Just a Few Pictures (A Blog Post Draft From 2015)

Digging into the archives again! This was an old draft that never got published. 

When I first started blogging, I didn't have a phone. So I used to take photos with a digital camera for my photos. Well, here are two of those below. I think I was planning to make a full post with "aesthetic-y" photos, like the kind you would find on Tumblr in the 2010s. And well, I only took 2 of them before life changed, I got a phone, got older, and this draft was forgotten and gone forever.... until now, that is! 

So really, for no other reason than to just "share an old draft cuz it might be interesting a little bit", here it is, unedited, exactly as written 10 years (or so) ago....

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Taking pictures is so much fun.
I don't even have an expensive camera, but I still love to take pictures.
I've been piling up on aesthetic kind of pics lately, and I don't know what to do with them, so I'll just post 'em here.
Enjoy.

Note: All of these pictures are mine, taken by my own camera and (slightly) edited using Irfanview. If you would like, feel free to use them however you want (you can even pin them) I only ask that you don't claim them to be yours. Thanks! :) 

This is a very old slide of my great grandparents, who passed away years before I was born.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Well, that's it folks. (Yes, that's literally it LOL. Not much I know! It's very obviously a little unfinished. But I just didn't feel right deleting this one... or modifying it 10 years later, when I'm a completely different person.). 

I hope you all have a wonderful day. 

p.s. Should I get a tumblr???? Instagram came into the picture and kinda tried to be/took over tumblr, but it has gotten too big for its britches (cause Meta ruins everything they get their sticky paws on), and I, like many people, have a desire to go back in time to the simpler times of the internet. When the social platforms wasn't "enshittified" as much as now. Honestly, that's a whole rabbit hole. Heck, maybe I'll just take up scrapbooking. Ok bye.

~ Amaris // ☆

Then Sings My Soul

O Lord, my God! When I in awesome wonder

Consider all the worlds thy hands have made;

I see the stars,

I hear the rolling thunder, 

Thy power throughout the universe displayed

Then sings my soul

My Savior God, to thee;

 

How great Thou art,

How great Thou art!

Then sings my soul

my Savior God to thee; 

How great Thou art,

How great Thou art!

 ~*~

When though the woods and forest glades I wander

 and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees; 

When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur,

And hear the brook,

and feel the gentle breeze;

Then sings my soul

My Savior God, to thee;

How great Thou art,

How great Thou art!

Then sings my soul

my Savior God to thee; 

How great Thou art,

How great Thou art!

~*~

When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation, 

and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart!

Then I shall bow in humble adoration, 

And there proclaim, my God, how great thou art!

Then sings my soul

My Savior God, to thee;

How great Thou art,

How great Thou art!

 

Then sings my soul

my Savior God to thee; 

How great Thou art,

How great Thou art!

 -Amaris

~*~ Happiness ~*~

Happiness is:

Popcorn strings and paper snowflakes... all over the house

~*~
  d

Kermit the Frog

~*~
  d

Cold, starry nights in January
~*~
 d

Purple eye shadow
~*~
 d

My bare feet on the cold floor
~*~
 d

The term "always forever"

~*~
o

Writing my name and the date in a crisp new book

~*~
  d

Being called "good looking enough to be a goddess" by a stranger 

~*~
  d

FINALLY finding a note in a used book

~*~
  d

Adam Young: "Brave"
~*~

Han Solo: God's gift to television
 ~*~
  d

My new Instax Mini 8 Camera! #thanksmomanddad
 ~*~
d
Homemade tacos on a cold January afternoon
~*~
d
The sound of a typewriter 'ding'. 
 ~*~
d
Marlo Thomas (a.k.a. 'That Girl')
 d~*~

My birthday. :) 
 

Photo credit: ME.

I hope your January is going lovely, my friends. 

My Observations of a Very Interesting Word

For a long time, I was confused about 'irony'.
No one seemed to be able to explain to me what it meant, and when I finally consulted a dictionary, hoping to understand 'irony' once and for all, the definition was absolutely ZERO help. I mean, look at this:

Irony: n. a situation that is strange or funny because

things happen in a way that seems to be

opposite of what you expect.

Uhm... Come again?

If you understand that, congratulations. You are a lot smarter than I was when I first read that definition. It was such a frustration for me when I realized that some words cannot best be explained in a dictionary. They just have to HAPPEN and then you sort of see what it means (eventually!).

I did eventually figure out what the word meant, just by living and seeing ironic things. Since irony can be a pretty neat tool in writing, I'm just going to do a little explaining about what it is, so hopefully you can grasp the meaning way sooner than I did. XD

I find Irony to be kind of like sarcasm, which is basically when you pretend to say something you don't mean in a cocky way. 

You get the idea. 

Irony is a lot like sarcasm, except it's usually more about things that HAPPEN, rather than what is said by people. Irony is like when LIFE says something it doesn't really mean, and people notice. 

In the movie "Escape From Alcatraz," when a prisoner is first brought to the Island, they are brought across the cold waters of the San Francisco Bay in chains, then they are forced to remove all their clothes, being humiliated in front of the other prisoners, and then they are locked behind a clanging cell door and cordially told, "Welcome to Alcatraz". 

THAT is irony. It is a way of being almost funny, when there really isn't anything funny at all. 

It's when Mrs. Lovejoy is the grumpiest person you've ever met. It's when you go to the drugstore to buy yourself heaps and heaps of candy, along with one solitary toothbrush. 

In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Liesel is taken to Himmel Street. If you've read the book, you know that "Himmel", means "Heaven". But if you know anything about Nazi Germany, you know that Himmel Street was no "Heaven Street". It's definitely 'ironic'.

Basically, the dictionary is very right in its description of irony. But I feel it takes more than just that to understand this complex term. 

You can use irony in your writing, just like Zusak did. Irony adds a certain depth and interest to stories and characters. 

In your story, maybe 'Honeysuckle Village' is actually one of the dumpiest towns around. Maybe Pamella Q. Hammerbotham is actually a very intellectual and dangerous spy. 

You choose.

You don't have to be THAT extreme, but you get what I'm sayin'.

So, that is my observation, and I'm hoping this post doesn't sound like a collage paper. XD

Hopefully I have interested you, if only in the remotest way. :)

-Phoebe

Quote {#3}

Here is the last day of the quote tag! Sorry I forgot to post this yesterday. XD

I really appreciate this quote. Sometimes I feel like people don't build each other up enough. Who knows, a person at your church, or your drama class, or your book club might look fine and dandy on the outside. After all, it's EASY to put on a face and pretend to be fine. 

But maybe on the inside, they really wish someone would care. Or take a moment to say, "How are you doing?!" 

Maybe it's a stranger at a store who just needs a smile.

We have this tremendous love on the inside of us, guys. We ought to share it. Even if we don't sit down with them and tell them all about God, we can at least show them we care, because God cares. So, as I wrap up my quotes, I'll challenge you (for some, it won't be a challenge) to say something nice for someone today. It doesn't matter who. You don't even have to SAY anything. Just smile at them. You never know how it might help them through their day. 

That is all for my quotes! Thanks for tagging me, Abbie! I'm not a huge quote person, but *holds head up high* I think I did JUST FINE. :) 

And today (the last day of the quotes!) I tag: Morgan LuAnn from The Day the Lord Has Made!!!
Thanks Abbie C. for tagging me! I had splendid fun sharing my favorite quotes. :)

My O-PIN-ions

And yes I just stressed the "PIN" in "Opinions" because I wanted to share my thoughts on a few pins and I just realized that "opinions" has the word "pin" in it.
Ahem. Yes, I'm a little bit of a dork, thank you.

~*~ 

I found this pin rather interesting. Where is this girl at, where's she headed, what is her situation? Is that a graveyard? It is early in the morning, and she looks quite distressed. Maybe her step-family hates her. Maybe her step-sisters make her do all the work. Maybe she shall meet a handsome prince in the woods. 

Just maybe. What do you think?

~*~

From 'Giphy'

~*~

Let me take a second to appreciate this gif, which is from one of my favorite I Love Lucy episodes (actually I lied. They are all my favorite). It is "Lucy Wants a Paris Gown". It is one of the episodes when the Ricardos and the Mertzes are in Europe. Needless to say, Lucy and Ethel decide they want designer dresses from Paris, so Fred and Ricky stick fancy labels on potato sacks and feed bags and tell the girls they're designer gowns. 

So in the gif, Lucy is flouncing proudly around wearing her 'designer Paris gown' in public, while Ricky is relishing this moment of his deception. I LOVE her earrings, btw.

~*~

 

 ~*~

This adorable picture from 'The Sound of Music'. I never really enjoyed that movie too much, to be honest. Which is surprising, as I'm supposed to be the huge WWII fanatic and all that. I don't know. Maybe I just don't absolutely LOVE Julie Andrews. 

But this picture! His smile is so nice, and her dress was my dream outfit as a child. Look at those walls too! Is he rich or is he RICH?

Still, it's been awhile since I've seen the movie, so maybe I ought to watch it again now that I'm a little older before I go around saying I dislike it. Ah well. :P 

~*~

From 'Buzzfeed'.

~*~

So let me tell you something funny: When I first saw this pin on my feed, I thought that it was one of those old-fashioned dance card thingies, like they have in the Anne of Green Gables movie. So I thought, what kind of question is that for a dance card? Who wrote that anyways? Is he/she trying to propose in a really weird way or something? "Here's a dance card for you. DARLING. Now before you even ACCEPT my proposal, just lemme ask you this question." 

And then I saw my error and realized it was an idea for a wedding. :P  There's me for you. I know I've got a funny little brain.

~*~

From Photobucket

~*~

THIS GIF. AHAHHAH. I find this immensely hilarious. I don't even watch Doctor Who. Sure, I know it's British and timey-wimey, and all that jazz, but it's just not my thing, you know? But I still manage to know all about it because some of my siblings watch it. 

Just look at the way the Doctor's ears stick up over the hat. XD And River's hair... it's so curly and gorgeous. She always reminds me a little of Sharona from Monk in appearance. And Rory is just standing there being cute.

I feel like no one even knew what a fez was until this show came along. *puts on fez because fezzes are cool*

 ~*~

From El Ojo Lector

~*~ 

This painting intrigues me. It makes me think of the Scarlet Pimpernel (which I NEED to read again... *bangs head on table because I have little time to read these days... much less things I've ALREADY read*). I always like paintings if they speak to me somehow, or if I like something about them. For example: I really like the tulle-looking-stuff on her hat. And her little cat. Or is that a dog? *shrugs* She's obviously out for a pleasure walk. 

And the man there, gazing at her. Or is he just glancing? What do you say? Is he gazing or glancing? Perhaps he is in love with her, but afraid to say so to her face. Or perhaps she has rejected him, and is now ignoring him, which pains him mightily. Or perhaps they are just passing by each other and he tipped his hat and is now about to return into his home.

Say, what's the name of this painting, anyways? I don't know. :P

~*~

~*~

I must say I appreciated this pin when I saw it because now I will never have to wonder why ghosts pass through walls. Isn't that the most handy piece of information? Seriously, I could use this for a story or something. Even though I don't write ghost stories. : / But still.

~*~

~*~

This gif.

From The Lord of the Rings.

Which is amazing.

Because that guard person looks completely amused.

And Viggo is looking very serious.

And Peter Jackson is wearing a pink boa. A PINK BOA.

And these people obviously had WAY TOO MUCH FUN on the set during the making of these movies. 

Yep, I'm a fan. Such a fan.

~*~

From FanPop

~*~
Melting into a puddle of sparkling happiness because I found this pic of Mr. Firth being made into Mr. Darcy, and he's even got his serious face on. 
 ~*~

Ok, one last pin. For the Queen of England's birthday, which was a few weeks ago.

From Quickmeme

You're welcome, Queen. Now pardon me while I go have tea and crumpets.
~*~

So yeah. Now my secret's out and you all know what I like to do in my spare time when I'm not reading books or working on my novel or doing crafts.
 It's called PINTEREST, and WE GOT IT.

Have a nice day. 

-Phoebe