"I Wonder What Sort of a Tale We've Fallen Into?”

“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

There is much that is dark in our lives these days.  There are times that are troubled and frightening.  We are going places we've never been, putting our hopes in people we haven't met and stepping out our door into a lot of unknown.  Times like these find me escaping, when I am able, to familiar places with beloved friends and prose.  Tolkein's trilogy soothes me on profound levels. 

“The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet it is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: Small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.”
~ J.R.R. Tolkien

My Christian friends will no doubt wonder why it isn't the Bible I am turning to, but I never said I wasn't.  I am and I do, there is indeed comfort and wisdom there and my prayers are unceasing.  But it isn't where I find my solace.  The balm for my soul lies in old friends in the books I've loved my whole life.   Is it escapism?  Is that bad?  I think not.

 

“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. “I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which 'Escape' is now so often used. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?”
~ J.R.R. Tolkien

“Fairy tale does not deny the existence of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance. It denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat...giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy; Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”
~J.R.R. Tolkien

I have always found the wisdom of Gandalf profound and simple, full of compassion and hope,  no less soothing to me than some of the Psalms of David.

“I will not say, do not weep, for not all tears are an evil.” 

 ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

 “The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places.   But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.”

~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings  

We all have our coping mechanisms and reading is mine.  Not just reading, rather the picking up of the beloved and the familiar, dark books filled also with joy and humor and friendship and triumph.  Among story lines filled with the same things we face in our own world, my books carry me along the difficulties of the protagonists and bring me through along with them as I know we will come through our own difficulties.

“We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Indeed only by myth-making, only by becoming 'sub-creator' and inventing stories, can Man aspire to the state of perfection that he knew before the Fall.”
~ J.R.R. Tolkien

 “May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.”
~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

 

Read more...

Wordless Wednesday

Read more...

Wordless Wednesday

 

Rowan said, "Now I know why there was no room at the inn."  

Read more...

2012 Reading Challenges Page

 52 Books in 52 Weeks Challenge

Hosted over here by Robin, join in the fun!  I am really looking forward to this one again this year mostly because there is a great thread on it continually going on the Well Trained Mind forums.    

 150+ Books Challenge

Amy over at My Overstuffed Bookshelf is going hog wild this year and upping her 100+ Challenge to 150 this year.  I don't know if I can pull this one off, I managed 125 for 2011.  But I'll play along because I think she is grand.

Join in the fun and sign up here!

Here is my Goodreads 2012 Bookshelf where I keep track.  Previous years have their own pages over on the right of my blog page.

Week One
Finished the most recent of Ilona Andrews, October Daye series.  Madly in love with these books and lost a fair amount of sleep reading late into the night.
Late Eclipses
One Salt Sea
Halfway to the Grave, Night Huntress Book I
I am currently on Book Two of Jeaniene Frost's Night Huntress series, One Foot in the Grave.  I try to steer clear of the "steamier" side of the paranormal genre, these kind of cross the line to an uncomfortable degree for me but the plot is decent and I am intrigued to see where she goes with it.  I will say that it is an excellent twist on the genre and her main character is definitely someone I want to know more about.
I found her on Ilona Andrew's website, since I devoured everything they'd written recently and loved them  I thought I'd give them a try. Still doing only light reading, my escape from all the stress in our lives right now.

Week Two
On the most recent of the Night Huntress Books, almost done with the series as it is at the moment.
At Grave's End
Destined for an Early Grave
This Side of the Grave
This was the best one yet, the balance of humor is really working with the rest of out now. The emotions are real and the storyline gets better and better.
At last I'm utterly invested in their lives and reveling in being a part of it, one book at a time. I still skip over the steamier parts, but that's just me. Jeaniene Frost is an author to admire.
One Grave at a Time 

Week Three 
Read through the first three of Faith Hunter's Jane Yellowrock books.
Skinwalker
Blood Cross
Mercy Blade
and reading the 4th, Raven Cursed
Really enjoying these, they are original and compelling.
  

Read more...

Making Christmas Memories

We had our cookie day at Mom's house this weekend.  It is a tradition that goes back to our childhood at Twin Acres and one of our most beloved of annual events.

This year we had 3 generations of us in the house ranging from 70's down to Jenna, the youngest at 11. Typically, my sister and her husband were there first and got to rolling and baking with Mom. 

The kids and I and our friend Michael arrived shortly afterwards only to realize that, though I had remembered the 600 other things I was supposed to bring, I had forgotten the 2 batches of cookie dough made the night before and bless his heart, off Mike went to go retrieve it and the beer I forgot too.  (You have your traditions, I have mine, don't judge).

Sissy and I rolled and baked, out went the cookies  to the porch to cool, until we built up enough to begin the decorating marathon.  

 My niece and her roommate and my nephew and his girlfriend arrived as well as my little sister's Mom and her granddaughter with gingerbread cookies to decorate too.  It wasn't our best year artistically but a great deal of fun was had.  Mom buys new fun things to use each year from the King Arthur Flour Company.  

We have a ridiculous collection of cookie cutters and utilize most of them.  There are the traditional snowmen, Christmas trees, stockings, wreaths, and such.  We also make the Christmas Goose, Christmas Owl, Bobba Fett, Christmas monster trucks, cats, doves, swans and miscellaneous others.  Oh, and the Christmas squirrel dubbed "Griswold" in honor of Chevy Chase and our favorite holiday movie, Christmas Vacation.

My nephew's handiwork.

This year my nephew's girlfriend brought a sociology project with her. She had a list of questions about family for my Mom.  As they were read and Mom answered we were treated to some of my Mom's recollections of her childhood and family.  

Then she was asked a question and though we can't recall it, the answer was unforgettable.  Mom replied, "I'd love to ask my Mom a few more things if I could."  Innocuous enough you'd think but here we were 20 years after she passed away and my sister looked at me, and I at her and the tears just flowed.  Then Mom turned around and her face crumpled too.  Our Nana, Mary Japp Koch, was just that special.  When she died she left a hole behind that can't be plugged this side of heaven.  I wish so very much that my girls had known her.

 Nana (seated) with Auntie Babs, Hyannisport, Ma

Christmas in Needham, ~circa mid "70's"

Back to cookie making.  Mom found the recipe in a Good Housekeeping magazine from a Land O Lakes butter recipe 30 years ago.  We have made them every year I can remember.  

You can't go wrong.  If you don't have a tradition like this yet, perhaps it's time to think about it.  So here is the recipe, take lots of pictures and make your own memories to pass down.

Christmas Sugar Cookies and Icing

6 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 lb butter

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

mix flour and salt and set aside

cream butter, sugar, vanilla, add to flour mixture and stir well

refrigerate 5 hours or overnight

when ready to bake, using hand size amounts of dough, work on floured surface till it is roll-able, roll out a cut with cookie cutters.

bake in a 375 degree over about 10 minutes or until golden brown on the edges

Icing

4 egg whites

1/2 tsp Cream of Tarter

1/2 tsp vanilla

5 cups 10X sugar

food coloring

Use as many bowls as you have colors and have fun!

If you want to pipe decorations, just add a little more sugar so it's thick enough.

Read more...