As British As Afternoon Tea And Biscuits

"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me."~C.S. Lewis

A sure sign of fall and the approaching of winter is when you can see an Andrade bent over a cup of tea and immersed in a good book.  Sure, this happens often during the summer but it happens almost constantly as the chill months set in.  There is nothing better than sitting by a fire, wrapped in a blanket with rain pouring outside, reading a good book, and drinking tea.  Nothing better.

I am convinced that my family was supplanted from a sweet cottage in the UK and brought here to America where we had our memory erased and were led to believe that we were native Americans.  But I think that is lies.  All lies.  We are as British as afternoon tea and biscuits.  If souls have a language I know that mine speaks Gaelic and that my family's at least speak with a British accent.  

We have a deep-rooted love in Jane Austen, tea and scones, and good books set in England.  Currently, there is one book that my mother is in love with.  It is one that she has laughed and cried over.  I have only got so far as the laughing part, but she says there is still time.  I may yet cry over it.  Whether I shed tears or not, I cannot disagree with the fact that it is an incredibly well-written book.  If you are in need of a good read, allow me to recommend this one to you.  It is "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.  It is a collection of letters during the 1940s in London and that is all I will say about it.  Except that it is amazing.  And that you should read it.  The characters grew into my mother's best friends in the week she took to read it.  

Ah, winter.  The time when Jane Austen quotes fly thick and fast off the tongue and the house smells perpetually of fresh-baked scones.  Some sort of old movie (such as "Pride and Prejudice", "Sense and Sensibility", "The Secret Garden", "Little Women", or "Beauty and the Beast") is playing or music from "Little Women".  These are common signs of the chill seasons in the Andrade household.

College Credit

This morning we received the news.  I had gotten an A on my first college essay.  The teacher's standards were rigorous and I had worked diligently on my paper.  At best I assumed that I would get a B, a high-scoring B but a B nonetheless.  Usually a straight-A student, for my first semester taking a college credit class I was content with that.

The purpose of the essay was to analyze the movie "Smoke Signals" (directed by Chris Eyre, Miramax, 1998) which was based upon the journey of two Native American men.  While the film presented some compelling arguments regarding the cause and effect of alcoholism on a family, it was not particularly well-done.  

There is nothing harden than writing an essay regarding something you do not even entirely like.  However it was a growing process for me, and I wrote and wrote and crossed out and erased and wrote some more.  Mom helped me, which I was grateful for.  Doubtless a good part of my A can be attributed to her.

With our joint effort, I managed to scrape up an A which I am excessively pleased about.  Hard work certainly pays off!

A Goodbye to Summer, Hello to Fall

"Delicious autumn!  My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns... It is the second spring when every leaf is in flower."~George Eliot.

Fall is undoubtedly the favorite season in the Andrade household.  When the leaves turn colors and the air turns crisp and chill caused great excitement in our household.  On the very first day of fall we go out to buy small pumpkins to place them on the posts of our picket fence.  This year, it was over a hundred degrees out when we did it; but we did set them out anyway, valiantly combatting the heat by our fall symbols.  

Much to our delight, the heat did not persist long.  The mornings have been chill and foggy and the breeze nippy.  Our maples have begun to slowly turn from green to light yellow and orange.  Our Fall Box has even made it's appearance, a true sign that the season for thanks has begun.  What?  You have not yet heard of our Fall Box?  This must be remedied; allow me to enlighten you.

We are very serious about decorating for each season; eggs for spring and Easter, bright flowers for summer, pumpkins and garlands of leaves for fall, and a tree and ornaments for Christmas.  Undoubtedly, our favorite seasons to decorate for are fall and winter.  (We love the chilly months.)  In our Fall Box are our thanksgiving themed napkins and plates, our wreaths and garlands (some are fake, some are very well-preserved), fall-ish paintings done by my sister and I when we were small, and our fall music.  Our fall music is a big part of us getting ready for the season; most of it consists of Celtic music (such as the Chieftains and Irish guitar and the like) but certainly our most fall-ish CD would have to be "Little Women".  That soundtrack sends shivers of pleasure up and down my sister and my spines.  In the early morning when the cold fog is wrapped all about the house and there's a fire blazing and hot cider on the stove, nothing is better than listening to "Little Women" while wrapped up in a blanket and reading a good novel.  Bliss.

Yes, October has come.  Fall is on it's way if it isn't already here.  What a lovely season.

Rascal Queen

"My unfulfilled ambition is to write a great novel in three parts about my adventures," Wendy exclaimed, eyes shining.

"What adventures?" her aunt demanded.  The girl shrugged, "I have yet to have them, but I'm sure they'll be perfectly thrilling!"~Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie

Ah yes.  Creating a novel, what a lovely ambition.  To be an author is an occupation that I dream about and long for.  I like to joke with my family that I have an affinity for the "poor professions".  The things that do not provide a steady monetary income are the things I naturally gravitate towards: everything from music to writing to film has captured my interest.  However, creative writing has always held a special place with me; perhaps because it has been something that I could do even at a young age.

When I was eleven, I created a story.  It was based upon a recurring dream that I had had, and I was convinced that I must put it to paper.  "Ragamuffin Queen" was the first story that I ever finished, and I was immensely proud of it.  Being 153 pages long on paper twice as big as that from the novels I usually read, I thought it my greatest work.  My goal was to send it to a publisher and finally see my name in print.

Yet life was busy and my story was pushed to the far back of my mind.  Only recently have I dug it up again, re-reading what I wrote those years ago.  While my plot and characters were developed enough for an eleven-year-old eager to get to the action, there were glaring errors to my sixteen-year-old eyes.  So it has become my project.  "Ragamuffin Queen" is being rewritten; the plan is to be finished with it by summer.  

My book has been on my mind quite often, almost all my spare time is taken up with the re-writing of it.  As such, my blogs here might be rather dull for some will almost certainly be speaking of the story.  Yet I will not neglect telling of my life completely.  There are many things that I will love to share.