The Friday Post Day; An Assortment of Things Interesting and Uninteresting

So, my Dad sent along this ridiculous Turkish rock music video the other day.  Alex can't stop listening to it (apparently he listened to it six times at work yesterday, and twice while we were playing Yahtzee after dinner).  He claims that "when you listen to it with headphones you get a great bass line." I'll just take his word for it.  

Looks like we've found a winner for the next Burch Family talent show.

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I've finished Persuasion, and have moved on to The Awakening by Kate Chopin.  

I'm only a few chapters in, leaving me incapable of commenting on the story itself,  but thus far her writing is quite lovely (and vaguely reminiscent of, though not as perfect as, Woolf's).  Plus, the story takes place in New Orleans and the Southern Coast of Louisiana, a setting alluring in and of itself.  The novel exudes the Old South Romanticism still present in New Orleans, and fills me with the strongest desire to revisit that lovely city.  We'll see where the rest of the book takes me, but so far I'm enjoying it immensely.

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I made this ear-warmer/headband yesterday.   Now I won't have to have both my ears amputated due to freezing before the winter is out.

I don't know why I didn't make this ear-lier...haha...get it?

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Look at these awesome Mondrian inspired bathing suits!

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Can I just say how much I'm obsessed with Evangeline?  She must be doing something crazy in there because as I type I can see my stomach moving all around as she moves.  Golly, she's just the cutest, and that's an understatement.    

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Finally, I took the Which Joss Whedon Heroine Are You quiz on Buzzfeed, and am definitely not mad at the result (even though I know I'm not as cool as she is): 

You got: Buffy Summers

Wikia / Via buffy.wikia.com

Way to go, Chosen One. You’re witty, know how to stay cool under pressure, and you have an endless store of one-line zingers. You never run from a fight. Beneath that sassy exterior, you’re very sensitive, and wise beyond your years. You value your friends above everything else, and you make sure they know it.

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Advent Mutterings

As Christmas swiftly approaches (more quickly this year than the last...) it is difficult to pause and relish the wonder of the Advent season before the Christmas season arrives.  I find myself so wrapped up in Christmas shopping, craft making, and decorating that I rarely allow myself to have a truly fruitful Advent.  (Not that all this preparation is bad; not at all.  It is a good thing, and necessary!)  But I must continually remind myself in the midst of the sparkling material preparation that spiritual preparation takes precedent.  

  Advent is a time for meditating upon the beautiful mystery of the Incarnation, the mystery of God becoming man to save us:  

"Therefore because the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner hath been partaker of the same: that, through death, He might destroy him who had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil: And might deliver them, who through the fear of death were all their lifetime subject to servitude." (Hebrews 2:14-15) 

In Pope John Paul II's first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, the pope writes on Christ's role as our Redeemer and the importance of the human person in the world.  I find this paragraph to be particularly wonderful food for thought in preparation for the Christmas Season: 

"Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it. This, as has already been said, is why Christ the Redeemer "fully reveals man to himself". If we may use the expression, this is the human dimension of the mystery of the Redemption. In this dimension man finds again the greatness, dignity and value that belong to his humanity. In the mystery of the Redemption man becomes newly "expressed" and, in a way, is newly created. He is newly created! "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus". The man who wishes to understand himself thoroughly-and not just in accordance with immediate, partial, often superficial, and even illusory standards and measures of his being-he must with his unrest, uncertainty and even his weakness and sinfulness, with his life and death, draw near to Christ. He must, so to speak, enter into him with all his own self, he must "appropriate" and assimilate the whole of the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption in order to find himself. If this profound process takes place within him, he then bears fruit not only of adoration of God but also of deep wonder at himself. How precious must man be in the eyes of the Creator, if he "gained so great a Redeemer", and if God "gave his only Son "in order that man "should not perish but have eternal life"."

Another reason to make the most of Advent: beautiful, glorious Advent carols!  Below is one of my favourites. 

Mes Aïeux - Notre-Dame-du-Bon-Conseil