Tag Time! {part 1}

Don't we all love tag?? Today, I'm playing the game by the rules of my friend, William. We met last summer during the amazing Reformation Tour (which I just realized I never did a true synopsis of...that will really have to happen at some point)!

Me, Kaytch, & William: first meeting!

 Between him, us three girls, and a few other cool people, we formed the fabulous Back of the Bus Gang.

Back row: Aislinn, Charae, Yours Truly, Kaytch, Lieren
Front row: Stephen, William, Abigail, Noel

I have decided that touring Europe together is one of the absolute best ways to make friends.

Lieren, Charae, Abby & Grace, Aislinn, Moi, William

...here is where I rapidly switch back to the topic of tag to avoid feeling a little homesick for that wonderful month of travels!

SO, the rules of the game are as follows:

1. Thank the person who nominated you and link to their blog. This feels slightly egotistical toward whomever I tag, but I'm certainly grateful to William for getting to join the fun!!
2. Answer his/her 11 questions.
3. Add to these 11 random facts about yourself.
4. Come up with your own 11 questions.
5. Tag (up to) 11 other blogs (with under 200 followers) to answer your queries and follow the previous 4 steps.

6. Do some mental math and come to the conclusion that, provided all 11 blogs comply, there will be 242 answers/random facts added to the blogosphere, compliments of your solitary blog post.

{confession: I did not do that math mentally}

Shall we begin? Because I love to ramble (apparently), and because I love to play tag (obviously), I'm prolonging the game into two posts. Because I can. :)

Part I: answering William's questions.

{photo credit}

1. What is your favorite type of music?
One of the hardest and favoritest questions! I like to play classical, listen to soundtracks, and sing along to hymns and (some) praise music. Thanks to this question, I now have a theme for this week's Watch-It Wednesday. :D

And...complete honesty requires me to acknowledge that I enjoy some kpop, also.

2. What is your favorite genre of literature?
Historicalfictionfairytalesfantasy(specificallyallegorical)philosophytheologybiographyclassicspoetry.

3. Would you rather read books or write articles?

I know this may come as a shock, considering the 30 Day Book Challenge I did last month, but I'd rather read than write.

{Yes, sarcasm.}

While I really do enjoy writing - when I feel I have something worth saying - I would much rather find an author with a complete mastery of words and read his. :)

4. How many brothers and/or sisters do you have?
4 bros, 5 sisters. For a total of 9 siblings. And yes, I did that math in my head.

5. If you lived 100 years ago, where would you choose to live?
According to HistoryOrb, August 25th held these events:
-German army begins 6 weeks of plundering Leuven, Belgium
-German Zeppelins bomb Antwerp, Belgium
- German troops march into France and pushes the French army to Sedan

Basically, if I was alive 100 years ago, I would be watching the beginning of the first world war. I don't really feel any pull to that difficult and tragic time, so I guess the best answer would be the US, since we hadn't joined the war yet...

6. Which theological subject are you most interested in?
This was a hard one, William, because I've actually never thought of Theology as being divided into different subjects. I had to ask Ben, but his answer was right-on (which is why, you know, he was to be asked). Answer: the personhood of Christ.

7. If you could travel to any one place in the world, where would you go?

Why must you ask a question like this?? Only one place? I can't pick one! I want to go back to Scotland, England, and Switzerland. I want to see Austria, Italy, Spain, Poland, Korea, Japan, Greece, Australia, Norway, Finland...Victoria B.C! Arches National Park, the Grand Canyon, Chicago, Disney Land, Maine, Prince Edward Island, Gates of Calypso Iguazu Falls (Brazil), Grand Wailea Canyon Activity Pool (Hawaii), the musical road in Lancaster, CA, and, within the next couple weeks, Frederick, Maryland will be added to the list.
Basically, give me a plane ticket and a suitcase, and I'm off.

8. Why did you start a blog?
Oh, self-absorption, mostly. Feeling a driving need to be recognized on the world wide web, I planned my momentous debut for months ahead of time, researching for agonizing hours what exactly was calculated to instantly draw the masses and grant me the platform I never found to be large enough in real life.

It didn't work.

So I went to Plan B for "purpose." Namely, maintaining an easy scrapbook wherein both grandparents and other family/friends could keep somewhat updated on my life.  Part B of Plan B was that it gave me an outlet for writing and a challenge to write consistently.

That's worked a bit better.

9. Where would you prefer to live: the city, or the country?

 

City for a couple years (and I'm talking city city: apartment downtown sorta thing)...because cities hold such an endless realm of adventures and possibilities, I'm drawn to them. Ultimately, however, I prefer to live in the country with s-p-a-c-e and quiet and flower gardens and veggie gardens and fruit trees and animals...and maybe even a house. :p

10. What is the most influential book, other than the Bible, in your life?
I feel like I keep talking about these books. I don't know if I could pinpoint just one. The Narnia series is so fully ingrained into who I am, that I'm sure I don't know all the influence it's had on me. When I think of truly mind-opening books I have read, they are Surprised by Joy, Til We Have Faces, Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child, and The Book that Made Your World.

Disclaimer: I'm sure there are tons of others I simply can't think of at this moment. ;)

11. What is your favorite movie?
Oh goodness. Really, William?? :p Short answer: Can't answer. Long answer: well, you asked for it....

Master and Commander, Ever After, Les Miserables, Cinderella Man, Wives and Daughters, Patriot, The Man From Snowy River, North and South, Tammy and the Bachelor, Luther, Sense and Sensibility (with Emma Thompson)...

...these are in no particular order. Some of them are "favorites" because I've grown up on them. Almost all of them are favorites for nostalgic reasons, as much as anything else. I like watching movies just fine, but am hard-pressed to say that I really have "favorites." :)

There now, aren't you glad I'm doing this in two parts? 400 brownie points to all of you who waded through my verbosity. To the skimmers: shame on you, on your family, and on your cow.

Tune in next Monday for part 2!! :)

Camera Giveaway!!!

About two years ago, my wonderful Canon camera died a sudden and final death. It wasn't mostly dead, it was the kind of dead where you start looking for loose change.

Since then, I've had a tiny point-and-shoot camera, which has done the job tolerably well, but is (after a trip to Europe) considerably dented/falling apart.

So when I found a chance to enter a drawing for a new, wonderful, SLR camera, I jumped on it!

Thus, this post, which, rumor has it, will give me 50 extra entry points.

Plus, you know, this picture is something beautiful I'd want to put on pinterest, anyway. :)

Courtesy of: SnapKnot - Find Local Wedding Photographers

Have a photographic Wednesday!

Hello, hello! Guess what day it is? Not hump day (unfortunately), but Monday, which means I have 31 more minutes to upload a post.

The only problem is, the post I was going to share today isn't finished being written is, uh, experiencing technical difficulties loading words onto the page, and had to be postponed. Thus, I am here to tell you...to tell you...whatever pops into my head to say at 11:31 at night! (2 minutes have apparently flown by since I first began to ramble.)

So what do I care to say at such a late hour? That summer is flying by waaaay too quickly, but - provided we get to keep the fantastic weather - dad has been working hard to convince me that fall is certainly a good thing coming.

Step one in this campaign was that we finally have one of these puppies for our 1800-2700 pounds of apples we get each year:

See how you can crush and press the apples at the same time? Plus, it apparently improves the quantity by quite a bit, and also, you know, we don't have to rent one anymore and lug it back and forth. My mouth is watering for cider and my hands are itching to once again compete with Charae for the best cider-pressing team!

Step two in Father's Fabulous Fall campaign was that, quite unexpectedly, we were confronted with the fact that he can make killer apple pie. I'm talking seriously amazing. And I never knew it in all my born days!

I guess you could say that, here in the Evergreen State, fall is synonymous with apple abundance ~ thus, much as I love the warmth and the sunshine, Father's campaign has been successful, and I am looking forward with great anticipation to the coming months.

14 minutes left.

um...

Oh! I can tell you my Chick Fil A story! Back in July, when I was road tripping home from Branson with my grandparents, we happened to be going through a part of the country where there were several - you guessed it - Chick Fil As! Having never been to one, but supporting what the restaurant has stood for, we stopped there for lunch one day, with fantastic consequences.

Rolling out of the restaurant later....

Papa and I ordered a sandwich; grandma ordered a salad, and papa added a sundae to his meal. I toyed with the idea of ordering fries, too, since...I really like fries, but decided against it. Only to have cashier (who we think was a manager) ask me (upon finding it was my first time at a Chick Fil A), "Do you hate french fries?" "Um, no. I love them," was my confused answer. "Well, then," he informed me, beginning to punch a secret code of buttons on his register, "I'm going to give you a complimentary fry, because you have to try this sauce with them," (handing me a stack of sauces). "Ok - cool! Thanks!" I decided I'd gotten a pretty sweet deal. Little did I know, it was just the beginning.

"You know," he paused before ringing up our total, "you really need to try our chicken sauce, too, so I'm going to give you a complimentary chicken. No - two. One fried and one grilled. You'll love this sauce," (handing me another stack). "Wow...thank you," was all I could manage now, wondering how in the world I was going to eat all of this.

"And," he added, warming to his theme, "two cookies!"

By now, I was chuckling so hard, I could hardly manage a "thank-you."

"You know," his exuberance waning, "Chick Fil A was originally from Georgia, so I'm going to give you," (beginning to go crazy on the buttons again) "a Georgia peach milkshake as well!"

At this point, I think my eyes popped out of my head. How could he give me all this free food? How could I possibly eat it all?

Is this a normal amount of food for 3 people???

I cannot believe all this food

Took me a while to finish everything... :p

And now, my dears, it is 12:10. So I'm late anyway. Would have been on time...or at least closer to on time, except for the internet skipped out on me for a while.

So, since we're here, I might as well wish you a happy Tuesday!!

And ask if you can taste the apple pies yet.

And advise you to tell the cashier if it's your first time at Chick Fil A.

And bid you good night.

Watch-It Wednesday: Multilinguist Disney

Hello, hello! Guess what? Beginning this coming Monday, I think I'll be back to a regular posting schedule -- gotta be excited about that. :p

But in the meantime, a friend told me about this video and - all comments about the actual song aside - it pretty much hit #1 on my youtube videos for the last...while. :) I LOVE getting to hear all the different languages! Which one is your favorite?

Have a multilingual Wednesday! :D