He Is Risen, Alleluia! Let Us Rejoice and Be Glad!

Easter Sunday has once again come and gone without me making a single peep about it. Oops. I had such good intentions about posting on Easter Sunday but I was having too much fun to do so, and I've been so tired and busy since Easter that I haven't had the chance to sit down and blog. Until now. HALLO!!!

My Easter was fantastic. I was able to go to Good Friday Services, and Easter Vigil with my family!!!! I was going to go to Holy Thursday Services too but it snowed and we couldn't get off the Hill. *Hurls angry firt at snow* I'm sad I missed the Holy Thursday Service. In the Catholic Church, there is a whole ceremony on Holy Thursday. The Priest and the Faithful sing from the Gospel the reproaches of Jesus on the Cross; My people, my people, what wrong have I done thee?" and so on. And then the altars get stripped bare as a symbol of God getting stripped and crucified. I wanted to see that! I never have. 8-( However, Good Friday was glorious too. On Good Friday the priest leads the Faithful in the Way of the Cross, which is a series of prayers and meditations used by the Catholics to "walk" through the Passion with Christ. Then the whole Passion is sung in Gregorian Chant. Typically, if the parish is big, someone from the Choir is the Narrator, the Priest is Jesus, and the woman and men of the choir take turns with different people in the story, and then join all together to be the angry crowd. The faithful can participate too. Since we didn't have as big of a parish, the Priest was both Narrator and Jesus. The notes for Jesus were so low, deep and sad. It was beautiful. It gave you that feeling of profound sacrifice, love, resignation and sacrifice that Jesus made for us. The end of the song It leaves you feeling achy and emotional, but wow is it gorgeous.








This is really long!! You obviously don't have to listen to this whole thing I wanted to just post a sample but I couldn't find anything shorter. Feel free to stop it whenever. 8-)

As for Easter. Wow. It was amazing. I was able to buy a new Easter outfit for the first time in ages! It was this beautiful white lace skirt with a warm blue shirt and a fancy white shawl with little blue flowers embroidered all over it. I looked so fancy! 8-) I was thrilled about it, especially thrilled because I was able to go to Easter Vigil in it. (I'll talk about that in a second.) It was like tempting fate for me to buy a completely white dress. I told Jack that this skirt was the whitest thing I owned. She told me I should wear it for Mass and take it off immediately. Yeah, she knows what a klutz I am. Fufufu!! Me in white could be a disaster. But somehow I managed to get through all of Easter Vigil without a disaster, and all Easter Sunday too. Go me!

Easter Vigil was glorious, as always. There was the lighting and blessing of the new fire. The Lighting of the Christ Candle. The Procession into a dark Church with the Candle, signifying Christ, "The Light of the World." As the Candle is Taken in the Priest sings out "Lumen Christi!" and the Faithful sings back, "Deo Gratias!" We do that three or four times as we enter the chapel and go back to our pews. Then the Altar boys light their candles from the Christ Candle, and passed the light on to the Faithful. And the Faithful passes it between each other, so the light of Christ washed through the chapel. It signified how Christ touches each of us, and how each of us touch others. Then we sang the Antiphons and several other prayers, all in Latin and Chant. Shortly after the Altar boys came out and redress the Altar, a symbol of the Risen Christ. Then there was the Mass, all sung. The Altar is blessed with Incense, the Christ Candle was blessed, and Holy Water was Sprinkled on the Faithful. Then comes my favorite part of the Vigil. The Gloria is said, and THE BELLS RING!!! Okay, so during the Lent The Gloria, our prayer of praise and happiness, is omitted from the Mass, symbolizing that God is going through His last days and this is a time of grief. The Last week before Easter, the bells which usually ring during various parts of the Mass, especially during the Gloria, disappear as well. They're replaced with wooden clappers. It is all sad and silent. No bells at all. So let me tell you, when those bells ring out at midnight in joyous proclamation that it was now Easter Sunday and the time of mourning is over, there is nothing quite like it in the world. You smell the incense, you see a lit Altar, dressed in glory, you hear the ringing .... it's incredible. There is this intense feeling of joy. Christ is Risen. CHRIST IS RISEN!





"He is not here. He has Risen as He said."


It was a beautiful night. What made it all the better, was some friends of the family came for Easter Vigil too, for the first time ever! 8-D It was thrilling!!!

Easter Day was just as wonderful. We spent the morning relaxing, drinking coffee, eating chocolate, reading and writing, with random spurts of talk about the beauty of Easter Sunday and interesting theological standpoints about redemption and salvation. Later, we got together with our friends and had a lovely dinner with much shouting and mayhem, and a good deal of delicious dessert, made by yours truly. 8-) Ice-cream-Reese's Pie is yummy you guys!!! 😍

All in all, it was a good day. I hope all of you had as good of an Easter as I did. Of course, in the Catholic Church we are still Celebrating: this is our Easter-tide and it lasts Forty-Nine Days, until Pentecost Sunday when the Holy Ghost appeared to the Apostles. Let's all have a good Easter-tide, and with brave hearts, follow Christ well this year! Be brave ye' followers of Christ. Be brave and look towards your Resurrection!!! I pray for all of you; please pray for my family and me too. 8-D

GOD BLESS AND HAPPY EASTER!!!!!!!!!!


Bella

I attempt to Post.

I was going to post a poem today but I can't because I lost my notebook, and in consequence I've also lost my poem.

AGONY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's been seven days since I last visited you so I'm just gonna dump a lot of stuff on random stuff. I have to warn you I am a little tired and weird tonight so my writing might not flow, but remember that I tried and that is what counts.

Happy .... First Sunday after Easter! It has been a crazy week! I've been writing a bit and setting the plot for my Gladiator book. I am editing Splintered Courage and I have found out a lot about The Conspiracy of Thrones so it is going to change quite a lot when I got back and fix it up. I think it is going to be quite a bit darker and more war-like.

Yay!!! lol.

I am reading Lord of the Rings and I plan to do THE POST about the Books VS Movies soon. Hopefully within a couple of weeks.  So that should be fun. I get to do lots of comparisons and parallels and contrasts and things like that. Are you excited?? I am. I have to say this time around the books are cracking me up. All the characters are so sassy and grouchy! Gimli is a drama queen and Legolas is bratty and pokes fun at people because he's an elf and no one else is an elf, and he can walk on snow and no one else can. *evil laugh*

Aragorn is obsessed with the Sword that was Broken. It is hilarious. I don't know how Tolkien pulled of some of the ridiculous stuff he did, because no one else could have written it and made it work. He is a genius.

I have also found out that May 25th is Geek Pride Day and I plan to celebrate the HECK out of that day. I'm gonna be geeky and unashamed. That's all I'm saying. I'll probably do a fun post to. Save the date! May the 25th!

I am taking singing classes which is a ton of fun. My singing teacher is this cute, short little man who is kind of dorky and ridiculous and he makes me laugh and I just love him. He is such a nice guy. I am trying to choose songs to sing, so I've been watching and listening to a lot of musicals, like The Phantom of the Opera and Jekyll and Hyde. 

I am still geeky about musicals. And they still make me emotional.

I am planning on watching the midnight showing of The Age of Ultron with my best friend. We will probably geek out and laugh and weep and do all those fabulous things. I am so excited! ... Well excited and scared.  (see what I did there?)

And that is about all that's been going on in my life. I have a musical to cry over. PEACE OUT Y'ALL!!

*jumps down rabbit hole*

"He has risen, as He said."

LOOK I POSTED ONE EASTER!

HAPPY EASTER Y'ALL!

I'll tell you all about the fabulous time we had soon! Hope you all had a wonderful day 8-)

Peace out Y'all!!

*slides off car*

 

 

 

Bella

Like a Lamb Came the Messiah, Christ the King!

and He chose to walk that road, out of His love for you and me

Good Friday is drawing to a close. It has been a (very) long and somber day but now as the day stretches toward evening the feeling of mourning begins to ebb away and in it's place, an anticipation takes root. For soon now, Christ the King will Rise and our Faith will be known to all to be true.

Good Friday is a hard day for me. It always has been. I know it is be beautiful and a show of immense love and without it we wouldn't be saved so we should take some joy in it, but for me it isn't easy to see it that way. Good Friday and Lent in general holds some hard memories for me, and the penitential time itself is very solemn.

This year I wanted to do something to actually commemorate the day. I tried to write some poetry, or even song lyrics in honour of Christ's death, but all of my scribbling turned out wrong and finally I gave up. I have wanted to write a story about the Good Thief for a long time and thought today was the perfect day to try it, but the thoughts in my head didn't inscribe well on paper so I gave up on that too. After that I tried to draw something pretty so I could sketch lyrics next to it, but drawing and I have little to no relationship so that failed.

Basically I was not creative today 8-) but I did try very  hard to be.

I figured I ought to post SOMETHING though, so finally I pulled out some lyrics I wrote yesterday (or maybe it was the day before?) It is kind of a Lent/Easter type of song I guess. I hope you like it.

There is More Than This

Life can be so lonely, I know how suffering weighs
Its hard to look down and see so much pain and fear 
it's hard to look around and see eyes filled with tears. 

(refrain)

Look up. Look up! There is more to life than this
Look up. Look up! don't stare down anymore
Look up and see the stars, Look up and see the light. 
There is more than this

There's a world on the horizon
A place where grief can't touch you
That's  where we're journeying to
That's where we belong.

(refrain)

There's a place for us, full of beauty and Joy

The Road there is harsh and stony. 

But when you're lonely, oh when you're lonely

Do as I do... 

Look Up. Look up! Don't stare down anymore

Look up, look up, there is something greater

The road is full of enemies, battles with high costs

But darling you have angels on your right side

and all of heaven watching about

*refrain*

Look up. Look up! There is more than this. 

Look up. Look up! You're King awaits

And when your time comes, He will take you home. 

Remember when all else fails, that You are His. 

Those are my lyrics. This post is super late and I am tired. I hope you all had a Good Friday and in case I don't post before then, I wish you all a happy Easter. Peace out y'all!

*slides off car*

Bella

In Preparation for Easter

Its Holy Saturday!! Easter is almost here! Lent has actually gone by pretty quickly this year. I hardly feels like six weeks. Okay, yes it does, but it feel like a speedy six weeks. I think Jack's visit might have something to do with that. At any rate, we now have only three and a half hours left! I might stay up till midnight and welcome in the morning, but I'll have to see. I was up really late last night.

Today has been a big bustle as we prepare for the Resurrection of Our Lord, and we've been rushing about the house all day cleaning, baking and egg-dying like mad. Well, when I say we.... more like me. Me. and Me.

Okay, that isn't fair. My brother made some luscious s'mores muffins for our dessert tomorrow and he's going to make Tiramisu also, which will be so yummy!!! and when my sisters were actually home they helped with the baking a bit. But there were a good couple hours when I was in the kitchen pressing out hundreds of sugar cookies all on my own. With loud music playing.

It actually wasn't that bad. We had a nifty little Designer for our cookies - this cool little gadget - and you could put a roll of dough into it and press out the Sugar Cookies in all these amazing shapes and it was surprisingly fun. I was like "PRESS!!! FLOWER!! *Press* CLOVER!! *Press* SPADE!!... STANDIN-IN-THE-HALL-OF-FAME!!!!!!" *Spins around* Since everyone in my family was gone - some to the store, some to baseball sign up, some to book-reading - I was entirely alone and I took this opportunity to began dance along with the music as my cookies baked. It felt good to be wild and free. Loud music has this effect and me.

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It was a lot of fun.

That was at the beginning of the day when I was chipper and full of energy for our preparation day.  

See My wonderful cookies??

Don't they look just FABULOUS?

They were masterful.

I was very proud.

Standin in the Hall of Fame!!! (yeah!)

After the moping was done and all the wee-on's returned from the store, we lay out newspapers, set out the cups and began dying eggs.

Lots of eggs.

Am I the only one who has never really liked dying eggs? I think fourth grade ended my love for egg dying. It just .... it isn't my thing. But it is fun watching all the little kids plop eggs into the cups and 'oooo' and 'ahhhh' over what happens to them. It was especially fun to watch little Toink making eggs. She was so cute and funny! Her very first egg broke before it had a chance. She had drawn all these pretty little flowers on it and it looked nice, but then Treskie told her it was time to dye it and she crushed it with both hands! Like, totally crushed it. Beyond repair. We were all shocked. The poor thing had thought we were dying the inside of the egg. After that incident she made it very clear that all the eggs had to be dyed "Without the insides on the inside." Which was fine with us.

Even my big brother helped decorate eggs!

and my mommy!! She made some of the 

best ones I think.

We even got my dad to do his own - Look at what he did :)

He drew all 11 of us kids with him and mom at the top. How awesome is that? I don't want to eat this egg.

This is me, attempting to make a purple minion.

I guess he turned out alright. My brother's minion was better though. Look at Joey's Minion!! Look how cute it is! And he hasn't even been colored in yellow yet!

So

Many

Eggs.

By this time I was bored and my imagination was getting burned out and I was starving. I had skipped lunch for snacking purposes later on, so my stomach took upon itself the right to protest from 1:00 on. By the time 4:30 rolled around I was cranky and ready to eat. My human form needed sustenance!  

Once I'd had food I was substantially more cheerful and ready to buckle down to the task of decorating Easter cookies.

I had pressed out so many freakin' cookies! I think there were over a hundred. and we had to do them all super fancy and beautiful because they're Easter cookies and they only way to make them is with beads and multi-colored frosting!!

As odd as it may seem, decorating 100 Easter cookies in several shades of frosting and strings of beads is not a speedy job. We spent close to an hour and a half at the dinner table.

My cookies started getting less and less fancy as the evening went on.

But it was pretty fun anyway. Unfortunately it is way too late for me to share those pictures with you tonight. I'll try posting them tomorrow though :)

Then, because I hadn't done enough baking that day, I floated out to the kitchen to make muffins for our snack. The snack I had skipped lunch for. They were the same muffins I made at the beginning  of Lent, so I knew they'd be good if I did them right. And, of course, I did. And they were epic. The perfect way to end our festive, baking day.



That's all. I'm tired and my brain hurts and its time for me turn in. Otherwise the end of this post is going to get really weird. And I'll kindly spare all of you that. God Bless! And Happy-Almost-Easter!

~Ben The Robot~

Apparently I'm Ben

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Its been decided. My whole family thinks I am just like Ben from Treasure Planet. Ben the Robot. Ben the crazy, life-deprived robot. Ben the crazy, life-deprived robot who has lost his mind and has way too much energy. Ben the robot who can't stop talking. Ben the robot who Wuv's hugz.

Yeah, I guess I'm Ben.

I guess there are worst things than being to compared to a mentally impaired machine who can't remember if he ever danced with an android named Lupe.

I guess there are worse things then that.

At least I'm not a Hedgehog.

Or a weasel.

Or a squirrel.

I started this post with a point but it kind of got away from me.


Oh Right. Happy Palm Sunday y'all! We only have six more days until Easter!!!

Kuzco

For the first time in my life I actually got Palms ON Palm Sunday, not two or three weeks after. I can not express how happy that made me, how much comfort it gave in this, the last week of Lent. It was all around wonderful to be able to have Mass and read about Our Lord entering Jerusalem with the crowd cheering Him on. It gives the whole day a fresh feeling and it gives you that extra PUSH to keep you going until Easter. You know what I mean?

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Soooo.... update time! What have I been doing? So many things! First off, I actually freakin' turned in resume! That's right. I applied for a job. Just a summer job mind you - The one at the Paddle-board shop that I mentioned a few weeks back. So if you could all just pray a bit.... It would be very welcomed. I'd really love to have money again. And I know how that sounds but.... I have none. And I miss the lovely green stuff. there's only so much you can do without it.

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I went to see the new Captain America movie on opening night. And wow. Just. WOW! It was so good! I think I like it even more than the second Thor, and that movie was amazing! The Winter Soldier, though, it was beyond amazing. It was... Amazing-blazing! There was a lot more of stake in this one too. And it was really emotional. Because well.... Steve. and... Ya' know. Bucky. *sniff* It might even have been better than the Avengers. I loved it to pieces. A-Triple-Plus

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I also finally found a book I like. A book that actually had unique characters and a good storyline and a strong plot. Its called The False Prince. Its the first book in a trilogy, which makes me insanely happy because I loved it so much and I would cry if there wasn't more to read. It reminded me a little of The Thief - It had that kind of feel, that kind of pace. All the characters (Including the main one) were really strong and dynamic with lots of chemistry and actual growth. AND THERE IS A FRIENDSHIP STORY IN IT!! *Jumps up and down* Well, its more of a... hinted friendship right now, but the person who recommended the book says that the friendship is very present in the next books and gets even better! I can not wait!!! I'll have to do a review.

I've been working on my story a bit, but its still so rough it will be a few months before the first draft is finally done. I've got a ton of kinks to work out and a character to make better. Seriously. He needs help. He wasn't suppose to turn out the way he did, and that means I need to do some tweaking. He doesn't make it easy though. He's pulling a Cas. While editing I've also written up a plot for a sister-story. Cause guys, I am really miffed that we sisters have gotten so little recognition. I've thought of maybe three sister stories. Ana and Elsa from Frozen (of course) the friends/sisters in Sorcery and Cecilia - or - The Enchanted Chocolate Pot, and The Penderwicks. In other words, the literature world is lacking horrifically in any kind of sister-like bond in their reading material. I intend to fix that. Or at least try. We sisters deserve recognition dang it! Sisters are cool too!!! I should know, I have nine of them. Maybe when I've actually pulled myself together a bit I'll share some of my thoughts with you. Right now its just an idea. Respect the idea!

As a last Update.... I've really gotten into Fandom crossovers. Especially Superwho. I never thought I'd be a Fandom crossover person. But I guess I am. I even cross-pair a couple people. I never ever thought I'd do that. ever. And mostly I hate cross-shipping. But Belle and Sam??? OMG!! They are way too cute!

 

*SQUEEL!!!!*

I also like Dean and Clara. They would really fit for me. Of course both these things are AU. And very well thought out. which is why I like them. I want them. And wish we could have them. Mostly, though, I just need Superwho. I love Superwho. Superwho is the Crossover I can TOTALLY see. Why can't we get these actors to cross for a special episode?? An episode for the fans?? Why can't they give us that gift? Haven't we earned it??

 

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THIS IS WHY  I NEED SUPERWHO!!!! 

*Breath*

That's all. I'm done now. Now that I've dumped my geekiness upon you, I can go.

 

I'm leaving.

 

I'm going

 

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 ~Ben the Robot