Peace, Love, and Magic; or, What I Learned from Watching Once Upon a Time

My friend Ashlee is a fan of the television show Once Upon a Time.  She told me all about it and said I should watch it, so when the first season became available on Netflix, I decided to try it.  I fell in love and zipped through it in two or three weeks, then waited impatiently for season two to start.  (It began on September 30!  Yay!!)

The entire premise and storyline of the show revolves around fairy tales - Cinderella, Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, Beauty and the Beast, Pinocchio, etc.  Traditional fairy tales depend on magic, and the versions in this show all depend on similar and very important magic transactions.  So one can easily say the show is basically about magic.

Now, in real life there's no such thing as magic.  I believe there are angels, demons, miracles, and black magic or witchcraft (among other things not of earth), but the kind of magic from Once Upon a Time is fictional.  Two qualities in real life resemble magic, though, and those are peace and love.

Peace and love are like magic in that they're all universally desired.  It's almost a joke these days that anyone, anywhere would say what this world needs most is world peace.  And there are tons of popular songs talking about how everybody wants to love, all you need is love, love makes the world go round, et cetera, et cetera.  Nobody wants to be completely unloved and at war with everyone else.  Magic - well, name one person you know who would turn down any and all forms of magic.

Another similarity is that peace, love, and magic are all mysterious and unattainable in some way.  There's no specific formula for peace or love, and each love story or magic spell is different, unique.  Nobody can explain scientifically or logically how love works, or why it doesn't.  Nobody can give a definite, authoritative step-by-step guide to reaching and maintaining peace.  Nobody can explain why putting some river water and one of your hairs into a magic bottle results in a potion that will erase your memories of your lost love.  And love, peace, and magic are all things that are neither guaranteed to nor achieved by everyone.

The number-one most repeated phrase on Once Upon a Time is "Magic always comes with a price," or some variation of that.  It's said at least once in almost every episode, and without fail ignored until the characters realize the gravity of the warning too late.

So what's the point here?  Peace and love always come with a price.  In love, that's subconsciously an accepted fact in most cases.  We must compromise and sacrifice and learn to live with, appreciate, and consider someone else.  That's what love, true love, is.  So the price of love is giving up our desires and our place as number one in our minds.

But when it comes to peace, the price is more risky.  The price of peace is giving up opinions and beliefs so that we're in agreement with others.  In some quarrels, fights, and even wars this price is worth the peace.  For example, when my brothers fight, the only way they'll reach peace is if they give up the belief that they're right and the other person's wrong.  That belief isn't worth the fight, so this is a price they should pay.

World peace, on the other hand, is a greater peace and therefore has a greater price.  It requires that we give up our beliefs and convictions, our opinions of right and wrong and how the world began and all those other religion-related concepts.  It may also require that we give up our opinion that people can say what they want and even offend others without fear of punishment - and that's just an example.

So, while the world mostly believes that peace is the ultimate good or goal in life, I think the disastrous results of paying the necessary price are shown in many dystopian novels.  The Hunger Games, Matched, and Swipe series are just three examples of a future in which peace has been obtained... at a price later regretted.  Inevitably, the peace established by giving up freedoms leads to a rebellion to reclaim those freedoms.  In other words, peace+no freedoms, or rebellion/war/lack of peace+freedoms.  Pick one.

I guess these thoughts are just my way of trying to point out to the world how futile the goal of world peace is.

The Pinterest Report: Dr. Pepper Cookies

 

Week Four: Dr. Pepper Cookies



{all photos linked to source}

 

The Pin:

 

 

Dr. Pepper Cookies

 

The Link:

 

 

A Few Short Cuts: Dr. Pepper Cookies

The Test:

You Need: One chocolate cake mix, one 6-8 oz can of Dr. Pepper or Diet Dr. Pepper, 2 cups powdered sugar

What to do: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.  Mix the cake mix and about six ounces of the Dr. Pepper.  Add more Dr. Pepper as necessary - you want it to resemble regular cookie dough thickness - but be sure to save two tablespoons of soda for the glaze.  The original link also suggests stirring in one cup of chopped pecans, but I chose not to.

Spoon tablespoon-sized dollops onto a baking sheet and bake for ten minutes.  (The dough will be very sticky and not quite like regular cookie dough.)

 

Once the cookies are cool, mix the powdered sugar and two tablespoons of soda to make the glaze, and drizzle that over the cookies.  Let it harden a little before eating.

 

 

Voila!  Completed cookies!

 

 

They turned out pretty good.  You could taste both the chocolate and the Dr. Pepper.  Everybody liked them!  I don't recommend making them without the glaze, though, because that's what really brings out the Dr. Pepper flavor.  Also, a problem I and several other readers of this blog ran into was that ten minutes didn't seem long enough - the recipe would be better written 10-15 minutes.

 

The Grade:

 

 

9 Ways to Be a Better Steward of Natural Resources

I've never been a particularly green person.  My family just follows the recycling rules for where we happen live at the moment.  We generally don't buy organic stuff (unless it happens to be more economical) or make our own granola bars.  (Who has the time for that?  Although I've always wanted to try, just once...)

There are times, though, when I've wanted to find ways to be a better steward of the world God's given us.  On one of those days a while back, I decided to do some online research, and came up of a list of ideas.  This list then sat buried in my computer until now, as I was desperately searching for something to blog about, and uncovered it.

 

9 Ways to Be a Better Steward of Natural Resources

1. Buy and take cloth bags to use at the grocery store.  (Certain boxes of Jolly Time popcorn offer a free cloth grocery bag when you mail in 3 UPCs from their microwave popcorn boxes!)
 
2. Walk, ride a bike, take the bus, or carpool instead of driving to your destination.
 
3. Keep a recycling bin (or bins) in the room(s) of your home that you spend the most time in.
 
4. Have a place for scrap paper - paper that still has one blank side and can be reused for grocery lists, to-do lists, or even paper mache.  (You get the idea!)
 
5. Turn off all lights, televisions, radios, computers, Scentsy pots, and anything else using power whenever you leave a room.
 
6. Use the 'fast' or 'quick' setting when using the printer, and use grayscale/black and white instead of the color setting whenever possible.  (Even if a paper doesn't have color on it, the grayscale uses less black ink.)
 
7. Take a quick shower instead of a bath.
 
8. Drink tap water or use a purifier instead of buying water bottles; there are tons of choices for reusable bottles you can buy once and refill.  (This article clears up six myths of bottled water.)
 
9. Instead of throwing things away, (a) give them to someone you know, (b) donate them to Goodwill or the Salvation Army, or (c) find a project that uses them to make something else.  There are tons of books and websites out there for turning random items into art or something useful.  One I've recently discovered that's also kid-friendly is Art from Anything.

Querido Panamá

This video and petition need a whole lot more American coverage than it's getting.

The entire documentary's only 16 minutes, and it takes less than one minute to sign the petition.

Please watch at least part of the video and consider signing.

Bloggers, readers with lots of Facebook friends, readers who forward pointless chain emails - would you do me a favor and use your influence to get this out to American viewers?




See the Causes page and sign the petition: http://www.causes.com/causes/785057-querido-panama/

The Pinterest Report: DIY Stickers and Spray Paint Art

 

 

Week Three: DIY Spray Paint Art (Sticker Version)

{all photos linked to source}

 

The Pin:

Again linking to my own since I can't find the original pinner.

The Link:

Brassy Apple: Cut it out! Canvas Tutorial

The Test:

You need: (tutorial's way) canvas, fabric, contact paper, spray paint, staple gun, printer and exacto knife or cricut machine (my way) canvas, letter stickers, fabric, spray paint, hot glue gun.  Also newspapers and a well-ventilated place to spray paint.

What to do: Follow the link above if you want to see the original lady do it.  Pretty much you staple the fabric around the canvas, then make your own quote and letter stickers, put the stickers on the fabric, and spray paint.  Then remove the stickers.  How I did it?  Wrap the fabric, with a considerable hem, around the canvas and hot glue in place.  Use letter stickers (mine are mismatched because I just used what I had on hand) to create your quote.

I also used this little sticker maker thing to create my own version of sticker paper, which I then made raindrops out of.

 

Spray paint over the stickers and let dry enough that you can touch the stickers without getting paint on you.  Then carefully peel the stickers off.  Mine were still sticky and just looked cool, so I found an old sticker book to put them in for future use.

Voila!  You're done.  Just let it sit to dry a little longer.

"Some people feel the rain; others just get wet." ~Bob Marley, random singer I've never heard of.  Found this quote - you guessed it - on Pinterest.

I liked this project better than the glue one from last week, but I'm thinking I should get more contrasting colors if I do it again.  This time I just used stuff I had lying around to try it out.

The Grade:

 

A Question for My Lovely Readers

Lately I've been trying to come up with ideas for new things to write about here.  I do a lot of author interviews and book reviews; I like talking about personal issues when they come up; and every so often I'll share a poem or short story of mine.

 

But I want to try something new.  I want to write something that you, my lovely readers, want to read.

 

So please do share what you'd like to see here!

Do you have any questions for me?

Any guest posters or author interviews you'd love to see featured?

I have the new book discussion guide section on my book reviews page, but there's only one discussion guide currently available.  Any others you'd like me to write?

How about products, movies, books, or services to review?

The comments are open for discussion!

Book Review: Another Life Trilogy



Click the cover to buy

 

Trilogy Rating:

When I Was Joe

It's one thing watching someone get killed.  It's quite another talking about it.

Almost True

This isn't the first time that someone's tried to silence me forever.  It's just the first time that someone else has died instead.

Another Life

I'm trying to look cool and like I've been doing this for years.  I'm trying to look like this is no big deal, nothing special, nothing new.  But it feels like it might be.

Let me start off by saying that this series was a new thing for me.  First off, I'm not one for thrillers, which this series definitely counts as.  But I enjoy mysteries, a similar genre, so I gave it a shot.  Another first about these books is that I've never read stories both written by and targeted to British people - with British lingo, punctuation, grammar, etc.  It was actually pretty fun to see all the differences and try to decode the British English.  (I will note the author's website, wheniwasjoe.blogspot.com, has a page with British lingo and slang definitions.)

Starting with When I Was Joe, the series follows Ty, a boy who witnessed a murder and enters witness protection after telling the police about it.  However, things aren't quite what they seem; Ty, his best friend Aaron, and the police are all keeping details to themselves - who can be trusted?  In Almost True, Ty's family loses faith in the police protection that has failed them and Ty's aunt takes him to her own idea of a safe house, where Ty learns that he has an entire family and history he knew nothing about.  In Another Life, Ty faces charges for his own bad choices and his newfound cousin Archie decides to find out who Ty really is.  Throughout the series, secrets and misunderstandings surface while Ty struggles to make - and keep - trustworthy friends while staying alive and protecting the ones he loves.

The writing style is great, especially for the genre: very gripping and fast-paced without being rushed.  The character's voice comes out naturally through the narrative.  The characters have good traits and bad, but there were quite a few times I felt like the main characters weren't really any better than the 'bad guys.'  I've never been to England (at least when I was old enough to remember), so I can't say for certain, but it seems the writer really knows her setting well and the details and description are well-balanced.  They give you an idea of what's going on and where the characters are, without boring you with excessive detail.

However, on a content level, this series is not exactly recommendable.  When the series starts out, there's a good deal of violence and slums-of-London living (smoking, drinking, shady people, not the best parenting, etc.), but that's to be expected with the storyline and setting.  It's as the series goes on that I feel things get out of hand.  With the first book it was mostly the violence, and then language, and then some immorality (not at all graphic, I will say).

With the second book there was more violence, more language, and a whole lot of really poor choices.  I kept reading, thinking this was one of those books where people are really stupid and then see the light near the end.  That sort of happened.  And then the third book started with a different character, and drugs and mindless popularity and more stupidity came onto the scene.  I kept reading, although the writing style had gone downhill and the head-hopping drove me nuts.  Finally, though, I couldn't take any more of Archie's stupid choices and Ty's anger and anxiety.  So I quit.

All in all, I think this series started off well.  The characters were great, and I really loved Patrick and Helen from book two.  But everything just kind of unraveled as Ty struggled with PTSD and Archie acted like a complete idiot.  So, as you can see above, I've listed individual ratings for each book and give the overall trilogy two and a half stars.

I received these three books for free from the author in exchange for this review. All opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.