• Dec. 24, 2008 - Book Review: Keeping Holiday
The next book I'm reviewing for Crossway is Keeping Holiday by Starr Meade. Seemed fitting to post it on Christmas Eve, owing to the subject of the adventure.
This Christmas story follows Dylan and Clare as they travel to find a wonderful place called Holiday ruled by someone known as The Founder. The road is filled with dangers and temptations to keep the two kids from reaching Holiday... And as they get closer, the obstacles become more difficult to overcome. Do they make it and finally get to find the Founder?
I'll tell you up front that they don't find the Founder. Because like everyone tells the kids, "You don't find the Founder; he finds you."
This is a wonderful story for young children, because it's interesting and teaches lessons from perseverance to courage in danger to trust in The Founder (God).
Now everyone go have a wonderful Christmas! :-) |
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• Dec. 21, 2008 - And the snow continues!
Posted By Jen
Or the pictures of the snow continue! These are from today. And, in case you were wondering, we've lost electricity twice today, and half of us nearly went mad without internet. Fortunately, they fixed the power lines and we can once again contact the outside world. :-P
The pictures of snow from earlier this week are in THIS post, if you want to go look at them first. Dunno why you would, but I'm being nice and giving you the option.
I tend to take lots of pictures of trees. Probably because there are only trees to take pictures of around here...
See? Another tree.
The neighbor's house/barns. And more trees.
To document the massive amount of snow...
Picture of the Bumblebee, Dad's little, yellow washing machine. Er, I mean "car". And Michael's car off to the side.
 
My brother snowboarding.
Our barn with the poor, stranded vehicles in the parking lot. David's car, Dad's truck, and Mom's car. You'll notice that C3PO is nowhere to be seen... My little 4wd Chevy doesn't get stranded anywhere.
I must take a moment to point out that I love the smell of cows. :-)
The snow was to the top of the boots I was wearing. Which, yes, are pink, but I hasten to point out that they are MOM'S, not mine!
The road goes ever on and on... |
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• Dec. 21, 2008 - Snow Day!
Posted By Jen
And thanks to Jocelyn for my 1111th comment! :-)
The first few pictures I have to show you were taken... Mondayish.
A random tree:
Our barn through the cherry tree grove:
Pic I took while lying on the driveway (any comments about my mental state will be ignored):
Mom's favorite pic:
And now Tuesday's pics:
This one's a little bigger so you can see more detail. The white roof on the hill is my house, the barn at the bottom of the hill, and then the loooooooong driveway. ;-)
The hill, because Mom and I had to park the car at the barn and walk up:
The random tree again:
That was Tuesday. It has snowed steadily since then. I just took some more pics, and when Jon gets off the other computer, I will download those and post any that I like. |
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• Dec. 16, 2008 - What is LM? +SoF description
As the first of my "Question and Answer" series, The Punmaster will answer the question of "What is LM?"
LM = Lyric's Makari, novel, 300 pages.
A young girl sets off on a journey to find a mythical gem and inadvertently becomes caught up in a civil war.
Howzat? :)
***
And one for SoF, because I like you all so much.
SoF/SF = Sword of Flame, novel, currently ~180 pages
The friend of a spy is captured by the enemy and the spy has to rescue him.
That was easy. You should have heard when I first tried to describe it to Miss Laura. She finally told me to just boil it down to one sentence. |
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• Dec. 14, 2008 - The Punmaster Returneth!
Posted By Jen
After a long and epic battle with the college, The Punmaster has returned victorious! Well, we'll know if she was victorious when she gets her grades back. She is slightly worried about Algebra II. Only slightly, though. She is fairly certain she passed, but there is that slight chance...
It has come to her attention that her blog is in need of some explanation. Her mother read the last few entries and asked her various questions like: "What's LM?", "Who is Sven?", and so on.
This is your chance! If there's something The Punmaster has mentioned that is leaving you scratching your head and thinking, "What planet did she say she was from again?", tell her now.
And Svenja, I have not forgotten that tag! I just have to work up the nerve to tell Aren that he got tagged again... |
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• Nov. 25, 2008 - Life, or lack thereof
Posted By Jen
You may have noticed that my blog has fallen into disuse these past few weeks. This post is to inform you that, yes, I will blog again after school is over. Which means after Dec. 8th, I might have time to post something!
In the meantime, please wish me luck... I'm going to need it. :-/ |
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• Nov. 14, 2008 - Day 5 of Sven
Posted By Jen
Yesterday, the Punmaster attacked her Word document and added 3001 words to SF. Yes, that one extra word was important. It was... "bleeding", actually. Miss Laura and Miss Katie, stop squinting at me. It's not what you think... this time, at least. *eyes wander up to ceiling*
Word count for Sven: 6652. Divide that by 5, and that's ~1330 per day. Yes, I know I'm behind by 170 words/day. Yes, I have excuses. No, I'm not going to give them. So there! Ha.
Page count total (because word counts are so vague): 138!
And now my awesome word meter. Lookit! I'm almost halfway there! *dances with joy* Root beer all around!
Sword of Flame:
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• Nov. 13, 2008 - Book Review: Hymns for a Kid's Heart
One of the most precious gifts you can give a child is music, specifically hymns. Bobbie Wolgemuth and Joni Eareckson Tada believe that so strongly that they put together a book of their favorite songs, along with the stories behind them. Bobbie tells the stories and Joni gives a personal story about it. They have also chosen a Bible verse to go with each song and wrote a prayer.
You'll find old favorites (A Mighty Fortress is Our God, This is My Father's World, Amazing Grace, How Firm a Foundation, etc.) and maybe even a few you didn't know. This idea does not apply to Miss Laura or Miss Katie, who (I am convinced) know every hymn ever written.
You can learn the songs you aren't familiar with, too! The book has music included so (if you're unlike me and actually know how to play an instrument) you can play it yourself. Or if you're like me and can't tell one note from another on the piano (although you're fairly sure you can find middle C if your life depended on it), just pop the CD in and listen to Bobbie and Joni sing it! :-)
I thought it was a wonderful book. And it was written to be read aloud to kids; how can you go wrong with that? If you're interested in this book, just click on the picture above for the book on the Good News / Crossway website.
I have a stack book reviews to post here at some point in the near future! You want to know a few of the titles? Okay... The Door Within series (3 books by Wayne Thomas Batson), each Andi Carter book (4! books by Susan K. Marlow), and a few others. Stay tuned for more! |
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• Nov. 11, 2008 - Day 1 of Sven is over
I came up with 1700 words, and the ideal is 1500. The 70 Days of Sweat (Sven IV) runs for the next 76 days (we get a week off for Christmas).
My goal is to finish Sword of Flame (SF) and put at least 10,000 more into Return of the Phantom (RtP).
I find myself proving that I was brought up in part by Grandpa. SF has a significant underlying theme of leadership. I have no idea why it's so natural for my characters to discuss a few elements of leadership. *shrug* I'm not sure if LM has any underlying themes. If any of you can think of one, let me know.
Finally, I got a word meter for SF. Here 'tis:
Sword of Flame
Now a question. I plan on writing updates fairly often. Do you who get email updates want me to send the updates on Sven posts?
Oh, in other news, I am hopefully going swing dancing tonight with Michael, David, Jonathan (the not-our-Jonathan), and a whole bunch of other people. Joey told me it's not too hard and that I'd probably be okay at it. *crosses fingers* We'll see... There's a reason my middle name is Cora and not Grace. ;-) |
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• Nov. 6, 2008 - Comment rules, effective immediately
Posted By Jen
The Punmaster is sad to have to announce this, but she guesses it was inevitable. From this point on, any comment with inappropriate language/content (as decided by the Punmaster) will be deleted, regardless of the relevancy of the rest of the comment. Otherwise, her mom will make her quit blogging, and you wouldn't want that, would you? Basically the items put on the contraband list are:
Any version of a swear word,
Any British swear word that is 'okay' in America,
And anything else that the Punmaster decides is in poor taste.
So! Feel free to comment but please think about what you are writing.
~Your friendly, neighborhood Punmaster |
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