spent it with Alpine Anglican. The last time that Alpine Anglican had their lovely church building (which they lost when they left the San Diego Episcopal diocese), Father asked me to participate, and it was simply amazing to have my foot washed by the Bishop. I was in tears the whole time -- such a lovely, humble service, and exactly what our Lord commanded us to do. I'm looking forward to this service especially.

In the past, Good Friday has been an on-again, off-again thing at Lake Murray. Last year we had the Seder on Maundy Thursday and therefore no service for Good Friday except for the Biblical Stations of the Cross I set up. I will set up the Stations again this week, to be available Tuesday-Friday during Holy Week in the auditorium at Lake Murray. The year before that, we had a wonderful Good Friday service, complete with nailing our sins to a cross that Keith built; the reverberations of the hammer blows had almost everyone in tears as we heard and felt Jesus' suffering and death for US. Wow -- mindblowing! So last year and again this year, I'm planning on spending Good Friday with the Anglicans, perhaps even the noon ecumenical Stations of which Father Acker is in charge.

This year Lake Murray is having a Good Friday service at God's Extended Hand, the homeless shelter we serve at the first Friday of each month; they're also planning another nailing ceremony as well. But it's awfully far away -- over fifty miles. And I loved the Anglican service last year in Father Acker's dining room as we kissed the feet of the crucifix, remembering how Christ suffered and died for US. So humbling! Again, many tears here, but that's my specialty....

However, I have never attended a Saturday Vigil, and may attend this service with the Anglicans as well. On Easter morning, I would LOVE to attend both Alpine Anglican AND Lake Murray. As there's no Sunday School at Lake Murray, it's perfectly do-able, if Keith agrees. I would love to experience the different ways the Resurrection is celebrated in both churches, liturgical and evangelical. After all, it IS the best celebration in the Church Year, so let's truly CELEBRATE, for He is risen indeed!

Aah, Holy Week! The high point of the Christian Year!

'Tis the Season...

For dancing!

Yes, the new season of "Dancing with the Stars" is underway, and E and I, as always, find ourselves spellbound by these non-dancers who become so good so quickly. This season, E has a new appreciation of their hard work as she has been taking ballroom lessons through the California Junior Cotillion since last October where she learned the waltz and the East Coast Swing.

If the women's dresses were a bit more modest, it would be the perfect show. Of course, the rub comes when the results show runs at the same time as our all-time favorite, "House M.D." So "Dancing" was recorded but not watched last night, and this morning, to our horror, we found that Paulina was voted off. Now, E and I really liked her. Admittedly, she was a bit "stiff and starchy" as Len, the head judge, stated, but she was so lovely and had much more potential than Clyde or Billy Ray, neither of whom should last long, in my humble opinion.

My favorite is Apolo; his speedskating doesn't necessarily translate well into dancing, but he's got great rhythm and style. Right now he's in third place in the judge's voting, and I think he'll move up. E's favorite is Heather, whom she admires for dancing with a definite disability; I think the back walkover really impressed her this week.

Now that Cotillion is finished until next fall, I suppose I should find my girl some more ballroom classes. Google, here I come....

Time for Resting on the Rock

This past weekend was our church's women's retreat, held here at the Bible Camp in our small town. So a goodly number of our church women came trooping up the mountain, ready for anything. My friend Sheri, who lives here in town, came for the second year. Our speaker, Judith, is a dear friend of mine and also a resident of our town.

It was a lovely time -- so lovely, in fact, that words seem absolutely inadequate. My favorite part, besides being enthralled by our very gifted speaker, was spending four hours alone, writing in my journal, catching up on my devotionals, reading and responding to an excerpt from my Lenten devotional by Julian of Norwich. Becoming slightly sunburned as the sun warmed my face, I relaxed in my aged striped beach chair, bare toes snuggling into the green lawn, writing desk (courtesy of dear Kitty) on my lap, ink and dip pen balanced perfectly as I wrote.

It's so seldom that I get time to write like that ... uninterrupted by small people who need me or who need a referee for a quarrel. That's heaven on earth to me right now: silence and solitude. Not that I didn't thoroughly enjoy our fellowship: we laughed and yelled over Catch Phrase; we acted out Bible stories in charades; we cried together as we worshiped; we sang hymns and praise songs with passion and devotion. It was the perfect balance of fun and fellowship, of silence and laughter, of exhortation and practical jokes.

Now if only I could do so once a month....

E's Last Dance

E just finished her six-month course with the California Junior Cotillion with a "Sock-Hop" style Spring Dance. Learning the "East Coast Swing" has been both fun and challenging, with different moves like the outside-inside turn, the crossover turn, the transfer, the "slide" and finally the "washing machine." Here she's dancing again with Travis, the same guy whom we pictured from the Winter Ball. He's one of the better dancers and is tall enough for E to dance with easily.

E is wearing one of my mother's formals from the late '50s; it runs a little short on E as she's a few inches taller than my mother, but Mom was glad to lend it to her for the occasion. I'm sure glad we keep formal dresses in this family! The other girls were mostly wearing poodle skirts and looked straight out of "Grease." But E was a step above, and made a lovely picture as she twirled and swirled around the 1920s-era ballroom at the San Diego Women's Club, the very club to which her great-great-great grandmother belonged.

History repeats itself more often than we know....

Another Gardening Day...

These two weeks of 80-degree weather have spoiled me completely. Usually March sends our small mountain town our deepest snowfalls. But this March has me outside almost every day, watering my garden and trying to get what's left of out poor beleagured lawn to green up.

So this afternoon I planted my herb garden around my bird bath: sage, lavender, peppermint and spearmint, English thyme, French rosemary, and plain parsley (cilantro). The curled parsley I planted two years ago keeps popping back up, and it's doing nicely now, as is a large patch of thyme and a few other kinds of lavender. I also planted a few perenial flowers to create a little color as well.

As I drove through town on my way to visit Judith and pick up a library book, I saw so many people out in their yards pruning, sweeping, gardening, or at least doing something to their yards.

It's definitely that kind of weather. Even the daffodils are yielding to real springtime.

I Hate Loving Literature

I become so affected by the literature I read. I get a gut-wrenching emotional reaction to some books such that I become almost physically ill while reading them -- that's why I possess no Stephen King or other horror literature (besides Poe). Two books have caused me special grief: George Eliot's Mill on the Floss and William Golding's Lord of the Flies.

I was reading Eliot's story of Maggie, a wonderful character, while vacationing in Hawaii. My parents took Keith and me to Waikiki with them to celebrate our fifth anniversary. It was the summer between my first and second years of graduate school, and as I hadn't read anything by George Eliot, it seemed like a good time to fill in that gap. (Little did I know I would be subjected to Middlemarch the next year, nicknamed by my class as Middlecrawl.) Anyway, I was reading along, enjoying the book and sympathizing with Maggie all the way. Finally, love seemed just around the corner for her as I came to the final pages. And then George Eliot wrote the unthinkable: on the second-to-the-last page, she KILLED OFF Maggie -- MY character drowns in a flood, of all things. In hysteric tears at 3 AM, I threw the book across the room where it collided with the closet door and slumped to the floor, waking my husband as I dissolved into tears of anger. "How could she?!" I cried into his shoulder. "How could Eliot kill off Maggie like that?!" My husband forbade all but the tamest mysteries for the rest of the trip.

Then there's the kicker. I read Lord of the Flies once in high school, and I was sure that was enough. I hated the book, and my high school English teacher pulled a few stunts that made me remember the book in all its ugly "glory" for years afterward. Then, horror of horrors, it was assigned again in my college English novel course. I remember sobbing as I read it, hating every word that slid beneath my eyes. When I finished the horrid thing, I tore the paperback in half and the next afternoon I handed the two halves to Dr. De Saegher, declaring, "I will never, ever, ever, EVER read this book AGAIN."

Famous last words.

Fast forward twenty years. Last fall, I received the reading list for the Slingshot, the high school English subscription I write for Brave Writer. Each issue contains dictation passages from a short story or occasional novel (two novels per year), plus a poetry section and a writing idea. Imagine my shock in seeing Lord of the Flies slated for April. I wrote the owner, Julie, mock-complaining about having to teach that terrible book, and she offered to do it if I really couldn't handle it. I assured her that I could manage, and the school year proceeded as usual.

Until this week, that is. On Tuesday I checked out a copy of the book and started reading it. By the third and fourth pages, I was beginning to feel queasy. I felt increasingly more sick at heart with each page I turned. Before I reached the end of the first chapter, I had slammed the book shut, in tears. WHY? Because I have three boys in the age bracket of the boys in the novel? Partly. Because I have a faint remembrance of the awful things that will happen in this book? Partly. Because I hate what this book says? Mostly.

I e-mailed Julie, again in tears, asking if her husband could possibly write the novel portion of the Slingshot as the deadline was two weeks away. She replied that she didn't have time (which I knew -- writing a Master's thesis is hard work!) and that her husband didn't know the format. Could I please write the subscription without rereading the book? She was very understanding about literature putting those of us who love and study it in knots. Meanwhile, I was feeling guilty for backing out of my assignment, something I just never do.

So I'll try to do this. I will try to write and teach on a book I despise without rereading it, without making myself ill over it, without revealing to the subscribers how I really feel. It definitely won't be my best work, but it will have to do. I just hate how much I get involved in the world of literature. It makes me appreciate Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series even more than I usually do; in his books, the literature is REALLY REAL.

Which makes a load of sense to me.

Mountain Spring

Yes, it's SPRING! Here are my daffodils for proof:

That lovely poem by ee cummings always sings in my heart during this time of year:

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful....

The meadow outside our gate is green and glowing. The daffs are beautiful in their profusion (the above photo doesn't quite do them justice), and the roses are sending out baby red leaves. The pansies are growing back a bit after the rabbits' foraging, and I'm watering the dirt, hoping (most likely in vain) for a lawn -- or at least something green -- to grow back after the ravages of construction and a very hot autumn.

I've been outside nearly every chance I get lately -- who can resist temperatures in the 80s in mid-March?

A Movie Day

This afternoon, E and I met up with the Alpine Anglican crowd at the mall to see the film Amazing Grace. The story of William Wilberforce, the man responsible for abolishing the slave trade in Great Britain around 1800, it was superbly acted by a stellar cast, including Ioan Gruffuld of Fantastic Four fame, Michael Gambon who plays Dumbledore in the latest Harry Potter films, Albert Finney as John Newton, Ciaran Hinds, Rufus Sewell, and other stellar actors. The story was touching, so touching that I was in tears by the end (not uncommon, mind you). What a lovely film about faith, hope, and love -- and truly, the greatest of these is love.

Tonight, Keith, E and I settled down and watched our Netflix selection, The Illusionist, which included Rufus Sewell from the above movie. Keith had it figured out well before the revealing point, and I didn't figure it out until just before. It was a lovely movie, set in 1900 Vienna, about illusion, love, and power. The ending is a triumph.

I watch so few movies that watching two in one day is quite a feat, plus I believe that today's theatre film is the fifth of 2007 -- more than I've seen in the theatre over the past two years combined.

Both movies are highly recommended -- and do NOT miss Amazing Grace. It's everything a movie should be. (I'm watching Ferris Bueller on TV as I type this, so I know what I'm talking about!)

A Pianeee

Yes, today I bought a piano. For a hundred bucks. Thanks to our small town rumor mill, the boys' piano teacher mentioned yesterday that the Bible Camp across the meadow (two miles away) was selling the pianos in their conference rooms in order to purchase keyboards instead. Well, the boys are definitely outgrowing their borrowed keyboard in their lessons, but I only had my BraveWriter paycheck. I didn't want to spend all $225, if at all possible.

Sheri came over to the camp with me since their piano is unplayable, and we were told that we could have any of the eight pianos for a $100 donation. We fist checked out the ones where our church usually holds the women's retreat (Joan, our church pianist, will be quite upset to see the large piano in Windfield Hall go as she always makes it sing for us -- loud and strong). The small room next to Winfield has a small Wurltizer, shiny black and compact. The other pianos were all huge -- I loved the looks but couldn't really fit them into our living room. So after a quick call to Keith, I wrote a check and we'll pick it up on Monday. So, we now have our own piano for the first time! The other piano we had for ten years was borrowed, and the owner asked for it back just as we were moving to the mountains, so the timing to give it back was perfect. Sheri's husband will go look at the pianos tonight or tomorrow and see which one he wants since he's the musician of their family.

So now the boys have a full set of keys to play, and I have further motivation to learn myself as I much prefer pianos over electronic keyboards. How I wish I had more hours in a day to do all I want to do and learn!