Character Encounters: Renn's Pictures

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I wander aimlessly, carelessly glancing at the various cameras and camcorders displayed on the shelves. Shopping is dull. And that's the truth. 

Brightly colored tags catch my eye as I walk past, just as they are designed to do, but I do not satisfy them with the glory of gaining my attention for more than the secluded space of two seconds. If they had voices as loud as their paper wardrobes, the tags would be screaming at me.

"Sale! Sale! Save money! Reduced price! Limited time only!"

But I walk on. I'm horrible when it comes to shopping because I have a deaf ear to hearing the screaming tags. In fact, I have a deaf ear and a blind eye to just about everything related to shopping.

A deaf ear and a blind ear metaphorically. Physically, I fear I'm not so fortunate. 

Princess Gadrienne of Findenland is the last person I expected to see here, in a twenty-first century store, but she's in front of me, and she's not happy. 

"Kiri!" 

I suddenly wish the metaphorical ear could be physical. I know why Renn is here, and I really don't feel the urge to explain all of my writing thoughts and plans to her. 

"What is going on?"

I think playing dumb is the best way to go, considering who I'm talking to. "What do you mean?"

She glares at me as if she's about to release her rant, a rant that I know she would have practiced for an hour beforehand, choosing the most vivid adjectives and verbs that she could with an exaggerated emphasis on the use of adverbs. But before she speaks, her eyes flit downward and draw together in disgust. In a moment, her rant disappears only to be replaced by a single question:

"What are you wearing?"

I'll admit it. I didn't expect her to say that. "A jean skirt and a polo shirt."

"What's jean?"

"A very famous and loved fabric."

Renn snorts. "In what world?"

"Mine." I return evenly. 

She looks around, as if suddenly seeing the store around her, realizing the mountainous landscape of Findenland is far away. "What's that?"

I follow the direction of her perfectly balanced and fairly pale finger. "A camera."

Her eyes swing back to me in confusion. "A what?"

"A camera. It takes pictures."

"Pictures?" Gadrienne's eyebrows fly upward. 

"It's digital."

That only accentuates her confusion.

I sigh. I'm not a huge fan of technology, nor am I the best person with whom to consult about cameras and the like, but I give her my best description of digital devices and how a small box with buttons can capture the images placed before it and save them so that they may later be viewed and printed on paper. I'm not sure how well she understood it all, but by the time I finish bumbling out the explanation, she is completely smitten with the idea of a camera. 

"Take my picture!" She demands.

While I'm glad that she's forgotten her rant, I'm not entirely satisfied to the topic with which it's been replaced. "Your picture? I can't do that! These cameras are all boxed up. They are not mine to open up and use."

"Why not? You are a writer."

"Writers do not hold the same status in the real world as they do in the world they create."

"What's that?" Gadrienne darts past me, not even hearing my words. Helpless to stop her whether by physical force or oral commands, I follow. 

"Excuse me, ma'am." A store employee with her blonde hair pulled tightly back into a ponytail steps in front of me and holds out a flyer. "If you have the time, I'd love to tell you about the newest craze in photography."

"Oh, no, I..." I'm about to decline the invitation to stand and listen to something I don't understand, but behind her is a large camera set upon a tripod facing a decorated screen in front of which is Renn who is smiling happily. 

While I'm staring at Renn, the blonde employee gives me a well-coordinated description of a something-or-other camera, with who-knows-whats-it focus and too-unbelievable-to-remember-it settings. Before I know it, the girl has finished her lecture and is leading me to the green screen. "Wouldn't you love to have your picture taken with this wonderful camera? I can take a dozen shots right now for you. And if you want them printed, I can do that for you for a limited time price, with a coupon to purchase your own camera at a discount when they hit the market next month."

Renn grabs my arm and pulls me in front of the camera. Twelve snaps of white lightning blind me momentarily while Renn giggles like a little girl at my side, posing with her arms up and down and her face screwed into every kind of smile possible. 

And then we're back with the employee to see the shots that she just took. Renn laughs over each one, commenting on how beautiful she looks, and dropping dry remarks about how oblivious I seem. 

"Can I get these printed for you?" The employee presses. "I can give you them for five dollars a photo, unless you want them all for the lower price of fifty dollars."

"Oh, I want all of them!" Gadrienne announces.

"Very well." The girl grins at me, and spins on her heel to place the order. 

Fifty dollars? I don't think I even have fifty cents in my pocket right now. 

"No, wait!" I run after her. She disappears around the corner of a shelf, deaf to my cries. By the time I gain the corner and get around it, the girl is gone. I stop dead in my tracks. My brain is a foggy mess, and without any coherent thought, I turn back to Renn. She's gone, too. The screen and camera and tripod are also MIA. 

I imagined all of that?

I slap myself mentally and think about following it with the physical action. But there's a customer looking oddly at me, so I give them a big grin, tuck my hands into the pockets of my skirt, and walk away.

At least I don't have to pay fifty bucks for twelve pictures.

God bless!

Everything You Didn't Know About CoaL

Or almost everything.

Well, no. I can't give away ALL my secrets.

So, more truthfully, I'll retitle this post:

"Everything You Don't Know That You're Entitled To Know That I Probably Should Have Told You Before Now About CoaL."

There. We are all happy now.

First things first. 

Children of a Legend is published.

And once you're over that shock, please allow me to explain. I privately self-published it last December to get myself a tangible copy to use during the big, tough job of editing (for some reason, editing on the computer doesn't appeal to me very much), and it was a great Christmas present to surprise my family with. And yes, they were surprised. We're in the process of reading it together so my family can give me criticisms and all that wonderful jazz. I'm not quite ready for a lot of people to read it yet, as I want to give it a final dusting before I present it to the world.

Item the second: CoaL is now, I've discovered, the first book in a trilogy. I didn't mean to begin a trilogy. Indeed, I intended for CoaL to be one story, one novel. It's still one story (with a good number of subplots), but it's too long to fit into one, small novel. Unless you like reading books that are about 500,000 words long.

Thirdly, I am, while still editing when I can, writing the second book, which is tentatively called Rebirth of a Legend. I'm not satisfied with the name yet, but it's what I have for now. I've only written some 6,000 words on it so far, but I'm working on planning (emphasis on working on planning) on participating in the June NaNo (Camp NaNo, if you prefer it) and putting another 50K under my belt. 

Point four: The trilogy I am calling by the name of The Dragon Tamer. That name is also tentative, prone to change, apt to be discarded, whichever you prefer. Before I called the first book Children of a Legend, it was The Dragon Tamer and The Six Children of the Dragon Tamer. I threw away the second of those titles, as I thought it too much of a mouthful, but the combination of "dragon" and "tamer" I liked, so I saved it, wondering if I could use it later. Well, now I'm putting it to use as the name of the trilogy/series. 

Hmm... let's add a fifth item: I make no promise that this will stay a trilogy. What started as one book grew to three as I was writing, and what I plan to be three books could become five before I'm done. We'll just have to see where this all goes. 

God bless!

Next Big Thing Squared

Yes, yes. I've already filled out this tag once before, but I was so graciously tagged by Jessica of Safirewriter, and you know that I cannot resist a good tag. So, ahem! We are now moving onto the second installment of the Next Big Thing Writing Tag Thingummy... only this time I'm just simply calling it squared instead of adding on all that thingummy stuff and making it the second in the line of thingummy tags and avoiding that dreaded activity of having to bother with numbers. Or... yeah, that. What? I'm confused, too. Let's just say there are three different kinds of people when it comes to math and squaring stuff: those who are good at it, and those who aren't.

Anywho, let's just get into the tag. Technically, you're s'posed to fill it out for a more developed story, but I have a soft spot in my heart for my Kianna story, so I'm doing that one.

1. What is the working title of your book? Kianna. Real original, eh? I have a feeling I'm going to change it, but that's what it is right now.

2.  Where did the idea come from for the book? Seriously? A weird dream I had about myself in an old manor with secret passageways, overlooking a dreary beach with a killer whale in the background. And it was like most dreams: something happened, although I cannot recall what, and I had to go somewhere, a place I didn't know, and I had to go with someone I despised, a person I don't know or truly despise. From that, I drafted the beginning of the story in my mind, taking myself out, of course, and inserting a girl with dark hair and a terrible habit of holding grudges.

3. What genre does your book come under? Again... not an easy question. Fantasy, to be generic, because it is part of my big fantasy world and what I would define as fantasy (and I'm talking REAL fantasy, not some modern excuse for the celebrated genre). Adventure would be a big tag for this book, because it does involve ships, fights, and treasure. Can't think of anything else I'd put it under.

4: Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? I don't know all the characters yet, so.... hmm... well, I can try to cast some of them. 

Kianna Ardyn Feuraire Baléine played by Alexandra Daddario.

And Nathen Penser, Kianna's sworn enemy, played by Gaspard Ulliel.

 Those are the two main characters in the book. Other main characters I haven't named yet, so it's difficult to get pictures of them. I know next-to-nothing about these two actors, though, so I'm really only going by looks here and what I imagined my characters to look like. Kianna is moody, argumentative, and fiesty, while Nathen is, in his own right, ready to get things done and not sit around moping yet at the same time he isn't afraid to stop and think about things, although he's rather oblivious at times... if that helps you at all with their personalities.

5: What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? After the capture of her family, Kianna is forced to team up with a childhood enemy and find the location of a legendary treasure... before it's too late.

6: Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency? Most likely self-published.

7: How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? Still writing!! I've only been working on this for a month or two, and the manuscript only boasts just under 3,000 words. I know this should be a project I push aside and stew over for a while because I don't have all the details fleshed out yet (it's really a story muddled from a bunch of pictures in my mind), but I got too excited about it and had to start it.

8: What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? Hmm... the more I'm thinking about it, I think Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped might be a good comparison, only it's about a girl, not a boy, and she goes willing on an adventure, while he's kidnapped, and she works with an enemy, while he has a good friend helping him, and her destination is somewhere over the sea and rocks, and he was doomed to wander over highlands and moores. Or maybe not so comparable... The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, maybe? But my fantasy world of Pennin is not quite the same as Narnia.

9: Who or what inspired you to write this book? The aforementioned weird dream (please, please, please tell me I'm not the only one to get random book inspirations in nonsensical dreams!!), and the following picture. No idea who this is (actually, I think it's someone who plays the violin, because I've seen another picture with her holding a fiddle), but as soon as I saw it, I knew it was the perfect Kianna. The dark hair, the dark eyes, the dark expression, the ocean in the background... perfect. 

10: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? I'm going to fall back on what I answered this question with last time: a snippet. Get ready; this is rather lengthy. ;)

Athlia and the duchess had exchanged several phrases on the topic of their recent lives, as well as plenty of the sorrowful lamentations relating to not being able to keep in contact more, as they should have liked. Kianna wondered at their conversation, knowing both women, while busy with the livelihoods of their respective families and unable to visit more than twice in one month, to write lengthy correspondence each week, and in each epistle to convey to the other such things that it would have made it impossible in the girl's mind to hold any type of conversation anytime afterwards, considering all things that could have been said face to face had already been said in the numerous missives. Still, neither woman suffered from a lack of words, each uttering something just as soon as the other had almost finished her last thought.

“And where is our dear Nathen?” Athlia asked, tossing a pointed glance at Kianna as she spoke the words. “He did accompany you here, I hope?”

“Oh, yes, indeed.” Duchess Wilaroth waved a plump hand in the direction of the door. “He paused on the step to share a few words with your man, Sorhd, I believe his name is. My darling boy has always considered him a great friend, so he would see that he paid his respects. He's always so thoughtful that way, you know. I do not like to be one to boast, but it is the opinion of myself and of his father that Père blessed us with an angel rather than a normal boy. He was at the head of his classes at the university, and was quite the favorite among both masters and students, although he would not deem it proper for himself to magnify such praises. He always was such a modest boy, and his father and I are extremely proud of him.”

 

“As any parents should be.” Athlia responded.

Kianna's jaw only grew tighter as she watched her mother's face beam with joy. It was as if she enjoyed hearing about all of his accomplishments, thinking him to be the grand son the mother made him out to be, forgetting, or perhaps worse, feeling ashamed of the daughter who was nothing compared to this angel. A dash of jealously nibbled at Kianna's heart, and she maliciously let it take root. Why not? He already held the honor of being equal with dirt in her mind; a simple smattering of jealously wouldn't do much harm to that opinion. Indeed, it might better it in the respect of turning the honor to mud.

 

“Ah, there he is now!” The duchess exclaimed cheerily as though she had just announced the discovery of a blue bird on the windowsill.

 

Kianna, who hadn't taken her burning eyes off the doorway for a moment, stiffened at the proclamation. A bit of dark cuff appeared first, followed slowly by the rest of the sleeve, up to the elbow, and then several more inches where it leveled out to accommodate shoulders. After the entire arm was in view, a booted foot materialized on the floorboards running lengthwise under the door frame, connected to a leg covered in breeches made of the finest cloth in Pennin. Another moment, and Nathen stood whole in the door, surveying the company in the room with his hands on his hips and his eyes bright with anticipation.

 

Athlia immediately surrendered her place by the duchess's side and moved to give her hands to the boy. “Nathen! How you've grown! And such a fine young man, too. Your mother was just telling us all about your achievements at school. Oh, we have missed you greatly in these last few years.”

 

Nathen took the hands she offered him and bowed. “Not nearly as much as I have missed you all, I'm sure.” He said, standing straight again. His gaze traveled briefly from Athlia's face to that of her eldest daughter. Kianna met the look squarely for a moment, allowing the ire to emanate from her own eyes without caring how Nathen interpreted it, then turned her head sharply to look out the window as if she hadn't seen him at all.

God bless! 

In Which I Post About Elevensies... Again!

Yes, yes, I know I've done the Elvensies Tag quite a few times now, but hey! I got tagged again!! Twice, actually! And I really don't mind one bit! 

Hmm... is it just me, or have I been doing a lot of tags recently? I need to sit down and write some REAL blog posts.... but, first things first. My eleven random facts. Ahem.

~*~*~

1. I have written in a journal every day since August 11, 2008. 
2. My three favorite composers are Patrick Doyle, Alan Menken, and Alan Silvestri, even though I've seen limited of their movies.
3. I used to love putting chocolate almond milk on my life cereal, until I discovered I was allergic to chocolate.
4. "Kiri" is my real nickname.
5. Those who lapse from that nickname call me either "Kitty" or "Dee."
6. I discovered recently on Pinterest that the number of people who follow me is twice the number of people that I follow.
7. I love receiving handwritten letters.
8. I love thunderstorms, except when they pound against the skylight in your bedroom at 2 o'clock in the morning.
9. My sister once put my hair up and used 27 bobby pins, in addition to 2 clips.
10. When I was younger, I was really good at math and once had to tutor my teacher.
11. I love doing 1,000 piece puzzles.

~*~*~ 

The first tag came from Melody of Regency Delight. Thanks, Melody!!

1) What email server is your favorite? (You know, Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) Gmail, only because that's what I've always used.
 

2) Which place in your own country do you most long to visit? Hmm... anything west of the Mississippi. I've never been out of the Eastern time zone, so the Rocky Mountains, the Grand Canyon, etc. are all on my to-visit list.

3) Who was the last person you emailed? My dad, subject entitled "Help." My sister and I encountered a problem working yesterday (we do data entry for a local quilting shop that we have fondly dubbed Chesney Wold - don't ask; it's kind of a long story), and realizing we couldn't fix it on our own, I turned to my brilliant father for assistance.

4) Who was the last person you talked on the phone with? I don't talk on the phone a lot. So, let me think.... I think it was Grandmom. She calls just about every day, and if the kids can beat my mom to the phone, we get a few minutes to talk to her.

5) What is your favorite candy, chocolate excluded? Being allergic to soy and chocolate make for a very boring candy list. Swedish fish are probably my favorite, with Starbursts or Jelly Beans as a close second.

6) Within the next...oh, say, six months, what are you looking forward to the most? (As in, general life event) Having sleepovers/parties/fun times with all my wonderful cousins! Now that it's summer, we're no longer restricted by the harsh bonds of school (don't get me wrong, I don't mind school in the least - I love learning - but it makes it difficult to plan things with cousins, especially when your CBCs live three hours away. Oh, and we're also planning on making a movie this summer with our classy blood cousins, or what we would like to call a movie. We'll see how it all goes.

7) Hardcover or softcover books? Well..... probably hardcover. They smell better. ;)

What's your favorite quote about...

8) Friendship? A friend will help you up when you fall, but a good friend will laugh and say, "Walk much, klutz?"

9) Music? Don't give me enormous houses, don't give me two carriages, but I could not live without music.

10) Books? Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

(Note: I wouldn't say these are my absolute favorite quotes, but ones that I really enjoy and were the easiest to think up.)

11) So, you're standing in a group of three people (this includes you) where one person is a friend-ish acquaintance and the other person you don't know so well. You're not really adding that much to the conversation, but then the person you don't know so well criticizes one of your favorite books/movies/characters, etc. What do you do? Scowl and shut up, jump into defense, or other? ;) If I were with really close friends, I'd jump right into it and defend it, but since it'd be more acquaintances, they're entitled to their own opinions and I know that there probably won't be much I can say to change the aforementioned opinion. Actually, I ran into this problem yesterday when someone mentioned LOTR was boring. I kept my smile, said a few obscure things in defense, then moved on to a new topic.

                                                                             ~*~*~ 

And I was also tagged by Bella, Addy, and Emma. Thank you, girls!!

1. What would you consider yourself-casual or dressy? Casual! I very much prefer to be comfortable, modest, and feminine to dressy and in-style.

2. Where would you be found-reading a book in a tree? or rowing a little boat on the lake? Reading in a tree. I've actually never done that, although I've taken lots of books outside and I've climbed lots of trees. I just haven't put the two together yet. *Note to self: do this during the summer.*

3. Warm weather or cold? Both. I love the snow. I love swimming. I love being snowed-in. I love playing whiffle ball. But the cold makes me tight (I'm asthmatic), and summer brings along allergies, so there's no happy medium. I like all four seasons about the same.

4. Are you a big fancy dinner kind of person, or just a fast food one? Uh... neither? With a soy allergy, I can't eat out at all... and I'm not much for a fancy dinner. Well, one once in a while is nice, but I wouldn't like to eat like that every night. Home-cooked, comfort food is my favorite.

5. What are your top five favorite Jane Austen movies? Top five? Thank you, girls!! ;) Emma 2009 (absolute first!), P&P 1995, S&S 2008 (I've never seen the first scene, so I don't count that), S&S 1995, and... oh... either (don't hate me) P&P 2005 or Northanger Abbey (with the exception of some scenes).

6. Who is your top three heroine characters? (I had to have at least three, I mean it would be really tough for me to just chose one :)) Emma Woodhouse, Amy Dorrit, and Bella Wilfer.

7. If you were in a predicament, what would you rather want, a bow and some arrows, or a huge sward? I think I'd be more comfortable with a bow and arrows... and a few dozen paces away.

8. What book have you most recently read, and how many times have you read it? I'm in the middle of Our Mutual Friend, so can't count that... uh... I think the last book I read was The Beggar Queen by Lloyd Alexander. First time reading it. I enjoy Lloyd Alexander's writing, although some of his work contains some language. Really? Disappointing...

9. What's your favorite Disney Pixar movie? Toy Story 2? It's hard to tell because many of them have the same ranking in my mind.

10. Would you rather sing or dance? Quick answer: sing. Singing is an occupational hazard in my family. But I also like reenacting dances from movies such as P&P and Singin' In the Rain.

11. Have you watched any new movie recently? Under the Greenwood Tree - a little on the cheesy side, but it was fun. I especially liked the choir. "Wait for me!"

~*~*~ 

My eleven questions to pass on (and yes, I had fun thinking up really random ones):
1. What does your pillowcase look like?
2. Which classic, animated Disney movie does your life most resemble or do you wish it would resemble?
3. How would you react if I, right now, appeared at your front door?
4. If you could trade places with one Jane Austen character, who would it be and why?
5. Do you know what "logastellus" means?
6. What's one recipe you would love to try but haven't yet?
7. If you have a Pinterest account, which one of your boards do you find yourself pinning the most pins? If you don't have an account, make up a board.
8. If practice and lessons were irrelevant, which one instrument would you love to play?
9. Do you have a journal, a diary, or neither?
10. Do you smell books? If so, please tell us what the best-smelling book is.
11. Just because I'm curious, which of my WIPs (located on My Stories page) are you interested in the most and why? 

And I tag:
Jessa Bri
Kathryn
Rachel
Kendra
Elizabeth
Victoria
....
And everyone else. 

I was trying to pick people who haven't been tagged before or in a while, but I can't think of anyone else off the top of my head. If I didn't tag you, and you'd like to participate, please do! Or if you just want to answer the questions in a comment, I'd love that, too! It's usually a pain to come up with eleven questions to ask people, so it's nice when you have more than one person answer. *ahem* ;)


God bless!

Childhood Memories Tag

Hayden of Story Girl is hosting a Childhood Memories Blog Party! There's also a giveaway, so I suggest you hop on over to her lovely blog and check it all out!

Personally, even though I'm 19, I don't consider myself a big, 'ole adult. I'm still a kid at heart, so does that make me unqualified to have childhood memories? Anywho... ;)

First: name 5 childhood memories that bring a smile to your face
(I actually have tons of "smiling" memories, but these are just the first five I could think of.)
 

1. Picking strawberries on my grandparents' garden; the strawberries are sooo good when they're freshly picked and warm from the sun!

2. Driving in a "bus" with my cousins all day to visit Sleeping Bear Dunes; can you imagine 15 people in one vehicle? It was awesome.

3. Building tepees and forts in the woods when we lived on 15 acres with paths through weeds and sumac trees; we also had a dry creek bed that we loved to explore en route to different forts, only the bed housed swarms of bees... not so fun.

4. Playing "Borrowers" by means of carting around borrowing bags and building intricate passages and houses (yes, yes, we were greatly influenced by watching the BBC 1992 Borrowers, which is one of the best miniseries ever).

5. Turning our entire bedroom into a castle for our dolls and hosting balls and banquets; we had The Queen and her sister, Aunt Wealthy; their daughters, Samantha, Kirsten, and Felicity (and yes, those were American Girl dolls); the grandchildren, Amy, Elizabeth, Anna (who was sometimes the servant), Hildegard (the spoiled brat), Madeline, Sarah, Baby Dear, Matt Matt (a.k.a. Stop Thief), Ruffles Potato Chips (don't laugh; that was her true, honest name), and others I can't recall, in addition to the three visiting princes, James, Henry, and Andrew played by our bald Bitty Babies. It had to be a big castle because we had so many dolls there all at once. Well.... it was three girls playing. :)

Now: answer the questions

1. Was there a particular game that you played with your siblings all the time? Hmm... I don't know if we had just one particular game; we played a vast number of things. How 'bout "pretend?" :) We played pretend castle, pretend wedding (Emily Carol, you should remember *that* one), pretend Indians, pretend dog pound, pretend Borrowers (see above), pretend Little Women (yes, we reenacted Little Women, and I got to play Jo), pretend American Revolution, pretend house, pretend explorers, pretend dances... you name it. If we could pretend it, we pretended it.

2. Did you have a special toy/item that you dragged around everywhere you went? Not that I recall. I kinda went in spurts. For a while it was my Bitty Baby named Tabitha Joy (and sometimes Henry; see above), then a bright pink cat with a secret pouch in her tummy, then my Kirsten Larson doll, then my stuffed dog named Smokey, and so on.

3. What was a movie/ TV show that you were obsessed with as a child? Epic favorite? Little Bear! But I also loved Blue's Clues (it was Blue and Steve back then), and then there was also Liberty's Kids which is a wonderful show all about the American Revolution, although we always muted the opening and closing songs.

4. Did you have an imaginary friend? I always had a sibling or a cousin about me, so there wasn't much call for imaginary friends. But I did have a few so-called friends who would visit me, sometimes my shadow on a sunny day, sometimes a fairy flying beside the road as we drove, and sometimes just that invisible evil twin.

5. What did you want to be when you grew up? A librarian. Big dreams, eh? But seriously, that was my goal. I wanted to have a library and write books to put in it.

6. Who was president when you were born? President Clinton.

7. Any song associated with you childhood? Any song?? It would be hard to name just one! My family sings all the time, then and now! But I'll see if I can pinpoint a few... Playmate, anything from The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, the Nuthouse song (believe me if you don't know this one, you're missing out), and Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

8. Something that scared you as a child? I was never really scared of all the normal things, like bugs, small animals, the dark, heights, etc. It was the BIG stuff that scared me such as talking to someone I didn't know, but that hasn't changed much. I'm still not a big talker. OR, Or, or... the scene when Rabbit gets lost in the Hundred Acre Woods in TMAofWtheP (abbreviated). That scene always scared me silly. I was so proud of Tigger coming to save Rabbit in the end.

9. What’s the food that you like now but back then just wouldn’t eat? Anybody who knows me knows this answer: HAM. When I was a toddler, I loved it. When I was in my preteens, I hated it. And now, I'm just learning to like it again. Weird how your taste buds adapt, huh?

10. Was there any Christmas or birthday gift that you really, really wanted and went crazy about? My parents, in trying to get us to do our chores, once put a chart in place with stars where we could keep track of what we had done (dishes, bed made, etc.) and when we got a certain number of stars at the end of the month/chart, we were awarded a special gift. Of the three girls participating in this growing lesson, I finished all my stars first and I got this bea.u.ti.ful princess dress from American Girl. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, considering we hardly ever got something like that, but I loved that dress. I still have it, worn as it is. 

God bless!