A Dissection of Commenting

Hello! I was racking my brain for any sort of brilliant, clever, comment-raking-in post I could do, and obviously, did not find one. Then I began thinking of what gets some blogs so many comments.......Here I recount my official findings ;)

There are two sorts of blogs: those who have it and those who don't. Ours used to have it. For some reason, it now tends toward the doesn't side of having it. ;) I went on a mental quest to find out just what the it-possessing blogs have that we don't...and here's what I came up with:

• Catchy Blog Names (Our Family View From Us Two is a mouthful ;)
• Wonderful graphics (We are html challenged over here! Besides- our officious filter blocks everything and its brother so we can't usually even see our own background! :P)
• Familiar Blog Administrator names (Who can resist peeking at a blog owned by a person named Jo March?!?! :)
• PICTURES!! (Oh we have the cute kids in our family. We have the wonderful pictures...we just can't post them here unless we go to a closed blog! :)
• Weddings (Um......not seeing that happen anytime soon! :D )
• Blog parties (We host contests, but it doesn't have the pizazz that Scraps, for instance, has!)

I can only come to two conclusions, as I am not a Sherlock Holmes- either we have lost our touch for writing commentable posts, or life is simply busy for our followers too! :)
Sure Blogger added a Stats page, and our stats are passable, but I raked up some statistics myself that only bloggy people could notice:

• Saturday is D-Day (Dead Day) Nobody is on, no one votes on any polls, or comments on any posts. You had better just not post on a Saturday
• Polls don't tell you anything if people don't vote on them! ;)
• People like the weirdest, randomest, strangest things- try to please them, and you don't, post about how you pickled frogs' ears and played the banjo, and they'll leave you 12 comments! ;)

Anyway! This is the bent my blogging mind ran on this morning! Hope you don't mind so very much! :D -Rachel

Book And Character Review On "An Old-Fashioned Girl"

As part of the Fiesta de Octobre, Jo posted some blog post ideas. Now, these particular ones just happened to be the sort of thing I'd love to post about anyway, so I chose to write a Character overview on a character from a book or movie. I chose a book, and the book I am choosing is....An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott. This is one of my favorite of her books, with Eight Cousins a tie. Polly Milton, the character I'm highlighting in this post, is so...easy to relate to. Although "An Old-Fashioned Girl" is one of L. M. Alcott's lesser known books, I find it has just as much truth in it as "Little Women".
As Christians, we girls are all more or less what people would term "An Old-Fashioned Girl"...as one elderly lady Polly knows tells her, "Modesty seems to have gone out of fashion these days". Polly is about 14 years old at the start of the book, and is visiting some wealthy friends in the city. There, she is faced with challenges to her simple upbringing. What I love about Polly Milton is that she does struggle, but at the end of her visit, she not only has withstood temptation, but has changed in some way the family she was visiting merely by her sweet, modest conduct.
Then, half-way through the book, there is a lapse of 6 years, and our Polly is 20 years old. She has returned to the City to be a piano teacher, and help her younger brother through college to be a minister. This season of Polly is my favorite, because I can readily identify with her. Louisa May Alcott perfectly captured a wholesome, sweet, innocent young lady who is still tempted to be discontent at times, wants to see just for a bit what it would be like to be "one of those girls" who her friend Fanny associates with, gets tired of doing her "duty", gives up the love of a good man for a friend who loves and needs him, and generally comes out of all these things a brighter, and stronger woman.
One of my favorite chapters is "Forbidden Fruit" when Polly does give into a small temptation and finds that her conduct has changed some relationships, made her discontent, and generally was not worth the few hours of pleasure it gave her....So true! :)

The end of this book is amazing! I love it. Everything ends just how you'd want it! :D So I guess this was a book review as well as a character over-view! I'm sure you'll love "An Old-Fashioned Girl" so please read it! :)

Over all rating of book: *****
Over all rating of Polly Milton: ***** (I could go on.... ;)
Cautions: There is one chapter with a rather feministic point of view, but that is easily sorted through! ;)

Fiesta de Octobre Blog Party Book and Movie Answers

When I saw this last Fiesta de Octobre contest on Jo's blog, I begged Sarah to let me enter it...literature is right down my alley, and,as anyone who knows me will tell you, I could talk the hind leg off a mule about what books I love, what movie adaptations I thought were good, what characters are my favorites....(smiles at me cousin Matthew :) So, anyhow, she was a model sister and quickly agreed to giving me posting rights for this! So without further ado....

{1} It's nearly impossible to pick a favorite book, so what are your top THREE favorite books ? (other than the Bible :D) Oh dear. Only 3?!?!?...To Have And To Hold, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and...and...well, it is an old favorite, but it has shaped my creativity so, Little Women! :)

{2} Who is your favorite heroine from literature? (if you need to list more than one, that's fine) Yay! No number restriction on this one!!! :D Anne Shirley, Polly Milton (An Old-Fashioned Girl), Esther Summerson (Bleak House), Molly Gibson (Wives and Daughters), Emma Woodhouse, Eleanor Dashwood, Meg and Jo March, and So So So many more! :D

{3} Who is your favorite hero from literature? (see above note) Oh boy. Matthew could recite the list for me, he's heard it so many times! :D Sir Percy Blakeney (Scarlet Pimpernel), Capt. Percy (To Have and To Hold), James Percy (The Inheritance), (Lotsa Percys! :P) Gilbert Blythe, Roger Hamley (Wives and Daughters), Mr. Thornton (North and South), Aslan (Narnia), and TONS more! (Each book I read, I like the hero better than them all! ;)

{4} Who is your favorite author? (see note above) Louisa May Alcott, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Eleanor Estes, Jan Karon, etc.

{5} What is your favorite type of book to read? Classic story...some adventure, some old-fashioned, pure romance, lots of humor, unforgettable characters, etc.

{6} If you could be a character from literature for one day, who would you be? Why? Oh mercy. You had to make me choose?....Emma Woodhouse...what else can I say? Huge old-fashioned house, a British accent, lovely clothes, being beautiful yourself, loving family, Mr. Knightley to scold you... :D

{7} What type of reader would you call yourself? Are you an avid reader, passive reader, or even a non-reader?? AVID READER!!!!

{8} Do you like reading aloud? Yes! To listening group of people. Ignoring listeners get on my nerves!

{9} Do you like mystery stories? Yes! Well, Sherlock Holmes! He never ceases to amaze me! =)

{10}All of us have read a book at some point or another and disliked the way it ended or who married who, etc. What book(s) bother you like that, and what would you change about them? Well....As Jo said, I would rather Jo have married Laurie in Little Women...oh! and in Wives and Daughters, the author, Elizabeth Gaskell, died before she finished the book and it is right at the sweetest part so it is SO frustrating! :( But the movie finished it off in a cute, albeit...interesting way! :D

{11} Just like books, it's *very* hard to pick a favorite movie. What are you top THREE favorite movies? The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Amazing Grace, and....Little Women...but those are equal to many many more!

{12} When it comes to movie adaptions of books, are you a purist or do you not mind changes to the storyline? If the storyline of the movie compromises the book's message, or drastically changes the story, it definitely bothers me!

{13} What is your favorite book-to-movie adaption?...BBC Does a really good job with any book I've seen them adapt...Emma is definitely a good one...Sense and Sensibility...Little Women, Lord of the Rings trilogy (okay, so they changed it a bit! :) Pride and Prejudice...

{14} What is your favorite type of movie to watch? Any well done, adventurous, exciting, and loveable movie with a solid storyline. (I despise twoddle-ly ones! :P)

{15} Do you like to watch movies with the lights off or on? Off!

{16} DVD or VHS? DVD!

{17} When you watch a movie, would you rather watch it straight through or skip around to your favorite scenes? If I have seen it more than 10 times....skipping the more boring scenes

{18} Subtitles? Depends...in North and South, at first I couldn't understand the Northern England accent, so Subtitles definitely helped!

{19} Do you make comments and ask questions during a movie, or sit in complete silence? If I haven't seen the movie, I'm quiet, but if I'm showing it someone else, I talk! :D

{20} If you could be in any movie (whether it's already been made or not) which movie would it be? Who would you want to be and why? O cool! :) Well, if I could look the part....Marguerite Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel! She is beautiful and clever, it is an exciting movie, the setting is so classic, and it would be so much fun! Or any BBC movie if I could look right for the character!

Yay! That was a really fun quiz! Thanks Jo! :)

Times - Tenth Avenue North

Hey Guys! I thought I'd post this song by one of our favorite Christian bands, Tenth Avenue North. This is one of my favorite songs they do! :) I love the lyrics, because it's a great reminder of how God's love is as far as the east is from the west, and it never will end. How encouraging to be reminded of! Here you go!





Did you like it? :) Well, I'll be going! :)
-Sarah

Charlotte Church - The Last Rose Of Summer, Live

Ah...every time I look out the front windows and view our brave little roses still "bloomin' on the thorn", this lovely song comes to mind! Charlotte Church (by far one of our new favorite singers of traditional songs) has the perfect voice for this sweet, mournful Irish song! Enjoy it! :)