Eight comes after seven...

Queen Shenaynay

Well, honestly now -- did you really think I'd play by the rules?


8 things I’d like to do before I die:

- See my husband, all my children, their spouses and a whole tribe of beautiful grandchildren happily sitting in church together singing an old minor from the PBH in four part harmony, with the spirit and the understanding also. (I could stop here, but I still get seven more!)

- Finish the Ambleside Online project.

- Develop the discipline to seek the Lord like I should.

- Go to churches on all the remote islands off Scotland and record the singing.

- Write a book that people would benefit from reading.

- Love people like I ought to.

- Play the guitar and sing obscure old songs like “Will There Be Any Freight Trains in Heaven?”(which is a really cool song, actually).

- Become an eccentric but wise old lady with a really long greyish-white braid and strange boots, and then fulfill my promise to sit on the porch with my good friend Ludwig and smoke pipes and sing old minors and talk about the Bible and tell every good secret I ever knew. (My legendary Cherokee great-great grandmother did all of this -- well, minus Ludwig.)



8 things I can’t do (but would like to)


- Go horseback riding every morning at dawn.

- Have 5-10 acres of land with a stream running through it, with all my most beloved tribal peoples living close enough to come cook fresh trout over campfires in the evening and sing.

- Sing like Kathleen, Jessye, Eva and Ella and oh-why-not even Josh Groban now and then.

- Produce a twin for my son.

- Buy my husband a new car every year.

- Relive my childhood with my daughters as my best friends.

- Never hurt anyone’s feelings nor offend my Lord.

- Have a long, good conversation with my autistic & mute brother.


8 things that attracted me to my husband

- His nobility and his Christian character.

- His magnanimity of spirit.

- He had friends of all ages and both genders, all of whom admired him greatly.

- The disarming way he always looked me straight in the eye and never looked away first.

- His fingernails and hair were always groomed, and he wore really good dress shoes -- until they had holes in the soles – and he drove a sensible car. All very telling.

- He was sensitive to the effect he had on people in a room, and was neither moody nor brooding.

- He intuitively knew whether it was time to be serious, conversant, intense, flirty or funny, or just to be quiet together, or just supremely silly noodleheads – and he was remarkably good at all of it.

- He was willing to learn to let go and enjoy the roller coaster.

(and he'd read lots of books and he was really smart and he's cute in a kilt...)



8 things I say most often:

- “Yikes, I have to cook dinner again today?!?!”

- “I love you.”

- “Don’t drink out of my water bottle!”

- “Quick! Somebody get the camera!”

- “GET IN THE CAR!”

- “You pickleheaded monster boy.”

- “We really should get to bed now, but...”

- “But Justin, you JUST ATE!”


8 books I really like – this was so ridiculously hard that I just put down the first 8 things that came to mind...

King James Bible

Jane, Jane, and more Jane

Till We Have Faces and others by CS Lewis

Anything by G.K. Chesterton

Anything by P.G. Wodehouse

The Oxford Book of English Verse (Quiller-Couch edition)

The Mitford series by Jan Karon

The Goble Hymnal


– movies I could watch over and over (if I could ever manage to sit still for two hours):

— Oh, and I cheated.---

A&E Pride & Prejudice and Persuasion, of course...

The Sound of Music

Enchanted April

It’s a Wonderful Life

Harvey

Henry V

Muppet Treasure Island

My Man Godfrey

The Princess Bride

The Philadelphia Story

...and most anything with Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart....


Whom to tag, whom to tag....

Javamom of Booksncoffee
Booty Mellicious of Deda
Pandy, mother of the Screebees! ladies