A Thing that is Happening

I cannot think how to write this post.  I should like to put what I have to say in a way fitting to its importance and general wonderfulness, but I'm at a loss as to how to do that, so I'll just say it out.

I'm going to the convent.

Yes, at long last, it seems to be happening for real.  I obtained permission from the Voice Of Reason and Prudence (my spiritual director, as you may remember from my last post on the subject) to enter the Sisters of St. Thomas Aquinas on January 6th, Feast of Epiphany and also my parents' wedding anniversary.  This past week has been full of sorting through the accumulation of things in my room, agonizing over who should get which of my beloved books, buying many white oxford blouses, among other things, and trying to process the fact that I am almost certainly going.  One stipulation which the aforementioned Voice made when granting me permission (he is so very brilliant, that Voice) was that I visit these two Sisters who do charity work in Boston first, so on Monday I will be making yet another plane flight to yet another part of the country to visit yet another group of Sisters.  I am very lucky.  I always loved traveling, and I have been able to do quite a lot of it in this past year!  It's a nice gesture from Our Lord, I think, to let me get in so much traveling before I am consecrated to Him and bound to stay, perhaps, in the same place for the rest of my life.  (Of course, I may do more traveling as a Sister than I ever have in the world -- God likes to have His little jokes like that, making me think I'm stationary for good and then moving me all over the place.  We shall see.)

This is the church, Our Lady of the Sun, seen from the side.

As I said, I am having trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that I'm going.  I'm so excited, but at the same time I'm a bit bewildered.  I have gotten quite giddy over the whole thing multiple times since permission was given, but I fully realize how serious a thing it is that I am doing.  I have a shadowy idea that really I ought not to attempt to think through it too much.  I have thought and thought and thought for over a year now, and any more thinking is sure to be unhelpful. There comes a point, you know, when the time for thinking is over, and all that's left is to do. I ought simply to relinquish myself to God and just accept whatever He drops on me. 

It's rather unbelievable that I shall be "Sr. Victoria" in a little less than a month.  My mind does a double take when I see that spelled out, it seems so unreal.  But I cannot wait.  I'm looking forward to everything -- even wearing multiple layers under the Arizonian sun.  I can't wait to be anxious that my veil's on straight, that I'm following protocol correctly, that I'm doing well in my classes.  I can't wait for Arizona's strange and foreign appearance waiting for me each morning at 6:30,  for Daily Mass, the entire Rosary, obligatory silence, and the Divine Office.

This is one of the gates to the convent building, seen from the inside.  I love the gates and the ironwork because they make is seem so much more cloister-y.

I'm going to really regret this post if something happens out of the blue and I can't make it, let me tell you -- or if I end up being sent home!  Goodness me.  Please pray for me that everything goes according to God's plan and that I'm not too severe of a trial to my superiors!

Oh yes -- and I have heard from others that sometimes one must delete her social media accounts before entering a convent, so... I may end up having to delete Sunlight and Shadow.  I don't know yet, nobody's said anything, but just so you know.  It may happen.

Happy feast of St. Lucy, by the way!

Arizona as seen from the entrance to the convent.

Photography: Kentucky.

Last month my family and I went on a roadtrip to Kentucky to visit old friends and see if my parents would like to retire there.  (Results: one doesn't, the other seems undecided.)  Anyway, I took the opportunity of a hike around the campground wherein we stayed to practice a bit of photography - I've been really neglecting this hobby lately, and it was a gorgeous place.  I think the photos came out rather nice, all things considered, so I decided to share them.  Also I haven't posted anything in a while and I'm drawing a blank, so this is to fill it. 

I know that these first two are a bit over-edited, but I can't help it.  I like things to look "atmospheric," for lack of a better term, and because I'm not artistic enough, this is the way I get the atmosphere right.  Deal with it.

I'm pretty sure this is a cornflower.  It's hard to tell from the photo, but they are just the loveliest blue...

These are my boots.  I'm quite fond of them.  Awkward angle, I know, but I couldn't stop long enough to set up a good picture.

About the above picture: there were various water pumps stationed throughout our walk, so of course they must be tested.  As my siblings' wet clothes testified, the pumps worked.  My baby sister shown is obsessed with water, and was gleefully squealing "wa-wa!" the whole time.  (She also thinks that fire is wa-wa, but I've explained that it is something very different.  I'm not sure she listened.)

Truth be told, I'm obsessed with water too.

Isn't it beautiful? It's like a watercolor painting, the lake is so still.  Yet there was a lovely little breeze blowing as we walked.

I am in love with the light in this picture.

Yes, that is my hair.  Don't ask.  (Okay, I was proud of the focus.  It's not easy to focus correctly while holding a camera behind your head with no mirror.)

Though I don't fancy living there, Kentucky is a gorgeous state and I'm glad I got to visit it.  Seeing new places is always exciting.

In Which I Drown You In My Indifferent Graphics

You all probably know that I enjoy making graphics and that I'm not specially good at them.  Well, I've been making a ton, especially since school ended, and I do believe I've gotten a little bit better.  I thought you might like to see some of what I've done -- I know I always like to see others' graphics.  I can always learn something from them.
Oh yes -- feel free to use them, they're mostly not watermarked so credit if you like, if not I don't really care.  I never really understood the whole DON'T STEAL MY WORK thing that much.... as long as you're not selling it, why fuss?  It's just a digital image.

All my images are made with one of three photo-editors: iPiccy, PicMonkey, and Pixlr.  (Why do they always have to have rather silly names?)  They're each good for different things, so sometimes I'll use all three in one image.

First come the ones that can be used as desktop backgrounds.  I tire of desktops quickly, and so make a lot of new ones. If you use one, be aware that sometimes I don't measure the ratios right and then they're a bit too long or too short - also, mine are made for a 16:9 screen.

This was my first try-out of iPiccy, and I was quite proud of it, though I have since decided that it's not as wonderful as I at first thought.  The battle-cry of the Cristeros has always inspired me - I used to write it on the inside covers of my school notebooks, and it would make me feel very brave and ready for battle - a sentiment often necessary for the completion of math exercises -- or English essays -- or French exams. 

Despite my love of quotes, I always draw a blank when I go to make a graphic, hence the generally famous quotes I use.  I would much prefer obscure quotes, as I prefer most anything obscure, but when the time comes I never remember what I wanted to use.  I rather like this particular image, and surprisingly it took very little time.

I think a desktop for purity, strictly speaking, ought to contain more light and brightness than this does, and I couldn't find an image of a lily (symbol of purity) that worked, but other than that I am rather fond of this one.

If you couldn't tell, this image was the result of my love-affair with The Ballad of the White Horse.  The watermark is there because I posted it on Tumblr, and didn't save a non-watermarked version.
I know the stanza I chose sounds depressing, but I just love it because Our Lady gives Alfred no comfort and tells him that things are just gonna get worse, and yet he still gains strength to fight back that he didn't have before.  I haven't explained it well, but it's just such a delicious oxymoron to me, and before I read the poem, I had never thought of Christianity as journeying "gaily in the dark."  It's just a beautiful idea, and this little snippet reminds me of it when I'd rather "spell the stars/And times and triumphs mark" than be going gaily in the dark.
Perhaps I should not talk about my love-affair with this poem in the past tense.

The rest of these are not strictly desktops, though they can be used as such if you don't mind the not fitting.

 

This was the result of studying "Elegy in a Country Courtyard" and reflecting on how much wailing and keening and rolling in melancholy poets do.  "Fell in love with melancholy" indeed.  I don't know if you can even read all the quotes.  It was an exercise in trying out a slightly different style, and I'm still not sure what I think about it.

My mom wrote out this quote for me instead of giving me a lecture -- and it worked.

These words are from a poem by a Catholic author named Joseph Mary Plunkett about how everything in nature reminds him of Our Lord.  It's a beautiful poem, and this line especially caught my fancy.  One of the many pictures I have taken of the ocean from Virginia Beach and the Outer Banks worked perfectly as the backdrop.

The background in this graphic is a photo taken by me at Round Top, NY, when I visited the convent there. The quote is from the Regina Spektor song "The Call."  Another instance of me trying out a different style.

Well, I do believe that's enough for now.  If you made it to the end of this post without skimming and skipping...thank you.  If not, I totally don't blame you.

Tell me, do you have any tips for me? Questions?  General comments?  You know I'd love to hear them.

All Buttoned Up

**Notice: this post was begun on July 26.  What happened was, I couldn't think of any subject-matter for buttons after the North & South one.  I just now finished with the last two buttons.  So yeah.  I'm basically the queen of procrastinators**

 Ladies and gentlemen, this is a very special day.  Why is it a special day, you ask?  Because, my dear, thanks to Miss Rosamund Gregory, I HAVE LEARNED HOW TO MAKE BLOG BUTTONS.  Now you may rejoice. 

I didn't put the code box because this isn't an official R&M button.  But I think it is rather cute. :)

Are you done rejoicing?  Good.  I must tell you, if you've never made a blog button, get thee to Rosamund's tutorial and learn how.  You needn't be scared.  It's actually very easy.

Now, I probably won't have an official button for my blog for a while yet, because, you see, it has to be just so.  But in the meantime, I've made a couple fun little things, just to get the hang of it.

<a href="http://raindropsandmoonlight.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src="http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h456/poetgirlJMJ/thorntonappreciationclub-1.jpg?t=1343496983

<a href="http://raindropsandmoonlight.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src="http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h456/poetgirlJMJ/tolkienquote1.jpg"/></a>

<a href="http://raindropsandmoonlight.blogspot.com/"><img border="0" src="http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h456/poetgirlJMJ/bowtiesarecool-1.jpg"/></a>

 So, there you go!  My first attempts at buttonmaking.  By-the-by, I really do have no idea what's going on with the alignment there.  My code boxes are randomly off to the side and I'm not sure why...

Oh, and if by some chance you wanted to use any of these, I'd be delighted.  :)

Picking Peaches

Remember my post on apple-picking?  Well, about a month ago, on the coolest day we could find, my family and I drove down long country roads and through lookalikes of the Great Dismal Swamp to a lovely farm which had pick-your-own peaches.  We picked forty-three pounds of the the things, but even so I managed to take lots of pictures.  They came out rather well, too.  (This post is getting up so late because it took me until now to edit everything.)

From the parking lot, we had to walk about half a mile down to the orchard.  Some intelligent people drove down, but we walked.  It was just as well, because I wouldn't have been able to take photos from the car, and I'm not sure our giant of a fifteen-passenger van would have made it down there anyway. 

There was a lovely little pond with a bridge across it, so I got to practice landscape photography.

There was a lot of Queen Anne's Lace growing by that pond.  I love Queen Anne's Lace (or yarrow, as some call it), so I couldn't resist taking pictures of it. 

Now you know what it looks like. Yarrow has medicinal properties, but I can't remember what they are anymore.

 

 

 

This is the super-edited version of the first photo.  I would love fabric with this print...

I kinda sorta really like this one, even though it's a bit blurry.  It looks so fairy-ish.

Then we reached the actual orchard:

These are nectarines.  Just thought you might be wondering why they're red...

Despite asking me and my mom if every peach they picked was "good," my siblings did pretty well.  All the buckets were at least halfway filled.  (Hence the forty-three pounds.) 

 

 

Some of them had to be lifted.

I really like this sepia-toned photo.  Sepia makes everything better, doesn't it? :)

 I thought it was fun.  Orchard peaches and nectarines taste so much better than the grocery-store variety, I promise you.  Really, everything tastes better when it's not from a grocery store.

 

And yes, I am left-handed.

After we paid, we all sat out on the picnic benches and tried our lovely (and hard-earned) fruit.  I think it was worth carrying an over-ten-pound bucket (plus a sibling's smaller one) half a mile in the noon heat.  I do have a picture of us all sitting around stuffing our faces with peaches, but I'm thinking my mom would kill me if her picture was up here.  She'd say she looked fat, which is, by the way, nonsense.  My mom weighs ten pounds more than I do, and I am not fat.  Anyway, one of my brothers looks like a creep in that picture, and I wouldn't want you get nightmares.  Seriously.  He looks like the Grim Reaper or something. 

When we got home, we cut up and froze about two-thirds of the peaches.  Now my mom won't let us eat any until winter, which I protest is not fair, but she doesn't seem to care.  (I hate it when my sentences unintentionally rhyme...the rhymes are always so dumb. Ergh.)

Speaking of my mom, she did a peach-picking post (ha! Alliteration! Oh my gosh, I am such a poetry geek...) as well.  Voila: http://mrsrabbitsmusings.blogspot.com/2012/07/picking-peaches.html

*le post of randomness and pictures*

I can't help it.  I'm writing a semi-intellectual, very involved review of The Hunger Games for y'all, and the effort of thought has made my brain melt.  You have no idea how hard it is for my poor little mind to concentrate on one topic for so long.  So I am indulging myself.  Cause I like saying things that have nothing to do with anything.

There are two coffee cups in my room at the moment.  Do you think that means anything?

But coffee makes me sick as a dog sometimes.  Just sometimes.  Because my body is as random as I am.

Who came with the saying "sick as dog"?  Why not "sick as a parrot"?  Or even "sick as a cat", if you don't want to get all exotic?  People are discriminating against dogs here!

Tea is better than coffee.  Sometimes.

I got a shirt today.  And it's pink.  I, Victoria Annette, bought a pink shirt.  Shame on me.  But it's nice.

See?  This is it.

It's raining right now.  My room has a skylight window, and the rain drums on it and makes such a lovely cozy sound!  I do enjoy rain.

If there were such things as fairies, and they really were itty-bitty things, wouldn't a raindrop drown them?  I suppose they'd have to be very itty-bitty indeed.  You'd think it would at least make them uncomfortably wet.

I don't think I'd want to be a fairy.

They are pretty, though....

 I seem to have progressed from the hyper ADHD-ish state produced by coffee into the sluggish frame of mind which is the fate of those who consume stimulants.  Woe is me.

I like high-falutin', flowery sentences.  Which is why I like Shakespeare.

*fangirl squee*

I am totally going to buy The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado about Nothing.  Those are my favorites, and nasty old Seton didn't include them in its Shakespeare course.  (I got a 91 on that course.  I was shooting for 100, but I guess it's not bad.)

I was in seventh heaven with that Shakespeare course.  I got to sit around and read during school hours, and the tests were mostly rather interesting.  I'd love to post some of the essay answers I wrote, but I wouldn't want people to cheat off me.  Do you think people would cheat off me?  I mean, it's not like I got a perfect score...

Does liking Shakespeare courses make me a total nerd?  I think, if taken in conjunction with my other characteristics. it doth.  Methinks I am a nerd.  It is awesome.  I've got reading glasses, too, you know.  And I love them and end up wearing them most of the time, because I'm always reading or using the computer or doing something else that requires glasses.

I like being a nerd.

*cough* I read in the dark...still do.

It's almost dinnertime.  I must flee to yonder shady grove dining-room table.

Well that was fun.  I'm sorry if it just annoyed you.  Think of pleasure I had in creating it and you'll feel better.  (By the way, I do cringe when I think of my dad reading this.  He always compliments my "thoughtful posts".  This is anything but.  Oh. and all the pictures are from the One and Only Pinterest and I don't own any of them and blah-de-blah.  I think I'm still hyper from the coffee after all.  And Shakespeare.  Cause Shakespeare makes me happy.

COFFFEEEEEEEEE.


The end.