Beauty and Bounty

Every shade of green imaginable fills the landscape outside my window. Wild daisies and dandelions peep their heads out from the tall grass in an effort to reach the sun. Foxtail flowers, one of my favorites, cover the hills with their bright fuschia glory, and the songbirds and logging trucks wake me early each morning. I've been so busy lately that I've found it easy to let all of this beauty and bounty slip by. One of the ways I've found to wake myself up is to write a list of all the things I'm thankful for. So here goes…

I'm thankful for…

• Frozen strawberries and bananas to eat at a later date (As in tomorrow. Strawberry Sauce. Shortbread.) How could this get better?
• Cream! (see above)
• Breezy Brookshire coloring pages with my littlest sister and helping her figure out which colors go together
• Glorious rain that makes all those colors brighter
• G. K. Chesterton read aloud and all the knitting projects his books help me finish
• Unbroken and Adventures and Adversities both books I picked up during my convention adventure! They are so good!
• Said convention adventure with oldest sister, brother-in-law, and the nephews extraordinaire
• Garment bags (I don't believe in ironing)
• Kind customers who stick with me even if I can't make change for a $100
• Siblings who kindly enjoyed my book
• Mommy and Daddy for helping with the book (I already said that, but it doesn't hurt to say it again)
• Mommy and Daddy for helping me iron and fix my clothes and shuttling me down to my oldest sister's house (Respectively.)
• Carl's Jr. Western Burger
• Band-aids
• All the encouragers
• "What's in the Bible? with Buck Denver!" We've been watching this show by Phil Vischer every Sunday afternoon. It's been a lot of fun, and we've had some really good discussions! (Ponies!)
• Merging the Celtic culture with the Cherokee Indian culture to come up with my latest character, Starlight (Who consequently looks like my sister. Weird.)
• Dial-up. Hey, it has its issues, but it makes it so I can chat with my oldest sister while cooking elk meat.
• My red journal (It is just the cutest! Red on the outside with black polka dots on a tan background on the inside. The pages are also decorated with red flowers.)
• Shel Silverstein's Runny Babbit! It's greally reat! Melieve be!
• "Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus"
• Math tricks and a brother who will explain them to me while I'm skimming cream
• (Cream! See the first point above)
• Electric fans
• A plastic blender jar (I've broken a glass blender jar, an eight cup liquid measuring cup, a platter, and too many other dishes to count in my cooking lifetime)
• A clean desk!!!!
• A clean bedroom!!!
• Two new jumper dresses in the last month
• "The Village Reel" (Keith and Kristyn Getty)
• Two little girls who decorated their old white shirts almost exactly the same
• The oldest man in church ringing the bell with the youngest little girl in church
• Masculine and feminine rhyme
• Library wi-fi! (I'm still thankful for dial-up)
• A children's biography of Dr. Seuss
• The Anne of Avonlea soundtrack
• A little sister who can exactly imitate my signature facial expressions
• Getting to test read Journeys of the Four pre-publication! High five, Miss Jones!
• Sunday afternoon strolls—er, more like fast walks
• A mouse-proofed pantry
• Hayfields
• God, Who is always there and always will be

Guest post by Anna-Review: The Treasure Hunt

Hi y'all! This is Anna, one of Perry, Aimee, and Kate's younger sisters. They let me do a guest post so....here ya go.
You may have seen the post further down about Kate's first book called The Treasure Hunt. Although I didn't know it she had written it as a surprise for me!
At the Oregon Homeschool Convention where Kate was selling it (and it had great success), she presented me with a brand new copy. I was so excited!
Perry did a fabulous job on the cover and inside design, but the best part was the story. All through the remaining part of the convention I couldn't keep my nose out of the book, and as soon as possible I read it. It is a short read for all ages but especially from 8-12 years old, and one that I strongly recommend.

The Treasure Hunt:
>My favorite scene-is in the prologue where the characters are on a thrilling bike ride with headsets, code names, mysterious stuff, and all!
>My favorite character-well...the main character is a girl named Anna (modeled after me) so that wouldn't work...probably the boy named David (modeled after my older brother).
>My favorite clue-is the one in the river...and I shall give the story away no more, you'll just have to read it.
>My favorite author-my very own Old and Boring that lives in our very own house. You know who you are-LOVE YOU! (Y'all will just have to read the book to find out what this means.) : )

There is no romance, violence, broken relationships, or anything that may be questionable for little kids to read! Just a purely fun mystery and a loving, family environment.
So thank you very much, Kate, for the book. I really enjoyed it. I loved how true to 'history' it is with the code names, the Old and Borings, our previous house, apple tree, and creek.
And to all you readers and mystery/spy book lovers out there, this the right book for you.
~Anna


See perryelisabeth.blogspot.com for more information on the Homeschooled Authors and their books. Kate's book (The Treasure Hunt), all four of Perry's books (including the new one: The Kitten Files #1 The Case of the Tabloid Tattler), Tyler's first book (Tacticool), and the others that were included on the Homeschooled Authors table are all on the page Homeschooled Authors Booklist. Check it out! : ) 

Lights Out!

So what happens when a stacked logging truck's tongue snags your local power line and breaks it? (Pulling the logging trailer off and rocking the power lines!) You all go down to town to eat lunch
(we were in the middle of cooking it) and enjoy the library's air conditioning and wi-fi! Who ever said real life wasn't full of adventure? : )

My Books Are Here!

My books just arrived today!!! Thank you so much, Perry Elisabeth, for sending me pictures so I could see them before the convention! And thank you to Daddy, Mommy, and everyone else who helped make this adventure possible. : )

6 Media Lies That Have Affected Me

I have read many books ever since I could decode the word “cat”. I’ve seen the inside of nature stories, mysteries, historical fiction, sci-fi, biographies, and anything else interesting that wasn’t off limits. Still, within these “good books” (and some good movies too) are some lies about the world. Some of the lies have become a part of my life—something to recognize and replace with the truth; others have only recently come out in my writing as I’ve tried to craft a world and what I believe about it.

1. Adventures only happen away from home. This one has never affected me enough to make me want to go on a safari, but it has made me long for something romantic (in the true sense of the word) to happen. Something outside of dishes and algebra problems and tennis shoes. God has recently shown me how much of an adventure I really am living. I live in the beautiful setting of a nice yard and a cozy house. I have courageous comrades around me fighting the same battles, and a King who is there in my every need. I have perils enough in the shape of the dragon of pride and the giant of bitterness to conquer with His help.
2. Romance ends at the altar. I didn’t know I had fallen for this one until at age eleven I tried to write a story. In that story I tried to stretch the engagement on as long as possible. After all, in Cinderella they only “lived happily ever after” which pales in comparison to what happened before in the story. This lie disappeared quickly after I discovered that the setting has only changed from the rose garden to the kitchen; and the same love (if it is a true one) is still there and grows ever stronger. Watching my parents, my older sister and her husband, and reading real things have helped dispel this notion.
3. Orphans have the most fun. I’ve never wanted to be an orphan—I love my parents. Unfortunately, in the same story I mentioned before, I wrote an orphan just because that’s the way stories go. After all, good parents want to protect their children, so typical adventures require orphanhood or crazy parents. I’m still working on weeding this one out and trying to move my adventure stories to more of a home setting where the parents have an influence on their children’s lives. And who wouldn’t love an Irish girl who is captured and imprisoned in a cave WITH her father?
4. The first boy who smiles at you is your future husband. This one has been a really big problem, but God is teaching me that He is in charge of who my warrior-poet is; and I don’t have to worry at all about it. Phew. That makes me feel much better.
5. Acts of kindness will ultimately change hearts. I believed this one until very recently when I discovered that I can be as nice as possible and still not change anything. Love does make possible softened hearts, but it is still up to the person whether or not they will change. All the heroines in the stories save the world with a smile, and I still can’t get the shy girl at church to come out of her shell and be friends. Realizing this one took a load off, showing me that all I have to do is love and leave the rest to God. I can quit worrying that the world’s problems are my fault.
6. Character counts—just because, and besides it looks really cool. This one is really subtle (plaguing me for awhile), and I can often get confused about why I am “being good”. I believe in sanctification all right, but it is an often fought struggle for me to realize that I shouldn’t just “be good” because people will like me, but because I am called to holiness by God.

So what are some ways that media has lied to you? How have you discovered this and what are you doing about it?