Category Archives: procrastinate

Book Review: Snow White and Rose Red by Wrede

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Hello, Fluffsters! Happy Wednesday!

Today’s book review is on

Snow White and Rose Red by Patricia C. Wrede. (Spoiler alert.)

As I’ve mentioned, Patricia C. Wrede is one of my favorite authors. She writes in an amazingly compelling way that’s very well done.

Her book “Snow White and Rose Red” is a retelling of a Grimm fairy tale of the same name. It is not the tale of “Snow White.” Instead, it’s a tale of two sisters and their mother.

Unlike most fairy tales, the mother actually lives for the entirety of the fairy tale, and they have a good relationship with each other. The original is relatively nice, and not actually as gruesome as many original fairy tales.

Wrede takes the fairy tale, and expands it beautifully. She sets the story in old England. The language use is beautiful, and the dialogue is written with “thees”, “thous”, and other flowery things that just sound pretty.

The human main characters are devout Christians who live on the edge of Faerie, and so also do a bit of magic. (So, very different universe.) They’re not witches, they’re not evil, and they mostly restrict themselves to using herbs for healing. Later in the book they learn how to do a bit of magic, but again it’s for healing purposes. Mostly. It’s slightly complicated.

Wrede did an amazing job. The fairy tale is fairly straightforward. Wrede takes the tale and adds about 3 subplots that interact with each other, and still fit the fairy tale. I can’t describe it well enough to do it justice. So pick up a copy for yourself and read it, ok?

And have a great rest of your week!

Book Review: Spindle’s End

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Hello, Fluffsters! Happy Tuesday!

I hope your week is going well, and just continues to get better! I’m continuing the Book Review series. Today’s is

Spindle’s End, by Robin McKinley (spoiler alert)

I really liked the first 5/6ths of this book. The setting is great, the characters are compelling, and it’s a fun retelling of the classic story of Sleeping Beauty.

It starts off with a description of the land. It’s a land that is thick with magic. Like, literally thick. It “settled over the land like chalk-dust.” It would also do random things like spontaneously transform loaves of bread into ivory thimbles that stayed around for a few days, before crumbling away to dust. Fairies are relatively commonplace, sort of. And the provide a very useful role in society: They help keep the magic manageable.

The first few chapters examine the life of the royalty, before switching over to one of the main characters of the story: A fairy named Katriona, who kidnaps young princess Briar-Rose for her own safety, and raises her as her own niece. For another interesting twist, McKinley gives the young princess the ability to talk with animals.

Most of the book is about the princess’s first 16 years. Then the last bit of the book is about what happens after she finds out she’s the princess. And that’s where it gets confusing. I’ve read the book several times, and I’ve yet to fully understand the last sixth of the book, or so.

This book is written for the young adult crowd, rather than the younger crowd. I recommend it, but not as strongly as the other books. McKinley’s ideas are creative and fun, but come across as really confusing in certain areas.

Have a great week, Fluffsters! Talk with you soon!

Book Review: The Ordinary Princess

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Hello, Fluffsters! As I’m sure you remember from yesterday’s post, I’m going to be doing a book review each day this week.

Today’s is another twist-on-fairy-tales story:

The Ordinary Princess, by M. M. Kaye (spoiler alert.)

I love this book. It was one of the first twisted fairy tales I came into contact with, and it was wonderful. It’s just over 100 pages, but the book is slightly larger than the Princess Tales. So I think it might have a higher word count, but I’m not sure. (If anyone can tell me where to find the wordcount on any of these things, I’d love it.)

This book is not a spoof of a particular fairy tale. Rather, it’s a spoof on all fairy tales. What would happen if a princess in the realm were not the most beautiful creature in all the land, but was, instead, ordinary? That is the premise of this book.

Princess “Amethyst Alexandra Augusta Araminta Adelaide Aurelia Anne” starts off as a “normal” princess; blond haired, blue eyed, exquisite, well tempered, etc. At her christening, however, one of her fairy godmothers arrives and grants her a gift- the gift of ordinariness. From that point on, she behaves exactly like ordinary children, and is known as Amy.

A number of events cause her to leave her home, work as a drudgery-maid in another castle (just like Carrie Woodengown!), meets her prince, falls in love, gets married, and lives happily ever after. (Spoiler alert.)

As I’ve mentioned, I love that book. It’s charming, well written, well illustrated, and absolutely wonderful fluff. So, I highly recommend it. I hope you get it and enjoy it!

Book(s) Review(s)! The Princess Tales

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You know one of the best things about summer? Time. Time to read. And do other stuff, but time to read is a wonderful thing.

As I’ve said, I’ve read a lot of fantasy. So I think that this week, I’m going to try to do a book review each day on some of my favorite books.

Today, I’m going to talk about one of my favorite Fluff collections:

The Princess Tales, by Gail Carson Levine (spoiler alert)

The Princess Tales books are basically re-told fairy tales for younger children, but anyone who still enjoys fairy tales will enjoy these.

They’re small books, the sort that can fit in your pocket. The age range is about 8 and up, but I could see anyone who’s starting to read chapter books loving these. There’s pretty much nothing scary in any of them. Alright, so you have a couple of traditional fairy tale elements, such as an evil fairy cursing Sleeping Beauty, but that’s mostly it.

In general, the tone of the books are very lighthearted and truly fluffy. Levine does an excellent job of taking traditional tales and tweaking them in a charming way.

Sleeping beauty, for example, is the smartest person in the world, doesn’t sleep before she pricks her finger, and researched “dwindling unicorn habitats” before the age of 6. The Prince and the Frog is combined delightfully with Rapunzel. Sortof. Not quite. (It’s called “For Biddle’s Sake.” You should read it.) And the tale of the Princess and the Pea? That’s just the “final exam” in a long serious of tests for whether someone’s truly a princess.

Levine writes in a charming, easy to read, funny manner. I highly recommend her books, and The Princess Tales especially, for anyone who has ever enjoyed fairy tales.

5 ways to defeat boredom

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Hello, Fluffsters!

Yesterday’s post was… interesting, wasn’t it?

Anyways, Today I’m going to try to rectify the situation.

Some ways to relieve boredom

1) Plot to take over a world. Not necessarily this world, of course. That would be bad. Probably. But plot to take over a world. I hear there’s nobody on Neptune, yet!

2) Write about a world you could take over. And then find some way to teleport yourself into the story, as Dictator of the World. Then you could really take over the world! And you never hear of any world dictators complaining of boredom, do you?

Uh… Does any world actually have a world dictator?

I’m sure there’s one somewhere. But moving on.

3) Learn woodworking. Create a musical desk.

I mean, isn’t that just fantastic? How can you possibly be bored when making something like that?

4) Waste too much time on YouTube. On the other hand, if you’re bored, I guess you’re not really wasting too much time.

5) Read a good book. Not on “advanced empirical methods for statistical studies on the eating habits of the fruit-fly.” (whatever that would even be.) No, instead I’d read something like The Enchanted Forest Chronicles.

Well, there you go! Five ways to defeat boredom!

Happy Friday! I hope you have a great weekend.

Sometimes residential colleges are a pill.

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Sometimes, living in the college dorms can be a real nuisance. Most of the time not, but sometimes…

If you’re going to expand on that, you’re going to have to do so on you own. I am not asking you if you’d care to elaborate.

Ooh, “Care to elaborate”? Yes, I would care to elaborate!

Hey, that’s no fair! You changed my punctuation!

Ah, but I didn’t quote your punctuation. That means that it’s ok. So yes, I will elaborate. In fact, this elaboration will also help with one of the mission statements of the website!

We have official mission statements? When did that happen?

Well, not official mission statements. But it’s on the front page. This explanation will help our valued Fluffsters procrastinate!

Ah, by making them read through all of your topic-changes before getting to the end of the post? I thought I did that anyways.

You’re sidetracking me on purp- Wait, no. I’m not falling for that this time.

Falling for wha-

No.

I am going to explain to you about

A craft that looks epic but that I can’t do thanks to dormitory restrictions.

Ha.

Darn. There went that tactic.

So, I recently came across a fantastic craft tutorial for making hand-decorated candles. Basically, you take some white tissue paper, draw on it with markers, melt it into the candle, and voila! Instant decorated candle.

But alas, lamps with shades, coffee-pots with open burners, fabric in front of windows, candles, and pretty much any other form of flammable material or things that can start fires (except for cigarette lighters) are strictly forbidden at my school.

…But cigarette lighters are allowed?

I think so. You know, I haven’t actually checked on the flint-and-steel regulations recently…

But candles, as I was saying, are very strictly forbidden. That means that I cannot use any candle that I would consider decorating in such a fashion. Alas, such is the tragedy of dorm life.

Such a hard life you lead.

Alas, indeed. Woe is me, alas, and alack!

Wait, did you just switch roles on me? I thought I was supposed to be the overly dramatic one here!

I think the difference is that when you do it, you’re acting.

That’s a scary good point.

Well, Fluffsters, happy Monday! I hope that tutorial helps you procrastinate a bit.

Qualifying for a Qualifier Competition

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Hello, Fluffsters!

Happy Saturday! As usual this month, that means there’s a new design in my CafePress New and Now section.

…”If you use enough qualifiers, you’re usually right”? Where did that come from?

Heh. Funny story, that…

In real life, I sometimes have a tendency to use what some people consider to be a few too many qualifiers in real-life speech.

Oh. Just in real life, I see.

…What?

Anyways, a few people may have mentioned this a time or twelve. Per day, it sometimes seems. So my usual reply is that with my use of qualifiers, I’m seldom wrong. After all, I’ve mostly just said that certain things might be true under some circumstances.

Huh. Are you working on a thesis of some sort?

Not as far as I’m aware… Why do you ask?

Oh, no reason…

Hm. Yeah. Back to the topic. You see, I thought that it might be amusing to create a shirt design that explained my logic.

…Yeah. Looking back at this post, if there was a competition for abusing qualifiers, I’d bet on you.

Uh… Thanks?

Anyways, happy Saturday, Fluffsters!

Competitive texting, anyone?

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Hello, Fluffsters! I’m back! Sorry about storming out yesterday…

That’s ok. I did a better job than you would have.

Oh shush. It was my idea. So I get a lot of the credit. But that’s beside the point.

Ideas, actually, are my point. Because I’ve had… an idea.

That sounds really ominous.

Oh, it’s not that bad! It might cause a few casualties, but it’s not that bad.

A few casualties aren’t bad?

It really depends. You see, it might be really fun! After all, a number of people die from horseback riding. And yet nobody says that horseback riding is a bad thing.

But really, who came up with that anyways? “Hey, here’s a big animal that could crush me if it kicks me. Let’s jump on its back! And hope it doesn’t throw us off!”

But anywho. Here’s my idea:

Competitive Texting.

…what?

Yes. Texting. It’s something you can do with a handheld device called a cellph-

Yes. I know what texting is. How the brassicae fati do you plan on making it competitive?

I’m glad you asked!

Woops.

So here’s how it works:

So first, you’ll need to find a large plot of land. Any surface would work. Ooh, and you could have multiple types, and difficulties, and, oh. Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I?

Yeah. You totally lost me.

Oh. Sorry.

But as I was saying. Large plot of land. Right. And then you can have an obstacle course set up there! And you could have multiple sets of obstacle courses! One, for example, would be for walkers. Another could be for driving.

So here would be how you could do it, once you’ve set up the obstacle course. You would have a competition for texters.

Competition

The competition would be judged on multiple criteria:

1) Speed of completing the course. Or getting from point A to point B. You know, typical competition stuff.

2) How many words per minute are sent via text. After all, faster texters should definitely be rewarded.

3) Quality of text message. You want to make sure that the texts aren’t just “I I I I I” over and over again, or something equally ridiculous. That would be cheating! So maybe competitors would need to pass the Turing Test while competing? That might work. This should probably take precedence over wpm, actually.

Ooh, and the obstacles could get progressively harder! Like, first it would just be a few people you’d need to get around. (For the walking course, of course.) Then there could be things like fire hydrants, tables with awkward legs that stick out, and maybe uneven curbs. And for the extreme section, you could maybe get walls that people would need to either go around or jump over! This could be FUN!

Webmaster, you’re slightly scary. I just want you to know that.

…

But yeah! I really think this has potential. I mean, it’s one of the things that people in the Millennial Generation are really good at, right? And according to some politicians these days, we really need to get more people involved in being active. So this would achieve that goal.

So what do you think, Fluffsters? New Extreme Sport?

What are your ideas for an extreme sport? Or how would you improve this one? Leave a comment below with your ideas!

What to do with the Random Pair of Socks in your Purse.

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Greetings, Fluffsters! Happy Sunday!

Today, I’m going to be talking to you about:

What to do with the random pair of socks you find in your purse.

Ok. There’s got to be a story behind that one.

…What? Not everyone keeps a pair of socks in their purse?

Clearly not, by merit of the fact that the socks are “randomly” there.

It wouldn’t be random if they’re usually there.

Oh. Good point. Unless the socks themselves were randomly colored…?

No. So, what’s with the pair of socks in your purse?

Actually, I’m not entirely sure why I put them there this time.

This time?!

Yeah! I don’t know why they’re there this time. I don’t even remember putting them there!

Just to clarify… This is all hypothetical, isn’t it?

You don’t just randomly keep socks in your purse?

…

Anyways, here are some things you can do wi-

You’re serious?

Brassicae, why me? WHY?!

As I was saying, here are some things to do with your pair of socks!

5) Brainstorm how they got there. Did they come from the gap in the space-time continuum, and avoid getting eaten by the interdimensional rabid penguins of doom? Did they come from the black hole found in all dryers that suck away miscellaneous socks? Where? (If you figure out, do let me know?)

4) Sock puppets! Instant entertainment! Find other random junk to make faces, put on your hands, and voila! Instant sock puppet-age!

3) See how long it takes for them to start molding in your purse. Of course, that would probably end up smelling bad. And probably ruin the inside of your purse. But it is something you can do with socks!

What is it with you and mold?

2) Wear them. Assuming they aren’t part of your mold collection, of course. Because that would just be gross otherwise.

1) Write a blog post about them. And then talk about things you can do with them.

…

You were serious.

Yup! I found a random pair of socks in my purse, and I’m not sure how they got here this time. So, fluffsters, any recommendations? Or thoughts on how they got there?

And happy Sunday! I hope you have a wonderful week!

Make a Room Messy in 7 Easy Steps

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Greetings, Fluffsters! Happy Friday! (Weekend, yes!)

First of all, I just wanted to remind you quickly that today’s the last day to get a “You Look Comfortable. Let me change that” with a penguin on it merchandise at the current price. I’ll be adding something new to the New and Now section tomorrow, and moving those to the normal priced part of the store. So you should check it out!

Second, today’s post!

I’ve been thinking. There are a few things that I am really good at-

Because that’s not arrogant…

-and I’m going to give instructions for how to do one of those things. Specifically

How to make a room messy in 7 easy steps.

…what?

Yup! One of my skills is making things messy. It comes naturally to me, and I’m good at it.

1) Pick a room. This is an important step. Don’t skimp on this step. If this is your first time messy-ing a room, go with a smaller room. You probably want only one clutter-y surface.

2) Measure the open space. You don’t have to actually measure with a measuring tape or anything like that. Measuring it by eye also works.

3) Guesstimate how many items you’ll need.

4) Add 4. That’s how many items you’ll probably end up using.

5) Start doing something that requires *something*. This could be reading, it could be using your computer, or anything. The easiest is to do a craft.

6) Do not put your supplies away. Instead, place it tastefully, even artfully, on your open surface.

7) Repeat steps 1-6. When you have what looks like enough items to qualify as a “mess”, repeat once more. Just for good measure.

And that, fluffsters, is one method to make a room messy. Have fun!