"Come with me and you'll be in a world of pure imagination!"

If you are a regular - or irregular - reader of this blog then you may have noticed that the look has changed somewhat. I changed it a few days ago actually, but since I had already posted that day I decided to wait to say anything.

If you did notice, I applaud you.

If you did not... then maybe you are a first timer here! In which case, WELCOME!!! Was that too loud? ...Welcome... Not loud enough? Well you are a picky person... Welcome! Better? Thank you.

Also this is the 51st post on this blog! *whoot whoot* The new look is kinda in celebration of that.

To make up for not having anything else to say... here's a picture of a cat... and a snowy tree lined path... and Toothless... and a night sky!

Title is a line from the opening song "Pure Imagination" from Willy Wonka jr.

Goodbye to Bonavista

"So goodbye to Bonavista, your mountains and your shores, goodbye to sad relations that I'll never see no more, for i'm bound to seek my fortune and sail the whole world wide, and if ever we shall meet again it'll be on the other side, on the other side.."

That is the chorus of a delightful ballad called Goodbye to Bonavista.

I love ballads. And sea shanties too. The love of adventure is laced into the words. And the music makes me want to dance. And it makes me long for adventure, to hop onto a ship and sail the world to seek my fortune, to find new lands; or to saddle my horse and ride the praries; or to fight a fight worth fighting. With these songs I can "Rise And Follow Charile" or find "St Brendan's Fair Isle" or march beside "The Minstrel Boy" or give "A Hundred Thousand Welcomes" for the visitors of Nova Scotia, or see "The Sultana" sail again.

I feel peaceful when listening to them. And yet I also want to jump up and shout and holler for adventure, say farewell to my loved ones to go off into the great unknown.

Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving y'all!

Today is a day of giving thanks for all the good things we have recieved. I know you probably don't want to read a list of things I'm thankful for, and really, it's far too long a list to put anywhere; so I'm just going to metion a few things.

I'm thankful for:
All of my amazing friends! I can't say enough how grateful I am for them.
The Theatre that I love - it gave me hope and a new life.
All the midnight conversations I've had with people I love.
Being away from the one that hurt my family.

Now on to the fun part of this post!

On this Thanksgiving I decided to do something completely silly and imagine my character's as little kids putting on a Thanksgiving pageant.
Here is the result of that:


Cast of characters: John, Naya, Anthony, Sue, Gigi, O'Brian (Agents and Assassins), Dallas, Nora, Lucas (The Animalia Project), Cinderella, Rapunzel, Ariel, Snow White, Belle, Aurora, Flint, and Valor (Alternatives).

THANKSGIVING PAGEANT

The kids, six boys and eleven girls, were gathered in a backyard and were attempting to practice a Thanksgiving play that Nora had written.

Nora tried to bring some order to the group, but the challenge of directing sixteen other kids in a play was a nightmare.

"Alright everyone listen up!" Nora shouted, "I'm only gonna remind you one more time!" She held up a clipboard with a scrawled list of who was supposed to play who.

"John, you are William Bradford. Naya you are Captain Miles Standish."

"Why does she get to play him?" Flint complained

Naya explained "Becuase I'm the best for the part obviously,"

Nora continued with the list, "Anthony, you are John Carver. Ariel you play his wife, ."

"Why her?" Flint asked

"Because they both have red hair," Nora replied, "Oh, and Rapunzel, you are Rose Standish. O'Brian is Chief Massasoit, and Flint is Squanto."

"Yes!" Flint shouted jumping up and down.

Naya rolled her eyes, "Dude, you already knew what part you got, we've been practicing all day."

Nora ignored the interruptions, "Belle is Dorothy Bradford. Gigi, Dallas, Lucas and Aurora are Indians. Snow White, Valor, Cinderella, and Sue are Pilgrims. Now! Places everyone, let's practice one more time."

The 'pilgrims' got on stage and climbed into a very large cardboard box that was meant to resemble the Mayflower.

John had the first line but had to be nudged several times by Naya before he remembered it, "Here we go, to a new land."

"Yes." Naya said in a deep voice, "We have left England behind us so that we can build a town in America."

Nora was blissfully unaware of the errors in her script.

Belle gave her line next, "I'm sure our lives will be wonderful there."

Anthony said hesitantly, watching Nora to see if he was doing it right, "Let's pray for a safe journey?"

Everyone on the 'boat' bowed their heads for about two seconds - except Naya who thought that her character wouldn't pray.

Then they moved the 'ship' around the 'stage' and Rapunzel called out, "We're here!"

They climbed out of the box and looked around. Flint jumped out at them and yelled "boo!"

Nora called, "Flint! No scaring!"

"Fine..." Flint grumbled. He approched the pilgrims and said, "Hello! I can speak english! I will help you!"

"I don't trust you." Naya/Captain Standish said.

"But I can bring you fish!" Flint/Squanto said whipping one out of his pocket.

Nora nodded to the 'pilgrims' and they all called out. "We feel sick!" they fell to the ground and shivered. While the 'Indians' made the sound of a harsh winter.

Ariel/Kathrine Carver said, "This winter is so cold!"

Then the howling stopped and the 'pilgrims' - except Valor - stood up.

"Snow White!" Nora yelled "You're supposed to be dead, like Valor."

"Oh," Snow White said, quickly dropping back to the ground.

Anthony clutched his heart, "Ugh! I'm dying!" he fell down.

"Oh no!" Ariel/Kathrine cried then died too.

Then the 'Indians' came on with pretend food. "Here you go!" Flint/Squanto said. The 'Indians' left again. The 'pilgrims' mimed working hard, then John announced, "Our food is growing so well, let's celebrate Thanksgiving Day!"

"Yay," they all cheered.

The 'Indians' came back and O'Brian/Massasoit was introduced.

Then after pretenting to eat a lot, everyone stood up, came forward and took a bow.

"Good job everyone! Let's do it one more time!" Nora said.

The cast groaned and all of them pretended to die.


THE END

...Waiting... Dreams... Ambition...

Here I sit, at my favorite coffee place, staring at my screen until I see double... with nothing to say... seriously, I have nothing to say, but I want to shower the world in words of wisdom and wit. So here I am... waiting for some bolt of inspiration.

Waiting...

Waiting...

...Life is too short to spend it all waiting...

...and yet...

...I'm still here... waiting...

I've been waiting for things all my life: freedom, happiness... luck... talent...

But how can I recive something I'm not working towards?

I finally have my freedom (mostly), but what about my dreams?

I never had ambition until recently - sure, I had dreams, but no hope of them ever becoming a reality; I simply accepted that they were dreams and didn't fight for them. Though really, I couldn't have done anything about it before now anyway, so maybe it's good that I didn't have ambition until now - but anyway... a little while back I tried something big, nothing came of it, except: I found ambition, I realized that I could do something that I loved and maybe even do well. So I decided to do more than just dreams of reaching for the stars, I decided to start building my rocketship.

Really, I don't why I'm saying this right now. I don't even know if I have already said this.

Right now, I just want to encourage you to work towards your dreams. How can you build real castles on clouds unless you get into the sky? 

What about you??? What are you stretching for? What does your cloud castle look like? Decide how you want to get to the sky, and start construction on your space-ship, or ladder, or trampoline, or jet-pack fueled by cuteness; do what you love and do it well.

Tell me your thoughts in the comments! I'd love to hear from you!

~ Smithy Rose

Riddles

Hey Everyone, I thought that today would be a good day for riddles!
So here are four for you.


This thing all things devours:

Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;

Gnaws iron, bites steel;

Grinds hard stones to meal;

Slays king, ruins town,

And beats high mountains down.

The above, is a riddle that Gollum asks Bilbo. And some of you already know the answer, but if you don't that's ok; try to figure it out - take all the time you need! And after you solve that one. Try the next.

(I make no claim to these riddles, I found them all on the internet)

At night they come without being fetched, and by day they are lost without being stolen.

We hurt without moving. We poison without touching. We bear the truth and the lies. We are not to be judged by our size.What are we?

What happens when you throw a white ball in the black sea?




Well, that's it for now! Did you figure them out? The answers are below the pictures:

...Keep going...

Time

Stars

Words

It gets wet.