I’ve Moved!

Hope Is the Word has moved!  Please visit me at my new home on the web, and please update your links!  🙂

Image: djcodrin / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Blog Break, Easter Wishes, and My New Address!

I am going on a bloggy semi-break until after Easter.  I need this time to rest and prepare for an extremely busy Easter season, and the best way for me to do that is to pull back a little from the computer.  However, I still have some reviews for TOS HomeschoolCrew to complete, and Read Aloud Thursday will also still go on for these two weeks.  This is a sticky post, so please scroll down below this post to see what’s new at Hope Is the Word.

I pray that you all have a blessed Easter and that we will all focus on the real hope that we have in Jesus!

On April 5, I plan to go live at my new blog.  Please update your favorites and other links before then!  🙂  I look forward to “seeing” you all over there!

Colorful

I just wanted to post a quick follow-up to my St. Patrick’s Day post in which I declared that we would be making this cake or these cupcakes today.    I opted for the cake after I read lots of comments following the cupcake recipe with phrases like “this took a lot of time” or “time consuming,” etc.  Ours was something of an ill-fated project from the beginning:  I spilled a little bit of the batter after I added the water to the cake mix, so I guessed at how much water to put back in.  Then, I realized that we only possessed two eggs, not three, as the recipe demanded.  Last, Louise managed to drop an entire bottle (the bottle too, not just the contents) into the bowl of batter she was tinting.

All things considered, I think it turned out pretty well.  The girls agree. 

Happy Spring!

In the Spotlight

Regular readers here at Hope Is the Word know I love a good interview. Now I feel all official–Carrie has interviewed ME. You can read the interview at her picture book blog, Reading My Library. Check it out!

Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Bloggy Housekeeping, Linky Love, and an Important PSA

In lieu of posting my usual Week in Words post this week, I’m posting something that is long overdue. 

First, almost two months ago now (gulp!), Carrie awarded me with the Honest Scrap award, and I’m just now getting around to publicly thanking her. 

Thanks, Carrie!  🙂

Of course, with most awards, there’s also an assignment.  I’m supposed to share ten honest things about myself and then pass on the award to other bloggers.  First, the ten honest things:

1. As a teenager and even a young adult, I never thought I’d get married.  I guess I saw myself as the stereotypical old maid schoolteacher or librarian.  😉  God and Steady Eddie had other plans, though, and I’m so very glad!
2. Even though I was an elementary librarian, I’ve never read a single Harry Potter book.  I’ve tried, but the one I picked up just didn’t appeal to me.
3. Even though I taught English (and still do, on occasion), I do not have flawless grammar.  In fact, there are some usage rules I have to think really hard about, and I tend to over-correct.
4. I like eating salad, but I detest preparing vegetables.  Washing and breaking up lettuce is the worst.  However, I don’t care for bagged salad mixes, either, so we rarely eat salad here at the House of Hope.
5. I like the idea of having pets in theory, but at this point in my life, I balk at the thought of having one more living, breathing creature dependent upon me for care.
6. I haven’t cleaned my entire house, from top to bottom, since . . . well, I can’t remember when.
7. I am not a naturally organized person, and this drives me to distraction.
8. I don’t sleep well if the top (flat) sheet isn’t tucked under the mattress at the foot of the bed.
9. I use parenthetical statements too much in my writing.
10. I have a latent desire to write for publication, but I’m pretty sure that my skills (and creativity) are nowhere near the level they should be.  Plus, I’m tired.  🙂

Let’s see, I’m supposed to award ten bloggers with this same award.  Carrie and I travel in some of the same circles, so I’ll try not to duplicate her list.  Here is a smattering of some of the blogs I read regularly.  Since I don’t have an official blogroll on my blog, you might consider this an mini-blogroll.  This is a hodge-podge of bookish blogs, mothering/homemaking/crafting/etc.  blogs, and homeschooling blogs. 

1. Across the Page
2. A Spirited Mind
3. His Mercy Is New
4. WandaStricklinRobertson
5. Sprittibee
6. Semicolon
7. Blog, She Wrote
8. Mt. Hope Chronicles
9. Jimmie’s Collage
10. Small World Reads and Small World at Home

If you find your blog on this list, consider your self awarded with the Honest Scrap Award!  🙂

Second, An Almost Unschooling Mom awarded me with the Read Across America Award.  Thanks, Mom!  🙂

After thanking the giver, I am commissioned with the task of passing along the award to three other bloggers who read to their children.  Oh, the possibilities!  Several (most!) of the bloggers I awarded above do this, but rather than give them another “assignment,” I’ll stretch in another direction.  I am awarding the Read Across America Award to

1. Reading My Library  
2. Brimful Curiosities
3. Silly Eagle Books

Again, I could go on and on and on listing blogs for this one.  A good place to start if you’re interested in more blogs about children’s books is with those participants of Read Aloud Thursday!  (How’s that for a shameless plug?)

The last part of the assignment for this particular award is to list three things your children like to read about.  My girls have very eclectic tastes, but they do love certain characters.  I would say that right now their top three picks are

1. Amelia Bedelia
2. Arthur
3. Miss Frizzle of the Magic School Bus

Really, what don’t they like?

Last, I have a Very Important Announcement:

Ahem.  It’s that time of year again, folks.  Things get C-R-A-Z-Y around these parts just before Easter, primarily due to several church commitments that we have that happen all at just about the same time.  I am officially putting my pregnant-and-perpetually-tired-self on bloggy break as of this Friday.  Until then, posts should go on as usual this week.  After Friday, Read Aloud Thursday and a few HomeschoolCrew reviews will go on, but other than that, things will be quiet here at Hope Is the Word. 

And then, when I come back, it will hopefully be in a new location!  That’s right–I’m moving!  🙂  I hope you all will follow me to my new, self-hosted blog.  I hope to have things up and runnning over there on April 5! 

If you’ve made it this far in this lengthy post, congratulations and thank you!  You guys really make my day!  🙂

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

*Warning:  This post likely contains spoilers!  Beware if you’ve never read this book!*

I did it!  I finally finished A Tale of Two Cities!  This book has been on my “need to read” list since I was in high school.  Somehow I missed the class in which it was required reading, so I never read it.  I’m making up for lost time.  I have two regrets about this book: 

1. that I didn’t read it sooner.
2. that I didn’t read it faster. 

First, I took a whole semester of French Revolution/Napoleonic period history in college, and much of this novel would’ve made even more sense to me then.  Of course, I had other books to read then, so I never even thought about it.  Second, if I had only managed to read this one in a week instead of several weeks, I wouldn’t have forgotten the identity of some of the minor (but major in their contributions to the plot) characters.  Such is life.  I feel like I slogged through the first two-thirds of the book, and then, when most of the major characters are once again in Paris, I picked up speed.  It got good then. 

Ah, Sydney Carton.  Sydney Carton.  Sydney Carton.  He surprised me.  Way back when I posted these quotes from the novel, I had nothing more than a mere inkling of an idea of how it would all work out.  I have to say that this novel has one of the most satisfying (‘though heart-wrenching) conclusions I’ve read.  What better theme than redemption?  This exchange got me:

‘Are you dying for them?  she whispered.

‘And his wife and child.  Hush!  Yes.’

‘Oh, you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?’

‘Hush!  Yes, my poor sister; to the last.’

I’ve never written much about the name of my blog before, but Victor Hugo wrote somewhere in Les Miserables (another classic I’ve yet to complete) that “hope is the word God has written on the brow of every man.”  I love the idea that as long as we have hope (and we do), we have no reason to despair.  I like to see the theme of hope played out in literature, and if Sydney Carton is not a seemingly hopeless character who ultimately provides the greatest gift to his friends, I don’t know who is. 

Strangely, I thought of To Kill a Mockingbird while I was reading of Sydney Carton’s sacrifice, and it wasn’t Atticus Finch or Tom Robinson who came to mind.  It was Ms. Dubose.  I always loved that little vignette–how Atticus makes Jem go and read to her, a very crochety old lady.  Later, Jem finds out the reason for his father’s insistence that he help her.  In my opinion, she is a noble character because of her steely determination to die a free woman, even in the midst of her pain.  (I don’t want to provide too many details–I don’t want to turn this into a post which provides spoilers for two books.  If you haven’t read To Kill a Mockingbird, please do yourself a favor and read it.  Thank you.)  Sydney Carton’s decision to finally do this one thing right reminds me of her.

Of course, there’s the other part of A Tale of Two Cities that I love so much:  the humor.  Jerry Cruncher and Miss Pross provide just the comic relief needed in a heartbreaking story.  I’ve quoted the novel extensively in my Week in Words posts, and most of the quotes pertain to these two characters.  For a sampling of Dickens’ humor, you can read these posts here and here and here.   

I love this book, and I’m really glad I finally read it.  Now I want to watch a screen version.  Does anyone have any recommendations?  Any to avoid?

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

I picked up The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin because of a mistake in shelving at the library, believe it or not.  I frequent a couple of libraries, and I always spend far more time in the children’s departments of each library than I do in the adult sections.  One of my libraries has the new juvenile and young adult books displayed face forward on a display close to the circulation desk; this is where I spied The Happiness Project, with its mis-labeled spine.  Its brightly colored cover caught my eye, and I was intrigued by the subtitle:  Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun.  I took it home–after all, I needed a mental diversion from the hard work of reading A Tale of Two Cities.  😉  (Does anyone else do this?)  The Happiness Project turned out to be the perfect book for just such a task.

After beginning this book, I learned that it is a project memoir–a book in which the author has undertaken a project and written about his or her experience in accomplishing the project.  This is the first such book I’ve read, but I have to say I like the genre.  I’m a project-oriented person, although often my projects never get off the ground.  Gretchen Rubin, a lawyer-turned-writer, spent a year of her life trying (and succeeding at) improving her overall sense of happiness and contentment.  This was no haphazard experiment, though.  She had very specific goals for each month of the year, and each goal was carefully annotated on her Resolutions Chart.  She based her goals on her extensive reading about happiness.  Her research led her to such disparate authors as Gandhi and Benjamin Franklin, Joan Didion and Victor Frankl.  This is not a dry and dusty tome of research and statistics, though.  Instead, it’s one woman’s attempt to apply sometimes esoteric ideas to her own real life.  It’s mostly about a grand experiment in behavior modifiction, but this one worked.  

Much of this book caused me to contemplate my own life and how just little changes in my own attitude could make a difference in how I “feel.”  It also caused me to step back and look at my blogging, and finally, to declare it an okay thing for me to spend my time on.  I can credit Gretchen for that–one of her monthly resolutions was to “aim higher” in regards to her work, and she started her blog as a part of that.  I feel guilty for the amount of time I spend on my blog (and reading, and thinking about my blog, etc.–admittedly, I do spend too much!), but reading about Gretchen’s experience helped me to realize that although I don’t get paid for blogging (well, unless the tiny little bit that one day I might receieve through my Amazon Associates links counts), I do consider it my work.  I was a reader, and finally, a librarian, before I became a SAH-homeschooling mom, and I enjoy sharing books and ideas.  There’s nothing wrong with that at all.   It makes me happy.  (As a side note, do check out Gretchen’s blog, The Happiness Project.  It contains all sorts of happiness.  And don’t miss this post, especially if you love children’s literature as much as I do.)

I found Gretchen’s voice in the book to be pleasant and friendly–note that I call her “Gretchen” and not “Ms. Rubin.”  I feel like I got to know her through reading this book.  In fact, I felt like she and I might even be friends, if we were to ever meet.  After all, we have something in common.  This is not a Christian inspirational book, however, if you’re looking for a book on happiness from the Christian perspective.  Although Gretchen Rubin is not a Christian (she calls herself a “reverent agnostic”), she did spend a month imitating the life of St. Therese of Lisieux in an attempt to “contemplate the heavens.”  What Gretchen does is choose the approaches to happiness that work for her life (giving proper credit, of course, to those who seemed to have something genuine to say about it) and reject the rest.  I did not find my faith offended by her approach, though.  I just found her approach to be immensely practical.

I liked this book a lot.  I was both entertained and instructed by it, and that’s a rare combination.

Now I just have to decide if I should tell the nice library ladies that the book is mis-labeled.  I think it’s because I actually worked as a librarian (and have the education to go along with it) that I am sometimes hesitant to reveal that information to the folks on the other side of the desks.  I don’t want them to think I’m trying to do their jobs, etc.  I like for them to like me!  🙂  (That’s important if you’re a frequent library user!)  What do you think?  Should I say something or just keep my mouth shut?

Prince Edward Island Reminiscences

I’ve been meaning to write up this post since last year’s L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge at Reading to Know, but one thing and another happened, and I haven’t done it.  Part of my holdup has been that all of the pictures I took on the trip are enshrined in a scrapbook (one with green covers, of course), and because I have no scanning skills, I knew I would have to be content to simply photograph my photographs. This year, though, I determined that I was not going to let the challenge end without my sharing at least part of our story here at Hope Is the Word, bad pictures notwithstanding.  😉

I say “our story” because as you’ll soon find out, this story would not be possible at all without my precious husband, known here in blogland as Steady Eddie.  We met one fateful day in the library where I worked–he came in to check out some books (imagine the mileage a “check out” joke can get, folks, and you’ll know how much we’ve heard it in the past 13 years!) and it was love at first sight.  Okay, I don’t really believe in “love at first sight,” but it was definitely “something’s up here, and I think it might be a God thing” at first sight.  😉  (To tell you a little bit about how Steady Eddie was affected by our meeting, which consisted of zero to few words,  he went home and read what I recall being THREE average-sized novels so he could bring them back the next day.  It never occurred to him to bring them back unread.  What a guy!)  We dated for about fifteen months before he proposed, and after leaving him hanging for a few days, I succombed to what I knew by then WAS a God thing and said yes.  Since at the time I was teaching school and he was in graduate school to become a teacher, we decided to get married the following summer. 

As we began to plan our honeymoon, it really did seem that the possibilities were endless–two young, financially unencumbered (relatively speaking) newlyweds–what destination was our heart’s desire?  Of course, since I was about fourteen years old I had been enamored of all things PEI, so it was one of my first choices.  Steady Eddie, being the loving, agreeable fellow that he is, readily said yes. (!!!)  I remember sitting in our local Pizza Hut with an atlas of the United States spread out between us, plotting our course.  We decided on a two week honeymoon in which we would take in some of the sights between Alabama and PEI, Canada, spend about a week on PEI, and then take another route back home.  What a plan!

We had leisurely week-long trip north/northeast, stopping for a few days in one of my favorite places on earth, Washington, D.C.  We even spent an afternoon in Philadelphia.  We got lost in New York City in an attempt to get close enough to the Statue of Liberty to take a good picture.  (We spent that night in Vermont, folks–as far away from NYC as we could get without having to drive into the wee hours.)  We saw some beautiful, picturesque places in Maine that I would love to return to some day. 

But finally we were on PEI.  Can I tell you how thrilling it was to finally be on “the island”?  Our first stop was at the Cavendish visitor’s center, and of course, I had to have my picture made here–this is Avonlea, folks!

After this, one of our first stops, even before we saw our lodging, was at Cavendish beach.  I couldn’t wait to see the famous red cliffs! To my remembrance, this was a Sunday (?), and the beach was rather deserted, although we obviously found a nice passerby to take our picture. 

From here it was on to our lodging, a beautiful inn called Kindred Spirits.  I’m not taking the space to post any of the pictures I took of this beautiful facility, but please, do visit the website and look around.  It is truly a gorgeous place to spend a vacation.  The website even features our very room for the week here and here and here.  One of the best parts of all about this inn is that it is situated right next door to Green Gables!

(As a side note, I almost never crop pictures in silhouettes anymore.  😉  However, for some reason, I still like the effect for this one.  Maybe it’s the quote.)

We stayed at Kindred Spirits for about a week and took in all the Anne-related sights we possibly could.  Some snippets I remember from the trip:

• thinking this would be a wonderful place for a family vacation since the beaches, even in June, were not very crowded and it wasn’t too hot.
• the huge amount of Japanese tourists who love Anne. One of the funniest things that happened to use happened at Bright River Restaurant in Cavendish.  A table full of Japanese women had a very difficult time communicating with the waiter.  He couldn’t get the concept of mashed potatoes across to them, and Steady Eddie and I really got a kick out of these refined Japanese tourists ordering “two beer” to share among the lot of them.  🙂
• as in most tourist traps, everything thereabouts is named after something from the Anne books.  I didn’t mind this time, though.
• PEI has an amusement park which then boasted a very rickety roller coaster which I rode, even though in general I detest being frightened in the least.  It was either the influence of the honeymoon or the location, or both.  😉
• life seemed to travel at a much slower pace in general on PEI.

We visited L.M. Montgomery’s gravesite

Silver Bush

At Silver Bush (the home which inspired Pat of Silver Bush and Mistress Pat, I might add), we also saw the inspiration for the “Lake of Shining Waters”

and the cabinet in which Anne found her first friend, Katie Maurice.  (Remember that?)

On our way to Charlottetown to see Anne of Green Gables:  The Musical (fun, but not much like the book, as I remember), we drove across Prince Edward Island National Park and stopped to visit Dalvay-by-the-Sea.  This beautiful resort appeared as the White Sands Hotel in the Anne movies and Road to Avonlea.

Of coure, before we left PEI, we had to make a trek over to L.M. Montgomery’s birthplace. 

I absolutely loved being able to visit all of the sites related to L.M. Montgomery and Anne. 

We left PEI on Canada Day, but the night before our innkeepers planned a surprise for their guests:  Anne and Diana came for a visit!  This was so much fun, and the girls did a great job of portraying the characters.

I couldn’t have planned a better honeymoon if I had planed it by myself.  😉  Looking back after over ten years, a couple of job changes, two children (and one on the way), and the usual trials and tribulations of life, I can truly say that it was a dream come true and I owe it mostly, if not entirely, to this guy:

Thanks, Steady Eddie!  I love you!

Carrie’s L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge ends on Sunday, January 31, so there’s still time to share your memories of Anne or PEI.  I’ve really enjoyed this jaunt down memory lane, and I hope the length of this post and the number of photographs weren’t too much for you (or your computers!).

Friday Felicities

I’m getting a late start on this Friday morning.  Our schedule is sort of up in the air today due to a wintry mix (rain/sleet/snow?–what we usually get) that might hit our area later this afternoon.  Our homeschool group meeting was cancelled today, so here I sit, with an unplanned Friday ahead of me.  I’m thinking we might do some “catch-up” school and a fair amount of reading.  I also have a lot of cooking and baking to do today for some church events this weekend, so let’s get started on some happies for the last week of January:

• My girls have played extremely well together this week for at least part of the time.  😉  (I’ll take what I can get!)  One day I even postponed starting school until almost lunchtime because they were having such a good time and playing cooperatively.  Lulu’s in kindergarten, right?  It should be about play!
• I finished The Hunger Games on Thursday and was blown away.  Wow!
• We grocery shopped last night (thank you, Lord, for a husband who’s willing to help with almost any chore!), so we have full cupboards, pantry, and refrigerator once again.  Such abundance!
• Our homeschool group “faculty” met last night, too, to hammer out the rest of the year.  I’m blessed to a part of such a Godly group of ladies who genuinely care about educating our children.
• I’ve been reliving mine and Steady Eddie’s honeymoon trip which occurred 10 1/2 years ago now through a final post I’m preparing for the L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge (which ends this weekend!).  Stay tuned!
• I’ve hit upon a few solutions for our school day that seem to be working (at the moment 😉 ).  One is having Louise illustrate books while Lulu and I work.  Louise can usually entertain herself very well, but during school time she really jockeys for attention.  She loves to draw and write, though, so I staple together several blank pieces of paper and let her create.  Later, she narrates her story to me, and I write it in her book.  She’s written three or four books this week!
• The other solution has to do with Lulu and encouraging her growing ability and interest in reading.  Up until this week, I’ve kept most of our phonics readers put away so that I can get them.  This week, I pulled them out and put them in a basket in our reading corner where she and Louise can get them.  It’s working!  She has voluntarily read more (and more challenging) books than she has up until this point!

For more Friday Felicities, visit Joyful Mother!

My Birthday Cake Repertoire

This is a totally off-the-cuff, unusual post from me since it has nothing to do with books or schooling.  However, believe it or not, I do have other interests, even aside from scrapbooking and papercrafting. 

I cook.  I bake.

I even enjoy it.

My girls have celebrated a combined total of nine birthdays (!!!), and I have made cakes for seven of those.  I do not claim to be an expert–far from it, in fact.  However, when I read about the Birthday Cake Roundup at Life as Mom (hat-tip to A Spirited Mind for the tip-off), I immediately begin plotting this post.  You see, I always mean to share my creations here, but I never get around to it at the time.  So here goes–a belated look at my birthday creations from years past.  Enjoy!  🙂

We’ll begin with the most recent.  When Louise turned four last fall, I decided she would have a ladybug cake.  With Louise, the power of suggestion is very powerful, so I was able to finagle it.  (This wouldn’t work with first-born Lulu, I’m almost certain.)  I went searching for inspiration on the ‘net and found these cupcakes to copy.  Cute, huh?  (Please note that when I planned to make these, I had no idea I’d be suffering the pangs of first trimester pregnancy nausea.  Let the record show that I soldiered on. 🙂 ) Here’s my rendition of the cute little insects:

The year before, I turned to Family Fun for my inspiration.  As you’ll see momentarily, I used to be big on purchasing shaped pans and decorating them (mostly per the boxed instructions), but I’ve all but given that up.  Covering a whole cake with frosting piped from a bag with a star tip is just too tedious for me.  I like the Family Fun take on cakes–they can almost always be made with pans you already have!  This cake was a big hit with everyone, and I was surprised at how easy it as to mold and cut the candy into the shapes I needed.

For Louise’s second birthday cake, I actually solicited her opinion.  And I even wrote about it here and here.  I think this might be my favorite cake out of all I’ve made.

For Louise’s first birthday, I wanted to make a cake shaped like the number one (and gorgeously decorated, of course 😉 ), but I couldn’t find a pan.  Now I don’t think that would deter me, but at the time (with a two year old and a one year old under foot), it did.  I did find a perfect substitute, though–a Winnie-the-Pooh shaped pan just for a first birthday!  It helped that Louise’s nursery was decorated in Classic Pooh.  The fact that I love Winnie the Pooh is no secret here at Hope Is the Word. 

This brings us back to 2006, so let’s just go back one more year to Lulu’s first birthday.  This was my first effort at a homemade, home-decorated birthday cake, and I wanted it to be special.  I picked out a butterfly shaped pan and went to work.  I believe I got the whole idea out of the Wilton yearbook, but I can’t be sure this many years (and children) later.  😉  I was proud of it, especially considering the fact that I was about twelve weeks pregnant when I made it (and sick as a dog, as Gomer would say). 

Lulu’s second birthday cake sent me searching for an easier alternative.  (Those first few years of having two children eighteen months apart were rough.  😉 )  Lulu did request a cake with flowers on it, so I tried to oblige.  I found this one at Family Fun, too, and I thought it was sweet for Lulu’s spring time birthday.  It’s a little messy and busy, but so are two year olds, right?  🙂

Lulu’s third birthday cake was supposed to be this fabulous princess castle, but alas, it was not to be.  I actually made and began decorating the cake, but I knew once I got the monstrosity stacked that it would fall.  I made an effort at making it presentable and then placed it atop our washing machine to take a break.  I was in the other room when I heard the crash.  We ended up at Wal-Mart bakery the day before Lulu’s party, and since her birthday almost coincides with several springtime holidays and regional events, the bakery was almost bare.  She ended up with a tie-dyed cake, and I don’t think she minded a bit.  (Let me just say it made me reconsider all the time and effort I put into cakes.)

I did make Lulu’s fourth birthday cake, a tiara.  However, since her name is emblazoned in huge letters across it, I figured I’d spare you the trouble of laughing at my attempts to cover it up (internet anonymity and security, don’t you know) with those goofy little stickers I’ve been using. 

For her fifth birthday, we trekked to Sam’s and she picked out a lovely Disney Princess cake.  Done.

What’s the future of my cake decorating career?  Only time will tell.  I enjoy the planning and the prospect of decorating the cakes, but when crunch time comes, I find it fairly stressful.  I’m not saying I’m giving it up altogether, though.  After all, I’ve set a precedent.  With a third child coming along, I can’t let him feel left out, right?  Right?

The Birthday Cake Round-up actually goes live tomorrow, but I wanted to post this today so as not to upstage Read Aloud Thursday.  It’s my favorite bloggy event in the world, you know, and we book bloggers have our limits.  😉