Saturday Evening--
I think I succeeded in killing my ego, finally, which was a great trial. You see, Saturday was our church's Easter Concert, I had said I would recite various passages for the concert and was inhumanely nervous. My family made a huge deal out of it, my sister said people in the audience where crying, and I got a few comments from audience members afterward, (one was something about a accent. *looks innocent* I honestly didn't realize I was using one.) Anyways, my ego went on a very large and expensive vacation, I only just managed to kill him yesterday, or the day before that. *shoots at ego again*
All through the twenty minutes we stayed at church after the concert I eagerly watched to tell a friend of mine (best friend's brother) that I loved his piece, he read various excerpts from a sermon called "The Napkin Is Still Folded," very very thrilling, he's a splendid reader. Of course, fate would say, "No, darling," and I didn't get a chance. I was quite resolved to start a conversation if I had to, it was much effort on my part. Fate is cruel.
Sunday--
I got up early on Sunday. I think I read, but don't remember. Though I do remember what I wore to church; would you like to know? 'Twas a blue jean skirt (which only went to my knees, not the nicest 'cause it bugged me all through the service, plus it makes me look short), a orange shirt with ties and that goes down almost to cover my skirt (about half way, *loves that shirt*), black shoes, black socks, and a ponytail (which was a huge mess, at least, so my sister told me, I haven't quite decided whether or not to believe her yet).
The service was on Psalm 69, which is a very sad psalm, but that only made the sermon all the better, something that often happens. Don't you agree?
After the service I "bumped" into a friend, best friend at that and passed various polite phrases. (Or rather I asked "How are you?" and let her do all the talking, it's a splendid strategy if you aren't one to want to talk, let the other do it. Though, to be fair, I suppose I aught to state that she asked the question first, which I did answer before asking it myself with, "The usual. Eat. Sleep. Work." Thinking of a E. Nesbit passage all the while.) I stood as close to her brother as possible during this conversation so as to nab him as soon as he finished his own. I got my chance after a few moments and started with "Felicitations on your recitation/reading last night," and he sent felicitations back to me, which a excepted well shooting my ego with red and green paint-balls and wondering if he knew what felicitation means, or if he just said it because I did. We had a short conversation on the pros and cons of being a good reader and he asked how I was, and particular what I was reading.
I was thinking "Funny you should ask" then yabber'd for a moment about the fact that I am trying to read all my mother's fiction, starting with the "As" which all consist of romances. I said what I said a few posts back, that I'm sure I've got nothing against love but it's very dull to read about. He was very kind and agreed with me, adding that love is "such a quiet thing." I then asked what was up with him, he said he was on Spring Break (which is a quite beauteous thing, a thing that deserves capitals) and he said that he hoped to get a lot of reading in because of that, also that he was reading a book by St. Augustine and would quite readily start again, reading it all over, it was that good. I mentioned Till We Have Faces and he was made out that he'd read it, I was slightly surprised, I didn't think it was all that common...
At which point our conversation drifted on to my parents' business, conversations with him always seem to go there, well, not always, but they often do. He asked how much time of the day is spend on the business and I told him, beginning with "Well, Mom checks orders, lists books, and things like that all day long --which is pathetic." And he asked me why it was pathetic, in a curious tone, not in the tone of a grown-up, the tone of "When you grow up you will realize that allot of things in life take all day long" if you know what I mean. Which is where my week (wait, is it my week to begin with?) made it's nose dive.
Why was it pathetic? I knew why it was pathetic, I knew why I said that, I just didn't tell him, I told him something to the effect of "Because" and then emphasized the "all day long" fact. The real reason is that it's been all day long for my mother since I was three years old. I have basically no memories of my mother, all I've got is memories of sitting on the back of her chair in her office watching her work. And it was never working together scrubbing the floor, my mother never scrubbed the floor*, I can't even imagine my mother scrubbing the floor (all I get is images of someone on TV or from a book with just my mother's face pasted over theirs), my sisters and I or my grandmother did it because Mom was always too busy. The fact that it's nothing but business work from 7-8am all the way 'till 10-11pm everyday, six days a week and most of Sunday is pathetic. It saddens me, leaves me a cold feeling in my stomach, a empty feeling in the general area of my left lung that I wish I could fill with memories of my Mother, and I wish my siblings --young and old-- could fill with memories too. Yes, it's pathetic. But I didn't tell him that, I could have told him that, I know I could, he's easy to talk to. Heh...Which is just how Laura felt about Allen when I knew they'd marry in the end of the book. Freaky. *is slightly disturbed at that*
Moments later we parted ways with a handshake, both eager for our lunches. Mine consisted of entirely to small a quantity of food, though, I can say proudly that I did not faint or die of hunger before three o'clock. My family and I ate in the church building with the Missions Team and the new missionary family going to South Asia. We ate and as the Missions Team got ready for an introductory my sister and I asked interview questions whenever we noticed one member of the missionary family doing nothing in particular, whenever we caught them lacking in visible labor. We managed to get a pretty good interview, their favorite movie was The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, they all say that. That or Narnia.
Heading home I read A White Bird Flying, one and a half chapters, her chapters are a little long, or else I'm a slow reader. Who knows which? Not me. At home I did mainly mumbled about my conversation with that young man (it's hard to decide what to call someone if you don't know whether or not he'd want his name strutting around Xanga) and about the concert and about the book job into my journal, carefully corrupting several pages with my less then lovely handwriting. Afterwards, after my sibling got off the computer I got on, updated blogs and learned of some new scheme on my mother's part. The idea that buying the church for sale in town would be really divine. I'm sure she was really wishing for a good amount of free cash at that point. Which only continues my point above, my love/hate relationship with this idea, the above, and the business together. My relationship with the business as changed over the ages, I used to despise it quite thoroughly, detest it and books in general most strongly. You shall all be quite shocked at this I'm sure but all the time I didn't want to see another book again. Would revel in the idea of ripping apart and destroying books. Now, however, I have reached a love/hate idea. I don't mind having my parents have their own little adorable business, that doesn't bug my anymore, I used to detest helping out, even a month ago helping would through me in the worst mood, now I'm okay with it all. I think, oh, having a place where we can take the business would be awesome! (The church is nearly as big as our own house, if not bigger. And, didn't you know that stain glass windows increase your sales by a good bit?) Thinks could get organized, the baby wouldn't crawl in it all, or rip it for that matter. A part of me also says, that if we had somewhere we could set this, separate life and work, than we could be able to, at a certain time of day, say, 5 o'clock, store closing time, we could just leave it all there. It's been a dream of mine (and some of my siblings) to be able to shut it off, leave it all for a hour or two, you know? ...No, you wouldn't know... But a part of me, either the part of better judgment and the part that knows how things have gone in the past or else the pessimistic part says, "Quiet fool, you know it can't get any better, you know the work-a-holic spirit of some, you know the addiction computer has, the hold it takes on your soul." [/end overly dramatic speech] *sigh* Yes, must be the pessimistic part of me. That, the idea of buying the church threw me into even greater "depressed" states. I put "depressed" in quotation marks, because I'm not actually depressed but I do have this perpetual in-the-back-of-my-mind sad feeling.
I was up late that night.
Monday--
I think I was up at six on this day, can't remember though. I didn't eat breakfast cause I would rather have stomach pains for a hour or two then eat oatmeal. I did my school, which consisted partly of reading a chapter of a book about a ancient love between a Greek and a Hebrew. *sigh* And a good deal about rocks and geology, very interesting, no sarcasm. I than worked steadily for most of the whole day uploading pictures to mom's listings, I end up doing about a hundred pictures, taking several hours on it. I also attempted to finish the whole of A White Bird Flying, but because of the pictures my attempt failed.
Tuesday--
I spent the morning, all the way 'till almost noon finishing A White Bird Flying, this is the last of the books by Aldrich that I'll be reading in awhile and this one was a nice finish I think. It's the sequel to A Lantern In Her Hand, and was lacking in scandalized behavior, much to my delight. Aldrich is truly a very good writer, she's just got to get a grasp on plots, some of her sentences are really quite lovely, and some are humorous even. The title for this post --all be it originated from Shakespeare-- is the title because of that book. I relized, after reading it that I was quite prone to protest a whole lot of things, and I am also doing allot of protesting in this post, so, yes, Methinks I Doth Protest To Much.
(What's it from? The Taming Of The Shrew? I forgot...) I worked on several more pictures, pausing for supper my dad continued the reading of the story of Saul/David/Jonathan like he does every night and my little sister interrupted him right away with, "Arm bearer? I didn't know Jonathan got his arms chopped off." We had a good laugh over that one.The mail arrived with several letters, bills and advertisements, one check for my sister (she's offered to make swimsuits for people, see her blog) and five or so packages, one was a package from BookCloseOuts, yay! I opened it in a hurry but only found several copies of Narnia read very boringly by someone who can't read. For resale, I sighed, and was going to go back to what I used to be doing (pictures) but Dad had me open the other packages, I found a second BookCloseOuts! I opened it and --oh joy!-- it was the package I'd been waiting for! The Thief had arrived! Along with Jack In The Beanstock by E. Nesbit (in which Jack is featured as a very naughty boy who doesn't learn his lesson in the end, I like the illustrations too, good book), a Traveler's Journal** (for me, always looking for journals...one can never have to many of them,), two Redwall books (at the request of my sister Kale), and I think their was something else, I've forgotten though. That was a good moment.
Wednesday (yesterday)--
Yesterday I spent a great deal of the morning, in fact, all of the morning reading A White Bird Flying, I finished it and wasn't scandalized by it, he only kissed her once, and hugged her some five times, not to bad. The "theme" of the book goes well with the song Lost The Sky Again by the newsboys (from the album Not Ashamed, and you know I'd mention the 'boys, didn't you?) The chorus of that song " Every blade will wither and fade, / as the old man dies again. / Season pass, we're clinging to grass, / 'cause we've lost the sky again" fits right in with something she wrote well her characters where visiting Arbor Something-Or-Other, "Hours fly. Flowers die." Smacked in the face with reality, I can safely say here: good book.
(Note: In case your interested, my little sister is at this moment well I'm writing is staring in the mirror with her mouth open, she just lost another tooth. Congratulations to her on her tooth debut I'm certain. Now she's asking Mom if she has a pocket, to house her tooth for awhile. 
)
After I finished A White Bird Flying (did I mention that that's an extremely wonderful book title?) I went and cropped, saturated, sharped, SKUed, and uploaded pictures, I also started writing this post, but I didn't finish it, it will usually take me a few hours or a few days to finish a post, low attention span.)After supper, which, was, um, I forgot...it was--rice! Rice and chuck roast, that's right, sorry 'bout that. So, yes, we had rice and chuck roast and Dad read about the part where Jonathan put the end of his staff in the honey. (If you don't remember that part then your not very literate, no pressure.) Then, after supper, I finished the last of the pictures and got my next job. Templates. Yep, HTML templates, I'm not all that good at HTML when I have to start from scratch, thankfully I was starting from Mom's eBay template, changing the tables, words, and colors around, not to hard. I quickly wiped up a eBay template for a man who Mom sold a PDA to the other day, a bookseller, just starting out (bookseller's are more common than I used to think...) I used blues and greens and only one table, a simple one. Finishing that I went and started The Thief, than I went to bed.
I also lost my diluvial copy of Mere Christianity yesterday... *sigh* Sad, sad...spell check doesn't seem to think that diluvial is a word...sad.
Thursday (today)--
Today, today I dreamed about something, I...forgot what it was...I think it was something sad or full of trepidations, but I've forgot. I read the chapter of Exodus on the making of the Ark of the Covenant than read more of The Thief (she writes well), breakfast came all to quickly, I ate and than took a science test, and woop-dee-do for algebra. Lunch came in time, some very, very good sandwiches, do you know the origin of sandwiches? The Duke of Wich was so into gambling that he wanted something that would give him both bread and meat but that he could eat with his hands and not have to pause his gambling to eat. Or something like that, probably not that exactly, but definitely something about a gambling duke. I made a second template, with greens and pinks and blacks for another starting out bookseller, just a lady this time. This one was a little bit more confusing, cause it had some five tables in it. So, I wonder what I'm going to do with the money I make making these for people, nevermind, I don't have to wonder--buy music! Like Whiteheart's The Flame Passes On and Newsboys' Step Up To The Microphone, things like that.
I downloaded Safari for Windows today, the newsboys use Safari, so we must do the same, mustn't we? It's a bit of a faster browser too. Anyways, yes, such as been this week, but now, I am at the present and am cooking supper, or rather, finishing the cooking process. It's about to get pulled out of the oven. "Rise up Fruit Loop lovers, sing out sweet and low with spoons held high we bid our brother 'Cherio!'" Cherrio! (newsboys song Breakfast reference, off'a Take Me To Your Leader.)
*Wait, never mind, my mother did de -wax her bathroom floor once...
**The title makes me think of something from Forever Man by the newsboys (the album LoveLibertyDisco) the line "...And at the end of all our travels will find the journey's just begun." Maybe I'll even tack that in it somewhere.
(Imported from Xanga.)
