100 Followers! Wow!!

A big, big thank you to everyone who follows Ribbons of Light! I'm stunned that so many people enjoy reading my scribblings here. Thanks again, everyone!

I'm back. . .

I've been taking a brief sabbatical from blogging over the holidays. But now I'm ready to get back into. . . well, into blogging.

Okay, what's new - well, unfortunately, I've had to enable comment moderation. I've been getting a lot of spam comments over the last few weeks, so I've had to switch comment moderation on for now. Hopefully the spam will stop soon. . . 

That's all for now. . . hope you're all well, and have had a great Christmas/New Year!

To all my readers. . .

Yes, I know, I had this same painting in last year's Christmas post! It's by far my favourite picture of the nativity. . . 

. . .Have a merry Christmas, and a blessed holiday season!

~Elise

Giveaway: Winner!!!

I am very pleased to announce that the winner of my Emma DVD is. . . 

*drumroll*. . . 

In His Wings, a.k.a. Sarah!

Congratulations, Sarah! *hugs* Enjoy the DVD!! :-D 

Wow, that was fun! I think I'll have to have another giveaway sometime soon! A big thank you to everyone who entered. I wish I had 40 DVDs to give away so that you could each have one! :-)

Christmas Giveaway!!

Yay, my first giveaway! Here's what I'm giving away. . . 

A copy of my favourite Emma adaptation! ITV's 1996 adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma, with Kate Beckinsale and Mark Strong. The DVD is used, but in great condition. This is actually my own personal copy, so it's been carefully looked after! :-)

If you're wondering why I'm giving away my copy - I was a little disappointed when, after buying this copy, I discovered it was in fullscreen, not widescreen format. I'd been thinking of buying myself a different copy (hopefully a widescreen version). But there's not much point in my having two copies of the same movie! :P Besides, I'd been wanting to have a giveaway anway.

So, if you're not bothered by the fullscreen format (especially as it is a giveaway and will cost you nothing!!). . .

LOL, you can see my hand reflected in the disc in this pic. . .

It is a Region 1 DVD, so it will play fine on pretty much any DVD player in North America. If you live elsewhere in the world, you will need a multi-region DVD player to play this DVD.

To enter, simply leave a comment! You don't even have to have your own blog - just make sure you leave your email address in your comment, so that I have some way of contacting you if you win!

To enter twice, publish a post on your blog about my giveaway.

Entries close on Wednesday 9th December - winner to be announced the following day!

Oh, and in case you were wondering - this giveaway is open to anyone anywhere in the world, not just Australian readers.

Just to clarify: I don't need your email address if you have a blog or website, because I can contact you via your blog/site. I only need your email address if you are blog-less! ;-)

The Emma Award

Thank you so much, Jo March, for this award!

I award: Erin, Anna Maria, Laurie, Alexandra, and Barbara.

P.S. - I'm so sorry that I haven't been posting much lately. Nanowrimo eats up all of my time!! Sanity will have to wait until December, as will regular blog posts. But hopefully I'll have the next post in my "Adaptations" series up today or tomorrow.

Homeschool Blog Awards

Wow!! I am in shock! :-D Erin has nominated me for the "Best Teen Girl Blog" in the 2009 Homeschool Blog awards, and I am now in the running to win!

And now, I am going to unabashedly ask you to vote for Ribbons of Light. :-)

~To vote for my blog, click here.~

A beautiful blog

I only just found out this morning that Alexandra from The Value of One has started a new blog: Of Trims and Frills and Furbelows. It's a beautiful blog (great job, Alexandra!), and, most importantly, the blog posts themselves are interesting and well-written - particularly if you have an interest in costume drama and/or fashion history! :-)

So, please drop by, and leave a comment or two!

Deanne's blog

I don't know why I keep forgetting to write this post! I've been meaning to do it for ages.

One of the mothers from our homeschool group has recently started a blog - Five Brothers, One Sister. It's a lovely blog, and Deanne has a lot of great homeschooling and homemaking ideas to share.

Deanne has also started a cooking blog, which you can have a look at here.

Please drop by and leave a comment or two!

Tags

I happened to be googling my blog this evening (don't ask me why; I just felt like googling my blog) and I found out, completely by accident, that I was tagged for two different memes back in July! And I had no idea whatsoever about this! When you tag me, please leave a comment to let me know I've been tagged! I do try to keep up with my friends' blogs, but I'm afraid I don't always get to read every post, so if you don't let me know I might never discover that I've been tagged. (Unless I google myself again on a whim.)

Erin from Seven Little Australians tagged me! Thanks so much, Erin! :-D

The rules:

1. List Seven Things That Make You Awe-Summm!
2. Pass the award on to seven bloggers you read religiously.
3. Tag those seven bloggers.

Ummm. . . seven awesome things about me. . . not the best tag for cultivating humility, LOL. I'll see how I go. . . 

1. I have an awesome God

2. I have a truly awesome family!

3. I. . . uhh. . . I can play guitar!

4. Umm. . . I. . . am a decent cook! I love baking lots of sweet things.

5. This is hard!! Like Napoleon Dynamite, I feel that I "don't have any good skills", or any other awesome things about me, LOL. Okay, I just thought of something - I have an awesome blog! And the awesomest thing about my blog is the fact that I've made so many friends through blogging. :-)

6. I live in an awesome country! I love Australia. It's an breathtakingly beautiful land.

7.  This isn't an awesome thing, but I've completely run out of awesome things, so: I have really long hair! Well, fairly long. Way past my waist. I'm trying to get it to 1 metre long. I don't know why, I just think it would be cool to have hair a metre long. :P

Whew, that was one hard tag to fill in!

Now, seven people: Bria, Jen, Autumn, Barbara, Alexandra, and my twin sisters, Grace and Naomi (my sisters have private blogs, if you'd like to read their blogs, please email me).

Now, Alexandra gave me the Honesty Scrap Award! Thanks, Alexandra!

Rules:

-Thank the person who gave the award to you
-Post ten honest facts about yourself
-Pass the award onto seven others.

Ten honest facts. This sounds a bit easier, LOL! 

1. I tend to procrastinate.

2. I used to think Hippocrates was pronounced Hippo Crates (as in hippo for hippopotamous and crate as in a large box).

3. I sometimes stay up late reading. 

4. I have grumpy moods. And upset moods, where I cry upon the least provocation. In other words, I'm female. . .

5. I am hopelessly hopeless at sports.

6. I can be (read: am) messy and disorganised.

8. I can be very shy, and I usually find it extremely hard talking to people who I don't know well.

9. I had a massive crush on Prince William when I was about 12 or 13 (didn't we all? :P). I don't like him anymore though, FYI. 

10. I am really, really bad at maths.

Well, I don't want to tag the same people all over again, so I might pick some others. But if you'd like to do the tag anyway, even if you didn't get tagged, please do so. Or if you were tagged but don't want do it, of course you don't need to if you don't want to!

Erin, Gae, Deanne, Embrethiliel, Adam, Laurie, and Joanna.

That was fun. :-D I'm glad I chanced to discover those tags through google!

Question for American readers

Are you able to listen to my playlist? There seems to have been some sort of a crackdown on Playlist.com. I can't listen to any of the songs on the playlist here on my blog. Mada says he's been having the same problem on his blog playlist.

Anyway - I was wondering if the tracks refuse to play in the U.S.A. too, of if it's only an Australia/New Zealand thing. Let me know!

Busy, Busy, Busy. . .

Lake Como, by William Degouve de Nuncques

Sorry there haven't been any posts this week. . . 

Sunday: drove up to Brisbane, visited THE DAWN TREADER SET [pictures to come soon], stayed up until 11pm, drove to Brisbane International Airport, picked up friends from India, arrived back at hotel after midnight.

Monday: drove back home from Brisbane. Very tired. . . 

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. . . our Indian friends (a pastor and his wife; the pastor is an old friend of my dad's) have had very various appointments and speaking engagements.

Today: drove two hours to a ladies' conference in another town, along with several other women from church. 

Very tired, very busy, and as you can imagine, it's been difficult to get into routine with guests staying with us, and Daddy being at home (he has two weeks off work while our friends are staying with us). It's been a tremendous blessing having our guests and my dad at home, but - it's just hard to be normal, and get back into my normal routine! I'm sure you all understand. :-/

Maybe it's a bit silly - my apologising for not blogging, every time there aren't any new posts after 4-5 days. I don't know. 

Hope you're all well, and are having a great weekend. :-)

P.S. - This is a bit random, but - I think it will be a long time before I truly understand extroverts. Maybe I will never understand them. How anyone could find it genuinely difficult to not talk, when I often have so much difficulty in talking, etc. Wish I could get rid of my stammer. :-/ Are any of you readers bona fide extroverts? Maybe you could shed some light for me on the mind of the talkative, extroverted person. :P

Edit: that postscript was a bit silly. Ignore it, if you like. :-)

Lord of the Rings soundtrack

I was getting sick of my old playlist, so I've replaced it with a new one, featuring music from the Lord of the Rings movies.

The tracks are all in chronological order, from The Fellowship of the Ring to The Return of the King.

I took out some of the more intense tracks - I wanted nice background music, not the music from an intense battle sequence. If you want to listen to the complete playlist, featuring pretty much all the LOTR tracks that I could scavenge from playlist.com, click here.

Enjoy!

Current Mood: Blah

My sisters' blogs

My 11-year-old sisters recently started blogs of their own! Both of their blogs are set to private, so if you're interested in reading their blogs, please let me know what your email address is. You can leave a comment here, or if you're not comfortable with posting your email address online, email me at: missmorland (at) y7mail (dot) com

This is probably only open to people who I "know" fairly well, so if you've never a comment on my blog and I don't know who are, you might not get invited. Sorry, I really don't mean to be rude! :-( I'm just being protective towards my sisters, not nasty towards any of you!

If you've commented before and I know who you are, please go right ahead! My sisters would love to get a few more readers and comments on their blogs. :-)

New blogs

Two of Gae's daughters - Autumn and Eden - have recently started their own blogs! Please drop by at at their blogs and leave a comment or two. :-)

By the way, if you haven't been to Gae's blog - Cherished Hearts at Home - then you really should have a look. It's delightful!

Current Mood: Relaxed

Internet problems. . .

With our current broadband plan, we get x amount of downloads per month. If we exceed x, our internet connection slows right down. I mean really slow. . . worse than dial-up. . . well, this month we went past x only 3 weeks into June (which, I might add, is almost certainly partly my fault - I've been doing too much stuff online!) - so, for the last few days, our internet has been very slow. It makes constructing blog posts a very tedious business. Oh well. Expect an onslaught of posts in early July. 

Current Mood: Tired

Alex Harris is getting married!

Alex Harris, co-founder of The Rebelution, co-author of Do Hard Things, son of Pastor Gregg Harris, 'little' brother of Josh Harris, etc. etc.  is engaged to be married! I can't believe it! Congratulations to both Alex and his fiancee, Courtney! They make such a cute couple. :-D 

If any of you follow the Rebelution blog or forums or if you know (or maybe I should say know of) Alex through Do Hard Things, be sure to leave a comment at Alex and Brett's blog.

Current Mood: Happy

I've started a new blog!

Yes, that's right - I've begun a blog dedicated to all things Narnia. Ribbons of Light has more of a period drama focus, and I didn't want to be cluttering it up with Narnia movie updates. So, I decided to begin a whole new blog. Ribbons will still be my "main" blog, but I'll use my other blog for writing about Narnia.

CLICK HERE

Current Mood: Weird

Update. . .

I've been sick! Would you believe it, the the very night after we moved back to our house after the flood scare, 5 of my siblings were all sick with a 24 hour stomach bug! I came down with it a couple of days later, on Monday. I was only actually sick on Monday night, but I've been feeling a bit tired and drained all week as I recover. Sorry I haven't been posting much, or replying to comments. It's been a pretty hectic week, as you may well imagine. Things are just starting to get back to normal around here. :-)

PS: Bethany Hudson from The Apple Cider Mill has had her baby! It's a boy, and his name is James Kingsley Hudson. Please, head over to Bethany's blog and pass on your congratulations!

Flooding forecast

Scratch yesterday's post! Could you all please pray that the levy wall will hold and we won't get inundated by floodwaters. There is a chance of major flooding being forecast now.

Update: the floodwaters didn't reach the wall! We're back home safe and sound after staying overnight at a relative's house. There are showers forecast, but no flooding rains.