Well, with the exception of zoning out during the presidential debate, moaning over yet another embarrassing loss by the Houston Texans, and tackling the mailbox every day to see whether S. D. Smith’s latest book has arrived, this past week or so has been largely uneventful.

*cough*

Thus far, the school year is looking promising. With classics like history, Latin, and persuasive essays; plus exciting new additions like Shakespeare, poetry, and music theory, the school year is looking promising—if heavy—this year.

Latin has been a bit different so far this time around. In previous years, the majority of my exercises consisted of translating lines about the Romans and Gauls that, frankly, start to get a bit old after four years. So, I’m doing something new this year! Yay! And it begins…with Pooh, as in Winnie-the-. (Shouldn’t everything?)

Yes, there’s a Latin version of Winnie-the-Pooh, and yes, I’m going to be translating the entire thing. Hopefully. With a great deal of tea, cat hugs, and moral support, if I’m being honest. I’m a bit nervous. But still, just the fact that I finally get to do something different is exciting in itself. Since Latin isn’t a required course for me this year, I’m currently waiting for a lighter week in other subjects before I begin translating. But I can’t wait! (Also, isn’t the cover adorable?)

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In other news, for the first time in my life, I made a pie with a lattice crust! It wasn’t as challenging as I had expected, though that was probably due to a technique my brother came up with of folding every other strip back as you lay down the new ones. (Or maybe that’s how everyone does it. I wouldn’t know.) We used store-bought pie dough to save time and make things easier, since store-bought doesn’t tear as easily as homemade (even though I definitely prefer the latter).

The pie was (yeah, sorry, it’s long gone) apple, and we drizzled caramel syrup over the entire thing before putting it into bake. It was delicious, and very satisfying to look at. Definitely gonna be making more lattice crust pies in the future! The only problem is, I like more crust than filling in my pies… Anyone else?

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Every Saturday evening, we have a family movie night on which we take turns picking a movie and supplementing the experience with snacks. This week, it was my mom’s turn, and she chose The Village by M. Night Shyamalan. (We were initially going to watch The Visit, by the same director, but decided against it.)

Traditionally, horror movies aren’t my favorite, but I ended up enjoying The Village more than I thought I would; even though I already found myself drawn to it more than other horror movies due to the fact that it takes place in the 19th century and features Joaquin Phoenix and Bryce Dallas Howard, two of my favorite actors. The movie really was good, though. It featured endearing characters (Phoenix’s character was my favorite by a landslide), an extremely picturesque New England setting, and—similar to Signs, the only other Shyamalan film I’ve seen—enough action and suspense to keep things interesting without being too fast-paced. It also had a very surprising twist at the end…but I won’t go into detail there. And as a bonus, it’s largely clean!

So, yeah. I recommend it, especially if you’re looking for a horror film that isn’t ridiculously terrifying (like me, usually).

What did your weekend look like? Have you seen The Village, and if so, what did you think? Any tips for my future lattice crust-related endeavors?