Guest Post

Well, I happened to enter a caption contest that Seana from the Totally Insane Writer held. And I won!!

Anyhoo, as a prize, I had the pleasure of writing a guest post at Seana's blog, which you can find here.

Thanks, Seana!

Go on ahead! Take a gander!

TTFN!
Sarah

My New Roomate/s

I have a new roommate. Or more. Unauthorized, of course. If you have read my previous posts about mice, you probably have a hunch on what I'm talking about.

Yep. There is a mouse in my room. I hope that it's only one....

My mom and I saw droppings last night under my bed and against the wall. So I've got a minty mouse repelling thingy in my room, a mouse trap is set, and there's this buzzy thingy that is supposed to keep mice away. (Thanks Grandma!!!)

These things are slightly reassuring, but I'm still freaked out. I mean, I've been hearing little noises for a week. I thought that it was just me being hypervigilant, which I tend to do a lot, or maybe mice in the walls. I never suspected that there were mice just five feet or less away from me!!!

Don't worry, I got all the important stuff, meaning yarn that isn't in a bin with a lid and my knitting projects, out of my room. I'm not going to be sleeping in here anymore until the mice are gone, but I will come in here so that I can use my laptop, write, and read in peace. (Though is it really peace if I'm jumping at every little sound I hear?) Unless I see a mouse. Then I'm moving out of the house. I'm sure that I have some friends and relatives that will take me in...

Please pray that these darn mice get out of my bedroom (and house) and stay out!!
Thanks!

TTFN!
Sarah

Mice.

Yup. That's mice. In plural. We have more than one. I can personally vouch for that!

Well, on Saturday my mom bought and set some new traps as the others weren't working. The next morning we had a dead mouse.

Then just fifteen minutes ago, I walked into the kitchen just in time to see a mouse run across the stove. Can you guess what I did next? Yup, that's right. I screamed. A lot. And ran upstairs. I tripped on the stairs. Now I have a sprained middle finger and toe. Great.

Well, I'm going to go watch Dancing with the Stars. Go Kellie Pickler! Go Wynona Judd! (I love country music...)

TTFN!
Sarah the Nutty Knitter, Choir geek, and mouse hater.

Happy St. Patricks Day!

Top o'the mornin' to ya!

In case you just so happen to live under a rock, it's St. Patrick's day. A day when everyone becomes an honorary Irishman or woman. And those who already have Irish blood....Ok, I'm not sure what they do, but I'm one of the latter. My great Grandma was 100% Irish. It is also a day where anyone who isn't wearing green gets pinched. (If you're not wearing green, consider yourself pinched. Well, you know, there really is a saint behind this holiday. St. Patrick, in case you couldn't tell..... I just so happened to write a report on St. Patrick for my writing class at our homeschool co-op. So guess what? You get to read it!

Here ya go:

St. Patrick: A Well Known Saint

By Sarah Hughes

When Saint Patrick was a young boy of sixteen, he was taken prisoner by Irish raiders. They forced him to be a shepherd, a job that was outdoors and isolated. Patrick’s only solace was his religion, and while he was held captive he became an extremely devout Christian. He dreamed of converting the Irish. Through visions, which he later wrote about, God told Patrick to leave Ireland. When he finally escaped, Patrick had been a prisoner of the Irish for six years.

After Patrick escaped, he went into religious training for fifteen years. While he was training, he had more vibrant visions. In one vision, he walked all the way to the Irish coast and beck, while in another vision he swathe unborn babies reaching out to him from their mother’s wombs. Patrick interpreted these visions to mean that he was being called to be a missionary to the pagans. After being ordained, he immediately begged to be allowed to go to Ireland. The pope consented. He sent Patrick in a mission to minister to the current Christians in Ireland, which weren’t many, and to convert the pagans. Because of those visions that God had sent him, and his religious training, Patrick became an Irish missionary.

Patrick’s vast knowledge of the Irish culture helped him to convert the pagans. He wisely incorporated their traditions into his lessons. He lit bonfires at Easter, which was the same way the pagans worshipped their ‘gods’. He also combined the sun, which was a pagan symbol, with the cross, creating the Celtic cross. Patrick suffered much opposition from the pagan druids, as they were against Christians. But despite that, he successfully converted many souls. When Patrick was kidnapped, it was a blessing in disguise because his knowledge of the pagan traditions was a huge help in converting souls.

There are many myths and symbols, which aren’t all true, associated with St. Patrick. He used the shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity. There is an interesting myth that St. Patrick bravely drove the snakes out of Ireland, but since Ireland has never had snakes, it is just a story. Interestingly, the serpent was a pagan symbol. Because of this fact, this story is probably symbolic of St. Patrick ending the pagan practice. Some of the myths and symbols associated with St. Patrick do have some truth to them.

Even though he had kind of a rough start, St. Patrick is now one of the most well-known Saints in the world.

Well, it's not the best work I've done, but I like to think that it's good...If you would notice the first and last sentence of each paragraph, you will notice that the last sentence reflects or repeats 2-4 words from the first sentence. Pretty cool, huh? It's one of the many requirements of my Excellence in Writing class. You should look up excellence in writing. The program is quite......excellent. :)

And now before I leave I'm going to give you some Irish proverbs/sayings:
An Old Gaelic Blessing!
May those who love us, love us
and those that don't love us,
may God turn their hearts;
and if He doesn't turn their hearts
may He turn their ankles
so we'll know them by their limping!
(My Grandma has this hanging in her front entry way.)
****************************************************
May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
May the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
May the Lord hold you in the palm of His hand
****************************************************
May there always be work for your hands to do.
May your purse always hold a coin or two.
May the sun always shine on your windowpane.
May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain.
May the hand of a friend always be near you.
May God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.
****************************************************
Christ be with me, Christ be within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger
Christ in hearts of all that love me
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.


FROM THE BREASTPLATE OF SAINT PATRICK
****************************************************

A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures.

****************************************************

Wherever you go and whatever you do, may the luck of the Irish be there with you.

Sarah, the Nutty Knitter, Choir Geek, and (part) Irish person

Creepy Crawlies and things that go scratch in the night...or why I'm posting at 2AM.

Yes, it really is 1:40. AM. Yes, I am tired. No, I'm not sleeping. Why you may ask? Well, here's the story. I was reading my Bible in bed like I do every night before I turn out the light, when I heard it. Scratching. In. My. Wall. No big deal. It was probably my imagination, or the house creaking, right? Soon after, I think I heard our mouse trap snap inn the kitchen. YESS!!!! Maybe that mouse finally got caught. Well, then I heard more scratching in my wall. 'Oh no! There's more of them!' Well, I am very scared of mice. VERY scared. I honestly don't know why, I mean, they're WAY more scared of me then I am of them, right? And it's highly unlikely that they're going to chew through my wall, right? And seeing that they've probably been here for at least two weeks, wouldn't they have come into my room if they were going to? Well, I keep telling my self all this, and its starting to work, when I hear an especially loud scratching sound. Then my mind goes. 'Yeah, right. BE SCARED!!!!!!!!!! PANIC!!!!!!! STAY UP ALL NIGHT AND GET NO SLEEP!!!! Then, to top it all off, a tick or beetle or USB (Unidentifiable Small Bug) lands on my bed. 'OK! I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF NATURE AND WILD ANIMALS AND BUGS!!!!! So I viciously kill it with my boot. So then I have a dead bug on my bed. Great. So I take a couple of minutes to get up the nerve to scrape it off into a plastic bag. So I do, and it falls in faster then I thought it would and kind of looks like it jumped, so I jump onto my bed and hyperventilate for a few moments. Fine, call me a wimp if you want to. I also am freaked out by bugs. Then I move the plastic bag and think, 'Hey, I think I'll write a blog post about this. At least something good can come out of my unrational fear.

Sorry if this post isn't up to my usual standards. I'm tired. It's 2AM. Blogging calms me. I needed to rant. I haven't heard any rodent activity lately so I think that I'm going to turn on my mp3 player and listen to the Story Girl. And sleep in till ten. Thirty. Five.

TTFN, Sarah the Nutty knitter/Choir Geek/rodentbugaphobic/tired, tired teen.

PS: Sorry if I use 'well' to much. I'm not going to go and change it.

This is 'Puntastic"!

Take a gander at this:

http://cheezburger.com/7114637824.

I saw it on FB earlier and just had to post!

TTFN!
Sarah

One of the hardest things to do is......

Ok. Fill in the blank: One of the hardest things for you to decide on is_______.

For me, one of the hardest things to decide on is which books to buy.....I've got this Barnes and Noble giftcard that I've had for almost a year and I have yet to decide on some books.....

I think I've just about got it figured out, but I'm open to any and all suggestions. :)

Thank you!

 

Before I go, here is a song:

Title: Happy Girl

 

Artist: Martina Mcbride

 

Genre: Country

 

This song describes me before I get new books, and when I get new books, if that makes any sense at all.....

 

The point of all that is: I LOVE BOOKS!!!!!! And music....;)

 

Well, TTFN!

Sarah, the Nutty Knitter, Choir Geek, Avid reader, and Music Lover.

Literary Dinner Party Tag

Well, I was meandering through the blogosphere when I came upon this Literary Dinner Party tag over at Treskie's blog, Occasional Randomness. Thanks for this, Treskie! The thing I like about this tag is that you are tagging characters from books, instead of real people.

This is the first time I've ever done a tag, so here we go!

1. One character who likes to cook.

Granny Relda from The Sisters Grimm series. No one ever said that she had to be good at it, right?

Or maybe Caroline Ingalls from the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. She was always making my mouth water with her cooking! Or perhaps Marty from the Love Comes Softly Saga...So many choices!

2. One character who has money to fund the party.

 Who else but Ebenezer Scrooge from a Christmas Carol?

3. One character who might cause a scene.

Puck the Trickster King from The Sisters Grimm. I can totally imagine him doing something to cause a scene, like throwing sludge bombs at someone or shape shifting into an Orangutan....

 

4. One character who is funny/amusing.

Daphne from The Sisters Grimm. She is always coming up with new words, or just saying something that amuses me. (Can you tell that I love The Sisters Grimm?)

5. One character who is super social/popular.

Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables. She is totally social!

 

6. One villain.

Opal Koboi from Artemis Fowl.

 

7. One couple (doesn't have to be romantic).

Oh, definitely Holly Short and Artemis Fowl from the Artemis Fowl series. Yes, they might be bickering half the time, but they would be so funny!

8. One hero/heroine.

Ooh, Ooh! I know! Miri Larendaughter from Princess Academy and Princess Academy: Palace of Stone. I just love her, and she is most certainly a hero!

 

9. One underappreaciated character.

Grace or Carrie Ingalls from the Little House series. They just weren't talked about as much as Laura, Mary, Ma, and Pa were. And I think that they were great.

10. One character of your own choosing.

Sara from The Summer of the Swans. I think that her brother has Autism, (or something similar) and my brother does too, so we would have plenty to talk about. I understand how she feels, as well...

Well, there you go. These are the characters that I could come up with. That was really fun! Thanks again, Treskie!

TTFN!
Sarah the Nutty Knitter, Choir geek, and Literary Dinner Party Hostess.

 

Song of the Day

And the song of the day award goes to.......Never Alone!!

Though I may have a different favorite song by the end of the day, so maybe I should say song of the morning? But it's not morning anymore, it's noon, so should I say.....This is getting complicated. I will just leave it at song of the day and waste brain cells on something else...

Anyhoo, without further ado, here ya go:

Title: Never Alone

Artist: Barlowgirl

Genre: Christian Rock

Rating: (***** 5/5)

I highly recommend that you listen to the above song. It is so, so, emotional.

Whoa. I already have another favorite song, just while writing this post...Guess y'all get two today!

Title: Vole

Artist: Celine Dion

Genre: Pop

Rating: (***** 5/5)

 

 

Ok, now that I've brought tears to your eyes with these sad, sad, songs, I'm going to leave you all to wallow in your music induced misery. But not before I give you this last sad little tidbit: Celine Dion wrote Vole for her niece who died of cystic fibrosis...Her niece who died...In her arms.

 

You've got to be crying by now...or at least a tad bit melancholy..

 

If you need cheering up, go watch the videos on my previous post.

 

TTFN!

Sarah the nutty knitter/choir geek/inducer of tears

Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood ft. Screaming Goat

I have seen this video around and just had to share:

Don't tell me that you didn't laugh out loud, or at the very least, smile at this video.

Here's one for Carrie Underwood:

 

You're welcome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I bet you watched those videos more than once, didn't you? Come on, admit it. I know I did!

 

TTFN!

Sarah the Nutty Knitter/Choir Geek

Thoughts on Babysitting

Personally, I love babysitting. I think that it is the best job in the world. Ever since I was a little girl, I've always loved taking care of kids. First my dolls, then my siblings and volunteering with kids. It's just always been something I've enjoyed. It's a part of me. That is one of the reasons I love babysitting. You get to play with and take care of little kids. And unlike your siblings, they adore you! My siblings like me and all, but it makes no difference to them whether I'm watching them or not. "Meh, It's just Sarah. We see her every single day. She lives with us. Nothing special." But when it's someone elses kids, they absolutely love it when you come. "Oh my gosh! It's Sarah! Sarah's coming! Oh happy day! She's going to play with us and read us stories! Yippee!!" I must say, it's a nice change of pace. Remember how you used to feel when your parent's hired a babysitter? How you'd rush to the door to greet them? They'd play with you-whatever you wanted!; They'd read to you, watch tv with you, bake with you, do all sorts of fun stuff! You could probably tell which babysitters loved their job and which didn't. And when they left, you couldn't wait until they came again. Well, now the roles are reversed. YOU are the sitter. YOU are the one that the kids ask about day's before you come. YOU are the run they rush to the door to greet! It's a great feeling. Plus, you get paid to experience all of the above!
Now, this is my personal opinion. Maybe your siblings absolutely adore you and act like it is a huge treat when you babysit them. If so, can we trade siblings? Jk, jk. Well, now that I think about it......Hehehe. ;)

Well, these are my thoughts on babysitting, the best job in the world. And no, this is not the last you'll hear on the subject, either. ;)

TTFN,
Sarah the Nutty Knitter/Choir geek/Babysitter extraordinaire

For all of you that followed my old blog, the Nutty Knitter, this is my new blog. The main reason I chose to move over to blogger is because it has WAY better themes. And you can put buttons on the side, and stuff like that.

Now, here is a song, from me to you:

Title: Today is Your Day

Artist: Shania Twain

Genre: Country Pop

Rating: ***** (5/5 Stars)

LISTEN TO IT!! NOW!!

Enjoy!
TTFN
Sarah the Nutty Knitter, Choir Geek, and music junkie

Well, we still haven't caught that mouse yet. IT NEEDS TO DIE!!!!!!!!!! <<<Laughs Hysterically for a few moments...>>> Sorry if I've offended any of you rodent lovers, but as I stated in my previous post, I. Hate. Mice. (Hate is a strong word, Sarah.) I know, imaginary voice in my head, I know. I have strong feelings about mice. It has not made an appearance since Friday, so maybe it got scared and ran off?
Actually, I haven't checked to see if it was caught yet. Be right back. <<<Zooms out of room and upstairs.>>>
Ok. From what I've heard, that darn mouse is not dead yet. Oh cookie crumbles. No! No cookie crumbles! It might attract more mice! And I don't like mice, in case you couldn't tell...
I really hate having the mouse in the house, because every night I get scared that he'll decide to come in for a sleepover. So far, he hasn't. And if he does, no matter where you live, you will hear my scream.

Well, I've finished my little rant for now, I think.

TTFN!
Sarah the Nutty Knitter/Choir Geek/Mouse hater

Uninvited Guests (Or: AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!!!! There's a Mouse in the House!!)

Well, If you read the title, you probably deduced that we are having a little pest program...Here's the story:
Once upon a time, long long ago, in a not so faraway land, (Wednesday night.) My mom was doing dishes. At midnight....A certain someone, younger than me, didn't do them.....Anywhoo, she was doing the dishes, when she heard a rustling in the pantry cabinet thingy. She looked all through the pantry, but she saw no sign of a mouse. The pantry cabinet thingy is right next to our fridge, so she figured that it was the fridge making weird fridge noises. Well, this morning, she was making breakfast, when a mouse ran across the kitchen and behind the fridge. Oh great.

So she told us kids, and most of us freaked out.
I admit it, I freaked a little bit. And I'm still freaked. I hate mice. Really hate them. Despise them, actually. Really, I'm not a fan of any rodent. Give me a nice dog anyday. But not a cat. I'm allergic. Unless the cat promises to eat the mouse. Then I'll suffer through it.

I just really hope that it doesn't come into my room. Gulp. I swear, if it does, I'm moving out. Permanently. I could never sleep in a room where a mouse has been. Never Ever Ever Ever.

Well, TTFN.
Sarah the Nutty Knitter/Choir Geek