Tired Penguin Blog

Social Worker, aspiring writer, book-worm, penguin enthusiast, who hopes to visit Slovakia someday. 

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Just Take His Hand

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Found This Little Friend in My Roses Today

I have no idea what butterfly this will be, but I am excited to find out.

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The shocking truth about the wife of Jesus 😱

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The first time I read this book, I was in middle school and it quickly became one of my absolute favorites. Even after nearly a decade (and too many rereads to count) my love for The Crystal Snowstorm (and the following Letzenstein books) has not diminished.

The Letzenstein Chronicles follows the happenings of a small European country on the brink of revolution. Catherine, an adolescent visiting her estranged Grandfather the Grand duke and ruler, finds herself caught in the crossfire of not only the revolution, but the feud within her own family.

The relationships between the characters are genuine and natural. In the author’s note, Ms. Trevor explained when she writes stories about difficult topics for children (such as political turmoil and revolutions) she tries to focus on the adventures of the characters foremost and it works beautifully here. These are friendships that I could see happening in real life. These characters, Catherine, Yolande, Edward, and especially Rafiel LeMarre have stuck with me the way Luke Skywalker, Samwise Gamgee, and Katniss Everdeen did.

Our heroine, Catherine, is another highlight of the story. She would rather live a quiet life and get to know her newly found family than be involved with the politics her Grandfather has ensnared her in. However, she still strives to do what she can to help even if what she does seems very small. Catherine does fail at times and feels hopeless and frustrated but she does not become apathetic.

I also enjoyed seeing Catherine, a very quiet girl at the beginning, develop unique friendships with different people. She comes to love and care about Con, Yolande, Edward, and Raf, but each relationship does something different for Catherine and the story. I will give special notice to Catherine and Yolande’s relationship because it is a sisterly friendship between a young girl and a young woman, something I do not see very often in fiction.

My only complaint (if it could be called that) is, I would have liked it if Countess Imelda, the sister of our antagonist Duke Julius, had been a bit more involved in the story. She mostly acts as a messenger for other characters. However, Catherine and co. have more than enough problems and as I reiterated all the other characters are very developed and this by no means ruined the story for me. Overall, the Crystal Snowstorm is a solid first entry in a series that satisfied but also left me curious for the next installment. I would recommend it for children (and adults) who enjoy historical fiction and character focused stories. I feel it is appropriate for kids 10 and up, but this is subjective to the individual child’s reading level.

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'The Madonna of the Roses' and 'The Madonna of Pietà' by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

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@lightupduck HeLLO??

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#every now and then a protestant user has a catholic epiphany via @secifosseluce

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Happy Easter!! Finally time to begin annotating The Gospel of John.

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When I learned that the Villains Ever After Series was getting a Swan Lake story, I knew I had to read it. I expected this book to be a new favorite because I love classical ballet, and romance novels inspired by fairytales. However, after finishing this book in just under two days, I am sad to say that The Sorcerer and the Swan Princess is one of the most unromantic adaptation of Swan Lake I have read. By no means, am I upset with the Sorcerer, named Dietrich, being the love interest instead of the prince. It’s in the title. This creative twist was what interested me to begin with. However, Dietrich, despite the attempts to humanize him, is still not a charming love interest in the slightest. Ava is the heir to the throne of her kingdom, but has always had dreams to be a ballet dancer. However, she was forced to hang up her pointe shoes following an ankle injury. I liked this feature to Ava’s character both as a nod to the source material and because unfulfilled childhood dreams rips my heart strings right out.

Things finally start looking up for Ava when she receives a visit from an old friend, Prince Siegfried. But, everything changes when Dietrich the Sorcerer appears, turns Ava into a swan against her will, and kidnaps her despite her protest that she wants to go home. Maybe Dietrich has his reasons to do so, maybe he truly has Ava’s best interest at heart despite absolutely not respecting Ava’s autonomy. I personally found the reason to be flimsy. <spoiler> Ava’s twin sister, Lina, asked Dietrich to turn Ava into a swan and kill her so that she can take her place as queen. Dietrich turns her into a swan and kidnaps her instead. I recall Ava asking why he didn’t explain the situation and ask her to come with him instead, and Dietrich’s response is basically, “You would not have believed me”. I would still be bothered if he only kidnapped her, but he also denies Ava, her humanity and twists her body into something unrecognizable. Like, I would not give a man a second chance after that, even if he has a tragic sob story on top of the protecting from an evil twin excuse. </spoiler>

After the initial abduction, Dietrich does not respect Ava or even appears to take her seriously. Towards the middle of the story, Ava and Dietrich are having a very heated discussion, and Dietrich realizes the conversation is not getting anywhere. Ava only becomes more and more upset with him. A mature adult would remove themselves from the situation until both parties have a chance to calm down, but not Dietrich. He turns Ava into a swan again to shut her up. He says it’s because she needs to “cool off”. What I took away from the exchange is that A. Dietrich cannot take any criticism, even if said criticism is the result of his poor communication. B. he is more powerful than Ava and he wants her to know it.

Any efforts to make the characters fall in love just feels forced after this even when Dietrich realizes Ava’s mindreading ability hasn’t been working and finally explains himself. Ava forgives Dietrich, because the premise of the Swan Princess and the Sorcerer falling in love needs to happen not because they had genuinely good chemistry.

Finally, and this is probably is not even a problem, but I am a little confused that some major characters are renamed from the ballet, but others are not. The sorcerer character, Rothbart, is called Dietrich, and the characters filling the roles of Odette and Odile are named Ava and Lina, but the prince's name is still Siegfried.

Okay, I clearly need to calm myself down before some hot sorcerer turns me into an emu and makes me calm down.

Any Swan Lake adaptions I would recommend instead? The issue is I have not read any other books where Ava and Dietrich become a couple. However, an excellent romance book that is more of an adaptation of Robin Hood with Swan Lake elements is The Huntress of Thornbeck Forest by Melanie Dickerson.

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An almost universally agreed upon fact by both Christian and secular scholars is that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified under the orders of Pontius Pilate in the early first century likely around 30-33 AD/CE.

But what caused Jesus to be crucified?

Who killed him?

 The short and literal answer is the Romans who carried out Pilate’s orders. It does not matter if Pilate attempted to wash his hands of the act, he was still the one who bent over to the will of the mob. He may as well have been the one to drive the nails into Christ’s hands and feet.

However, the more I think it over, arguing over who is responsible for Jesus’ death and seeking “justice” for him, is completely missing the point and purpose of his sacrifice, and ignores the hard truth.

I killed Jesus.

 It was for my and the sins of everyone who ever lived that he died, but this is by no means a reason for despair or to attempt to harm oneself or seek out punishment. 

My mother once told me, we should not be doling out justice for Jesus or avenging his death.  Our salvation did not come without a price, but it is also important to remember what the sacrifice gave us. My mother also told me, if I were to look up at Jesus from the foot of the cross he would not say. “Look what you did to me.” 

His words would be, “I did this for you.”

My adorable Jesus, it was not Pilate, no, it was my sins that condemned you to die. - St. Alphonsus Liguori

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Because Holy Week is around the corner, I was reminiscing to this past summer when I had an opportunity to see a splinter from the cross of Jesus.

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Frosted Maple Pop Tart Reveiw (because why not) 

So, I have been seeing these maple pop tarts all over the place as of late. And I have been meaning to try one. However, the vending machine at work never seemed to have them. Luckily, I was soon to be delivered from this obviously dreadful plight when, my dear husband found one at his job’s snack shop and promptly brought it home for me🥰 

I eagerly broke into the pop tart for breakfast the next morning. The first thing I noticed was the smell. It smelled strongly of breakfast syrup but not true maple. I admit this may have affected my view of the poptart, but I grew up on a farm in the rural Maine. Which brings me to a bit of a side tangent but I feel it must be said, the University of Maine is not in northern Maine. Orono is in centural Maine. Despite this  some southerners seem to insist upon calling it  “northern Maine” (look at the map, Orono is in the middle of the state). Condescending tangents on geography aside, up north on my parents’ hobby farm, we collected sap in metal buckets and then boiled enough maple syrup to last the whole year. I never really had the fake maple flavor until I went to a hotel once and unsuspectingly poured breakfast syrup on all of my beautiful waffles.  The smell of this poptart reminded me of that fateful day. 

Now onto the actual taste of the pop tart. I took a little nibble of it and the one positive I can think of is that the flavor is infused in the crust of the poptart. It tastes vaguely like breakfast syrup. I appreciate this because I hate how many pop tarts the crust is just kind of there. These pop tarts get to join the ranks of legendary flavors such as, s'mores, chocolate chip cookie, and the cookies and cream, for having a unique crust. Other than that the whole thing just tasted odd? It smelt like breakfast syrup but it didn’t really taste like it. The poptart tasted more like that typical “birthday” cake flavor than maple. I think this was to be the “waffle” in the frosted waffle. THe problem with this is waffles are middling sweet, I don’t think they even had to have the waffle flavor in the poptart, since the crust would taste more like waffles than whatever they could formulate.

Overall I would give this poptart a C- it is edible but tastes like a disappointing birthday cake.  

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Women who inspired me.

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A snowy (spring) Sunday morning with Mathew

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Just an Evening Journaling With The Psalms

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One of my most favorite Jesus moments is when he was informed of his friend Lazarus' death, despite knowing very well that he is going to raise him from the dead, he still wept.