Under Lavender Skies

 Do you make new years resolutions for yourself?  I think it is a fun thing to do at the beginning of a new year, but most of the time they don't last long.  There are many reasons why they are hard to stick to but one of them is high expectations.  Now hear me out.  If you want to work out more, or eat less sugar etc. that is a lot to expect of yourself.  Don't expect too much of yourself, in turn you will achieve much more if you expect less and achieve more than if you expect more and achieve less.   We are creatures of habit, you have probably heard that before.  We like our routines and it never seems to work out if we suddenly change it.  Little steps, you have also probably heard this before, are best to start with if you want to make a big change.   I think the first step to sticking with a goal is having a good motivation, something that you can remind yourself of when you don't feel like doing it to keep you going....

The week of Christmas has crept up on us and so I must write something about Christmas in this second to last Monday of the month.  I am sure every one of you has yearly Christmas traditions, my family does as well and it's one of my favorite parts of Christmas.  Many of them have to do with food, so that's what I am focusing on today.  We'll get to see if we have some of the same traditions.   Orange in your stocking I don't think finding an orange in the bottom of your Christmas stocking is an unusual tradition, but I was curious what it meant and decided to write about it anyway.   This tradition is a symbol and goes all the way back to the true Saint Nicholas story.  It originates in the same place as the stockings.  You've heard the story, Saint Nicholas tosses bags of gold down into three maidens' stockings as they hung by the fire to dry.  The orange represents the gold, landing heavily in the bottom.   Pizza when we set...

    Hello friends! I have been quite busy recently- each year I make Christmas gifts and it has been taking up most of my time and I haven't had much time to write. I re-wrote a short story a month or so ago (you might even recognize it from the first version, the first story I ever posted here - which was earlier this year, in March). It was originally called: The imaginary Journal of Sylvia H. I think re-writing previous work can be quite fun, and it really shows how much improvement can happen in a year. So, without further adieu, enjoy the story!     The Tragedy of Only Dying Once The saddest type of forgetting is when it’s one-sided.  When someone holds on to a person so tight and they tie ropes around their ankles to hold them still, but the other person doesn’t notice and they snap, hurting only the person who tied them.   I started tying ropes when I woke up at noon with no one home. It’s been happening more and more recently and I ...

I have not shared my poetry for a while now and I have come up with a couple more pieces since then.  I have decided to put a small explanation under some of the poems.  I understand that poetry can be a little hard to understand and some that I write are specifically from a different point of view and so I have explained things like that if they arise.  I hope you enjoy reading something here that I've not shared before.    Promises to Keep I am sorry, but poems are dancing through my head And I can not sleep I must forget about darkness and falling back on my bed Yes, I have promises to keep.    - I write many poems at night, it's probably not the best time to do it but when I can't fall asleep at night, I like thinking up rhymes.   Dressed in my Very Best  I am dressed, And ready to go. Today I am wearing my very best. Into the wind, I hurry away, so  That my hair is pushed back as I leave the nest.  I will not look back, no...

I think annotating literature is a really fun way to deeply explore the ideas in books further by making notes or writing something of your own to take the idea and elaborate on it.  Marking passages and words is a good way to appreciate the book even more.   Now, I personally really enjoy the idea of annotating a book or even getting a used book and being able to see what others thought of the ideas.  However, when I was younger I hated it and I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to write in a book and ruin it for the other people who would read it.  If you don't like the idea of annotating books, that's okay but just hear me out.   Earlier this year, I believe it was this June, I took an online class using the book The Lord of the Flies.  Essentially, for the class, I had to answer and write a section, (one to three paragraphs) answering different questions and turn them in before Wednesday each week.  Lots of the time the questions wer...

Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month and is an organization that promotes writing in the month of November.  The idea is for writers to write the first draft of their book in one month so they get it out and ready to be revised.  The hardest part is just to get it out and into the world and so Nanowrimo gives writers a place as well an incentive to do that.  It happens every November and this year I decided to do it.  The goal is 50,000 words in one month.  As you can imagine, that is a lot of writing per day and my life has almost been revolving around it.   I am writing a historical fiction novel so I am going to tell some stories and facts for this month's history week.  The story has to do with two children (Russell and Clara) who ride on the boxcars in 1930.  There wasn't much easily found information so I have done lots of digging.   One of the best websites I found is one telling stories that were passed down ge...

Today is my 43rd post!  I know that I should be saying that when it's the 40th or 50th and the 43rd seems like an odd number (Ha! get it?).  Having said that, I still think it's pretty cool that I have made it to 43.   Have you ever read a book that is on a banned book list?  If you like to read, or have gone through high school, you probably have.  A lot of the books on the list are, from what I know, popular books to read in high school and almost all of them are historical fiction.   If you don't know what a banned book or book censorship is, it's when there is a record that a school has banned the book, or tried to remove it, from the school because it has suggestive content in it.  I looked through this list,  http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/classics , and the books that I have read from that were banned are: The Great Gatsby, The Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, The Lord of the Rings, and A Separate...

PART TWO   “I must go in. The fog is rising.”    -Emily Dickinson- “Anyone could see that the wind was a special wind this night, and the darkness took on a special feel because it was All Hallows' Eve.” -Ray Bradbury  Here was the plan, the party would be held at Mrs. Kerbs’ house, she had enough space for snacks, people, and games.  She decided she would just invite the kids in the neighborhood and see what would happen from there.  And so a year passed, a strange and uneventful year for Leola.  She helped plan but still, there was not much for her to do.   “Elizabeth, Elizabeth!” There was a sharp and continuous knocking on the door.  Leola was at Mrs. Kerbs' house kneading bread as she did each Sunday afternoon when the figure of a man appeared through the blurred glass door.  He was a short man, short and wide, and she noticed how the top of his head was shiny and bald with the rest of his head covered in white fluffy ha...