mark twain is 176

So I fully realize in making this post that I’m Julia Stiles’ (blech) best friend who is in love with William Shakespeare in 10 Things I Hate About You. Man, that takes me back to 9th grade – going over to Heather L’s house every day after school and watching that movie and alternately listening to Green Day. Anyway. I’m in love with a man who is long gone and dead. But what can I say? He is… was (I’m not so far gone on him that I can’t own up to the fact that he’s no longer with us) thoughtful and also makes me laugh. He had a magnificent head of hair as well as one of the most impressive mustaches in all of history.. and I’m a little obsessed.

Happy 176th birthday, Mark Twain!

You made the world, especially the world of literature, a much better place!

As good as his fictional writings are I really can’t get enough of his just own personal writings. They never fail to make me either think or giggle at their wit, which is something seemingly hard to come by in modern literature (that I’ve tried). Here are a few of my favorite snippets:

“You ought never to ‘sass’ old people- unless they ‘sass’ you first.”

“We are called the nation of inventors. And we are. We could still claim that title and wear its loftiest honors if we had stopped with the first thing we ever invented, which was human liberty.”

“Arguments have no chance against petrified training; they wear it as little as the waves wear a cliff.”

“Whose property is my body? Probably mine. I so regard it. If I experiment with it, who must be answerable? I, not the State. If I choose injudiciously, does the State die? Oh, no.”

“There has been only one Christian. They caught him and crucified him–early.”

“Strip the human race, absolutely naked, and it would be a real democracy. But the introduction of even a rag of tiger skin, or a cowtail, could make a badge of distinction and be the beginning of a monarchy.”

“Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”

“The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.”

“For in a republic, who is ‘the Country’? Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.”

“Wisdom teaches us that none but birds should go out early, and that not even birds should do it unless they are out of worms.”

“The mania for giving the Government power to meddle with the private affairs of cities or citizens is likely to cause endless trouble, through the rivaly of schools and creeds that are anxious to obtain official recognition, and there is great danger that our people will lose our independence of thought and action which is the cause of much of our greatness, and sink into the helplessness of the Frenchman or German who expects his government to feed him when hungry, clothe him when naked, to prescribe when his child may be born and when he may die, and, in fine, to regulate every act of humanity from the cradle to the tomb, including the manner in which he may seek future admission to paradise.”

“I think it is not wise for an emperor, or a king, or a president, to come down into the boxing ring, so to speak, and lower the dignity of his office by meddling in the small affairs of private citizens.”

“I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.”

“We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that the savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter.”

“…when we badly want a thing, we go to hunting for good and righteous reasons for it; we give it that fine name to comfort our consciences, whereas we privately know we are only hunting for plausible ones.”

“Now, the true charm of pedestrianism does not lie in the walking, or in the scenery, but in the talking. The walking is good to time the movement of the tongue by, and to keep the blood and the brain stirred up and active; the scenery and the woodsy smells are good to bear in upon a man an unconscious and unobtrusive charm and solace to eye and soul and sense; but the supreme pleasure comes from the talk. It is no matter whether one talks wisdom or nonsense, the case is the same, the bulk of the enjoyment lies in the wagging of the gladsome jaw and the flapping of the sympathetic ear.”

“An inglorious peace is better than a dishonorable war.”

Yours,
Rebecca

November 30, 2011  Leave a comment

be ye thankful

Harold bought me this vintage Sunday school pin (and another) for either an anniversary or birthday gift. I love them but rarely wear them because I’m scared they’ll fall off and be lost forever. The message is simple and true throughout the year but I figured it’d make a nice theme for a Thanksgiving post as well. :)

For Thanksgiving we aren’t going to Texas and we aren’t going to Kentucky. I was pretty sad about that and of course still am sad to miss out on all that delicious food, er… family time.. but luckily I’ve got that boy to be cozy with. I’m thankful for a family and family-in-law worth missing. Some kind friends are having a sort of orphan’s Thanksgiving celebration that they invited us to and while we’d like to go we had already been tossing up the idea of a road trip, just because Harold will have the weekend off and we’d like to take advantage of that. We’re still not sure exactly where we’re going, which is ridiculous, since we’ll be leaving tomorrow… but that’s half the fun, right? I’m thankful for kind souls and for spontaneous-ish trips with my favorite boy.

As hectic as our lives have been from moving into a tiny new home and getting settled in, things are only getting crazier around here. I’ll leave it at that for now. Check back soon for a juicier tidbit. NO, we are not pregnant. Although, if we were I feel like I’d be making a rant post about the weird clicks that seem to come along in major milestones in life. It was frustrating and just plain boring to me when married couples didn’t give us single folk the time of day. And now as a married couple with no children it’s frustrating to me when for me, personally, moms seem uninterested in becoming my friend since I can’t bond over poopie diapers (okay, and various other baby related things). Obviously to an extent that makes sense, that people who are in similar positions in life bond and are more inclined to hang out together, but… only to an extent. We have to get out of our comfort zones! Please remind me of all of this again once we have children – single people, married couples without children, widows and widowers or elderly couples and other groups of people that are not like us are interesting and worth getting to know, too! ;) Oops, I ranted. I’m thankful for all the hundreds of people I know who have huge, open hearts, minds and homes and also for all the babies out there in the world. How boring earth would be without babies.

I still have no photos of our home to share, it’s a mess. But there are so many aspects of this little house that I’m thankful for. I’m thankful to have a clear view each day of the sunrise and sunset.

I’m thankful to see horses every time I look out a window.

I’m thankful to hear coyotes yipping at night and see bunnies hopping every morning. I’m thankful to hear the wind, all day. I’m thankful to not have a dishwasher so I’m forced to stand and have peaceful time to think about things as the dishes get washed. I’m thankful that it’s a little old farmhouse, next to an even older homestead cabin – it’s dreamy.

And as if you didn’t know, I’m thankful for my husband.

I’m thankful for his heart. I’m thankful for his seemingly never ending goodness. I’m thankful for his willingness to work hard. I’m thankful for his silliness, which makes me laugh even when I’m busy trying to be grumpy. I’m thankful for his compassion. I’m thankful for his chuckle. I’m thankful that he’s easy going. I’m thankful that he pushes us to do interesting, different and good things. I’m thankful for his creativity. I’m thankful for his singing and guitar playing. I’m thankful for his ability to retain so many random tidbits and stories, even if he forgets his keys in the locked car. I’m thankful he asked me to be his wife. I’m thankful that he’s going to make fun of me for writing this paragraph.

There’s maybe one bajillion more things I could list, but I’ll stop now.
I hope you have a lovely Thanksgiving break, friends!

Our 50% off sale in the shop will be ending Monday, November 28th. I may be getting rid of everything or at least a lot that hasn’t sold, so now is your chance! Don’t be afraid to make an offer, either. We’d really just like to make room for new items. :)

Yours,
Rebecca

SONGS of a thankful, content and blessed variety:

I Must Be in a Good Place Now by Vetiver
Neat Little Domestic Life by of Montreal
What A Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong
House of Gold by the Secret Sisters
My Girls by Animal Collective
Coat of Many Colors by Dolly Parton
Reach for the Sun by Polyphonic Spree
Blue Skies by Maxine Sullivan

November 23, 2011  1 Comment

a little bit of politics.

Happy Thursday! Still packing around here… but I thought I’d pop in and talk about political stuff for a second. GULP! It spurred when I read about Obama’s plan for student loan debt. Granted, I haven’t had all of my coffee yet this morning so bear with me… :)

This post is being written in a sense of trying to assume the general best of everyone. I believe all presidents are humans too, with souls, and don’t want horrible things to happen to anyone but instead probably genuinely believe their plans are best. They all make mistakes and I applaud them for putting themselves into a position that comes with unimaginable strain, stress, decision making skills and other burdensome things that I’d probably buckle under and bawl over within seconds of becoming president. For the most part I’m apolitical. I know I’m conservative as far as the government’s role in our lives but pretty liberal in how we should individually be helping each other as much as we can as fellow human beings. If you’re reading this you maybe know that I’m a fan of Ron Paul. Not in a way that I think he’s a saint or will never make mistakes but in a way that he seems genuine, with a backbone and is consistently sticking to the constitution no matter how unpopular it’s made him (well, in the past).

Reading about Obama’s plan to attempt to help with the student loan issue an immediate parallel jumped into my head of father figures.

To me Obama seems like the father figure who, sure, maybe he has a giant heart and wants to try to ease the pain for us all by making it easier for some to not be in debt a little quicker and to make it easier for everyone to get into colleges but in the long run we’re still in terrible shape. Obama is the dad who already reached the max on the credit card but is still trying to provide us with faux money pulled out of the air to make us a little less uncomfortable for a bit longer. Again, that’s something that seems nice but in the end will still leave us with huge debt and unable to handle our own life’s troubles.

Now onto Ron Paul as a father figure. He’s the dad who shoots it straight, maybe seems a little cold but tells you up front that no, you can’t buy that. First of all, he doesn’t have the money for it and second of all, it’s not his money to give away. He is sorry and knows that it’s not your fault but tells you the only way to fix everything and get into better shape financially is to make some major sacrifices for awhile. You’re in your twenties or thirties and you need to move out of his house and start depending on yourself instead of your parent (ie, government), as does every other adult, while helping and working together with other folks.

Does that make sense? This parallel came around before any coffee and I don’t get into politics often so I know this is not deep or earth shattering. :) Ron Paul is not without fault. He is not sexy, nor does he have perfect eyebrows. He doesn’t give robotic answers that make this or that person feel good. He doesn’t want us to be in or attack other countries that might want to hurt us. His plans for the country would probably make us have to work harder individually in plenty of ways. He won’t ban gay marriage. If you’re a christian (I am) then that should make you say, ‘phew. A politician who is not dictating our moral lives, finally!’ instead of ‘Oh no! I will have to have my own beliefs as a christian and stick by them, teach them to my children even if that means I am hated or become a martyr.’ or even ‘Oh no! The government is not pro christian!’ The politicians who want to dictate our moral lives should be the scary ones. Not to say I don’t understand the concerns of having ‘the people’ decide locally what is and isn’t okay, that sounds kind of scary sometimes. But, as a christian, it ultimately doesn’t matter. I know what God says and what my role is on this earth. Namely, to love everyone and to be a light.

It makes me feel weird that most of the people who boo and hiss Ron Paul are fellow christians. They may just have completely different views on this nation than I do. Ron Paul is a christian. He’s not in your face about it and he’s not going to try to shove it down any non christian’s throat. Probably because none of us should be doing that to anyone in our own lives (when has that worked ever in history, anyway?) and probably because he knows as a president it’s entirely not his place to push his own moral beliefs on the country. If your major complaint against Ron Paul is that he’s idealistic …. then that makes me sadder. Isn’t that what we should want? Isn’t that what you want? Someone to help work towards an ideal world, even if he can’t make it happen entirely and he knows that? Striving for perfection even if we know perfection is an impossible goal – it’s the striving that we’re aiming for. I could go on but… I won’t.

Ron Paul isn’t going to let the government baby us. He also realizes that our endeavors to help people in need should begin at home, our own home and ultimately America. I think he’s worth the chance. And that’s my opinion. :)

The end.

I made an Etsy treasury today!

Three’s the Magic Number

Yours,
Rebecca

ps. Comments, disagreements, etc. are always welcome although I do ask that they are presented in a kindly fashion!

October 27, 2011  3 Comments