Carrie is hosting the Lucy Maud Montgomery Reading Challenge, created to encourage readers to try a new author, although L. M. Montgomery was an old friend to me, I thought I would participate. I must confess that being an Anne fan, I somehow did not manage to squeeze in the time to read the rest of her life.

You can read the directions here if you too would like to join the challenge however you must sign Mr. Linky before the 9th to allow Carrie to know that you are participating and others can read your review when you post.

I am a day late in getting this Birthday post up for my dear cousin, but it is better than none at all I may assume.

Many of you know her as Vintagegirl or SimplyVintagegirl or Miss Emily Rose, but all of these names only describe part of this wonderfully inspirational young lady who I happen to have as my cousin. We have been enemies, best friends, indifferent, and little terrorists to each other in the past…but for the past seven or eight years, we have been getting used to each other.

As she described in my birthday post, we weren’t the best of friends, for we both thought the other would disrupt our way of life. To me, she was a year older and I had to be careful with my toys, but to her I was probably the ‘little one’ who could not be trusted…and I am not sure if I could.

But the Lord has been bringing us closer throughout the years…of course we enjoyed each other. Sleep overs were fun until we got into a fight over what to do, or who got the fancy phone when we were playing library. But since then we have matured, and can now solve a problem with a few chuckles and compromises and then it is over. And since she and I have discovered to get along we have been the most intimate of companions. We are Anne Shirley and Diana Barry, Marianne and Elinor Dashwood,  Jo and Beth March. We are entirely different but so similar.

So, in honour of her birthday which was Sunday, I composed this small excerpt for her:

“She is a young lady who is productive. Productive in her relationship where she keeps the emotions flowing and never stops her love for her family. Productive in her hands, which the Lord has blessed her with, where she can sew, stitch, and paste to bring about a new outcome of the homemaking arts. Productive in her life, living for the Lord, serving her family and elders, and not allowing trials to set her off her course.

She is beautiful. Beautiful in her speech, her thoughts, her temper, and her motives. She prays to become a wife and mother and raise many little ones, and she diligently prepares herself to be a Biblical helpmeet.

She is modest. She does not bring attention to herself, her talent, her actions, or her attire. Being a somewhat lacker of height, she is able to blend, but she does not soak the glory or the consequences of her actions in any way, but she is proud of what she is able to do: take photographs, sew, play the violin, cook, and many more.

She is real. She loves to have fun, joke, humor me, laugh, watch movies, go to conventions, converse, listen to my stories which can go on for hours at a time, listen to instrumental music, and play games. My dear cousin is an enjoyable girl with a great personality and a fondness for people…for she is a people person and somewhat thrives on human companionship.”

Happy Birthday Emily Rose!