Halloween 2009

Just like last year, I'm posting up some Halloween pictures we just took. This year, Maya and I stayed home, handed out candy, and basically just goofed off. Our costumes are the same as last year's.

We went to Microsoft yesterday to "trick-or-treat"- the fancy word for "running-to-all-the-candy-boxes-you-see and-grabbing-as-much-candy-as-you-can-when-nobody-is-looking." So we ended up having a LOT of candy to hand out :)

CANDY!!!!!!!!

Don't look at me!

Fooling around...

Don't mess with me!

The little details of my costume:

Me and my secrets :D

And finally, around 8 PM:

Hope you had a great Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

(Found this picture on Google Images.)

Happy Halloween!

Jack-o'-Lanterns

(Found this picture on Google Images.)

Goblins

On the porches

Glare with slitted eyes,

Waiting for their callers:

Children in disguise.

Throats of

Liquid fire,

Eyes of candle flame-

Demons in the darkness,

Pumpkins when they're tame.

-by Ann Pedtke

(Poetry Friday roundup here.)

Another Award :-)

Q is right- awards do come in sets of two! I got the "I Love Your Blog" Award from Kiki yesterday:


Thanks, Kiki! I'm going to pass this on to:

Milli from Everything Crazy
Eden from Garden of Edee
Bookworm from A Sea of Books

Award!

I just got the "Sheer Awesomeness" blog award from Judi, who has a fabulous blog as well.

I'm passing this on to:

Cate from Sparrow Review

Q from The Curly Q

Enna Isilee from Squeaky Books

Kiki from Pages

And if anyone else wants to put this award up on their blog, feel free to!

Forest Born

by Shannon Hale

In order to excape her confusing and chaotic life in the Forest, Rin (Razo's brother) travels with her brother to Bayern. There, she gets caught up in a mysterious adventure with the three Fire Sisters (Isi, Enna, and Dasha). Along the way, she learns who she really is and what she wants with her life.

Another fabulous Book of Bayern! Although not my favorite, I enjoyed catching up with all the old characters. I also liked getting to know about the "speakings" better and learning more about the cities surrounding Bayern. There were a few great twists in the book, the writing was terrific as usual, and the plot was fast-paced and suspenseful. A must-read for Shannon Hale fans!

Holus-bolus, I learned some new words!

I was scrolling through Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day archives, and I came across tons of awesome words that I've never heard of! Here are just a few:

popinjay- a strutting, supercilious person
The popinjay refused to help us with our physics project because she was too busy practicing for her modeling class; therefore, she failed the class.

sockdolager- exceptional
I went to the fireworks show last night. It was sockdolager!

ripsnorter- a humdinger
The new video game is a ripsnorter!

holus-bolus- all at once
Holus-bolus, the lights turned off and everyone started screaming.

plumply- forthrightly, without hesitation
She went up to the teacher and plumply asked to retake her test.

So...
Holus-bolus, the popinjay plumply got up in the middle of the sockdolager violin concert and complained loudly about the violinist; according to her, even a heavy metal concert would be a ripsnorter compared to this classical music.

I can't wait to use these words in a conversation! :-)

Old Houses

On cold,
dark nights
old houses
talk to themselves:
midnight tales
of whispered secrets,
wild romps,
late night vigils--
stories of life
and death--
but mostly life.
Listen, you'll hear.

-by Sharon Hart Addy


I love this one! It's been really dark and overcast here lately, and reading this poem made me shiver.

(Poetry Friday roundup here.)

Books I've Been Reading

I did one of these in January, and another one in May. It's just a short compilation (with mini-reviews) of some of the books I've just finished.

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones... I can't believe I hadn't read this before! It's fantastical and wonderful and the kind of book you wish you had written yourself. I loved how witty all the characters were, and the plot was fast-paced and suspenseful. A lot of people have recommended the movie to me, so hopefully I will be watching that soon!

Another great read: Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George. It was such a perfectly written book, while retelling a famous Norse (?) fairytale at the same time. Although the plot was very predictable, I still enjoyed it a lot. Ice by Sarah Beth Durst has just come out too (I believe it is a retelling of the same fairytale) and I'm planning on getting that soon.

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare... another terrific book that I never got around to reading until now. It's mildly violent, but extremely action-packed and full of amazing twists and turns. Most of the characters kind of bugged me (except for Luke!) and the ending may be a little controversial, but overall a terrific novel.

One middle grade book I read about a month about was A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban. It was a cute, quick read, but lacked much character development and action. I'd still recommend it though- it's pretty short, so you should be able to finish it in an hour or so.

I recently discovered the Araminta Spookie books, and they looked fun, so I decided to try the first one: My Haunted House by Angie Sage. It was the perfect read since Halloween is coming up, but it ended a little abruptly and was hard to believe. I think that's because the characters weren't well developed and the descriptions weren't realistic enough. But younger readers will definitely love this series. I'm probably going to read the rest of the books too.

And... I finally got Forest Born by Shannon Hale! And I read it! It was amazing -- definitely not Shannon Hale's best (The Goose Girl will always be my favorite), but still really really good. I just wish there was more Geric and Finn in there :) I'm going to be posting up a proper review of that book soon.

Help: I need to find a Bible

I need help finding a Bible.

I'm required to purchase one for school purposes (we will be reading parts of it sometime soon in English class). My teacher prefers the Revised Standard Version or the King James Version, but he says that any version that includes both Old and New Testaments would be fine too.

I've been looking on Amazon, and there are so many different versions that I'm not sure which one is best. From looking at reviews, some are slightly inaccurate while others have too-thin paper or too-small fonts.

If anyone has a recommendation for a Bible that fits the requirements above and isn't too expensive, I would really appreciate it. I don't know the difference between all the different versions and editions, so any help would be much appreciated. (And if you could include the Amazon link, that would be terrific.)

untitled

Full moon in the sky

which means that both of us,
the moon and I, will be on the
dark side of the earth tonight

It is quiet here,
the moon standing vigil
and the trees painting shadows on the dark houses.

(there is an abandoned picture book on my lap,
all vibrant colors and once-upon-a-time stories)

The wind sweeps past,
fluttering the corners of the book
as if sifting for nonexistant gold--
turning the pages, one by one.

(Poetry Friday roundup here.)

P.S.- I've been reading tons of great Halloween poems lately, so you can expect to see a lot of poetry coming up this month!

Ice (Giveaway Info at Squeaky Books)

The next hit book by Sarah Beth Durst, author of Into the Wild.

This book is based in modern times, up in Alaska and the arctic. Cassie lives with her father and their team at a research station in the middle of the ice-desert. Cassie's grandmother often told Cassie the story of how her mother was promised to the Polar bear king by her father the North Wind, but then she fell in love with a human man and the Polar Bear King(love him!) agreed to protect her from the North Wind's wrath, on the condition that their first-born daughter be his wife. But North Wind found her anyway blew her to the edge of the earth to be with the trolls.

Now it's Cassie's 18th birthday, and the Polar Bear King has come for her.

Enna Isilee ranted and raved about the awesomeness of this book over at her blog, and now she's offering anyone an opportunity to own it.

This giveaway is awesome and easy, head here to enter the drawing and to get more information (open to US residents only).

(Copied right off Enna Isilee's blog, Squeaky Books. This book sounds awesome and I'm looking forward to reading it!)

Stealing Death

by Janet Lee Carey

After a fire kills most of Kipp's family and destroys his home, Kipp attempts to stop death in order to get rid of suffering in the world. How? By stealing Death's soul sack and keeping it away from those who are on the verge of dying. With this goal in mind, Kipp embarks on a fantastical journey in order to truly master death.

Stealing Death is a very rich, fast-paced novel similar in style to many of Janet Lee Carey's other works. Although the idea of "stealing death" is quite common, the way which the characters went about it was very original and interesting. I loved all of the characters and how realistic they seemed -- Kipp went through so many of the challenges and mental hardships that most of us go through today, and his friend Zalika was the kind of spunky, independent girl that most girls want be like. The cultural aspect of the book (the African words and traditions) enriched the book so much and made it unlike any other book I've read. For all ages, this exciting novel (with the awesome cover!) is something you don't want to miss.

one of my favorite statues

I'm always amazed at the creativity and artistic thought that people put into their artwork. I pass by this particular statue a few times a month, and I thought I'd share it with you. I love how the acrobats are incorporated into the architecture of the whole building.