*is excited*
*can't believe they finally stopped acting like five-year-olds and grew up*
*squirms and worries about director/cast/score*
*decides not to worry and jumps a lot*
*points excitedly* look here! look here!!!!!! http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3ie2960ff97697ea6271399e8be7399978
*containment stops working - screams*
December 19, 2007
December 15, 2007
Only ten days left till Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm slightly excited.
In case you couldn't tell.
(~if you're a nicholas nickleby geek like me........you know the song at the end of the movie? the dude is singing it while ralph is about to commit suicide? I just found the lyrics, and I realized it was written about sixty years after Dicken's wrote Nicholas Nickleby. that made me sad. but then I looked at all the cookies we just baked at my grandparents' and thought about Hans Zimmer and realized that Christmas is only ten days away, and it made me happy again!!!!!~)
ahem. *clears throat*
I LOVE holiday baking. my mom and I do two types of cookies, and my grandma does two other kinds, and then we get together for one whole day and do four kinds together! So this year we did French cookies and chocolate biscotti. and I was working on the dough for the French cookies last night.....I'm sitting there wondering, what makes the dough so brown? All that's in it is butter, eggs, flour, and suga-oh crap brown sugar!! so we ended up freezing a whole bunch of chocolate chip cookie balls. and then had to wait for dad to get home with more eggs and flour. after that they turned out ok. I also made the dough for biscotti while mom was cooking the french cookies. (For those of you who don't know, French cookies are rolled into balls and cooked on a waffle iron type thingy over the stove. they're adorable and tasty!) Biscotti turned out terriffic too. (I don't think I spelled biscotti or terriffic right, but who really cares?)
Mimi (that's my grandma....when I was little I couldn't say grandma so it became Mimi and stayed Mimi) made fudge and seven-layer cookies. She doubles the seven-layer cookie recipe and forgot to double the sweetened condensed milk, so the crust is crumbly but they honestly taste exactly the same, so that's good. they are everyone's favorite, especially Papa. We have to hide them from him.
This morning I got up at eight, but stayed in bed till eight thirty because the shower was in use. Got ready in a good half hour and then came upstairs to find mom making the dough for thumbprint cookies. I always put the thumbprint in the thumbprint cookies, because it's my job. Mimi got started on the nut brittle and I did spritz. spritz have always been my favorite. I asked the general family how almond extract could be so much better than almonds, and Mimi said it's the essence of almonds. so I said "does that mean that almonds are good at heart?" she wasn't sure, but I think it must mean that. Almond extract is really just good almond hearts.
And Papa agreed with me that it's a bob world.
Right now the sugar cookie dough is chilling in the fridge. We're done with most stuff so early this year that Mimi made toffee nut bars too, and they're permeating the kitchen with this kind of heavy sweet smell. I heard something about pizza for dinner - I'm glad we're staying even though we'll be done before dinner time. After I drive back home tonight I should have all of my night driving in. All in all, life is really good. It's so relaxed at my grandparents' house; I'm almost glad my house isn't always like this because, first, nothing would ever get done, and also I wouldn't enjoy coming here as much.
I drove here last night in the rain, and almost made the whole trip without help (in the form of directions). So by the time I have my license I should be able to drive here by myself.
when my parents will actually let me on the freeway by myself hahaha. that will be a while, I'm sure. *smirk*
I can't wait to watch NT2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't wait for Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and with a little luck, my non-Christian grandparents will be coming to church with us on Christmas Eve. Please pray about that.
yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *jumps* How are you guys doing? excited? ready for Christmas???
In case you couldn't tell.
(~if you're a nicholas nickleby geek like me........you know the song at the end of the movie? the dude is singing it while ralph is about to commit suicide? I just found the lyrics, and I realized it was written about sixty years after Dicken's wrote Nicholas Nickleby. that made me sad. but then I looked at all the cookies we just baked at my grandparents' and thought about Hans Zimmer and realized that Christmas is only ten days away, and it made me happy again!!!!!~)
ahem. *clears throat*
I LOVE holiday baking. my mom and I do two types of cookies, and my grandma does two other kinds, and then we get together for one whole day and do four kinds together! So this year we did French cookies and chocolate biscotti. and I was working on the dough for the French cookies last night.....I'm sitting there wondering, what makes the dough so brown? All that's in it is butter, eggs, flour, and suga-oh crap brown sugar!! so we ended up freezing a whole bunch of chocolate chip cookie balls. and then had to wait for dad to get home with more eggs and flour. after that they turned out ok. I also made the dough for biscotti while mom was cooking the french cookies. (For those of you who don't know, French cookies are rolled into balls and cooked on a waffle iron type thingy over the stove. they're adorable and tasty!) Biscotti turned out terriffic too. (I don't think I spelled biscotti or terriffic right, but who really cares?)
Mimi (that's my grandma....when I was little I couldn't say grandma so it became Mimi and stayed Mimi) made fudge and seven-layer cookies. She doubles the seven-layer cookie recipe and forgot to double the sweetened condensed milk, so the crust is crumbly but they honestly taste exactly the same, so that's good. they are everyone's favorite, especially Papa. We have to hide them from him.
This morning I got up at eight, but stayed in bed till eight thirty because the shower was in use. Got ready in a good half hour and then came upstairs to find mom making the dough for thumbprint cookies. I always put the thumbprint in the thumbprint cookies, because it's my job. Mimi got started on the nut brittle and I did spritz. spritz have always been my favorite. I asked the general family how almond extract could be so much better than almonds, and Mimi said it's the essence of almonds. so I said "does that mean that almonds are good at heart?" she wasn't sure, but I think it must mean that. Almond extract is really just good almond hearts.
And Papa agreed with me that it's a bob world.
Right now the sugar cookie dough is chilling in the fridge. We're done with most stuff so early this year that Mimi made toffee nut bars too, and they're permeating the kitchen with this kind of heavy sweet smell. I heard something about pizza for dinner - I'm glad we're staying even though we'll be done before dinner time. After I drive back home tonight I should have all of my night driving in. All in all, life is really good. It's so relaxed at my grandparents' house; I'm almost glad my house isn't always like this because, first, nothing would ever get done, and also I wouldn't enjoy coming here as much.
I drove here last night in the rain, and almost made the whole trip without help (in the form of directions). So by the time I have my license I should be able to drive here by myself.
when my parents will actually let me on the freeway by myself hahaha. that will be a while, I'm sure. *smirk*
I can't wait to watch NT2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't wait for Christmas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and with a little luck, my non-Christian grandparents will be coming to church with us on Christmas Eve. Please pray about that.
yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *jumps* How are you guys doing? excited? ready for Christmas???
December 4, 2007
rickshaw-walla begs the question: are all these red lights just suggestions? ohhhh....it's gonna be ok/they know dead men can't pay!
I think I'm on the brink of something large/maybe like the breaking of a Dawn/or maybe like a match being lit/or the sinking of a ship/letting go gives a better grip
*jumps* PotC3 is out today!!!!!!!!!!! I'm just bummed because I have to wait for it. Mom is getting a haircut and I'm not going, so then she's running errands, de da de da de da.......last year was amazing, I was running around WalMart holding it as tightly as I possibly could, then I'd read the entire back (yes, that includes the stuff at the bottom with the actors and music composer and producer and director and other boring stuff), and then I'd look at the pics and hug it close again!!! today I have to wait. I'll probably call mom like ten times to see if she has it yet. I wonder what the cover looks like? I wonder what's on the 2-disc special edition? I wonder how much it is and if I have to pay for any of it hahaha.
Here is a list of the people from PotC I heart:
#1 - Norrington!!!! (oh btw does anyone know the abbreviation for Commodore? Cmmd? Isn't Cmd commander or something?)
#2 Hans Zimmer!!!
#3 Klaus Badelt!!!
#4 Jack and Will and the other losers - Norrington rocks oh yeah!
#5 Jerry Bruckheimer (come on NT2!!!)
#6 Jack the Monkey (he's amazing!)
It was really funny some time last month - we were watching this movie, from Netflix I think, don't remember what it was, but I'm like who did the music? It sounds like the same composer as Batman Begins. Who was that? *looks at movie case* Hans Zimmer... well I guess you learn something new every day huh? So who did this movie - was it Hans Zimmer? *toddles off to look it up* noooo.....Klaus Badelt!!!!
I just realized that may not be funny to really anyone except Anna ;) Basically, Klaus Badelt is the genius behind PotC music, he did the first movie and all the themes and stuff. Then he and Jerry Bruckheimer argued or something stupid (I guess all the great ones are finicky with each other - look at Howard Shore and PJ), so then Hans Zimmer did PotC 2 and 3. But Klaus Badelt and Hans Zimmer have worked very closely together so their music sounds similar. That's why it's funny that I thought it was one and it turned out to be the other.
I guess.
Oh, and in case you wanted to know - Hans Zimmer has done a lot of Disney stuff...Lion King etc. And he did Muppet Treasure Island which is amazing!!!! (one of my alltime favorite movies ha-ha). And Alan Menken is the other world's most amazing composer ever....Newsies, Little Mermaid, Pocohantas, Beauty and the Beast.
The discourse about PotC and music is now over. If you were ignoring all that, you can pay attention again now.
This has been a very good week! I keep meaning to post, but as soon as I sit down to write it my mind goes blank. It feels pretty good now though – as good as it ever does…
I'm part of a band! Okay…sort of. At youth group some kids from the school were taking pics for the yearbook and they needed a name for the worship team. So Alex and Anthony came up with something on the fly, which I think is very very good for just fifteen seconds of quick thinking. Our name is Called from the Wreckage. We don't play our own songs, so don't get all excited or anything.
:P
we have fun though.
we just got a ton of new songs that we're adding to our repertoire!!! Lots of Hillsong United, David Crowder Band, two from Leeland and four from Charlie Hall, that we got audio and sheet music for so that has been really exciting – I can't wait to do some new songs! so if you see a lot of new amazing song lyrics on here…that's most likely what it's from. Last Thursday was probably the most amazing night at youth group so far. We played one of our new songs, Song of the Redeemed, which is one of my new favorite songs. It had a prominent piano part but you're basically just holding the chords so it's really easy. It's a funny thing about youth group – I never really want to go when Thursday afternoon comes, I'm just so worn out from the rest of the day, but then the excitement just keeps building through practice and stuff until I get home and I'm so wide awake I stay up late cause I can't sleep. It's pretty amazing. Last Thursday we talked about spiritual warfare, and my youth leader brought up some interesting points about how we usually only think of it as being "out on the mission field" instead of everywhere, including right here at home. Like those days when you wake up "on the wrong side of the bed," or when someone says something that normally wouldn't bother you but might at one time. Why does it only bother you sometimes but not others? Not to be paranoied or to dismiss/justify when we're grumpy, but could that sometimes be oppression? maybe. anyway, it was a very powerful message, and right after that we got up to play.
Our acoustic guitarist/lead vocalist on one song is no where to be found. this is REALLY BAD. So Alex jumps from bass to guitar (he plays like every stringed instrument basically ha-ha) and now we have no bass – oh well. But there's no way we can do Take it All next without it. so I guess we'll just do two songs. I go to turn on my headphone monitors to find that the battery has died. just right then the battery, which was fine in practice, had to go and die. WHYYYY???????? So these monitors we're trying for the first week are not working so well.
We start the first song and get a ton of feedback; it just doesn't sound very good or worshipful, considering we're all stressed out. At the end of it Joe runs in and jump onstage, and he and Alex quickly change instruments. Now the guitar is tuned really weird and you can hardly hear the bass, so the next song sounds really bad too. Our audience has gone well beyond restless and all we want to do is create an atmosphere of worship, but it seems like God decided not to show up.
Finally it's my turn to start Song of the Redeemed. and it ended up being the best of the three, though we made some mistakes. At the end, Joe falls over onto the floor (which he had done during practice as a joke) and we're all sitting there looking mortified that he actually did it in front of everyone, when he looks up and yells "I told you I was gonna do it!" and we all start laughing.
Then Roger (our church worship leader) walks in the door and is like, play that last song you just played again. Well we can't very well say no to Roger (that's hard for anyone to do!), and we do need the practice on that song, plus it's amazing and fun, so we played it again.
It was picture-perfect. I'm not sure how it got that way, but it turned out with pretty much no mistakes, I was playing half of it with my eyes closed and everyone was just worshipping God – the song sounded amazing but we finally let God come in and fill, which we should have been doing all along. At the end I went over to say hi to Roger and he gave me a big hug while I asked him, "isn't that the most amazing song ever?" It turns out he got the music for it that night and he wants to play it in church in a few weeks. Oh and the really weird/cool part was during our sound checks when my keyboard picked up some random radio signal from the outlet it was plugged into or something strange like that, and started playing this groovy music. that was, er, interesting but kind of funny once we got it fixed. I just start playing and all of a sudden Kelsey's like – do you guys hear that???
Kelsey is one friend at youth group who I am really getting close to. She's really nice and we have a lot in common – she wants to be a missionary, and has been to Romania. Her brother is going to the college I want to go to, and we spent a while talking about missions last week. I'm glad to be making some strong connections at youth group, because I've been there for a while but haven't had really close friends until now, the kind of people you would invite to your house. a few Sundays ago I spent the night at another friend's house with about four other kids from youth group and we got all of four hours of sleep, then I had to go to the football game that night and lose my voice…oh dear…hardships, right?
On Friday night we went bowling (some kids from our youth group) which was a blast! It was kind of strange because there were only two other girls, and I didn't know anyone very well except Tom….which is another story anyway. But I still had a lot of fun and bowled very well in my first game (135, ok so it's very well for me!) and okay in my other two games (right up around 100). We're planning to do it again too, and most of the people I know well said they would go next time – it was kind of short notice this time.
I can not wait for Christmas!!! I'm excited about Christmas and we're just barely past Thanksgiving!!! Learning Hindi with my friend Chelsea has been going very well, is an amazingly fast learner which makes it easy. I'm also trying to learn some of the local language for where we're going. :( I've gotten five days of piano practice in this week, I actually feel ready for the 4-H meeting tonight, my Christmas shopping list is pretty much done! oh yeah…money… it's really cool though, I might be getting a job cleaning at my dad's office a few times a month which would be really nice, just to have a little bit of income, like Christmas shopping and maybe some spending money for India too ;)
Sunday we started decorating the house for Christmas!!!!!!!!! this year we're decorating our tree Victorian-style, and for some obscure reason my mom won't let me put candles on it…… hmmm….. but really, I want to put little gingerbread men and cookies with candy windows and stuff on it, and she says no. she says she'll want to eat them, and it's a waste of ingredients. so I'm not very happy about that. And we can't buy little plastic gingerbread guys either because it's a waste of money. but anyway, it'll look alright without them I guess. It would look more Victorian with them.
Dad put the tree up in the morning because he woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep, so that was a surprise (good, bad, I'm not sure???) and we got the lights on it but not much else yesterday. For the first time ever we bought this cedar garland at Costco and put it on our stair and balcony railings, and put lights in it, and we're going to put our ornaments that don't really match the Victorian theme on that instead of the tree. The house smells great!! mmm…. Sometime this week if we're ever home we'll finish the decorating. Supposedly we were going to be home all day Sunday but then mom made plans for us to go over to someone from our church's house and play games and have dessert, etc. That's why we didn't finish the decorating, but we did have a really fun time at their house! We're both families of three so it worked out well to get together for that; otherwise games aren't usually as much fun. that was nice and we're planning to do it again.
How much snow did everyone get? We got like…well….okay so we got maybe a ¼ inch, which was gone as soon as it started raining. :( but it was good because we had to drive to Oregon for journalism training for India, and the weather was already bad enough. The training was pretty good….I'm still working on a special story about it to post soon, it's not quite ready yet – sorry. Since my mom is doing the administration stuff I got to sit in on her meeting with our team leader and learned some more of what my mom will be doing, which is good for me to understand.
This is tough – I want to tell you so much about the trip but I can't go into details on the blog for security reasons. I'll be e-mailing you guys from India so I can say a little more. :)
how is everyone?
*jumps* PotC3 is out today!!!!!!!!!!! I'm just bummed because I have to wait for it. Mom is getting a haircut and I'm not going, so then she's running errands, de da de da de da.......last year was amazing, I was running around WalMart holding it as tightly as I possibly could, then I'd read the entire back (yes, that includes the stuff at the bottom with the actors and music composer and producer and director and other boring stuff), and then I'd look at the pics and hug it close again!!! today I have to wait. I'll probably call mom like ten times to see if she has it yet. I wonder what the cover looks like? I wonder what's on the 2-disc special edition? I wonder how much it is and if I have to pay for any of it hahaha.
Here is a list of the people from PotC I heart:
#1 - Norrington!!!! (oh btw does anyone know the abbreviation for Commodore? Cmmd? Isn't Cmd commander or something?)
#2 Hans Zimmer!!!
#3 Klaus Badelt!!!
#4 Jack and Will and the other losers - Norrington rocks oh yeah!
#5 Jerry Bruckheimer (come on NT2!!!)
#6 Jack the Monkey (he's amazing!)
It was really funny some time last month - we were watching this movie, from Netflix I think, don't remember what it was, but I'm like who did the music? It sounds like the same composer as Batman Begins. Who was that? *looks at movie case* Hans Zimmer... well I guess you learn something new every day huh? So who did this movie - was it Hans Zimmer? *toddles off to look it up* noooo.....Klaus Badelt!!!!
I just realized that may not be funny to really anyone except Anna ;) Basically, Klaus Badelt is the genius behind PotC music, he did the first movie and all the themes and stuff. Then he and Jerry Bruckheimer argued or something stupid (I guess all the great ones are finicky with each other - look at Howard Shore and PJ), so then Hans Zimmer did PotC 2 and 3. But Klaus Badelt and Hans Zimmer have worked very closely together so their music sounds similar. That's why it's funny that I thought it was one and it turned out to be the other.
I guess.
Oh, and in case you wanted to know - Hans Zimmer has done a lot of Disney stuff...Lion King etc. And he did Muppet Treasure Island which is amazing!!!! (one of my alltime favorite movies ha-ha). And Alan Menken is the other world's most amazing composer ever....Newsies, Little Mermaid, Pocohantas, Beauty and the Beast.
The discourse about PotC and music is now over. If you were ignoring all that, you can pay attention again now.
This has been a very good week! I keep meaning to post, but as soon as I sit down to write it my mind goes blank. It feels pretty good now though – as good as it ever does…
I'm part of a band! Okay…sort of. At youth group some kids from the school were taking pics for the yearbook and they needed a name for the worship team. So Alex and Anthony came up with something on the fly, which I think is very very good for just fifteen seconds of quick thinking. Our name is Called from the Wreckage. We don't play our own songs, so don't get all excited or anything.
:P
we have fun though.
we just got a ton of new songs that we're adding to our repertoire!!! Lots of Hillsong United, David Crowder Band, two from Leeland and four from Charlie Hall, that we got audio and sheet music for so that has been really exciting – I can't wait to do some new songs! so if you see a lot of new amazing song lyrics on here…that's most likely what it's from. Last Thursday was probably the most amazing night at youth group so far. We played one of our new songs, Song of the Redeemed, which is one of my new favorite songs. It had a prominent piano part but you're basically just holding the chords so it's really easy. It's a funny thing about youth group – I never really want to go when Thursday afternoon comes, I'm just so worn out from the rest of the day, but then the excitement just keeps building through practice and stuff until I get home and I'm so wide awake I stay up late cause I can't sleep. It's pretty amazing. Last Thursday we talked about spiritual warfare, and my youth leader brought up some interesting points about how we usually only think of it as being "out on the mission field" instead of everywhere, including right here at home. Like those days when you wake up "on the wrong side of the bed," or when someone says something that normally wouldn't bother you but might at one time. Why does it only bother you sometimes but not others? Not to be paranoied or to dismiss/justify when we're grumpy, but could that sometimes be oppression? maybe. anyway, it was a very powerful message, and right after that we got up to play.
Our acoustic guitarist/lead vocalist on one song is no where to be found. this is REALLY BAD. So Alex jumps from bass to guitar (he plays like every stringed instrument basically ha-ha) and now we have no bass – oh well. But there's no way we can do Take it All next without it. so I guess we'll just do two songs. I go to turn on my headphone monitors to find that the battery has died. just right then the battery, which was fine in practice, had to go and die. WHYYYY???????? So these monitors we're trying for the first week are not working so well.
We start the first song and get a ton of feedback; it just doesn't sound very good or worshipful, considering we're all stressed out. At the end of it Joe runs in and jump onstage, and he and Alex quickly change instruments. Now the guitar is tuned really weird and you can hardly hear the bass, so the next song sounds really bad too. Our audience has gone well beyond restless and all we want to do is create an atmosphere of worship, but it seems like God decided not to show up.
Finally it's my turn to start Song of the Redeemed. and it ended up being the best of the three, though we made some mistakes. At the end, Joe falls over onto the floor (which he had done during practice as a joke) and we're all sitting there looking mortified that he actually did it in front of everyone, when he looks up and yells "I told you I was gonna do it!" and we all start laughing.
Then Roger (our church worship leader) walks in the door and is like, play that last song you just played again. Well we can't very well say no to Roger (that's hard for anyone to do!), and we do need the practice on that song, plus it's amazing and fun, so we played it again.
It was picture-perfect. I'm not sure how it got that way, but it turned out with pretty much no mistakes, I was playing half of it with my eyes closed and everyone was just worshipping God – the song sounded amazing but we finally let God come in and fill, which we should have been doing all along. At the end I went over to say hi to Roger and he gave me a big hug while I asked him, "isn't that the most amazing song ever?" It turns out he got the music for it that night and he wants to play it in church in a few weeks. Oh and the really weird/cool part was during our sound checks when my keyboard picked up some random radio signal from the outlet it was plugged into or something strange like that, and started playing this groovy music. that was, er, interesting but kind of funny once we got it fixed. I just start playing and all of a sudden Kelsey's like – do you guys hear that???
Kelsey is one friend at youth group who I am really getting close to. She's really nice and we have a lot in common – she wants to be a missionary, and has been to Romania. Her brother is going to the college I want to go to, and we spent a while talking about missions last week. I'm glad to be making some strong connections at youth group, because I've been there for a while but haven't had really close friends until now, the kind of people you would invite to your house. a few Sundays ago I spent the night at another friend's house with about four other kids from youth group and we got all of four hours of sleep, then I had to go to the football game that night and lose my voice…oh dear…hardships, right?
On Friday night we went bowling (some kids from our youth group) which was a blast! It was kind of strange because there were only two other girls, and I didn't know anyone very well except Tom….which is another story anyway. But I still had a lot of fun and bowled very well in my first game (135, ok so it's very well for me!) and okay in my other two games (right up around 100). We're planning to do it again too, and most of the people I know well said they would go next time – it was kind of short notice this time.
I can not wait for Christmas!!! I'm excited about Christmas and we're just barely past Thanksgiving!!! Learning Hindi with my friend Chelsea has been going very well, is an amazingly fast learner which makes it easy. I'm also trying to learn some of the local language for where we're going. :( I've gotten five days of piano practice in this week, I actually feel ready for the 4-H meeting tonight, my Christmas shopping list is pretty much done! oh yeah…money… it's really cool though, I might be getting a job cleaning at my dad's office a few times a month which would be really nice, just to have a little bit of income, like Christmas shopping and maybe some spending money for India too ;)
Sunday we started decorating the house for Christmas!!!!!!!!! this year we're decorating our tree Victorian-style, and for some obscure reason my mom won't let me put candles on it…… hmmm….. but really, I want to put little gingerbread men and cookies with candy windows and stuff on it, and she says no. she says she'll want to eat them, and it's a waste of ingredients. so I'm not very happy about that. And we can't buy little plastic gingerbread guys either because it's a waste of money. but anyway, it'll look alright without them I guess. It would look more Victorian with them.
Dad put the tree up in the morning because he woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep, so that was a surprise (good, bad, I'm not sure???) and we got the lights on it but not much else yesterday. For the first time ever we bought this cedar garland at Costco and put it on our stair and balcony railings, and put lights in it, and we're going to put our ornaments that don't really match the Victorian theme on that instead of the tree. The house smells great!! mmm…. Sometime this week if we're ever home we'll finish the decorating. Supposedly we were going to be home all day Sunday but then mom made plans for us to go over to someone from our church's house and play games and have dessert, etc. That's why we didn't finish the decorating, but we did have a really fun time at their house! We're both families of three so it worked out well to get together for that; otherwise games aren't usually as much fun. that was nice and we're planning to do it again.
How much snow did everyone get? We got like…well….okay so we got maybe a ¼ inch, which was gone as soon as it started raining. :( but it was good because we had to drive to Oregon for journalism training for India, and the weather was already bad enough. The training was pretty good….I'm still working on a special story about it to post soon, it's not quite ready yet – sorry. Since my mom is doing the administration stuff I got to sit in on her meeting with our team leader and learned some more of what my mom will be doing, which is good for me to understand.
This is tough – I want to tell you so much about the trip but I can't go into details on the blog for security reasons. I'll be e-mailing you guys from India so I can say a little more. :)
how is everyone?
November 24, 2007
I went Christmas shopping yesterday with my grandma - it was fun but she bought me more stuff than anyone else. *guilty look*
sometimes it's fun being an only child! I was just thinking - Jesus got to be an only child for a while, then he got to have siblings. He knows how all of us feel!! sorry, I just thought that was cool.
do you hear the people sing/singing a song of angry men/it is the music of a people who will not be slaves again/when the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums/there is a life about to start/when tomorrow comes
I love GotRadio. it's pretty awesome.
I'm bored - can you tell? there's a million things I could be doing though, so I have no excuse. as soon as I'm done obliging you with this post I'll go do one of them. I built a fire today...my cream puffs for Thanksgiving were sketchy. I saw the coolest Converse that looked like an American flag when shopping yesterday! We didn't go to the mall but we did go Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving. today has been productive I guess, but I feel like there's nothing to write about. mostly we're just hanging out and I wish my dad was here. I'm really going to miss him when we're in India... :'(
oh yeah, and I'm completely in love with Mike Eldred!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Go here:
http://musicdownloads.walmart.com/catalog/servlet/SearchServlet;jsessionid=HLDF2S2sJ2R250h4dTLp2z7D2TyzcQ1mVfhyQfvkTNCyP3tWp6B9!-1767564058?action=artist&term=mike+eldred
and listen to any and/or every song. he's pretty much amazing and I'm completely in love with him...*sigh*
I should go now. I'm being really boring and I don't need to spread my boringness to any of you!
do you hear the people sing/singing a song of angry men/it is the music of a people who will not be slaves again/when the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums/there is a life about to start/when tomorrow comes
I love GotRadio. it's pretty awesome.
I'm bored - can you tell? there's a million things I could be doing though, so I have no excuse. as soon as I'm done obliging you with this post I'll go do one of them. I built a fire today...my cream puffs for Thanksgiving were sketchy. I saw the coolest Converse that looked like an American flag when shopping yesterday! We didn't go to the mall but we did go Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving. today has been productive I guess, but I feel like there's nothing to write about. mostly we're just hanging out and I wish my dad was here. I'm really going to miss him when we're in India... :'(
oh yeah, and I'm completely in love with Mike Eldred!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Go here:
http://musicdownloads.walmart.com/catalog/servlet/SearchServlet;jsessionid=HLDF2S2sJ2R250h4dTLp2z7D2TyzcQ1mVfhyQfvkTNCyP3tWp6B9!-1767564058?action=artist&term=mike+eldred
and listen to any and/or every song. he's pretty much amazing and I'm completely in love with him...*sigh*
I should go now. I'm being really boring and I don't need to spread my boringness to any of you!
November 22, 2007
I think I'm on the brink of something large/maybe like the breaking of a dawn/or maybe like a match being lit/or the sinking of a ship
letting go gives a better grip
so this must be the second of my bimonthly posts. I'm sorry I can't post more often - I really would like to but days like these are so rare now...life can be a pain when it's not horrendously fun! or maybe sometimes it's both.
I'm sitting in my grandparents' kitchen at the computer (I know, it's kind of a weird spot but it works ok?) and the whole house smells like turkey and stuffing. I just took a shower so I feel nice and clean. It's half-time in the football game and my grandpa's favorite team is favored to win - and is doing it. life seems pretty good, but then you stop to think that it was never really that bad after all. We're watching Live Free or Die Hard later with all three generations of Die Hard fans (not that I've seen any of the other ones...) and dinner is around three, or whenever our 22 pound turkey is done. let's see...that's just over four pounds each...that should be enough right? well we kind of thought maybe some other people might end up coming ha-ha. ;)
I feel very down-to-earth today. and it feels nice. last night I was extremely hyper, which is fun as always, but after watching the Silver Surfer and coming down from the sugar high and getting very tired, I headed off to my very own room (it's nice being an only grandchild) and snuggled up with both of my cats and fell asleep.
on Sunday I got a lot of new music and chords for 17 songs our youth group worship team is adding to our repertoire of songs. by the way, we came up with a name for our band! well...the yearbook kids were there and needed a name on the spot so Alex and Anthony came up with Called from the Wreckage. I really like it. not that we ever use it but it's nice to think about. and Roger gave me some tiny little earphones that I can have in one ear so I can hear me and the band which is nice.
I like to think about staying here as long as I want without typing up the phone line. being able to draft posts in blogger instead of Word because it doesn't matter if I'm online or not. and that I'll be here all weekend too. :)
tomorrow I might get to hang out with a friend I haven't seen in months. She's the busiest person I've ever met in my life by far (I'm very serious, no hyperbole here), and she lives in Seattle so we don't get together much. we don't even talk much. but she'll be in the Nutcracker tomorrow when we go see it and if I can get ahold of her today we'll hang out some time tomorrow afternoon! I just left a message...I hope she calls me back....
we're having cream puffs tonight. I'm making them. :P with chocolate whipped cream. we're making it in the VitaMix my grandma just bought at Costco. VitaMixes really are amazing. These cream puffs are not scrambled egg cream puffs.
"sempre fi."
"that's the marine corps sir, this is the army."
"oh, right."
"why'd you bring a cop into my command center???"
"it's a basement!"
"it's a command center."
I should get some breakfast. It's kind of funny I haven't even been hungry really until now. I got up at 7:30 for some absurd reason. everyone gets up early here. it's really rather depressing. maybe that is why so many people find Christmas depressing.
okay, I'll probably post again sometime this week. at least I'll be on and commenting often so everyone else needs to post too!
so this must be the second of my bimonthly posts. I'm sorry I can't post more often - I really would like to but days like these are so rare now...life can be a pain when it's not horrendously fun! or maybe sometimes it's both.
I'm sitting in my grandparents' kitchen at the computer (I know, it's kind of a weird spot but it works ok?) and the whole house smells like turkey and stuffing. I just took a shower so I feel nice and clean. It's half-time in the football game and my grandpa's favorite team is favored to win - and is doing it. life seems pretty good, but then you stop to think that it was never really that bad after all. We're watching Live Free or Die Hard later with all three generations of Die Hard fans (not that I've seen any of the other ones...) and dinner is around three, or whenever our 22 pound turkey is done. let's see...that's just over four pounds each...that should be enough right? well we kind of thought maybe some other people might end up coming ha-ha. ;)
I feel very down-to-earth today. and it feels nice. last night I was extremely hyper, which is fun as always, but after watching the Silver Surfer and coming down from the sugar high and getting very tired, I headed off to my very own room (it's nice being an only grandchild) and snuggled up with both of my cats and fell asleep.
on Sunday I got a lot of new music and chords for 17 songs our youth group worship team is adding to our repertoire of songs. by the way, we came up with a name for our band! well...the yearbook kids were there and needed a name on the spot so Alex and Anthony came up with Called from the Wreckage. I really like it. not that we ever use it but it's nice to think about. and Roger gave me some tiny little earphones that I can have in one ear so I can hear me and the band which is nice.
I like to think about staying here as long as I want without typing up the phone line. being able to draft posts in blogger instead of Word because it doesn't matter if I'm online or not. and that I'll be here all weekend too. :)
tomorrow I might get to hang out with a friend I haven't seen in months. She's the busiest person I've ever met in my life by far (I'm very serious, no hyperbole here), and she lives in Seattle so we don't get together much. we don't even talk much. but she'll be in the Nutcracker tomorrow when we go see it and if I can get ahold of her today we'll hang out some time tomorrow afternoon! I just left a message...I hope she calls me back....
we're having cream puffs tonight. I'm making them. :P with chocolate whipped cream. we're making it in the VitaMix my grandma just bought at Costco. VitaMixes really are amazing. These cream puffs are not scrambled egg cream puffs.
"sempre fi."
"that's the marine corps sir, this is the army."
"oh, right."
"why'd you bring a cop into my command center???"
"it's a basement!"
"it's a command center."
I should get some breakfast. It's kind of funny I haven't even been hungry really until now. I got up at 7:30 for some absurd reason. everyone gets up early here. it's really rather depressing. maybe that is why so many people find Christmas depressing.
okay, I'll probably post again sometime this week. at least I'll be on and commenting often so everyone else needs to post too!
November 11, 2007
then I saw the Congo, creeping through the black/cutting through the forest with a golden track
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keep, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up – for the you flag is flung – for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths – for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning:
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath you head;
It is some dream that on the deck
You've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse or will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won:
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead
~Uncle Walt~
Sometimes I think I must be very strange indeed to like Dead Poets Society ;) Basically it's the story of a bunch of boys, all essentially alike, in a prep school that wants them all to stay that way. Oh, and it's an all-boys school. All the teachers believe that boys at that age can't think for themselves and must be told what to think, not how to think (sounds like public school today, no?). There are several boys there that know each other, perhaps returning or graduates from a different school, and one new student who knows none of them. Neil Perry is the hero of our story – young, handsome, dashing, with great dreams handed down to him by his father. Of course he has his own dreams too, but those are quite secondary. Todd Anderson is the human equivalent of a Pixie Bob – he always has a worried expression on his face, and usually is worried because he doesn't know what's going on. Todd and Neil both have big shoes to fill, one left by his brother, the other left by his father.
there are five or six other boys in their "group" who somehow figure out ways to pass their classes when they never study in Study Group.
Mr. Keating is the new English teacher. His methods are a little beyond, shall we say, unorthodox. He begins the first class by walking in at the back of the room whistling, walking through the class and walking out the other door at the front of the classroom. He sticks his head back in, "Well, come on!" Here 'carpe diem' is introduced into the boys' lives. If you haven't had the pleasure of learning a dead language and don't know carpe diem, Anna will be tickled pink as a mome rath to tell you.
Later Neil and the others discover Mr. Keating's secret: he is a graduate of their same school, and was president of the Dead Poet's Society; a group of young men who met in the Old Indian Cave at night to read poetry, or rather – to let it drip from their tongues like honey. Neil revives the club.
Then it's a whirlwind of adventure and drama as Mr. Keating finds himself in over his head with the school board, and his boys discover the life in words. Neil's dream of acting comes true when he lands the part of Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Knox (or Knoxious) renames himself Nuanda and gets the girl (and a heap of trouble with him and his big head/mouth/etc.) The poet in Todd jumps out of him with the unexpected rapidity of Mr. Hyde and amazes the whole class. Cameron and egg-head get the radio to work. Dalton always gets me confused about him and Knox and which one is which – oh wait, Nuanda, sorry. It's the day before the play and everything is good.
Then Neil's father finds out.
Neil lies.
Neil goes to the play, Neil's father also comes in, at the end. Neil goes home and gets ready for ten more years of army and then medical school (after the ten years of grounding he'll probably be undergoing). His father won't ever listen.
A few short hours later he takes off his final mask. He stops acting. He can't live life like this anymore. No life is better than trying to live his father's life for hime.
He pulls the trigger.
Todd freaks out, the Dead Poet's Society is discovered and broken up. Mr. Keating is fired and English returns to Mr. J. Evans Pritchard PhD's horizontal/vertical judging scale.
Then, as Mr. Keating comes to collect his last few personal items, something snaps. He's leaving the room, he's walking through the door. But suddenly, he turns. Something has caught his ear. 'O Captain! my Captain!' Todd Anderson is standing on his desk with a last salute. One by one "his boys" mount their desks. 'O Captain! my Captain!' with the new teacher yelling all the while "sit down! get off your desks!!!" The bagpipes fade out with the tears welling in the Captain's eyes. 'Thank you boys.'
So why do I like this movie?
I have no idea.
My favorite scene in the entire movie is the desk set scene. It really brings out Neil's character as a friend and is a big part of Todd growing up:
NEIL: Todd? Hey.
TODD: Hey.
NEIL: What's going on?
TODD: Nothing. Today's my birthday.
NEIL: Is today your birthday? Happy birthday.
TODD: Thanks.
NEIL: What'd you get?
TODD: My parents gave me this. Neil looks down at a deskset sitting next to Todd, still inits wrappings.
NEIL: Isn't this the same desk set-
TODD: Yeah, yeah. They gave me the same thing as last year.
NEIL: Oh.
TODD: Oh.
NEIL: (laughing) Maybe they thought you needed another one.
TODD: Maybe they weren't thinking about anything at all. Uh, the funny thing is about this is I, I didn't even like it the first time.
NEIL: Todd, I think you're underestimating the value of this desk set. Neil picks up the desk set and begins examining it more closely.
NEIL: I mean, who would want a football or a baseball, or-
TODD: Or a car.
NEIL: Or a car - if they could have a desk set as wonderful as this one? I mean, if, if I were ever going to buy a desk set, twice, I would probably buy this one - both times. In fact, its, its shape is, it's rather aerodynamic, isn't it? I can feel it. This desk set wants to fly.
Neil tosses the desk set lightly in the air. Todd stands up and Neil hands him the desk set.
NEIL: Todd? The world's first unmanned flying desk set.
Todd flings the desk set over the side of the walkway and itfalls to pieces down below.
TODD: Oh, my!
NEIL: Well, I wouldn't worry. You'll get another one next year.
So today after taking first at the cat show with Lil instead of Comet (who has conjunctivitis) I went to Lauren's house and we hanged out (yes, like Fagin was hanged, we hanged out, it's British Sam and not one peep out of you!) and watched Princess Bride and then we made dinner and I convinced her to read Nicholas Nickleby and the Count of Monte Cristo (among others), then she drove me home and I'm showing her which version of Nicholas Nickleby to get from the library to watch:
"Make sure it's the one with Jamie Bell. That's very important!"
"My parents snort"
"What????"
"Oh yeah, Jamie Bell……." like, *we've heard enough of this before*
"What?!? I don't think he's cute. That's *somebody else we know who shall remain nameless* I just love Smike. Smike's adorable. Jamie Bell is the most amazing actor for Smike that could be found anywhere ever!"
"But wait – Jamie Bell, from Horatio Hornblower series right?"
"Noooo, that's *sighsmile* Jamie Bamber" *'dark raspberry' takes on a new meaning as it decorates my face*
"Oooohhhh, riiiiiiigggghhhhhtttttt…" *giggle from three corners of the room*
"Hey Kacy that new shade of blush looks really good on you."
"Hey I'm not the only one! Anna and Em can back me up here. It's been scientifically determined that we all three like blondes!!!" It's amazing what late-night talks can produce in the way of scientific evidences.
*sigh* She'll learn soon enough. I'll get her to see Horatio soon!!!! Oh, but Amazing Grace first. Same main actor, anyway. just…not Jamie.
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keep, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up – for the you flag is flung – for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths – for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning:
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath you head;
It is some dream that on the deck
You've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse or will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won:
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead
~Uncle Walt~
Sometimes I think I must be very strange indeed to like Dead Poets Society ;) Basically it's the story of a bunch of boys, all essentially alike, in a prep school that wants them all to stay that way. Oh, and it's an all-boys school. All the teachers believe that boys at that age can't think for themselves and must be told what to think, not how to think (sounds like public school today, no?). There are several boys there that know each other, perhaps returning or graduates from a different school, and one new student who knows none of them. Neil Perry is the hero of our story – young, handsome, dashing, with great dreams handed down to him by his father. Of course he has his own dreams too, but those are quite secondary. Todd Anderson is the human equivalent of a Pixie Bob – he always has a worried expression on his face, and usually is worried because he doesn't know what's going on. Todd and Neil both have big shoes to fill, one left by his brother, the other left by his father.
there are five or six other boys in their "group" who somehow figure out ways to pass their classes when they never study in Study Group.
Mr. Keating is the new English teacher. His methods are a little beyond, shall we say, unorthodox. He begins the first class by walking in at the back of the room whistling, walking through the class and walking out the other door at the front of the classroom. He sticks his head back in, "Well, come on!" Here 'carpe diem' is introduced into the boys' lives. If you haven't had the pleasure of learning a dead language and don't know carpe diem, Anna will be tickled pink as a mome rath to tell you.
Later Neil and the others discover Mr. Keating's secret: he is a graduate of their same school, and was president of the Dead Poet's Society; a group of young men who met in the Old Indian Cave at night to read poetry, or rather – to let it drip from their tongues like honey. Neil revives the club.
Then it's a whirlwind of adventure and drama as Mr. Keating finds himself in over his head with the school board, and his boys discover the life in words. Neil's dream of acting comes true when he lands the part of Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Knox (or Knoxious) renames himself Nuanda and gets the girl (and a heap of trouble with him and his big head/mouth/etc.) The poet in Todd jumps out of him with the unexpected rapidity of Mr. Hyde and amazes the whole class. Cameron and egg-head get the radio to work. Dalton always gets me confused about him and Knox and which one is which – oh wait, Nuanda, sorry. It's the day before the play and everything is good.
Then Neil's father finds out.
Neil lies.
Neil goes to the play, Neil's father also comes in, at the end. Neil goes home and gets ready for ten more years of army and then medical school (after the ten years of grounding he'll probably be undergoing). His father won't ever listen.
A few short hours later he takes off his final mask. He stops acting. He can't live life like this anymore. No life is better than trying to live his father's life for hime.
He pulls the trigger.
Todd freaks out, the Dead Poet's Society is discovered and broken up. Mr. Keating is fired and English returns to Mr. J. Evans Pritchard PhD's horizontal/vertical judging scale.
Then, as Mr. Keating comes to collect his last few personal items, something snaps. He's leaving the room, he's walking through the door. But suddenly, he turns. Something has caught his ear. 'O Captain! my Captain!' Todd Anderson is standing on his desk with a last salute. One by one "his boys" mount their desks. 'O Captain! my Captain!' with the new teacher yelling all the while "sit down! get off your desks!!!" The bagpipes fade out with the tears welling in the Captain's eyes. 'Thank you boys.'
So why do I like this movie?
I have no idea.
My favorite scene in the entire movie is the desk set scene. It really brings out Neil's character as a friend and is a big part of Todd growing up:
NEIL: Todd? Hey.
TODD: Hey.
NEIL: What's going on?
TODD: Nothing. Today's my birthday.
NEIL: Is today your birthday? Happy birthday.
TODD: Thanks.
NEIL: What'd you get?
TODD: My parents gave me this. Neil looks down at a deskset sitting next to Todd, still inits wrappings.
NEIL: Isn't this the same desk set-
TODD: Yeah, yeah. They gave me the same thing as last year.
NEIL: Oh.
TODD: Oh.
NEIL: (laughing) Maybe they thought you needed another one.
TODD: Maybe they weren't thinking about anything at all. Uh, the funny thing is about this is I, I didn't even like it the first time.
NEIL: Todd, I think you're underestimating the value of this desk set. Neil picks up the desk set and begins examining it more closely.
NEIL: I mean, who would want a football or a baseball, or-
TODD: Or a car.
NEIL: Or a car - if they could have a desk set as wonderful as this one? I mean, if, if I were ever going to buy a desk set, twice, I would probably buy this one - both times. In fact, its, its shape is, it's rather aerodynamic, isn't it? I can feel it. This desk set wants to fly.
Neil tosses the desk set lightly in the air. Todd stands up and Neil hands him the desk set.
NEIL: Todd? The world's first unmanned flying desk set.
Todd flings the desk set over the side of the walkway and itfalls to pieces down below.
TODD: Oh, my!
NEIL: Well, I wouldn't worry. You'll get another one next year.
So today after taking first at the cat show with Lil instead of Comet (who has conjunctivitis) I went to Lauren's house and we hanged out (yes, like Fagin was hanged, we hanged out, it's British Sam and not one peep out of you!) and watched Princess Bride and then we made dinner and I convinced her to read Nicholas Nickleby and the Count of Monte Cristo (among others), then she drove me home and I'm showing her which version of Nicholas Nickleby to get from the library to watch:
"Make sure it's the one with Jamie Bell. That's very important!"
"My parents snort"
"What????"
"Oh yeah, Jamie Bell……." like, *we've heard enough of this before*
"What?!? I don't think he's cute. That's *somebody else we know who shall remain nameless* I just love Smike. Smike's adorable. Jamie Bell is the most amazing actor for Smike that could be found anywhere ever!"
"But wait – Jamie Bell, from Horatio Hornblower series right?"
"Noooo, that's *sighsmile* Jamie Bamber" *'dark raspberry' takes on a new meaning as it decorates my face*
"Oooohhhh, riiiiiiigggghhhhhtttttt…" *giggle from three corners of the room*
"Hey Kacy that new shade of blush looks really good on you."
"Hey I'm not the only one! Anna and Em can back me up here. It's been scientifically determined that we all three like blondes!!!" It's amazing what late-night talks can produce in the way of scientific evidences.
*sigh* She'll learn soon enough. I'll get her to see Horatio soon!!!! Oh, but Amazing Grace first. Same main actor, anyway. just…not Jamie.
November 5, 2007
it was the look on their faces
Listening to Nicholas Nickleby from the other room…it’s really quite entertaining:
“Mr. Folair your trap! Shut your trap Mr. Folair!”
“The flames Mr. Folair, remember they’re hot!” “Ow.”
“Somebody forgot his spear.”
“Remember Mr. Folair, you are a savage, not a demented fairy!”
“Mr. Folair, there’s a problem with your head.”
who calls so loud?
“Should I choke?” “I think fainting might be more romantic.”
once, nobody was ashamed.
“Are you at home?”
“Yes.”
“To anybody?”
“Yes.”
“To the tax collector?”
“No.”
the Highland Fling.
“What’s come now?”
“I have.”
“What else?”
“A letter. Marked: ‘Urgent as well as Extreemly Importent.’ It’s from the Squeer’s”
“Wackford?”
“Doubtful. It’s perfumed.”
“Dear Mr. Knuckleboy Sir, My pa requests me to write to you, as the doctors are considering it doubtful whether he will ever recover the use of his legs, which prevents his holding a pen.’”
“Very well. We’ll have posters out in the morning announcing positively your last performance for tomorrow…with reengagement by popular demand for Friday. Then on Saturday we’ll have your absolutely last appearance…with the possibility of another performance to follow.”
“I must say that tonight was my absolutely positively final last performance!”
“Dear girl, take this, please!”
“But I am not crying.”
“Oh, the handkerchief’s for me. The arm’s for you.”
So, it's been a really busy…what is it, two weeks or so? Our church had their harvest festival Wednesday night, which was absolutely amazing!!!! The whole sanctuary was transformed into a Candyland board, Gramma Nut's house turned out really cute, and I ended up being Gramma Nut (which means I got to dress up but didn't have to do anything!). I didn't get sick, but I did get a leftover jar of frosting and two giant cardboard candy canes out of it. Oh yeah, and…the kids seemed to have a good time too!! And I got to test out the maze (made of PVC pipe and black plastic) twice, and didn't get lost! Ah…I really am a little kid at heart.
Sam you still have a blogger account right???? because we're all going to mutiny you if you deleted your blog and your account, you know that right? good then, we're all square.
Last weekend I had training for India, so that's why I wasn't on. But it was sooo awesome!!! We really got to know everyone on the team much better so that was great, plus learning about communicating to different cultures, and what not to do….And I have to say that Don Quixote is about the funniest book in the world, really. well….except maybe a few other ones….ha-ha.
Making houses out of wood and cardboard can actually be dangerous, believe it or not. However, have no fear, for we were cautious to the utmost degree, and the worst wound I receives was hitting myself in the head with a crowbar. Don't try this at home kids, it hurts.
Oh, and the only other really big piece of news is that Satsumas are out early, which means Christmas time is here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*happy face* :) :) :) :)
:P :P :P :P :-) :-) :-) :-)
I was telling my dad at the harvest festival that if we could dance, it would be a masquerade ball. He didn't want to dance, so I danced a little by myself, but it wasn't the same. Next year on Halloween we should all get together and have a masquerade ball!!! yeah – totally!!!!!!!!
Oh I also got my SEND! magazine from GFA, and my dad got me one of their books, Road to Reality, which is probably one of the best books I've ever read and you should all get it right after you're done with Leave it to Psmith, and also two of their DVD's, Touch of Love and To Live is Christ. Both very very good, of course, and I've been very happy for the most part lately too. I clipped my cats claws this morning and emerged from the fray with no battle scars! The only bleak spot on the horizon is that Gandalf just died, and Aragorn is never returning to Cerin Amroth, and Arwen's gonna die there because her jerk of a husband is afraid of old age. But really, other than that life is good.
I can see I'm boring you, so I shall adjourn to play my Nutcracker and Christmas music now!!!
By the way, this is a report I wrote a couple weeks ago. I'd appreciate some constructive criticism if you guys want to say anything. Thanks!
Our Last Cruise
On a cold November day in 1850, a child was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He would grow up with weak lungs, a love of travel, adventure, and the sea. He was given the name Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson, a combination of his two grandfathers Robert Stevenson and Lewis Balfour. From the latter he inherited a love of writing, and though it was expected that Robert would follow the last three generations of his family and become a lighthouse engineer, after graduating from Edinburgh Academy and preparing to enter the University of Edinburgh he realized that not only did he not wish to follow that career path, but his physical endurance was not such that he could if he had wanted to.
Stevenson's father was very strict, and the two never got along well together. After taking a voyage with his father to investigate lighthouse construction, Robert finally persuaded the elder to allow him to follow an interest in literature, on the condition that he earn a degree in law to fall back upon if (or when, as his father was convinced he would) he failed in writing. Stevenson wrote a verse of poetry protesting his father's strictness after earning the law degree and nearly killing himself with study and worry. His health was permanently damaged.
From 1875-1879 Stevenson traveled, searching for a favorable climate for his lungs. He frequented France in the winters, where he met his future wife, Frances (Fanny) Osbourne, an American who was married at the time. He also made many friends – literary, dramatic and religious. This is when his writing first started to take flight, with An Inland Voyage and Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, in addition to several essays and articles. Despite this period of beginnings while Stevenson was discovering and perfecting his style, his parents were unhappy with him and thought he was wasting his time –time they were paying for.
In 1879 Robert heard that Fanny was very ill in California, and against the advice of his friends he left to care for her, without informing his parents. Although he loved the voyage (where he traveled third class both to save money, and to get a better idea of how people of different social status lived), by the time he had traveled from New York to California his health was again in a compromising situation, and he was probably in a worse condition than Ms. Osbourne herself. He was required to stay with some ranchers who cared for him until healthy enough to finish the journey to San Francisco. There he lived on forty-five cents a day doing hard labor, and soon it was Fanny who was caring for him. His father cabled money when he heard about his son's condition, and in May 1880 they were married.
Stevenson was a romantic at heart as much as he was an optimist, and for their honeymoon he took his wife to an abandoned mining camp at Mount Saint Helena, which experience he published in The Silverado Squatters. Later that year he and his new wife returned to his family in Britain, where Fanny mended the differences between father and son, and there they lived happily for the next seven years. Over this period of time Stevenson made a name for himself with some of his best-known works: Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Kidnapped, The Black Arrow, and A Child's Garden of Verses.
At the end of this period Robert's father passed away and he considered himself at liberty to travel to a different climate in hopes to better his health. And so, he took his wife, mother and step-son to America, where they decided to winter at Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks. Here he began The Master of Ballantrae, and spent the winter planning the sea voyage he was to take the next summer with his family to the South Pacific.
The sea air and warm climate restored his health for three happy years; he traveled to Tahiti, the Hawaiian, Gilbert, and Samoan Islands. His writing went through an excellent phase in which he completed The Master of Ballantrae, David Balfour, and The Bottle Imp, amongst others. In 1890 Stevenson bought 400 acres on Upolu, one of the Samoan Islands, and settled down. During his years here he was very concerned in local politics, helping people see the inefficiency of the European rulers appointed over the natives. He also found some time for his writing here, though he said it went through phases and at one point was very depressed, claiming that the best he could come up with was ditch water. But in 1894 he began The Weir of Hermiston and announced that is was "so good it frightens me." The thing he feared most during these years was a return of his tuberculosis – to be an invalid he considered worse than to be hanged. His wish was fulfilled: he died on December 3rd of a cerebral hemorrhage in only a few hours, after having spent seven happy and influential years in the South Pacific. He was buried by the natives on nearby Mt. Vaea, overlooking the sea, and on his tomb was inscribed the Requiem he himself had written:
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me die.
Glad did I live, and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
'Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.'
Robert Louis Stevenson's legacy has taken as many turns for better and for worse as his life did. In his time he was hailed as a great writer, but after his death people began to criticize his work as second-class, written for only children's and horror genres. He was condemned by authors such as Virginia Woolf and Leonard Woolf, and completely left out of Oxford Anthology of English Literature and the first seven editions of Norton's Anthology of English Literature. It is only within the last decade that literary minds and others have begun to see him once again a visionary of his century – someone with great intellect and insight into the nature of humanity. One of Stevenson's defining factors was how much he wrote from real life, including his romanticism, his optimism, his adventuresome nature, and his concern for the peoples of the South Pacific. Today he is the 25th most translated writer – more than Dickens, Wilde and Poe.
Despite great health issues in his life, what Stevenson is probably loved for most as a man is his optimistic spirit and buoyancy. He once said of himself that "mine is a blessed life; it is too bad I can not have that one other blessing – health. But although you will be mad to hear me say so, I think it best." His philosophy of life is best summed up in his own words: "Old and young, we are all on our last cruise."
“Mr. Folair your trap! Shut your trap Mr. Folair!”
“The flames Mr. Folair, remember they’re hot!” “Ow.”
“Somebody forgot his spear.”
“Remember Mr. Folair, you are a savage, not a demented fairy!”
“Mr. Folair, there’s a problem with your head.”
who calls so loud?
“Should I choke?” “I think fainting might be more romantic.”
once, nobody was ashamed.
“Are you at home?”
“Yes.”
“To anybody?”
“Yes.”
“To the tax collector?”
“No.”
the Highland Fling.
“What’s come now?”
“I have.”
“What else?”
“A letter. Marked: ‘Urgent as well as Extreemly Importent.’ It’s from the Squeer’s”
“Wackford?”
“Doubtful. It’s perfumed.”
“Dear Mr. Knuckleboy Sir, My pa requests me to write to you, as the doctors are considering it doubtful whether he will ever recover the use of his legs, which prevents his holding a pen.’”
“Very well. We’ll have posters out in the morning announcing positively your last performance for tomorrow…with reengagement by popular demand for Friday. Then on Saturday we’ll have your absolutely last appearance…with the possibility of another performance to follow.”
“I must say that tonight was my absolutely positively final last performance!”
“Dear girl, take this, please!”
“But I am not crying.”
“Oh, the handkerchief’s for me. The arm’s for you.”
So, it's been a really busy…what is it, two weeks or so? Our church had their harvest festival Wednesday night, which was absolutely amazing!!!! The whole sanctuary was transformed into a Candyland board, Gramma Nut's house turned out really cute, and I ended up being Gramma Nut (which means I got to dress up but didn't have to do anything!). I didn't get sick, but I did get a leftover jar of frosting and two giant cardboard candy canes out of it. Oh yeah, and…the kids seemed to have a good time too!! And I got to test out the maze (made of PVC pipe and black plastic) twice, and didn't get lost! Ah…I really am a little kid at heart.
Sam you still have a blogger account right???? because we're all going to mutiny you if you deleted your blog and your account, you know that right? good then, we're all square.
Last weekend I had training for India, so that's why I wasn't on. But it was sooo awesome!!! We really got to know everyone on the team much better so that was great, plus learning about communicating to different cultures, and what not to do….And I have to say that Don Quixote is about the funniest book in the world, really. well….except maybe a few other ones….ha-ha.
Making houses out of wood and cardboard can actually be dangerous, believe it or not. However, have no fear, for we were cautious to the utmost degree, and the worst wound I receives was hitting myself in the head with a crowbar. Don't try this at home kids, it hurts.
Oh, and the only other really big piece of news is that Satsumas are out early, which means Christmas time is here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*happy face* :) :) :) :)
:P :P :P :P :-) :-) :-) :-)
I was telling my dad at the harvest festival that if we could dance, it would be a masquerade ball. He didn't want to dance, so I danced a little by myself, but it wasn't the same. Next year on Halloween we should all get together and have a masquerade ball!!! yeah – totally!!!!!!!!
Oh I also got my SEND! magazine from GFA, and my dad got me one of their books, Road to Reality, which is probably one of the best books I've ever read and you should all get it right after you're done with Leave it to Psmith, and also two of their DVD's, Touch of Love and To Live is Christ. Both very very good, of course, and I've been very happy for the most part lately too. I clipped my cats claws this morning and emerged from the fray with no battle scars! The only bleak spot on the horizon is that Gandalf just died, and Aragorn is never returning to Cerin Amroth, and Arwen's gonna die there because her jerk of a husband is afraid of old age. But really, other than that life is good.
I can see I'm boring you, so I shall adjourn to play my Nutcracker and Christmas music now!!!
By the way, this is a report I wrote a couple weeks ago. I'd appreciate some constructive criticism if you guys want to say anything. Thanks!
Our Last Cruise
On a cold November day in 1850, a child was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He would grow up with weak lungs, a love of travel, adventure, and the sea. He was given the name Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson, a combination of his two grandfathers Robert Stevenson and Lewis Balfour. From the latter he inherited a love of writing, and though it was expected that Robert would follow the last three generations of his family and become a lighthouse engineer, after graduating from Edinburgh Academy and preparing to enter the University of Edinburgh he realized that not only did he not wish to follow that career path, but his physical endurance was not such that he could if he had wanted to.
Stevenson's father was very strict, and the two never got along well together. After taking a voyage with his father to investigate lighthouse construction, Robert finally persuaded the elder to allow him to follow an interest in literature, on the condition that he earn a degree in law to fall back upon if (or when, as his father was convinced he would) he failed in writing. Stevenson wrote a verse of poetry protesting his father's strictness after earning the law degree and nearly killing himself with study and worry. His health was permanently damaged.
From 1875-1879 Stevenson traveled, searching for a favorable climate for his lungs. He frequented France in the winters, where he met his future wife, Frances (Fanny) Osbourne, an American who was married at the time. He also made many friends – literary, dramatic and religious. This is when his writing first started to take flight, with An Inland Voyage and Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, in addition to several essays and articles. Despite this period of beginnings while Stevenson was discovering and perfecting his style, his parents were unhappy with him and thought he was wasting his time –time they were paying for.
In 1879 Robert heard that Fanny was very ill in California, and against the advice of his friends he left to care for her, without informing his parents. Although he loved the voyage (where he traveled third class both to save money, and to get a better idea of how people of different social status lived), by the time he had traveled from New York to California his health was again in a compromising situation, and he was probably in a worse condition than Ms. Osbourne herself. He was required to stay with some ranchers who cared for him until healthy enough to finish the journey to San Francisco. There he lived on forty-five cents a day doing hard labor, and soon it was Fanny who was caring for him. His father cabled money when he heard about his son's condition, and in May 1880 they were married.
Stevenson was a romantic at heart as much as he was an optimist, and for their honeymoon he took his wife to an abandoned mining camp at Mount Saint Helena, which experience he published in The Silverado Squatters. Later that year he and his new wife returned to his family in Britain, where Fanny mended the differences between father and son, and there they lived happily for the next seven years. Over this period of time Stevenson made a name for himself with some of his best-known works: Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Kidnapped, The Black Arrow, and A Child's Garden of Verses.
At the end of this period Robert's father passed away and he considered himself at liberty to travel to a different climate in hopes to better his health. And so, he took his wife, mother and step-son to America, where they decided to winter at Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks. Here he began The Master of Ballantrae, and spent the winter planning the sea voyage he was to take the next summer with his family to the South Pacific.
The sea air and warm climate restored his health for three happy years; he traveled to Tahiti, the Hawaiian, Gilbert, and Samoan Islands. His writing went through an excellent phase in which he completed The Master of Ballantrae, David Balfour, and The Bottle Imp, amongst others. In 1890 Stevenson bought 400 acres on Upolu, one of the Samoan Islands, and settled down. During his years here he was very concerned in local politics, helping people see the inefficiency of the European rulers appointed over the natives. He also found some time for his writing here, though he said it went through phases and at one point was very depressed, claiming that the best he could come up with was ditch water. But in 1894 he began The Weir of Hermiston and announced that is was "so good it frightens me." The thing he feared most during these years was a return of his tuberculosis – to be an invalid he considered worse than to be hanged. His wish was fulfilled: he died on December 3rd of a cerebral hemorrhage in only a few hours, after having spent seven happy and influential years in the South Pacific. He was buried by the natives on nearby Mt. Vaea, overlooking the sea, and on his tomb was inscribed the Requiem he himself had written:
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me die.
Glad did I live, and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
'Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.'
Robert Louis Stevenson's legacy has taken as many turns for better and for worse as his life did. In his time he was hailed as a great writer, but after his death people began to criticize his work as second-class, written for only children's and horror genres. He was condemned by authors such as Virginia Woolf and Leonard Woolf, and completely left out of Oxford Anthology of English Literature and the first seven editions of Norton's Anthology of English Literature. It is only within the last decade that literary minds and others have begun to see him once again a visionary of his century – someone with great intellect and insight into the nature of humanity. One of Stevenson's defining factors was how much he wrote from real life, including his romanticism, his optimism, his adventuresome nature, and his concern for the peoples of the South Pacific. Today he is the 25th most translated writer – more than Dickens, Wilde and Poe.
Despite great health issues in his life, what Stevenson is probably loved for most as a man is his optimistic spirit and buoyancy. He once said of himself that "mine is a blessed life; it is too bad I can not have that one other blessing – health. But although you will be mad to hear me say so, I think it best." His philosophy of life is best summed up in his own words: "Old and young, we are all on our last cruise."
October 21, 2007
So...
...until I can post about my nearly perfect day today...
what should I do for my 16th birthday? I want to do something when I get back from India...like end of February, but I'm not sure what. Maybe another cool sleepover like for Lucy's birthday? I don't know that I want to go anywhere, I just want to be with my friends. And 16 just seems so important.
Ideas?
So later on (prolly Monday) I'll post about the cat show and the symphony and my day and also the report I wrote on R.L.S. that I want some constructive criticism on.
Have a good Sunday - see you guys later!
what should I do for my 16th birthday? I want to do something when I get back from India...like end of February, but I'm not sure what. Maybe another cool sleepover like for Lucy's birthday? I don't know that I want to go anywhere, I just want to be with my friends. And 16 just seems so important.
Ideas?
So later on (prolly Monday) I'll post about the cat show and the symphony and my day and also the report I wrote on R.L.S. that I want some constructive criticism on.
Have a good Sunday - see you guys later!
October 16, 2007
to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive
waaay overdue on making a new post, no? I think so, I think so.
I've discovered that I still know how to make origami frogs!!! oh, what a talent. So last Saturday my mom and I went to this mother/daughter tea thing in Olympia, and got all dressed up, and had high tea and that was pretty cool. But we were kind of waiting for everyone to get signed in and it to start, and I (being the only child that I am!) took our name tag papers (the part you pull the name tag off of) and rediscovered the art of making origami frogs. But mine seemed to only like going straight up or backwards…which was interesting to say the least. Mom's went more straight. So I organized the froggy Olympics and mine won –can you guess? – the high jump! while mom's won the long jump.
I know you just wish you were an only child too! You'd honestly never get bored…
I found this incredible song that I think Sam would like…I don't know, I don't really know his style, but the lyrics are pretty amazing. It's called "Our God Reigns" by Delirious:
Forty million babies, lost to God's great orphanage
It's a modern day genocide, and a modern day disgrace
If this is a human right then why aren’t we free?
The only freedom we have is in a man nailed to a tree.
100 million faces, staring at the sky,
Wondering if this HIV will ever pass us by.
The devil stole the rain and hope trickles down the plug,
But still my Chinese take away could pay for someone’s drugs.
Our God reigns, Our God reigns,
Forever your kingdom reigns.
The west has found a gun and it’s loaded with ‘unsure’
Nip and tuck if you have the bucks in a race to find a cure.
Psalm one hundred and thirty nine is the conscience to our selfish crime,
God didn’t screw up when he made you,
He’s a father who loves to parade you.
Yes he reigns, yes you reign, yes you reign,
For there is only one true God,
But we’ve lost the reins on this world,
Forgive us all, forgive us please,
As we fight for this broken world on our knees.
Golf season is over. Isaiah has amazing poetry – and amazing wisdom! Oh yes, and an old friend and I have gotten together and are kind of, well, rebuilding our relationship. She just got a blog too, and wants to join our community, if you're all cool with it. so speak now or forever hold your peace!
I went to this thing on Friday called Missions Fest Seattle, and I volunteered at the Operation Mobilization booktable for a couple hours, then I took two free workshops: Finding Your Place in God's Strategic Vision for the World, and The Range of Opportunities in Missions. It was really pretty amazing to be with hundreds of people who all share the same passion as you! And this was only the second time they've done it! Then they had this speaker in a plenary session who was also very amazing. It was all pretty inspiring. and I felt so grown up, there without my parents!!! ha-ha JK.
I'm working on some pretty amazing piano music right now – the cannibal song from Pirates 2, Tarantella for my recital next May, and Clair de Lune, plus I'm going to start playing for my youth group worship team this week! I made scones on Saturday that turned out really well.
So this morning my cat decided to go exploring – under my parents' bathtub. Apparently there's this way to get there if you're really small from a cupboard under the sink, and there's a tiny little tunnel that goes under/inside their jet-tub. So Lil thought it would be a good place to explore. I didn't think so. My mom and I are downstairs reading on the couch and we hear this tap-tap-tap-tap-tap! that keeps going off and on, and Comet is jumping around wondering what in the world is going on, and we figure it has to be Lil trapped behind a door somewhere. Mom finally found her behind their cupboard; she had decided she had enough exploring and wanted out. Oh yes, and she was covered in dust. pretty much she looked more gray than chocolate. oh dear…my cat is not very smart…
I got my flu shot today to go to India! It didn't hurt at all, but it did bleed, which surprised both me and the nurse! Then I thought I needed Typhoid, because we couldn't find a record of getting a vaccination anywhere, even though I must have had it last time I went. Then we discovered that I had taken it orally, which lasts for five years, so I don't even need it again! Mom needed three shots though, and they typhoid pills. ugh. :P
I think that's about all the news. Life goes on…sometimes slowly and sometimes too fast, but always moving on. It's a bummer – sometimes there are moments I want to keep, or pass by. guess it all evens out in the end. I'm babbling now.
As Sam would say, look at the clock at 11:11, and also read Leave it to Psmith if you haven't yet! Easy read, amazing book, lots (and lots and lots) of laughs!!
I've discovered that I still know how to make origami frogs!!! oh, what a talent. So last Saturday my mom and I went to this mother/daughter tea thing in Olympia, and got all dressed up, and had high tea and that was pretty cool. But we were kind of waiting for everyone to get signed in and it to start, and I (being the only child that I am!) took our name tag papers (the part you pull the name tag off of) and rediscovered the art of making origami frogs. But mine seemed to only like going straight up or backwards…which was interesting to say the least. Mom's went more straight. So I organized the froggy Olympics and mine won –can you guess? – the high jump! while mom's won the long jump.
I know you just wish you were an only child too! You'd honestly never get bored…
I found this incredible song that I think Sam would like…I don't know, I don't really know his style, but the lyrics are pretty amazing. It's called "Our God Reigns" by Delirious:
Forty million babies, lost to God's great orphanage
It's a modern day genocide, and a modern day disgrace
If this is a human right then why aren’t we free?
The only freedom we have is in a man nailed to a tree.
100 million faces, staring at the sky,
Wondering if this HIV will ever pass us by.
The devil stole the rain and hope trickles down the plug,
But still my Chinese take away could pay for someone’s drugs.
Our God reigns, Our God reigns,
Forever your kingdom reigns.
The west has found a gun and it’s loaded with ‘unsure’
Nip and tuck if you have the bucks in a race to find a cure.
Psalm one hundred and thirty nine is the conscience to our selfish crime,
God didn’t screw up when he made you,
He’s a father who loves to parade you.
Yes he reigns, yes you reign, yes you reign,
For there is only one true God,
But we’ve lost the reins on this world,
Forgive us all, forgive us please,
As we fight for this broken world on our knees.
Golf season is over. Isaiah has amazing poetry – and amazing wisdom! Oh yes, and an old friend and I have gotten together and are kind of, well, rebuilding our relationship. She just got a blog too, and wants to join our community, if you're all cool with it. so speak now or forever hold your peace!
I went to this thing on Friday called Missions Fest Seattle, and I volunteered at the Operation Mobilization booktable for a couple hours, then I took two free workshops: Finding Your Place in God's Strategic Vision for the World, and The Range of Opportunities in Missions. It was really pretty amazing to be with hundreds of people who all share the same passion as you! And this was only the second time they've done it! Then they had this speaker in a plenary session who was also very amazing. It was all pretty inspiring. and I felt so grown up, there without my parents!!! ha-ha JK.
I'm working on some pretty amazing piano music right now – the cannibal song from Pirates 2, Tarantella for my recital next May, and Clair de Lune, plus I'm going to start playing for my youth group worship team this week! I made scones on Saturday that turned out really well.
So this morning my cat decided to go exploring – under my parents' bathtub. Apparently there's this way to get there if you're really small from a cupboard under the sink, and there's a tiny little tunnel that goes under/inside their jet-tub. So Lil thought it would be a good place to explore. I didn't think so. My mom and I are downstairs reading on the couch and we hear this tap-tap-tap-tap-tap! that keeps going off and on, and Comet is jumping around wondering what in the world is going on, and we figure it has to be Lil trapped behind a door somewhere. Mom finally found her behind their cupboard; she had decided she had enough exploring and wanted out. Oh yes, and she was covered in dust. pretty much she looked more gray than chocolate. oh dear…my cat is not very smart…
I got my flu shot today to go to India! It didn't hurt at all, but it did bleed, which surprised both me and the nurse! Then I thought I needed Typhoid, because we couldn't find a record of getting a vaccination anywhere, even though I must have had it last time I went. Then we discovered that I had taken it orally, which lasts for five years, so I don't even need it again! Mom needed three shots though, and they typhoid pills. ugh. :P
I think that's about all the news. Life goes on…sometimes slowly and sometimes too fast, but always moving on. It's a bummer – sometimes there are moments I want to keep, or pass by. guess it all evens out in the end. I'm babbling now.
As Sam would say, look at the clock at 11:11, and also read Leave it to Psmith if you haven't yet! Easy read, amazing book, lots (and lots and lots) of laughs!!
October 6, 2007
can I take your picture/put it in my billfold/you'll never believe where I will take you
*sigh*
I'm going to India.
i'm going to india
I'M GOING TO INDIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's pretty much official now. Sorry I haven't been on much this last week either, but it's been very crazy trying to figure out whether I'm going or not, so I think that's a legit. excuse, haha. ;) so I'll be on the Visual Communications team, writing and taking pics for three weeks in India, and guess who my guardian is going to be?
my mom.
yep, my mom, who said she'd never go, didn't feel called to go, thought she was one of the "senders," is going with me for three weeks to India in January. I'll be spending my 16th birthday half way around the world in a foreign country with jet-lag. FUN!!!!!!!
So Mythraie called my mom on Wednesday and said, basically, the team had no person to handle logistics and administration (getting plane tickets, passports and visas, exchanging money, helping with reserving the hotel, etc....all the things that hold the team together basically). And it kind of caught my mom off-guard, because she didn't feel called to go. Two days earlier both people I had hopes of possibly being guardians said they couldn't go this year. I really didn't have any prospects left. BUT, Mythraie is a very persuasive talker. :) My mom thought about it for the whole evening and next day, and then said she would come to the first training, which took place today, then make up her mind completely. Somewhere between Thursday and today we have been looking at all these stories from Scripture...Moses, Jonah, Ananias (who gave Saul/Paul his sight back)...people who didn't really want to do what God called them to do, but knew God was telling them to do it. so she decided to move forward with it unless God decided that it's not time. But so far everything is going great, and I really feel that this is the year. and I couldn't possibly have a better guardian than my own parent!!
I'm so excited I just burst out laughing sometimes when I'm by myself, and then it turns into tears, tears of joy. She'll see Singapore, and all the kites in India from the kite festival...and taste the real Indian food (not American India, sometimes very very yuck! like dal...no comment), and hear the stupid elevator that plays Fur Elise mechanically all the way up to the fifth floor, and meet Mandolay, and see elephants and camels and dogs and goats and cows.....and smell the flowers, and eat milk bikis, and and and.....
can you tell I'm excited, just a little bit?
we got our notebooks and I'm already working on my support letter to send out, which all of you should get (Lindy and Lucy I want to send you guys one so I'll need an address as soon as you can give it to me...that'd be great!)
And Mike and Tom and Barbie and Mythraie and John are going....and Joe and Melissa are meeting us over there, and Ben and Libby too!!!! And Barbie has Libby's old clothes for me to wear again probably, which I'm totally in love with. and you all have no idea what I'm talking about, but you're smiling and nodding, and I know you're all very excited for me because I'm excited about it!!!
I'm going to India!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm going to India.
i'm going to india
I'M GOING TO INDIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's pretty much official now. Sorry I haven't been on much this last week either, but it's been very crazy trying to figure out whether I'm going or not, so I think that's a legit. excuse, haha. ;) so I'll be on the Visual Communications team, writing and taking pics for three weeks in India, and guess who my guardian is going to be?
my mom.
yep, my mom, who said she'd never go, didn't feel called to go, thought she was one of the "senders," is going with me for three weeks to India in January. I'll be spending my 16th birthday half way around the world in a foreign country with jet-lag. FUN!!!!!!!
So Mythraie called my mom on Wednesday and said, basically, the team had no person to handle logistics and administration (getting plane tickets, passports and visas, exchanging money, helping with reserving the hotel, etc....all the things that hold the team together basically). And it kind of caught my mom off-guard, because she didn't feel called to go. Two days earlier both people I had hopes of possibly being guardians said they couldn't go this year. I really didn't have any prospects left. BUT, Mythraie is a very persuasive talker. :) My mom thought about it for the whole evening and next day, and then said she would come to the first training, which took place today, then make up her mind completely. Somewhere between Thursday and today we have been looking at all these stories from Scripture...Moses, Jonah, Ananias (who gave Saul/Paul his sight back)...people who didn't really want to do what God called them to do, but knew God was telling them to do it. so she decided to move forward with it unless God decided that it's not time. But so far everything is going great, and I really feel that this is the year. and I couldn't possibly have a better guardian than my own parent!!
I'm so excited I just burst out laughing sometimes when I'm by myself, and then it turns into tears, tears of joy. She'll see Singapore, and all the kites in India from the kite festival...and taste the real Indian food (not American India, sometimes very very yuck! like dal...no comment), and hear the stupid elevator that plays Fur Elise mechanically all the way up to the fifth floor, and meet Mandolay, and see elephants and camels and dogs and goats and cows.....and smell the flowers, and eat milk bikis, and and and.....
can you tell I'm excited, just a little bit?
we got our notebooks and I'm already working on my support letter to send out, which all of you should get (Lindy and Lucy I want to send you guys one so I'll need an address as soon as you can give it to me...that'd be great!)
And Mike and Tom and Barbie and Mythraie and John are going....and Joe and Melissa are meeting us over there, and Ben and Libby too!!!! And Barbie has Libby's old clothes for me to wear again probably, which I'm totally in love with. and you all have no idea what I'm talking about, but you're smiling and nodding, and I know you're all very excited for me because I'm excited about it!!!
I'm going to India!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
October 3, 2007
praying for sunny days to return to me......(tomorrow please?)
Later I will write about the Sci-Fi symphony, but I don't have time to describe it all right now. Here's what I've been putting together the last coupla days…sorry there's not much interesting stuff, but for the next two weeks my life is still mostly only golf, then I'll be back!
Friday night we went up to my great-grandma's house in Mountlake Terrace and spent the night, and had Indian food for dinner, which was pretty cool. Then Saturday for WA state history we went to Whidbey Island, which included visiting Ft. Casey, this amazingly cool place where it gets very windy and very rainy and umbrellas have a tendancy of turning inside out when you need them to stay right side in most! The fort is all concrete and built into this hill though, and it's dark and echoey and spooky with stairs that only go to the ceiling and lots of dead ends. oh yeah - and cannons. and a lighthouse that's pretty cool too. then we made the long trek home and had banana splits. and I saw U.S. Marshalls for the first time last night. and Tommy Lee Jones has to be one of the best actors ever!!! he's soooo funny, always...always.
Dickens is the most amazing author ever. yes, even better than Stevenson. I mean, it's all in his characters – a coffin-builder who is extremely cheerful, twin brothers who are even more cheerful and have the name Cheeryble, a loyal devoted heart that has a tendancy to overflow – and turns out to be the son of the man who needed that love most, but found it too late. The humor in the drama. A gang of crooks and thieves who are all cowards in the face of the law, all brave in the face of danger, and can't seem to decide between love/trust and death. An irate aunt who won't forgive her nephew for being born, and certainly not after he has had a brother. a mad clerk with a good heart.
John Browdie
so on Sunday we went to some friends' house from church for lunch, and another family was there too, and we all start going on in this Scottish accent, and Tom is like "I'm from Scotland Yard," and we're all like that's not in Scotland, but it didn't matter. So later on, he's an Egyptian in Soviet Russia from Scotland Yard with a Scottish accent. but somehow it came out sounding exactly like John Browdie.
"I knew thee must not be alloowed to leeve…not wi'out me shakin' ye're 'and an sayin' to thee job weell doon!"
basically.
I went golfing yesterday. yes, really. yes, it was raining. No, it wasn't fun. but it was a match, and I had to. but we won anyway. However, I think I'm on JV again. only scored 4 points. it sucked. but I came home and had hot chocolate with whipped cream. there's just nothing like sipping steaming hot chocolate, nice and creamy, through a layer of cold, sweet cream that leaves a fine film on your upper lip, all snuggled up in a blanked wearing my favorite T-shirt and most comfortable sweats. a cat on each side, and a fire in front, and I'm in heaven!
I found someone to learn Hindi with this year!!! it's amazing – we both want to be missionaries to India, we're both homeschooled, we've been writing to each other for forever (like seven months or something, forever right?) and it just seems sooo perfect. I'm really excited! Now I can't wait for golf season to be over!!
Okay, so I really hated this song the first time I heard it; just didn't grab me really. Now I absolutely love it. It's really all in the lyrics, but it's a beautiful song too once you get used to it's being so quiet. It's called The Roses, by Caedmon's Call
High above the valley of Quito
An old man and his bride grow roses
Red and yellow, white and golden
To him they are precious as children
Their daughter, she moved to America
One more brick in the tower of Babel
She has a son that they've never seen at all
They're praying that they raised her well
And on the mountain high
They will live and die
As time just slips away…
And the children grow
In the God they know
As time just slips away…
A man, his bride, his children, and his roses
Planted in faith, and watered in tears
Honey that's all they have and they're happier here
Than any of our friends back home
They've met Jesus, and they really know him
And on the mountain high
They will live and die
As time just slips away…
And the children grow
In the God they know
As time just slips away…
Now I'm back at home/all alone
And I'm trying to find my thoughts
That old man's so inspiring
But the TV's always on
And the phone it won't stop ringing
And these bills they keep on screaming
To pay for all the things
That we've never really needed
I wonder what he's doing right now
Maybe walking through his simple field, and thinking about how
God has blessed him so
A man, his bride, his children, and his roses
And on the mountain high
They will live and die
As time just slips away…
And the children grow
In the God they know
As time just slips away…
On the mountain high
They will live and die
As time just slips away…
And the children grow
In the God they know
As time just slips away…
Just slips away…
slips away…
Friday night we went up to my great-grandma's house in Mountlake Terrace and spent the night, and had Indian food for dinner, which was pretty cool. Then Saturday for WA state history we went to Whidbey Island, which included visiting Ft. Casey, this amazingly cool place where it gets very windy and very rainy and umbrellas have a tendancy of turning inside out when you need them to stay right side in most! The fort is all concrete and built into this hill though, and it's dark and echoey and spooky with stairs that only go to the ceiling and lots of dead ends. oh yeah - and cannons. and a lighthouse that's pretty cool too. then we made the long trek home and had banana splits. and I saw U.S. Marshalls for the first time last night. and Tommy Lee Jones has to be one of the best actors ever!!! he's soooo funny, always...always.
Dickens is the most amazing author ever. yes, even better than Stevenson. I mean, it's all in his characters – a coffin-builder who is extremely cheerful, twin brothers who are even more cheerful and have the name Cheeryble, a loyal devoted heart that has a tendancy to overflow – and turns out to be the son of the man who needed that love most, but found it too late. The humor in the drama. A gang of crooks and thieves who are all cowards in the face of the law, all brave in the face of danger, and can't seem to decide between love/trust and death. An irate aunt who won't forgive her nephew for being born, and certainly not after he has had a brother. a mad clerk with a good heart.
John Browdie
so on Sunday we went to some friends' house from church for lunch, and another family was there too, and we all start going on in this Scottish accent, and Tom is like "I'm from Scotland Yard," and we're all like that's not in Scotland, but it didn't matter. So later on, he's an Egyptian in Soviet Russia from Scotland Yard with a Scottish accent. but somehow it came out sounding exactly like John Browdie.
"I knew thee must not be alloowed to leeve…not wi'out me shakin' ye're 'and an sayin' to thee job weell doon!"
basically.
I went golfing yesterday. yes, really. yes, it was raining. No, it wasn't fun. but it was a match, and I had to. but we won anyway. However, I think I'm on JV again. only scored 4 points. it sucked. but I came home and had hot chocolate with whipped cream. there's just nothing like sipping steaming hot chocolate, nice and creamy, through a layer of cold, sweet cream that leaves a fine film on your upper lip, all snuggled up in a blanked wearing my favorite T-shirt and most comfortable sweats. a cat on each side, and a fire in front, and I'm in heaven!
I found someone to learn Hindi with this year!!! it's amazing – we both want to be missionaries to India, we're both homeschooled, we've been writing to each other for forever (like seven months or something, forever right?) and it just seems sooo perfect. I'm really excited! Now I can't wait for golf season to be over!!
Okay, so I really hated this song the first time I heard it; just didn't grab me really. Now I absolutely love it. It's really all in the lyrics, but it's a beautiful song too once you get used to it's being so quiet. It's called The Roses, by Caedmon's Call
High above the valley of Quito
An old man and his bride grow roses
Red and yellow, white and golden
To him they are precious as children
Their daughter, she moved to America
One more brick in the tower of Babel
She has a son that they've never seen at all
They're praying that they raised her well
And on the mountain high
They will live and die
As time just slips away…
And the children grow
In the God they know
As time just slips away…
A man, his bride, his children, and his roses
Planted in faith, and watered in tears
Honey that's all they have and they're happier here
Than any of our friends back home
They've met Jesus, and they really know him
And on the mountain high
They will live and die
As time just slips away…
And the children grow
In the God they know
As time just slips away…
Now I'm back at home/all alone
And I'm trying to find my thoughts
That old man's so inspiring
But the TV's always on
And the phone it won't stop ringing
And these bills they keep on screaming
To pay for all the things
That we've never really needed
I wonder what he's doing right now
Maybe walking through his simple field, and thinking about how
God has blessed him so
A man, his bride, his children, and his roses
And on the mountain high
They will live and die
As time just slips away…
And the children grow
In the God they know
As time just slips away…
On the mountain high
They will live and die
As time just slips away…
And the children grow
In the God they know
As time just slips away…
Just slips away…
slips away…
September 20, 2007
All the girls and the boys/the people makin' noise/just let me hear you shout/bring 'em out! bring 'em out!
So today was, umm...interesting. How many posts do I start that way? Too many to count I guess. My wrist is on ice again but today is worse than usual, and I only scored five points during my match, all in the last four holes. I can't chip for anything, and I'm missing putts less than (and definitely more than) two feet out. So I was still #5 on the team today, but that's just because I got lucky after Tuesday's match (translation: other people sucked worse than me). So I'm looking down the line as we get in order for introductions. Each team lines us across from each other, and I'm counting down the row to see who I'm partnered with - does she look nice, good, bad, happy, upset, etc. One, two, three, four, fi-oh crap.....Katya Case.
This is only one of the best girls in the state.
Tell me again how I got paired with her???? I've heard from everyone on my team who's played with her that she is very good, and very intimidating, also not very nice. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but the butterflies in my stomach suddenly started breeding and breaking forth from their cocoons all at once. I didn't score any points my first five holes. none at all.
BUT, I just found out that I can golf my home course for free any time during season, no catch. So Dad and I are going out Saturday, and probably a cousin too who loves golf. We're gonna get there like an hour early and just chip and putt on the practice green for a looooong time. I need it. I sure wish I knew what was wrong....
I also got a new driver. *big cheesy grin* *big smile* It's a Callaway..... ;) :) ;) :) :P :-) ;) ;P ;-)
My cousin gets all these weird trading deals on golf clubs quite often, and I guess he managed to sneak a Callaway Great Big Bertha Warbird into the most recent batch. *wink* It's a lot smaller than mine, but that means that I can swing it faster so the ball will go farther. and hopefully straighter since...never mind, it's kind of complicated. anyway, it may be better, so I'm gonna try it out on Saturday. It will be really nice to just golf for fun again.
Sorry I haven't been on at all lately guys!! You all know I've never played sports before, so life is kind of upside-down lately, doing school, piano, chores, golf, home for dinner and then a tiny bit of relaxing before bed. This is really my life right now. I just haven't been on late like normal, because I know I need my sleep since I'm getting up earlier than I'm used to. Lots of good stuff has been happening though. Please keep praying for the India trip - the information meetings are this weekend and next weekend, and I'm not sure which one my aunt is planning on going to, but I've recently had some confirmation from another Christian who also feels that I'm called to go this year. I'm soooo excited to go back, and I personally would really like it to be this coming January! but I'm trying to want God's will more (if you've ever tried it, it can be really hard!)
I know why I like my coach so much. He totally is the same as my dad. exactly. they click together pretty well too, but I know exactly how he's working, because I'm so used to it with my dad. He's a cool guy - teaches Civics to Sophomores. He reads contemporary lit. (really likes Fahrenheit 451, lol Sam), listens to talk radio and lives for sports. He used to teach the JV boys baseball team for the high school, but he likes football even more. and golf of course. He's been married about a year....he's just really neat. Today after the match we each gave a little treat bag to someone who's name we had drawn on Tuesday, and yesterday it dawned on me that no one had done anything for our coach, so I threw something together, and added this really silly poem about golf, as a thank you. He smiled - he's not the kind of person to get really excited (neither's my dad, ha-ha), but he smiled, and I happen to know that he was really ticked at the time at our whole team for playing about as lousy as me, so getting a smile made me happy. Oh, are we gonna catch it tomorrow though......
I'll shut up and stop talking about golf now. But I want to tell you guys what my life has been doing lately, and that's basically it. Oh, I started piano lessons though!!! after summer break I mean. I play about two pages of Claire de Lune and she's like "that's good, now look at this..." She says I'm ready for constructive criticism. I wish I wasn't, but apparently I am. Anyway, she pointed out some really good stuff I completely missed (funny how that works, no?), and we're also doing the cannibal song from Pirates 2!!!! It's SO hard to do the beat ONE and two AND three AND four and, over and over again, trying to do a tremolo in the right hand. Perhaps, I just can't play? naw.... Also picked my recital song for next year. I guess I'm to the stage where I have to pick my songs and work on them for like eight months so they're ready in time. We're doing Tarantella, which is an amazingly cool piece that will be really fast when I'm finally done with it, next May or so.
We finished Tale of Two Cities yesterday, and as soon as mom closes the book we sit their looking at each other trying not to cry. Are we pathetic or what? But I really really really loved the ending, Lucy Manette notwithstanding. At first I'm like, oh, we're gonna drug Darnay and he can't go with any dignity? but of course he wouldn't have gone if he was awake, he's too much of a gentleman, so it was really the only way. And you can't help but fall in love with Carton just as much at the end....anyway, today we started the Scarlet Pimpernel, which I've really been looking forward to for a while. I hope it lives up to my expectations! I never knew it was written by a woman...
I could use some prayer right now. I don't really want to go into details, but part of my life could be kind of, changed, soon - hopefully for the better, but you know how much I love change (haha, NOT!) so it would just be another big difference and time-consuming thing that I would have to get used to. Life is busier than I thought it could be right now, mostly just because I haven't been talking or emailing or blogging lately so I feel a little disconnected from you guys. I'll try and be on when I can though. :) Miss you guys!!!
This is only one of the best girls in the state.
Tell me again how I got paired with her???? I've heard from everyone on my team who's played with her that she is very good, and very intimidating, also not very nice. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but the butterflies in my stomach suddenly started breeding and breaking forth from their cocoons all at once. I didn't score any points my first five holes. none at all.
BUT, I just found out that I can golf my home course for free any time during season, no catch. So Dad and I are going out Saturday, and probably a cousin too who loves golf. We're gonna get there like an hour early and just chip and putt on the practice green for a looooong time. I need it. I sure wish I knew what was wrong....
I also got a new driver. *big cheesy grin* *big smile* It's a Callaway..... ;) :) ;) :) :P :-) ;) ;P ;-)
My cousin gets all these weird trading deals on golf clubs quite often, and I guess he managed to sneak a Callaway Great Big Bertha Warbird into the most recent batch. *wink* It's a lot smaller than mine, but that means that I can swing it faster so the ball will go farther. and hopefully straighter since...never mind, it's kind of complicated. anyway, it may be better, so I'm gonna try it out on Saturday. It will be really nice to just golf for fun again.
Sorry I haven't been on at all lately guys!! You all know I've never played sports before, so life is kind of upside-down lately, doing school, piano, chores, golf, home for dinner and then a tiny bit of relaxing before bed. This is really my life right now. I just haven't been on late like normal, because I know I need my sleep since I'm getting up earlier than I'm used to. Lots of good stuff has been happening though. Please keep praying for the India trip - the information meetings are this weekend and next weekend, and I'm not sure which one my aunt is planning on going to, but I've recently had some confirmation from another Christian who also feels that I'm called to go this year. I'm soooo excited to go back, and I personally would really like it to be this coming January! but I'm trying to want God's will more (if you've ever tried it, it can be really hard!)
I know why I like my coach so much. He totally is the same as my dad. exactly. they click together pretty well too, but I know exactly how he's working, because I'm so used to it with my dad. He's a cool guy - teaches Civics to Sophomores. He reads contemporary lit. (really likes Fahrenheit 451, lol Sam), listens to talk radio and lives for sports. He used to teach the JV boys baseball team for the high school, but he likes football even more. and golf of course. He's been married about a year....he's just really neat. Today after the match we each gave a little treat bag to someone who's name we had drawn on Tuesday, and yesterday it dawned on me that no one had done anything for our coach, so I threw something together, and added this really silly poem about golf, as a thank you. He smiled - he's not the kind of person to get really excited (neither's my dad, ha-ha), but he smiled, and I happen to know that he was really ticked at the time at our whole team for playing about as lousy as me, so getting a smile made me happy. Oh, are we gonna catch it tomorrow though......
I'll shut up and stop talking about golf now. But I want to tell you guys what my life has been doing lately, and that's basically it. Oh, I started piano lessons though!!! after summer break I mean. I play about two pages of Claire de Lune and she's like "that's good, now look at this..." She says I'm ready for constructive criticism. I wish I wasn't, but apparently I am. Anyway, she pointed out some really good stuff I completely missed (funny how that works, no?), and we're also doing the cannibal song from Pirates 2!!!! It's SO hard to do the beat ONE and two AND three AND four and, over and over again, trying to do a tremolo in the right hand. Perhaps, I just can't play? naw.... Also picked my recital song for next year. I guess I'm to the stage where I have to pick my songs and work on them for like eight months so they're ready in time. We're doing Tarantella, which is an amazingly cool piece that will be really fast when I'm finally done with it, next May or so.
We finished Tale of Two Cities yesterday, and as soon as mom closes the book we sit their looking at each other trying not to cry. Are we pathetic or what? But I really really really loved the ending, Lucy Manette notwithstanding. At first I'm like, oh, we're gonna drug Darnay and he can't go with any dignity? but of course he wouldn't have gone if he was awake, he's too much of a gentleman, so it was really the only way. And you can't help but fall in love with Carton just as much at the end....anyway, today we started the Scarlet Pimpernel, which I've really been looking forward to for a while. I hope it lives up to my expectations! I never knew it was written by a woman...
I could use some prayer right now. I don't really want to go into details, but part of my life could be kind of, changed, soon - hopefully for the better, but you know how much I love change (haha, NOT!) so it would just be another big difference and time-consuming thing that I would have to get used to. Life is busier than I thought it could be right now, mostly just because I haven't been talking or emailing or blogging lately so I feel a little disconnected from you guys. I'll try and be on when I can though. :) Miss you guys!!!
September 14, 2007
this isn't the really long post that is forthcoming,
sorry. it is the really short post already here that will tell you all something you may congratulate me on.
I'm on Varsity on the golf team!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which is almost half as exciting as Anna going on tour!!!!! But seriously, after only scoring one point on my first match and being in #3 JV, #9 overall on the team, I scored nine points at my second match, bumping me up to first JV and #7 overall, and today I scored nine points again, which makes me I think #5 on the team!!!!!!!!!!
*goes crazy* I never thought I'd be on Varsity this quickly. now I just have to stay there.
So Wednesdays are heaven. Wednesdays are amazing. I live for Wednesdays now. and Coach. I think I would do anything to make Coach happy. okay, not really, but golf-wise that is. on Wednesdays, we go to the driving range. Coach analyzes my swing when I ask for help, of course nothing goes wrong when he's watching, and he praises my shots and tells me I have a good swing that's coming along. I discover he likes classical music; most of the girls have never heard of classical music. Am I really the only one on the team who knows who Phil Mickleson is? Coach knows I'm not that great of a golfer, but I know golf, I know how the swing mechanics should be, I know who's hot on tour and who's not, I know etiquette, all I really lack is practice. After blowing my first match it's hard to look him in the face, but will nine points suffice? He says he likes consistency, so I'll give him nine points again. and again, and up the ladder we go. *mutters up up up up up the stairs we go...*
I won the chipping competition on Wednesday. All my chips were horrible - too long, and I kind of won by default, since basically no one else got on the green, or they were just bad shots that weren't (thankfully) closer than mine. I thought about putting a sign on my bag, "will compete for candy" and when Coach bought my my Twix prize he said 'good job.' I corrected him and said I had no idea how I'd won, my chips had been horrible, but he said they were consistent, and he values consistency.
I hope I can be consistently good.
Why did he only see the mishaps today? the first hole when it took me three strokes to get out of the sand, or when I stepped in the other girl's putting line, not realizing it? But he still had high praise later, and I was on mountaintops by the time I got home.
*grins* I'm on Varsity!!!
But I could use your prayer. I banged up my wrist at my first match last week (I think I hit a rock while hitting out from under the trees, but it was just under the dirt) and although it's getting better, it's still rather sore and I have to keep it wrapped up for extra support when I'm golfing. I think I can play even better when it heals, but my parents think I'll have to keep it wrapped up till the end of season. I've been icing it though, and it's feeling better every day.
oh, and I almost got eaten by a spruce tree today. Never try to climb through a spruce tree - just take my word for it, it doesn't work. and swinging your 6-iron is not the brightest idea either if you have bare arms.
:)
I'm on Varsity on the golf team!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Which is almost half as exciting as Anna going on tour!!!!! But seriously, after only scoring one point on my first match and being in #3 JV, #9 overall on the team, I scored nine points at my second match, bumping me up to first JV and #7 overall, and today I scored nine points again, which makes me I think #5 on the team!!!!!!!!!!
*goes crazy* I never thought I'd be on Varsity this quickly. now I just have to stay there.
So Wednesdays are heaven. Wednesdays are amazing. I live for Wednesdays now. and Coach. I think I would do anything to make Coach happy. okay, not really, but golf-wise that is. on Wednesdays, we go to the driving range. Coach analyzes my swing when I ask for help, of course nothing goes wrong when he's watching, and he praises my shots and tells me I have a good swing that's coming along. I discover he likes classical music; most of the girls have never heard of classical music. Am I really the only one on the team who knows who Phil Mickleson is? Coach knows I'm not that great of a golfer, but I know golf, I know how the swing mechanics should be, I know who's hot on tour and who's not, I know etiquette, all I really lack is practice. After blowing my first match it's hard to look him in the face, but will nine points suffice? He says he likes consistency, so I'll give him nine points again. and again, and up the ladder we go. *mutters up up up up up the stairs we go...*
I won the chipping competition on Wednesday. All my chips were horrible - too long, and I kind of won by default, since basically no one else got on the green, or they were just bad shots that weren't (thankfully) closer than mine. I thought about putting a sign on my bag, "will compete for candy" and when Coach bought my my Twix prize he said 'good job.' I corrected him and said I had no idea how I'd won, my chips had been horrible, but he said they were consistent, and he values consistency.
I hope I can be consistently good.
Why did he only see the mishaps today? the first hole when it took me three strokes to get out of the sand, or when I stepped in the other girl's putting line, not realizing it? But he still had high praise later, and I was on mountaintops by the time I got home.
*grins* I'm on Varsity!!!
But I could use your prayer. I banged up my wrist at my first match last week (I think I hit a rock while hitting out from under the trees, but it was just under the dirt) and although it's getting better, it's still rather sore and I have to keep it wrapped up for extra support when I'm golfing. I think I can play even better when it heals, but my parents think I'll have to keep it wrapped up till the end of season. I've been icing it though, and it's feeling better every day.
oh, and I almost got eaten by a spruce tree today. Never try to climb through a spruce tree - just take my word for it, it doesn't work. and swinging your 6-iron is not the brightest idea either if you have bare arms.
:)
September 3, 2007
he has filled our hearts with wonder/so that we always remember/you and i were made to worship...
Amazing. God is absolutely amazing. Occupation: Creator. And He made us just to worship Him. And even after we blew it, He didn't smash us like a piece of flubbed-up pottery. Instead He decided to fix us, and the only way was through a huge sacrifice that was anything but fun for pretty much everyone involved. But now we can see that He's amazing. Let's just tell the whole world how amazing He is!!! But why don't we? How can we possibly be afraid to proclaim from the rooftops what has happened to us? How can we be silent?
I was thinking about Muslims today. I think God might be giving me a special heart and passion for Indian Muslims. That kind of scares me...for lots of reasons. I don't even really understand most of them. See, for a long time, I've been trying to figure out my specific calling, beyond just country (India). Children, Untouchables, Hindus, slum-dwellers, street-children, Muslims? The list is endless, and while of course I want to reach out to all these people, I kept feeling like something was missing. There needed to be a specific focus for me to pour my energy in, otherwise I felt too vague, too...helpless. Seeing how excited this man from my church is about his passion for the middle east has really made me focus on my own perspective. I have a lot of learning to do.
I keep feeling this promise from God that I'll be going back to India this coming year. There is so much I need to prepare for, and I just think that's where I'll find....illumination. or something.
I could use some prayer for my spiritual and academic life right now you guys. I need to stay focused in the first (what's new right?), and as far as school goes, I need to make some pretty big choices this year that will impact my future years. sometimes it really sucks being in high school. I'm realizing how far I've come now, and how little is left, and just wondering where it all went and how I actually got here. I want to put a lot of focus on missions, and preparing for BCOM, but now it seems like my spiritual life and academic life are coming to a vertex (to borrow a geography term); they keep growing closer together, and I expect that at BCOM they'll meet completely and school will become service to God instead. So much of what I want to study this year is really prep for the future - Hindi, english/writing, reading missionary biograpies and stuff like that. Then there's some other things that seem to have nothing to do with my life as an adult, so I'm kind of struggling with that and what to do. unschooling (loosely-structured homeschooling, sort of) is amazing, but sometimes it's hard for me to discipline myself.
there's another thing too. I'm really struggling with the whole Calvinist/Arminianism/middle ground thing again. I don't want to bring this up again as debate, I could just use some prayer that I'll be able to find the answers I need in the Bible, and in as unbiased views as I can find in my searching. I know my pastor is a Calvinist, and I greatly admire and respect my pastor, and of course all of you my best friends too! Maybe I'm just getting the whole thing mixed-up in my head? Anyway, I'm going to be looking around to try and find out what I really believe in the next few months, so please just pray that God will open my eyes and my mind, and that I won't be biased about anything either.
I guess I should tell you about the rest of last week and this weekend, since I kind of disappeared! My cousins took me out to Olive Garden Thursday night, and we had a really really nice time just hanging out and talking. My cousin had a five-minute sentimental moment just kind of looking at me and we were reminiscing about when I was little and stuff. It was pretty sweet. He's very romantic that way, ha-ha! They asked several questions about the India trip, and I think they are semi-considering what them, or one of them, going would involve. My mom and aunt are still thinking/praying about it, and if none of them can go, then there's a chance that one of the women on the team maybe......we'll see what God says. He sure makes me wonder sometimes. Oh - never ask God for patience. You will learn how to have it the hard way. ;)
Friday we drove back up home, and Nancy and Richard stayed the weekend, coming to church with us this morning. Yesterday we went to Mowich Lake on Mt. Rainier, and then hiked up to Spray Falls together, and my grandparents came along too. It's a two-mile hike one-way, but don't let that fool you. I think Goat's Peak wasn't much longer than that. yeah - straigh up. Okay, so it was actually quite a bit easier than Goat's Peak, but then again Goat's Peak didn't have a waterfall at the top that you ("you" being me and my dad, just call us the two musketeers!) had to hike up to the base of, and then go up on this little cliff thingy with very few handholds near the bottom and take pictures of the rainbow that can only be seen from right there!!!!! Yes, that was pretty amazing. I'll post pictures if I ever can, but I can show most of you at the sleepover of course. that will be much better!
;)
well, I'm gonna go work on my daily schedule of all the amazingly cool things i want to do during my normal school day this year. I start next Monday - how about you guys? gosh, 24 hours is just not enough in one day....
I was thinking about Muslims today. I think God might be giving me a special heart and passion for Indian Muslims. That kind of scares me...for lots of reasons. I don't even really understand most of them. See, for a long time, I've been trying to figure out my specific calling, beyond just country (India). Children, Untouchables, Hindus, slum-dwellers, street-children, Muslims? The list is endless, and while of course I want to reach out to all these people, I kept feeling like something was missing. There needed to be a specific focus for me to pour my energy in, otherwise I felt too vague, too...helpless. Seeing how excited this man from my church is about his passion for the middle east has really made me focus on my own perspective. I have a lot of learning to do.
I keep feeling this promise from God that I'll be going back to India this coming year. There is so much I need to prepare for, and I just think that's where I'll find....illumination. or something.
I could use some prayer for my spiritual and academic life right now you guys. I need to stay focused in the first (what's new right?), and as far as school goes, I need to make some pretty big choices this year that will impact my future years. sometimes it really sucks being in high school. I'm realizing how far I've come now, and how little is left, and just wondering where it all went and how I actually got here. I want to put a lot of focus on missions, and preparing for BCOM, but now it seems like my spiritual life and academic life are coming to a vertex (to borrow a geography term); they keep growing closer together, and I expect that at BCOM they'll meet completely and school will become service to God instead. So much of what I want to study this year is really prep for the future - Hindi, english/writing, reading missionary biograpies and stuff like that. Then there's some other things that seem to have nothing to do with my life as an adult, so I'm kind of struggling with that and what to do. unschooling (loosely-structured homeschooling, sort of) is amazing, but sometimes it's hard for me to discipline myself.
there's another thing too. I'm really struggling with the whole Calvinist/Arminianism/middle ground thing again. I don't want to bring this up again as debate, I could just use some prayer that I'll be able to find the answers I need in the Bible, and in as unbiased views as I can find in my searching. I know my pastor is a Calvinist, and I greatly admire and respect my pastor, and of course all of you my best friends too! Maybe I'm just getting the whole thing mixed-up in my head? Anyway, I'm going to be looking around to try and find out what I really believe in the next few months, so please just pray that God will open my eyes and my mind, and that I won't be biased about anything either.
I guess I should tell you about the rest of last week and this weekend, since I kind of disappeared! My cousins took me out to Olive Garden Thursday night, and we had a really really nice time just hanging out and talking. My cousin had a five-minute sentimental moment just kind of looking at me and we were reminiscing about when I was little and stuff. It was pretty sweet. He's very romantic that way, ha-ha! They asked several questions about the India trip, and I think they are semi-considering what them, or one of them, going would involve. My mom and aunt are still thinking/praying about it, and if none of them can go, then there's a chance that one of the women on the team maybe......we'll see what God says. He sure makes me wonder sometimes. Oh - never ask God for patience. You will learn how to have it the hard way. ;)
Friday we drove back up home, and Nancy and Richard stayed the weekend, coming to church with us this morning. Yesterday we went to Mowich Lake on Mt. Rainier, and then hiked up to Spray Falls together, and my grandparents came along too. It's a two-mile hike one-way, but don't let that fool you. I think Goat's Peak wasn't much longer than that. yeah - straigh up. Okay, so it was actually quite a bit easier than Goat's Peak, but then again Goat's Peak didn't have a waterfall at the top that you ("you" being me and my dad, just call us the two musketeers!) had to hike up to the base of, and then go up on this little cliff thingy with very few handholds near the bottom and take pictures of the rainbow that can only be seen from right there!!!!! Yes, that was pretty amazing. I'll post pictures if I ever can, but I can show most of you at the sleepover of course. that will be much better!
;)
well, I'm gonna go work on my daily schedule of all the amazingly cool things i want to do during my normal school day this year. I start next Monday - how about you guys? gosh, 24 hours is just not enough in one day....
August 31, 2007
this old house
*announcer voice* AND NOW - THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR......
ABOUT THE HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*coughs* yes, it may not prove to be a very interesting post, but then again it may. I'll see what I can do with it. want to tell all y'all about my aunt and uncle's house here in Portland.
Let's go back in time to when I was very young. I don't know how young, because I've been coming here since before I was born, since my mom was about ten years old or so my aunt and uncle have lived here. Their house is humongous, like four thousand square feet or something ridiculous like that too, and built in the very early nineteen hundreds (1915 or thereabouts). It's a nice lightish green color, with a covered veranda supported by columns of stone. let's go us the old wooden steps and to the door that has to be at least twice as big as any door you've ever seen in your life, and purple, and you ring the doorbell - !ding-dong! Meanwhile the Cat Prince is rubbing against your legs, begging you to pick him up and drooling on you, and trying to convince you he hasn't been fed in a week or so. But the door turns in on it's massive hinges and the cat has to stay outside.
You are in a foyer, a rather large one, with the old coat rack to your right that looks so much like a mannakin, stairs in front of you leading up, and the living room through two large oak sliding panel doors to your left. We'll leave the upstairs to itself for now; let's go into the living room.
It is a large room, with bookshelves and cabinets built into the walls, and three large windows looking out onto the veranda. The whole house has a feel of being old and antiquated, but well-preserved, like a treasure found in an antique shop. A few floral-print couches stand in stiffness with tasseled pillows, refusing to mold to fit any shape of comfort. A glass-topped table holds foreign curiosities, many from India or Japan, collected by these world-travelers. But aside from the treasures of the bookshelves, this room holds not much of interest; let us move on.
The next room is the dining room/piano room. Being a very open floor plan, this is not quite as strange as it looks in print! You kind of move into an open area with a dining room table on the left, and a grand piano on the right (quite cluttered in piano music when I am here!), and a built-in china hutch thing against the wall straight ahead. Now which door shall you choose - to the right or to the left? Let us go to the left, into the kitchen.
The kitchen is spacious, and old, down to the stove and the fridge. an old gas range which must be lighted by hand, the sort of thing you might find, once again, in an antique shop or early twentieth-century house. Lots of couter space makes it a pleasure to cook in! to the back there is another door, leading to a short corridor, and eventually to the outside in the back of the house. But let us go right, past the door leading to the basement, and out by an opening on the right (where the earlier door we by-passed would have taken us). To the right is the dining/piano room, and to the left a hallway. turn left. the two rooms to your right are bedrooms, only one of which has a bed, the other much clutter and memories in tangible form. Let us not forget the "nerd hole" as the computer closet has been affectionately dubbed! The second bedroom is home to many pictures long-forgotten in drawers, remembered after the removal of a thick layer of dust by a curious young girl, or perhaps merely a bored young girl. Perhaps a mix of both.
At the end of this hall is the bathroom. Here when I was young I thought for sure the bathtub was a monster, as evidence by the four beast-like claws supporting its massive shape, waiting to devour me! now i know better...
perhaps you should like to take a short tour of the upstairs? you would? come! follow me!
The stairs are creaky, but stable, so do not worry. at the top we meet with more that two doors, we meet with a mystery...
long ago, at a Thanksgiving in this very house, when I was quite young (probably eight or nine), we were all together, including some friends the E's. they had a son named Carl, about twelve or thirteen at the time, and we spent much of the evening together in these old sacred haunts, a wide-eyed girl listening to the tale of the Hound of the Baskervilles (and somehow the Matrix got sprinkled in there too), wondering with a dash of incredulity if the story could really be true, related by such a "big kid." He swore it was, and I cannot say that I did not actually believe him for the most part by the time he got to the cliff-hanger and stopped, telling me I would have to read it for myself in the future. It was indeed a night of mysteries, and as we climbed higher and higher into the thousand-year old cedar outside, we met with the most capital sort of one any one could wish: the house extended on the top beyond my aunt and uncle's room! Of course our young minds had never considered that the top of the house might be somewhat proportional to the bottom, and we wondered indeed what was all this extra space we had never seen was? After climbing back down through magical spider-webs, we snuck upstairs while the adults were occupied elsewhere. two doors: where did the second one lead? Being children, we turned the handle. the door swung noiselessly open.....
I'm just kidding, the handle turned but the door didn't open. We went back downstairs where my mom met us and solved the "mystery" by explaining that my aunt and uncle loaned out the extra space to renters, and we weren't allowed up there. does it seem strange to you that I have never seen 800 square feet of a house I have known so well? perhaps yes, perhaps no. we returned to the bedroom, with red pills, blue pills, and glowing footprints.
I'll write more about dinner and stuff tomorrow, after we get home, but I'm tired now and I'm going to bed. G'night ya'll!!
ABOUT THE HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*coughs* yes, it may not prove to be a very interesting post, but then again it may. I'll see what I can do with it. want to tell all y'all about my aunt and uncle's house here in Portland.
Let's go back in time to when I was very young. I don't know how young, because I've been coming here since before I was born, since my mom was about ten years old or so my aunt and uncle have lived here. Their house is humongous, like four thousand square feet or something ridiculous like that too, and built in the very early nineteen hundreds (1915 or thereabouts). It's a nice lightish green color, with a covered veranda supported by columns of stone. let's go us the old wooden steps and to the door that has to be at least twice as big as any door you've ever seen in your life, and purple, and you ring the doorbell - !ding-dong! Meanwhile the Cat Prince is rubbing against your legs, begging you to pick him up and drooling on you, and trying to convince you he hasn't been fed in a week or so. But the door turns in on it's massive hinges and the cat has to stay outside.
You are in a foyer, a rather large one, with the old coat rack to your right that looks so much like a mannakin, stairs in front of you leading up, and the living room through two large oak sliding panel doors to your left. We'll leave the upstairs to itself for now; let's go into the living room.
It is a large room, with bookshelves and cabinets built into the walls, and three large windows looking out onto the veranda. The whole house has a feel of being old and antiquated, but well-preserved, like a treasure found in an antique shop. A few floral-print couches stand in stiffness with tasseled pillows, refusing to mold to fit any shape of comfort. A glass-topped table holds foreign curiosities, many from India or Japan, collected by these world-travelers. But aside from the treasures of the bookshelves, this room holds not much of interest; let us move on.
The next room is the dining room/piano room. Being a very open floor plan, this is not quite as strange as it looks in print! You kind of move into an open area with a dining room table on the left, and a grand piano on the right (quite cluttered in piano music when I am here!), and a built-in china hutch thing against the wall straight ahead. Now which door shall you choose - to the right or to the left? Let us go to the left, into the kitchen.
The kitchen is spacious, and old, down to the stove and the fridge. an old gas range which must be lighted by hand, the sort of thing you might find, once again, in an antique shop or early twentieth-century house. Lots of couter space makes it a pleasure to cook in! to the back there is another door, leading to a short corridor, and eventually to the outside in the back of the house. But let us go right, past the door leading to the basement, and out by an opening on the right (where the earlier door we by-passed would have taken us). To the right is the dining/piano room, and to the left a hallway. turn left. the two rooms to your right are bedrooms, only one of which has a bed, the other much clutter and memories in tangible form. Let us not forget the "nerd hole" as the computer closet has been affectionately dubbed! The second bedroom is home to many pictures long-forgotten in drawers, remembered after the removal of a thick layer of dust by a curious young girl, or perhaps merely a bored young girl. Perhaps a mix of both.
At the end of this hall is the bathroom. Here when I was young I thought for sure the bathtub was a monster, as evidence by the four beast-like claws supporting its massive shape, waiting to devour me! now i know better...
perhaps you should like to take a short tour of the upstairs? you would? come! follow me!
The stairs are creaky, but stable, so do not worry. at the top we meet with more that two doors, we meet with a mystery...
long ago, at a Thanksgiving in this very house, when I was quite young (probably eight or nine), we were all together, including some friends the E's. they had a son named Carl, about twelve or thirteen at the time, and we spent much of the evening together in these old sacred haunts, a wide-eyed girl listening to the tale of the Hound of the Baskervilles (and somehow the Matrix got sprinkled in there too), wondering with a dash of incredulity if the story could really be true, related by such a "big kid." He swore it was, and I cannot say that I did not actually believe him for the most part by the time he got to the cliff-hanger and stopped, telling me I would have to read it for myself in the future. It was indeed a night of mysteries, and as we climbed higher and higher into the thousand-year old cedar outside, we met with the most capital sort of one any one could wish: the house extended on the top beyond my aunt and uncle's room! Of course our young minds had never considered that the top of the house might be somewhat proportional to the bottom, and we wondered indeed what was all this extra space we had never seen was? After climbing back down through magical spider-webs, we snuck upstairs while the adults were occupied elsewhere. two doors: where did the second one lead? Being children, we turned the handle. the door swung noiselessly open.....
I'm just kidding, the handle turned but the door didn't open. We went back downstairs where my mom met us and solved the "mystery" by explaining that my aunt and uncle loaned out the extra space to renters, and we weren't allowed up there. does it seem strange to you that I have never seen 800 square feet of a house I have known so well? perhaps yes, perhaps no. we returned to the bedroom, with red pills, blue pills, and glowing footprints.
I'll write more about dinner and stuff tomorrow, after we get home, but I'm tired now and I'm going to bed. G'night ya'll!!
August 29, 2007
Please don't get mad at me, but this is a really really really really really really really really really really really really loooooooooong post!!!
Ok, so I’m here in Portland, but there’s this password thing on my aunt’s computer that won’t really let me go anywhere without a ‘guardian’ to babysit it. Very annoying. By the time you read this, my aunt may have disabled it, because she thinks it’s annoying too.
I guess I’ll just start with Friday and go through the present, updating when I can. I DO have e-mail access here, and limited blog access (limited by time, lol), so feel free to e-mail me or something if you want and I’ll reply when I have time (or can get over this stupid password thingamy)!
So, Friday – I drove all the way down here!!!!! After running a few quick errands, we were on the road, and traffic was terrible. I almost got run over by a semi who decided he wanted to be in my lane and didn’t care if I was there or not I guess, but, we’re all still safe and alive and here. We stopped in Vancouver and had dinner with Lucy and Lindy and Co., which certainly didn’t last long enough!! I miss you guys already!! But we consoled each other with the thought that the sleepover is soon. ;) Lindy and me dancing to My Favorite Things….and trying to hide me when it was time to go…We arrived at my aunt and uncle’s fairly late (nine or nine thirty), but got here before them since they were doing something at church. They pulled up about thirty seconds after us and let us in, where we stayed up talking for an hour or so, something we’re all very good at! I read the first chapter of David Copperfield, then turned in for the night. Nancy and Richard now have a bathroom with a shower downstairs, which has been nice when sharing between five people!
Saturday morning we had breakfast with Mythraie, this year’s team leader for the India 2008 team, to hang out, and also to talk about my possible involvement on the team.
*deep breath* It looks like I ‘might’ be going.
*screams*
I MIGHT BE GOING!!!!!I MIGHT BE GOING!!!!!I MIGHT BE GOING!!!!!!
SOOO, there is the Visual Communications team, which does all of the pictures, videos, interviews, and articles, etc. for the website people can view back home, and the Report night, and stuff like that. They provide training for writing and photography!!!! Training!!! Mythraie seemed very positive about me fitting in on that part of the team, especially with the people I would be working with. One door open! Now I need a guardian…any suggestions?
January is a very hard time for my aunt to get away from her office, and she’s not sure she feels called to return this year or not yet. I put a bug in my cousins’ ears, Marcus has been before and Lissa has been with this church to Kazakhstan. Who knows? I know that if God wants me back there, He will raise up a guardian for me, and the financial support too. PLEASE KEEP PRAYING!!!
After breakfast, we got ready to go up to Mt. Hood for some hiking, which didn’t really turn out as hiking, ha-ha. We puttered around the lodge and checked it out, then we went up this trail that goes pretty much straight up for a long time. After about a half mile Uncle Richard decided that was enough for him, and I decided to stay with him off to the side of the trail on a rock (don’t worry, no annoying little people yelled at us!), since I had just been hiking at Paradise and we’re all going on Mt. Rainier next weekend. We made great plans for growing ginormous pumpkins next year and roasting all ten thousand seeds!!!! He’s retired, and very much into gardening. We decided to go to church on Saturday night instead of yesterday morning, since it was on our way home and the timing was pretty close to perfect. We were a little early, but got drinks at the coffee stand and hung out in the lobby for a little while until service started; I got an Italian soda. I tell you, those are just addicting. Like Starbucks double chocolate chip fraps. It’s when I’m at the coffee stand and the movie theater that I realize just how much of a teenager I really am. :)
We came home and played Oh Heck! also called Nertz (multiple-person solitaire; multitaire? Where you all build on each others’ aces), which seems to happen every time we get down here, and I won!! which is the first time I think that’s ever happened! It was very exciting. After that, everyone except Dad and I were tired out, so he and I stayed up and watched Contact on his laptop for a few hours, then went to bed. I was so tired at this point that I didn’t read at all. :( ah well, more time for that later.
Sunday morning we slept in, and then after breakfast Dad and Richard and I hit the chipping and putting green at a nearby golf course for practice. We came home and ate lunch, then all drove over to my cousins’ house and visited for three or four hours. We don’t get to see them very much, so that was a real treat, plus they make chocolate and brownies and truffles and stuff, which is an added treat, ha-ha! I was remembering all this stuff from when I was little and my cousin would play with me. remember…
the first song you ever taught me on the piano? three guesses! not mary had a little lamb, no. not twinkle twinkle little star, no. Jesus Love Me, yes!
remember when I was so small you could bench press me? “I’m too weak now.” and I’m too big now.
remember when I would try to tickle you, and it never worked? but you could always tickle me.
We talked for a while, but then they had to go to a Bible Study and my parents had to go home, so we all parted (alas! parting is such sweet sorrow!). Aunt Nancy and Uncle Richard and I went to uwajimaya’s (sp? Word tells me it’s wrong) and got a whole bunch of things I can’t pronounce. then Nancy made this limey Thai soup for dinner that was…umm…interesting. It’s wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t my favorite. Had quite the kick to it. We also had these other – things. I don’t know what they were called either. they were these little sweet buns (I think Japanese) with a lotus root filling. I liked the bun part, the filling was ok. Uncle Richard mowed the lawn and set up a stake for a target, and we did some chipping with golf balls to see who could get closest to the pin, just for practice. Later on, I read a little more, and then raided their OLD bookshelves. Pretty much every book of which has about half an inch of dust on top. I had noticed some books earlier that looked like old classics in a set, which is exactly what they turned out to be – now Anna, don’t freak out on me or anything. WEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh wait you’ve never seen the gazebo scene have you?
Dickens, Stevenson, Poe, Scott, Eliot, Austen, Hugo, Thackeray, not to mention a whole shelf of just Mark Twain!!! I was pretty much in heaven, because you had to open each book to see what it was; the outside only said the author. So I spent a good half hour getting my hands dusty in all these wonderful old books. (anna what have you done to me???) I’m bringing home a couple on indefinite loan…won’t my mother just be thrilled? The COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE and also about six or seven of Stevenson’s books in one volume. both are about fifty pounds each, and I don’t know how I’m going to get them back home, but it’s all the same. I’m certainly coming back with much more than I left with!
Sunday night my grandpa was in town, because he had to work on a boat early the next morning in Vancouver, so he crashed here for the night. That was kind of fun, even though we only talked for about an hour before he had to go to bed. It was still nice to see him again. Late that night as I sat up reading David Copperfield, something caught the corner of my eye, something moving. As my gaze followed it I realized that it was a huge spider. If you don’t know, spiders are my biggest fear – no funny business around spiders. It was probably about three inches in diameter though, really really big! Well here I’m caught between two fears: getting close enough to kill it, or having it alive in my room. Obviously I had to go with my first choice, but oh! what to do?!? Thankfully the room I was in was rather like a throw-things-in-here-until-we-get-to-them room, with a few large books. I stretched a trembling hand toward the book, which was also toward the spider, and had one of those moments where you hear the sound and don’t realize that it’s you screaming for a moment. Completely involuntary. I caught the book and smashed, not thinking or caring about the volume of the scream and the thump (no one woke up, anyways). I couldn’t lift that book up all that night, and, shaking, I tried to focus once more on David Copperfield, glancing up now and then at the book as if I half-expected to see the arachnid climbing out from under it in full force again.
Early Monday morning I woke up to the sound of my Uncle Richard’s voice coming under the two-inch crack below the door. Kacy…..Kacy…..it’s time to get up. We…have…to…go…walking. I rub my eyes. walking? It’s got to be like three in the morning or something. before I can turn to check the alarm clock I never set, He says IT’S SEVEN O’CLOCK…… ugghh! Seven? oh yeah, I did sign up for this didn’t I?
My uncle goes walking twice a week with this group of elderly people (he’s the youngest of them I think, so no, I’m not calling him old ha-ha) at a mall near here. Since Nancy’s taking the week off, we decided to go with him on Monday and Wednesday, which we had done once a loooong time ago when I was down here (like two years ago or something, you know, a long time). Nancy and I do our own pace, much faster than everyone else though, so we walked together and basically ditched the rest of the people. The first thing we did on coming to the escalators was to promptly go up the down escalator, which proved beyond a doubt that Up is, in fact, Down. Aren’t I smart? Experimental proofs people, that’s what this world needs! So we pant (er, I mean walk) around the second floor for a while, then met up with everyone else for coffee and chatting. Met a few nice people at our end of the table too!
After walking we went to Heaven. Oh, for those of you who haven’t figured it out yet, Heaven is Barnes and Noble bookstore, where I have a gift card! *waves gift card in the air* oh wait, there’s no money on it anymore….drat. *tossed gift card* *waves books in the air* SO, there’s no sales tax here in the wonderful state of Oregon, which is why my ever-clever mother suggested I use my gift card here. Oh, the only downside to this particular earthly form of heaven is that their LotR section sucks. a lot. But you know how a few months ago I wanted to learn how to write short stories, and basically no one knows how to? I got this complete stories of Franz Kafka book; supposedly Kafka is the best from what I’ve heard. some Russian dude I think. Anyway, that was fifteen bucks, which killed my gift card, but was well worth it. Then I found the ten buck thing I couldn’t live without. I was on a Dickens high pretty much the rest of the day. YES, I said Dickens. Did you guys know that Dickens wrote short stories? He did he did he did!!!!! *jumps up and down* and I’m not talking like the Christmas Carol short stories, I mean like five to twenty page short fiction stories. which are incredible, like anything else Dickens wrote. Stevenson, step aside, thou art being dethroned. Make way for Dickens! (sounds like make way for ducklings…) So that was only ten dollars, and even more that worth it!! I heart Dickens!!!
yes I’m done.
Oh yeah, we actually did have to leave Heaven, despite my pleading to stay almost forever in the classical lit section. but there was the fabric store to be visited! Not like we bought anything (not like I had money), but we got some ideas for this selwar kameez I want to make soon, so that was cool. Later on…let’s see, what did we do? I think maybe we went for a walk, and that night we watched The Greatest Game Ever Played (a golf movie, but super-good, even my mom and my aunt liked it, and they don’t really like golf!). I moved into the bedroom with a bed in it, which is a lot nicer than sleeping on the floor, let me tell you! And no spiders that I’ve seen yet…
Tuesday, yesterday, let me see. I slept in till about nine, then got up and took a shower. (very interesting day so far, right? I knew you would all want to hear about this part especially.) Here’s the exciting part: Uncle Richard has a lathe (that’s the wood-turning thingies that go round and round and people supposedly make cool things out of hunks of wood), and he is really really good at making bowls and candlestick holders and spoons and vases and whatnot on it, so every time I come down for more than a weekend, we make something on it. This year it’s a box with a lid on it, which we started yesterday. It should be finished tomorrow, and hopefully will turn out nicely. We spent about two hours doing that, and then my cousin and her two boys (two and five years old) came over for lunch, and to go to the Body Exhibit at OMSI (Oregon Museum of Something Interesting….JK! Oregon Museum of Science and Industry I think). It was at the Science Center earlier this year, the one where they have real cadavers on display to show the different body systems, but then it was gone and we didn’t get to see it, so we saw it yesterday. Had a ton of fun trying to explain bones and muscles and nerves to my five-year-old cousin, as you can imagine. yeah….no comment. It actually wasn’t too bad. After I finished explaining nerves to him, he looks at them and says “they’re like electrical wiring!” seriously….this is not my life, this is not my life.
The exhibit was really neat though; I’m glad I went. They even had a camel with the digestive system kind of cut out; it was a really big camel too! And at every cadaver, my cousin turns to me and asks “can he see?” because they have eyes. so how do you tell a five-year-old that the person’s dead and can’t see? umm….
We came back home and had a feast of corn on the cob for dinner. On the way home my other cousin (Marcus) calls and says he and his wife (Lissa) want to have dinner with me, only me, on Thursday. My heart does a double flip; this has never happened before. Why only me? He says they don’t ever get to see just me, it would be cool. I think so too. They’ll pick me up, I choose the restaurant. We joke on the phone – I can’t drive by myself yet, you know that! So just fly your helicopter over here, right? Yeah, when you get that jet-pack you’ve been raving about Marcus, then I’ll have my helicopter. Alright, we’ll have a race to see who can get it first! Sure, I’ll get right on it. I’ll talk to my dad about that. Actually…maybe my grandpa instead, better chances there…
So it’s settled, Thursday night, dinner. then my mind starts doing double flips too – What am I gonna wear? oh my gosh, my mind reprimands me. This is your cousins, for crying out loud, they want to see you, not your wardrobe! ok, ok, well there is that skirt Nancy just gave me….whatever. who cares? I’m going to have a great time. I have to choose the place? I don’t know Portland! umm, umm….yeah, know any good Indian places?
I just wonder, is there more? Do they want to talk about something specific? it was so sudden – do they want to just hang out? why only me? Am I over-analyzing this? Probably.
I need to stop. I know I’m going to have a great time, my mind just keeps getting in the way trying to figure out my awesome cousin who is so, so, awesome, so awesome he’s mysterious sometimes. like, you just don’t know what he’s thinking. enough about my cousins, I’m rambling again.
Tuesday night we discovered it was a friend/neighbor’s birthday, so we cooked up a pie and brought it over. But she was out doing something, so we sat outside and ate half the pie and drank lemonade, talking to her husband and son for a while. Steve and Mary I think, and Matt is their son (no laughing Anna, he’s not a Die Hard-type geek lol). Matt just graduated. Matt is really cute. So we sit their looking at the professional graduation photos of this really cute boy for like ten minutes. nice. then we go home.
I am so fifteen this week.
We went to Blockbuster on the way home and looked for Newsies, but it was out, so we decided to watch Little Women instead, which I brought. Nancy and Richard both liked it, even though Richard literally left the room during the forty-second opera scene and missed about fifteen minutes of the movie while waiting for it to finish. I’m guessing Phantom of the Opera won’t be a winner with him? After that I read a tiny bit, then went to sleep.
This morning we went walking again with Uncle Richard, but abstained from the bookstore, however not from going up the down escalator and down the up escalator several times! My aunt says when she can’t do that anymore, then she will be old. We got several, er, interesting looks, but thankfully didn’t run into anybody. We came back home all in one piece, then Uncle Richard and I went to the driving range, which I would rather not comment on right now. something went all screwy with my grip and the balls were not doing what I thought I was telling them to do, which is always frustrating. Hopefully all the bad shots will be gone for our nine holes tomorrow!
notice how I keep switching between present tense and past tense? It’s very interesting.
After we came home, Aunt Nancy and I went to the store and bought a few things, including peanut butter with which we made peanut butter cookies, currently hidden in my room from my diabetic uncle! they turned out really well, despite my aunt insisting on putting nuts (walnuts no less, not even peanuts!) into them. We then spent about four hours making Indian food for dinner, which was very fun and very good. :)
After dinner Nancy and I went for a walk, about half an hour, and after digging through her bookshelf some more, I then decided to continue work on my blog post, which I am sitting in the “Nerd-hole” doing right now. That would be the tiny little closet of a computer room. So now I think I’ll post this…
We’re coming home on Friday!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!! I miss you guys…*pouts* but the sleepover is soon!
I may not post again before we get home, or I may. I’d like to tell you all a little bit about their house, but I seem to only get the feel for it at certain times, so maybe tomorrow. We might be going to my cousin Leslie’s house in the afternoon, or maybe not, so I guess it somewhat depends on that. Talk to you all later!!!
~Verya~
I guess I’ll just start with Friday and go through the present, updating when I can. I DO have e-mail access here, and limited blog access (limited by time, lol), so feel free to e-mail me or something if you want and I’ll reply when I have time (or can get over this stupid password thingamy)!
So, Friday – I drove all the way down here!!!!! After running a few quick errands, we were on the road, and traffic was terrible. I almost got run over by a semi who decided he wanted to be in my lane and didn’t care if I was there or not I guess, but, we’re all still safe and alive and here. We stopped in Vancouver and had dinner with Lucy and Lindy and Co., which certainly didn’t last long enough!! I miss you guys already!! But we consoled each other with the thought that the sleepover is soon. ;) Lindy and me dancing to My Favorite Things….and trying to hide me when it was time to go…We arrived at my aunt and uncle’s fairly late (nine or nine thirty), but got here before them since they were doing something at church. They pulled up about thirty seconds after us and let us in, where we stayed up talking for an hour or so, something we’re all very good at! I read the first chapter of David Copperfield, then turned in for the night. Nancy and Richard now have a bathroom with a shower downstairs, which has been nice when sharing between five people!
Saturday morning we had breakfast with Mythraie, this year’s team leader for the India 2008 team, to hang out, and also to talk about my possible involvement on the team.
*deep breath* It looks like I ‘might’ be going.
*screams*
I MIGHT BE GOING!!!!!I MIGHT BE GOING!!!!!I MIGHT BE GOING!!!!!!
SOOO, there is the Visual Communications team, which does all of the pictures, videos, interviews, and articles, etc. for the website people can view back home, and the Report night, and stuff like that. They provide training for writing and photography!!!! Training!!! Mythraie seemed very positive about me fitting in on that part of the team, especially with the people I would be working with. One door open! Now I need a guardian…any suggestions?
January is a very hard time for my aunt to get away from her office, and she’s not sure she feels called to return this year or not yet. I put a bug in my cousins’ ears, Marcus has been before and Lissa has been with this church to Kazakhstan. Who knows? I know that if God wants me back there, He will raise up a guardian for me, and the financial support too. PLEASE KEEP PRAYING!!!
After breakfast, we got ready to go up to Mt. Hood for some hiking, which didn’t really turn out as hiking, ha-ha. We puttered around the lodge and checked it out, then we went up this trail that goes pretty much straight up for a long time. After about a half mile Uncle Richard decided that was enough for him, and I decided to stay with him off to the side of the trail on a rock (don’t worry, no annoying little people yelled at us!), since I had just been hiking at Paradise and we’re all going on Mt. Rainier next weekend. We made great plans for growing ginormous pumpkins next year and roasting all ten thousand seeds!!!! He’s retired, and very much into gardening. We decided to go to church on Saturday night instead of yesterday morning, since it was on our way home and the timing was pretty close to perfect. We were a little early, but got drinks at the coffee stand and hung out in the lobby for a little while until service started; I got an Italian soda. I tell you, those are just addicting. Like Starbucks double chocolate chip fraps. It’s when I’m at the coffee stand and the movie theater that I realize just how much of a teenager I really am. :)
We came home and played Oh Heck! also called Nertz (multiple-person solitaire; multitaire? Where you all build on each others’ aces), which seems to happen every time we get down here, and I won!! which is the first time I think that’s ever happened! It was very exciting. After that, everyone except Dad and I were tired out, so he and I stayed up and watched Contact on his laptop for a few hours, then went to bed. I was so tired at this point that I didn’t read at all. :( ah well, more time for that later.
Sunday morning we slept in, and then after breakfast Dad and Richard and I hit the chipping and putting green at a nearby golf course for practice. We came home and ate lunch, then all drove over to my cousins’ house and visited for three or four hours. We don’t get to see them very much, so that was a real treat, plus they make chocolate and brownies and truffles and stuff, which is an added treat, ha-ha! I was remembering all this stuff from when I was little and my cousin would play with me. remember…
the first song you ever taught me on the piano? three guesses! not mary had a little lamb, no. not twinkle twinkle little star, no. Jesus Love Me, yes!
remember when I was so small you could bench press me? “I’m too weak now.” and I’m too big now.
remember when I would try to tickle you, and it never worked? but you could always tickle me.
We talked for a while, but then they had to go to a Bible Study and my parents had to go home, so we all parted (alas! parting is such sweet sorrow!). Aunt Nancy and Uncle Richard and I went to uwajimaya’s (sp? Word tells me it’s wrong) and got a whole bunch of things I can’t pronounce. then Nancy made this limey Thai soup for dinner that was…umm…interesting. It’s wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t my favorite. Had quite the kick to it. We also had these other – things. I don’t know what they were called either. they were these little sweet buns (I think Japanese) with a lotus root filling. I liked the bun part, the filling was ok. Uncle Richard mowed the lawn and set up a stake for a target, and we did some chipping with golf balls to see who could get closest to the pin, just for practice. Later on, I read a little more, and then raided their OLD bookshelves. Pretty much every book of which has about half an inch of dust on top. I had noticed some books earlier that looked like old classics in a set, which is exactly what they turned out to be – now Anna, don’t freak out on me or anything. WEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh wait you’ve never seen the gazebo scene have you?
Dickens, Stevenson, Poe, Scott, Eliot, Austen, Hugo, Thackeray, not to mention a whole shelf of just Mark Twain!!! I was pretty much in heaven, because you had to open each book to see what it was; the outside only said the author. So I spent a good half hour getting my hands dusty in all these wonderful old books. (anna what have you done to me???) I’m bringing home a couple on indefinite loan…won’t my mother just be thrilled? The COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE and also about six or seven of Stevenson’s books in one volume. both are about fifty pounds each, and I don’t know how I’m going to get them back home, but it’s all the same. I’m certainly coming back with much more than I left with!
Sunday night my grandpa was in town, because he had to work on a boat early the next morning in Vancouver, so he crashed here for the night. That was kind of fun, even though we only talked for about an hour before he had to go to bed. It was still nice to see him again. Late that night as I sat up reading David Copperfield, something caught the corner of my eye, something moving. As my gaze followed it I realized that it was a huge spider. If you don’t know, spiders are my biggest fear – no funny business around spiders. It was probably about three inches in diameter though, really really big! Well here I’m caught between two fears: getting close enough to kill it, or having it alive in my room. Obviously I had to go with my first choice, but oh! what to do?!? Thankfully the room I was in was rather like a throw-things-in-here-until-we-get-to-them room, with a few large books. I stretched a trembling hand toward the book, which was also toward the spider, and had one of those moments where you hear the sound and don’t realize that it’s you screaming for a moment. Completely involuntary. I caught the book and smashed, not thinking or caring about the volume of the scream and the thump (no one woke up, anyways). I couldn’t lift that book up all that night, and, shaking, I tried to focus once more on David Copperfield, glancing up now and then at the book as if I half-expected to see the arachnid climbing out from under it in full force again.
Early Monday morning I woke up to the sound of my Uncle Richard’s voice coming under the two-inch crack below the door. Kacy…..Kacy…..it’s time to get up. We…have…to…go…walking. I rub my eyes. walking? It’s got to be like three in the morning or something. before I can turn to check the alarm clock I never set, He says IT’S SEVEN O’CLOCK…… ugghh! Seven? oh yeah, I did sign up for this didn’t I?
My uncle goes walking twice a week with this group of elderly people (he’s the youngest of them I think, so no, I’m not calling him old ha-ha) at a mall near here. Since Nancy’s taking the week off, we decided to go with him on Monday and Wednesday, which we had done once a loooong time ago when I was down here (like two years ago or something, you know, a long time). Nancy and I do our own pace, much faster than everyone else though, so we walked together and basically ditched the rest of the people. The first thing we did on coming to the escalators was to promptly go up the down escalator, which proved beyond a doubt that Up is, in fact, Down. Aren’t I smart? Experimental proofs people, that’s what this world needs! So we pant (er, I mean walk) around the second floor for a while, then met up with everyone else for coffee and chatting. Met a few nice people at our end of the table too!
After walking we went to Heaven. Oh, for those of you who haven’t figured it out yet, Heaven is Barnes and Noble bookstore, where I have a gift card! *waves gift card in the air* oh wait, there’s no money on it anymore….drat. *tossed gift card* *waves books in the air* SO, there’s no sales tax here in the wonderful state of Oregon, which is why my ever-clever mother suggested I use my gift card here. Oh, the only downside to this particular earthly form of heaven is that their LotR section sucks. a lot. But you know how a few months ago I wanted to learn how to write short stories, and basically no one knows how to? I got this complete stories of Franz Kafka book; supposedly Kafka is the best from what I’ve heard. some Russian dude I think. Anyway, that was fifteen bucks, which killed my gift card, but was well worth it. Then I found the ten buck thing I couldn’t live without. I was on a Dickens high pretty much the rest of the day. YES, I said Dickens. Did you guys know that Dickens wrote short stories? He did he did he did!!!!! *jumps up and down* and I’m not talking like the Christmas Carol short stories, I mean like five to twenty page short fiction stories. which are incredible, like anything else Dickens wrote. Stevenson, step aside, thou art being dethroned. Make way for Dickens! (sounds like make way for ducklings…) So that was only ten dollars, and even more that worth it!! I heart Dickens!!!
yes I’m done.
Oh yeah, we actually did have to leave Heaven, despite my pleading to stay almost forever in the classical lit section. but there was the fabric store to be visited! Not like we bought anything (not like I had money), but we got some ideas for this selwar kameez I want to make soon, so that was cool. Later on…let’s see, what did we do? I think maybe we went for a walk, and that night we watched The Greatest Game Ever Played (a golf movie, but super-good, even my mom and my aunt liked it, and they don’t really like golf!). I moved into the bedroom with a bed in it, which is a lot nicer than sleeping on the floor, let me tell you! And no spiders that I’ve seen yet…
Tuesday, yesterday, let me see. I slept in till about nine, then got up and took a shower. (very interesting day so far, right? I knew you would all want to hear about this part especially.) Here’s the exciting part: Uncle Richard has a lathe (that’s the wood-turning thingies that go round and round and people supposedly make cool things out of hunks of wood), and he is really really good at making bowls and candlestick holders and spoons and vases and whatnot on it, so every time I come down for more than a weekend, we make something on it. This year it’s a box with a lid on it, which we started yesterday. It should be finished tomorrow, and hopefully will turn out nicely. We spent about two hours doing that, and then my cousin and her two boys (two and five years old) came over for lunch, and to go to the Body Exhibit at OMSI (Oregon Museum of Something Interesting….JK! Oregon Museum of Science and Industry I think). It was at the Science Center earlier this year, the one where they have real cadavers on display to show the different body systems, but then it was gone and we didn’t get to see it, so we saw it yesterday. Had a ton of fun trying to explain bones and muscles and nerves to my five-year-old cousin, as you can imagine. yeah….no comment. It actually wasn’t too bad. After I finished explaining nerves to him, he looks at them and says “they’re like electrical wiring!” seriously….this is not my life, this is not my life.
The exhibit was really neat though; I’m glad I went. They even had a camel with the digestive system kind of cut out; it was a really big camel too! And at every cadaver, my cousin turns to me and asks “can he see?” because they have eyes. so how do you tell a five-year-old that the person’s dead and can’t see? umm….
We came back home and had a feast of corn on the cob for dinner. On the way home my other cousin (Marcus) calls and says he and his wife (Lissa) want to have dinner with me, only me, on Thursday. My heart does a double flip; this has never happened before. Why only me? He says they don’t ever get to see just me, it would be cool. I think so too. They’ll pick me up, I choose the restaurant. We joke on the phone – I can’t drive by myself yet, you know that! So just fly your helicopter over here, right? Yeah, when you get that jet-pack you’ve been raving about Marcus, then I’ll have my helicopter. Alright, we’ll have a race to see who can get it first! Sure, I’ll get right on it. I’ll talk to my dad about that. Actually…maybe my grandpa instead, better chances there…
So it’s settled, Thursday night, dinner. then my mind starts doing double flips too – What am I gonna wear? oh my gosh, my mind reprimands me. This is your cousins, for crying out loud, they want to see you, not your wardrobe! ok, ok, well there is that skirt Nancy just gave me….whatever. who cares? I’m going to have a great time. I have to choose the place? I don’t know Portland! umm, umm….yeah, know any good Indian places?
I just wonder, is there more? Do they want to talk about something specific? it was so sudden – do they want to just hang out? why only me? Am I over-analyzing this? Probably.
I need to stop. I know I’m going to have a great time, my mind just keeps getting in the way trying to figure out my awesome cousin who is so, so, awesome, so awesome he’s mysterious sometimes. like, you just don’t know what he’s thinking. enough about my cousins, I’m rambling again.
Tuesday night we discovered it was a friend/neighbor’s birthday, so we cooked up a pie and brought it over. But she was out doing something, so we sat outside and ate half the pie and drank lemonade, talking to her husband and son for a while. Steve and Mary I think, and Matt is their son (no laughing Anna, he’s not a Die Hard-type geek lol). Matt just graduated. Matt is really cute. So we sit their looking at the professional graduation photos of this really cute boy for like ten minutes. nice. then we go home.
I am so fifteen this week.
We went to Blockbuster on the way home and looked for Newsies, but it was out, so we decided to watch Little Women instead, which I brought. Nancy and Richard both liked it, even though Richard literally left the room during the forty-second opera scene and missed about fifteen minutes of the movie while waiting for it to finish. I’m guessing Phantom of the Opera won’t be a winner with him? After that I read a tiny bit, then went to sleep.
This morning we went walking again with Uncle Richard, but abstained from the bookstore, however not from going up the down escalator and down the up escalator several times! My aunt says when she can’t do that anymore, then she will be old. We got several, er, interesting looks, but thankfully didn’t run into anybody. We came back home all in one piece, then Uncle Richard and I went to the driving range, which I would rather not comment on right now. something went all screwy with my grip and the balls were not doing what I thought I was telling them to do, which is always frustrating. Hopefully all the bad shots will be gone for our nine holes tomorrow!
notice how I keep switching between present tense and past tense? It’s very interesting.
After we came home, Aunt Nancy and I went to the store and bought a few things, including peanut butter with which we made peanut butter cookies, currently hidden in my room from my diabetic uncle! they turned out really well, despite my aunt insisting on putting nuts (walnuts no less, not even peanuts!) into them. We then spent about four hours making Indian food for dinner, which was very fun and very good. :)
After dinner Nancy and I went for a walk, about half an hour, and after digging through her bookshelf some more, I then decided to continue work on my blog post, which I am sitting in the “Nerd-hole” doing right now. That would be the tiny little closet of a computer room. So now I think I’ll post this…
We’re coming home on Friday!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!! I miss you guys…*pouts* but the sleepover is soon!
I may not post again before we get home, or I may. I’d like to tell you all a little bit about their house, but I seem to only get the feel for it at certain times, so maybe tomorrow. We might be going to my cousin Leslie’s house in the afternoon, or maybe not, so I guess it somewhat depends on that. Talk to you all later!!!
~Verya~
August 24, 2007
and if she cooks all day/you better eat it with a smile/it doesn't matter if it tastes just like bad gravy/on a goodyear tire
Hey everyone!
In about an hour and a half I'm leaving for – Lindy and Lucy's!!! then for Portland!!! I wanted to make one last post before I leave, so I don't just drop off the planet for a few days, again I'm not sure about the internet sitiwation for awhile. never mind the misspelling, it's totally Dickens.
I'm soooo excited for tonight, but I could use some prayer for tomorrow morning. We're having breakfast with a woman who is one of the team leaders for the India trip, and it will pretty much decide whether I go or not this year. I'm being selfish, 'cause I want to go, but I want God's will first, I'm just not completely sure what it is, and I'm kind of afraid to find out if it's not what I want, lol. Selfish, right? Anyway, as I've said before, I need answers about a guardian, and about a good place for me on the team, and I'll most likely be getting those tomorrow morning. We're going to have a very busy weekend!
Wednesday on the golf course went really well; it didn't rain and I shot a 59, and I actually had a lot of fun golfing with the other girls. I found out that one of them who is really nice, lives right behind me, like less than ten minutes away! so we can carpool together and practice at my house and stuff. I also had a lefty golfer in our threesome, and then our threesome became a foursome when a freshman who has never golfed before joined us. that made me feel better, because I was no longer the youngest or the worst golfer, and even I was able to help her out with her swing a little. Youth Group last night was phenomenal! we talked about "Why Should I Believe in God?" with reasons from the head and from the heart, and broke up into smaller groups for discussion. I was praying that one person would be in my group, and that person was! It was much better than last time I went as far as the small group discussion went. I'm also going to see about joining the youth group worship team possibly in the future. And I found out that one of the boys in my group golfs for the same high school as me! so that's pretty cool. Even though he's on the boy's team and I'm on the girl's, it's nice to know there's a Christian hiding out there too, ha-ha.
I'm driving to Portland!!! and…I have to go finish packing. I think that's all I wanted to tell you guys. I'll be in touch as soon as I can! Vancouver, WA, here I come!!!!
In about an hour and a half I'm leaving for – Lindy and Lucy's!!! then for Portland!!! I wanted to make one last post before I leave, so I don't just drop off the planet for a few days, again I'm not sure about the internet sitiwation for awhile. never mind the misspelling, it's totally Dickens.
I'm soooo excited for tonight, but I could use some prayer for tomorrow morning. We're having breakfast with a woman who is one of the team leaders for the India trip, and it will pretty much decide whether I go or not this year. I'm being selfish, 'cause I want to go, but I want God's will first, I'm just not completely sure what it is, and I'm kind of afraid to find out if it's not what I want, lol. Selfish, right? Anyway, as I've said before, I need answers about a guardian, and about a good place for me on the team, and I'll most likely be getting those tomorrow morning. We're going to have a very busy weekend!
Wednesday on the golf course went really well; it didn't rain and I shot a 59, and I actually had a lot of fun golfing with the other girls. I found out that one of them who is really nice, lives right behind me, like less than ten minutes away! so we can carpool together and practice at my house and stuff. I also had a lefty golfer in our threesome, and then our threesome became a foursome when a freshman who has never golfed before joined us. that made me feel better, because I was no longer the youngest or the worst golfer, and even I was able to help her out with her swing a little. Youth Group last night was phenomenal! we talked about "Why Should I Believe in God?" with reasons from the head and from the heart, and broke up into smaller groups for discussion. I was praying that one person would be in my group, and that person was! It was much better than last time I went as far as the small group discussion went. I'm also going to see about joining the youth group worship team possibly in the future. And I found out that one of the boys in my group golfs for the same high school as me! so that's pretty cool. Even though he's on the boy's team and I'm on the girl's, it's nice to know there's a Christian hiding out there too, ha-ha.
I'm driving to Portland!!! and…I have to go finish packing. I think that's all I wanted to tell you guys. I'll be in touch as soon as I can! Vancouver, WA, here I come!!!!
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