Today my sisters and I got to experience something fun. We went to a farm! Well, sort of. The only thing this lady was missing were horses, pigs and cows. Every other farm animal was there. She had turkeys, chickens, pheasants (we each got a tail feather to take home!), goats, sheep, cats, dogs, and even bees. The main reason we went today was to see this lady's new, one-day-old baby goats. They were sooooo sweet!!!!
On the way there, we saw this beautiful sight. Who says Arizona never gets snow?!? That is such a lie. Yeah, I'll admit, it's rare to get that much here, and we don't get any at our house ever, but the fact of the matter is, Arizona DOES get snow. Lots of it.
We all got to pet and hold the baby goats (there were quadruplet one-day-olds and twin two-day-olds. Wow, what a difference in size one day makes!). Like I said before, they are soooo sweet!!! They are adorable! It's almost hard to believe that they will grow up to be just as big as their mother! I think Emily held the kids the most. She was constantly picking them up and putting them down. They didn't seem to mind too much, though. Look at all those kids!! That's not even all of them, there's still another goat that's going to have her babies any day now. You've got to love the names -- Knit and Perl are the twins, and Matthew, Mark, Mary, and Martha are the quadruplets! We also fed the sheep and petted the two friendly (but big) dogs.
I thought this was adorable!! Aren't they the cutest things?
After we'd been outside for a while, we went inside and played with the lady's musical instruments. She's a violin expert -- she started teaching lessons at age twelve, and she used to play in the San Diego symphony! She also plays cello, piano, and lots of other instruments (someone said she can play every orchestra instrument, not sure if that's true or not). She's kind of but not really a potential violin teacher, the two major drawbacks being the price and the distance we would have to drive every lesson. But we got to play around for a little bit.
First Emily got to hold and "play" a tiny violin just her size. She kept saying how squeaky it was. LOL. She would do great with it if she ever took lessons. That girl has musical talent!
Then I got out my violin. Amy played the piano, Ms. W played her cello, and I played the violin. Ms. W didn't even know the song Amy and I were playing (church music), and she was able to accompany us beautifully on her cello!!! Wow. Then she asked if I had brought any violin music that had a piano part. I took out the Meditation from Thais, and I was thinking, No way! I haven't attempted this piece in months, if not a year!! And now I'm just supposed to play it with the piano, like I know what I'm doing?!? LOL! So I was kind of like, "Well, okay, I guess we'll just see how this goes..." So, after a quick tune up (or rather a "tune down" to her not-quite-in-tune piano) she started, and I jumped in. I don't think I played the timing correctly in several spots, but in any case, she was able to play the piano part along with me great and cover for a bunch of my mistakes of hitting the wrong notes and etc. I only got lost twice, and skipped a few measures, but after we'd finished, I was amazed! I had just played a piece of music that I thought I couldn't play!!! After that we played the Concerto for Two Violins by Bach. That was fun, too.
After we'd finished that, she said that I ought to audition for the orchestra in such-and-such town, and she was really wanting me to, but it just won't work out. For one thing, that's a really long way to travel all the time for practices, and the practices are on Sundays, so of course I can't be a part of it. But she was coming up with all kinds of ideas like (saying to my mom), "Well, if you just drive her up to my house, I'll take her the rest of the way and even drive her home again." But, no, it's just not going to work out. I'm not all that disappointed. If we had something like that in our own town, yeah, it would be great to be involved... maybe. But I guess we'll just have to trust that the Lord has something better in store.
I asked if I could try to play her cello. This was probably the only opportunity I was going to have for years, and I've wanted to try a cello for a while, just to see what it was like. Well, I've got to say, it's very different from playing the violin, but at least I wasn't making a terrible amount of squeaks. It wasn't the greatest, but it could've been a lot worse, too, LOL! I was able to pick out a couple tunes. Do I look like I know what I'm doing? Haha! I'm a LOT more comfortable with violin.
After that, we packed up and headed home. I'm so glad we got to go, it was soooo much fun!! And for us city kids, getting to see all those animals was definitely great, too. I wish we had goats. Okay, okay, I don't really... but they are fun for a few hours!
As I was sitting here, starting to write this entry, my sister Amy looked at it and asked, sort of surprised, "You got tagged and you're actually doing them??" Yep, that's right! I thought it might be fun for once. I know I have at least two more tags to do, but these two will have to suffice for now.
Hold on one minute while I announce something. I know I'm kind of late here, but... I'm writing the Animal Facts at the Backyard! And this week it's a Toucan Quiz (it's pretty easy -- you hardly have to know anything about toucans to figure it out. And you might even learn a few things!). I'd appreciate it if you just took a moment to do it. The only person to do it so far is my dad, and if no one else answers it I'll have to post it again next week. Thanks!
Okay, now the tags. First off, the Six Random Things tag, which I got from wonderland21 about a month and a half ago. The rules (I know you don't care, skip this part): Post the rules on your blog. Write six random things about yourself. Tag six-or-so other people at the bottom of your post -- and leave comments on their blogs letting them know they've been tagged. Let the person who tagged you know when you've written the post. So here we go:
I am crazy about lists. I have to make lists of everything. Everyday I make a to-do list so I know how much I still have to do and so I don't forget anything. I make lists of post ideas. I make lists of what to talk about on the phone with a friend. LOL! I make lists of things to bring/pack when we go on trips. I make lists of birthday presents each year. I make lists of all my e-mail pals (okay, so I did that once). Since I like to write, a while ago I made lists of all the boys' and girls' names I could come up with. Etc., etc.
I change favorite songs very often. I will listen to the same song over and over and go crazy over it for about a week or two, and then I'll get kind of tired of it and start listening to another song or CD over and over. Right now it's "Stayed on Thee" by Imperial Praise. Love that CD!!!
I make a little letter "J" on the date on my calendar every day I write in my journal. I like looking back over past months and seeing how frequently I wrote.
I used to say "I HATE COOKING!!!" and even said it when I was only making something simple, like a salad (btw, "used to" means about a week ago and back...). But now I think I'm finally starting to like it. I want to make something all by myself, though, just following some easy directions.
I love Algebra! Teaching Textbooks is WONDERFUL, MARVELOUS, AND SUPER-DUPER GREAT!!!!!!
I memorized the entire chapter of John 1 when I was seven years old. Since then I have memorized many other chapters of the Bible.
The second tag is the Author Tag which I grabbed from writer4him. It just looked like so much fun.
Do you have a pen/pencil collection? How many of those are chewed? No, I don't have a collection, but I do have a metal can (decorated) on my desk that I keep a bunch in. None are chewed -- I use the computer to write. And, no, I don't chew on the keyboard, either.
Do you prefer handwriting or typing furiously? Typing furiously, by all means. Handwriting is way too slow, and besides, I re-word things so many times that a word processor is a necessity.
How often do you get inspiration? It kind of comes randomly. Not even close to as often as I wish.
Are you blogging this on a computer or laptop? A laptop? I wish!!
Do you get inspiration more in the early morning or late at night? Well, like I said, it's kind of random. I have no idea.
Do certain movies/books/music inspire you? I try to be original... The Sherlock Jones Series by Ed Dunlop was a great inspiration... well, at least to write first person, LOL! I'm not even writing in first person anymore, though.
How do you incorporate God into your stories? I either have someone get saved, or have someone learn a character lesson, etc. Oh, and my main characters always live in Christian homes, so far. I have a faint idea for a future book where the MC won't live in a Christian home, but I don't know if I'll ever get enough inspiration for that one or not. I'm not good at coming up with plots.
Do you kill off your villains or make them repent? Welllllll... my stories never have what you could call "villains." But I would probably make them repent. I'm not sure I could find it in my heart to kill them (let me tell you a little secret -- I like the villains).
Is the majority of your characters magical beings, humans or halflings? Or something else? Always human. Once in a great while it will be something else.
What genre of writing are you most comfortable in? If you were to step out of your comfort zone, what would you write? I'm most comfortable with Christian fiction for pre-teens. If I were to step out of my comfort zone, it would be historical fiction or even non-fiction. *shudders at all the research she would have to do*
Do you work better alone or with someone else? Well, I never have co-authored, although Amy and I did talk about it once. Or do you mean do I work best all by myself in the room, or with a bunch of noisy siblings? In that case, definitely in the peace and quiet (I really want a laptop...).
Do your stories make sense, or do they ramble wildly? I don't think they ramble wildly... Do they? If anything, I try to make them make sense so much that I nearly kill them.
Are your characters mostly Renegades, Peacekeepers or a mish-mash? Peacekeepers. I write very boring stuff.
Are you a sucker for good grammar? Yes, but my mom is even more so. She makes me change the order of words around so much that it makes it sound really weird sometimes (sorry, Mom).
How is your handwriting? I love it. But if I get in a really big hurry, I don't like it.
How evil are your villains? Not very. Remember, I don't have villains.
Are you long-winded or succinct? Somewhere in the middle, but I view myself as slightly redundant.
Do you have typical writer traits such as ink stains on your fingers or a pencil behind your ear? No. Once again, I use the computer.
Would someone walking past you on the street consider you normal? A teenage girl wearing an ankle-length skirt? Probably not. I don't think I look very authorish on first glance, though.
Do you write mostly poetry, stories, novels or a mixture? Mostly stories, but I want to write novels. Ah, I love how that word sounds. "Novels..."
Do your characters vary in accents, appearance and attitude or are they mostly the same? Ugh. This is getting embarrassing. Let's see. So far I have no villains, I have a terrible time coming up with a plot, I have a hard time getting my story to go anywhere, and, to top it all off, all the characters are similar! They vary some, but not as much as I wish.
Do real people and/or places inspire your writing? Oh, yes. So do real happenings. In fact, the car crashing into the retaining wall in "Kate Dunlap and the Stolen Watch" was something that really happened at our house in the middle of the night. If the wall hadn't been there, and our house wasn't on a hill, the driver might've gone right into Amy's and my room. Thank God he didn't!
How many blogs/websites/internet haunts do you have? Haunts? *thinks* Um, maybe one or two.
What is your favorite character? Or do you choose to remain unbiased in case of a revolt? In my book right now? It isn't far enough along yet to choose. I'll have to wait until closer to the end to see.
Do you talk to your characters? *rolls eyes at some people*
Are you more comfortable with girl or boy main characters? Girls. I don't know how guys think. It was hard enough making a teenage boy the MC in my prologue. He probably thinks and acts like a girl. It might help to have a brother.
Do you follow basic overused plot lines with new twists thrown in or do you depart from the norm all the time? Like I said, I try to be original. But I steal bits and pieces of other people's books right and left (without realizing it). I might try fan-fiction sometime. I think it would be fun. When I was about seven or eight I started a couple of books about the Boxcar Children. They were never finished, though (but neither was any other books I started back then. The only two books I've finished have been the two Kate Dunlap books. I'm really hoping and pushing to finish this current one -- The Unnamed Novel. I hope it will be long enough to consider a novel...).
Do you feel God has called you to be a writer/poet? Will you grasp the power of the pen? I don't know. But I would like to be able to serve him with it!
Whew. I am quite worn out. And my computer time is up. Oh, well, I'll have to notify my tagees later. Good night!
Yesterday (Monday) morning my sisters and I were standing all together in the kitchen, being silly, while Amy, who thinks the camera is a part of her hand, was taking pictures and videos of us. Suddenly, we all got this great idea to make a movie. So we started. Planning the first scene alone probably took us half an hour or longer, but finally we got it all together and recorded it. After that, we brainstormed about other scenes to put in our movie (it's obvious we didn't really plan beforehand, just played it by ear the whole time, and it completely changed from what we had planned in the first place. For some of the scenes, what was supposed to happen went totally wrong, so we changed it around a little. ) Amy left half-way through and left Elisabeth and me to figure the rest out by ourselves. By the afternoon, we were done with the filming, and I slaved away editing everything. Finally, we had our finished product. Behold!
Unfortunately, we don't have a good-quality video camera, and we aren't professional actresses by any stretch of the imagination. My scene is the WORST of all. I hate it! My apologies for the terrible sound quality. You won't be able to understand what we're saying the whole time. But I think you can get the main idea of what happens. It was so much fun doing this together, and we're planning to make another one soon (a little bit more movie-like this time). If it all works out, I may post it, too. Enjoy!!
Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.
Ps. 119:11
Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes.
Deut. 11:18
Memorizing the Bible is very important, especially while you are still young! This is for several reasons. One, God wants us to! Two, things that you memorize when you are younger stay with you for the rest of your life (my mom can still remember songs she learned when she was a girl!). And it is a lot easier to memorize the Bible when you are a child than when you are an adult, for some reason. Three, the more you memorize and become familiar with your Bible, the more it will influence your worldview and help you make the right decisions. There are more good reasons to memorize scripture, but that is not the topic of this post. So I will move on.
You may not have memorized much out of the Bible yet. Well, this is a good time to start! You may want to learn some Bible verses but not really know how. You may be thinking, "Okay, I said the verse to myself about twenty times and I still don't know it... what is wrong with me?" Obviously it is going to take a little bit of work. But if you apply yourself, you will find that memorizing the word of God becomes easier the more you do it. If you have hard time learning Bible verses, try some of these suggestions:
Set a goal. If you don't want to be haphazard in your memorizing practice, you need to set a goal. For school I have a verse every week I am supposed to learn. Then it is on my quiz at the end of the week. If I don't know it perfectly it affects my grade. Also, every week our church has a memory verse to learn. This is a little bit easier, since we all say it together (you can be a couple milliseconds behind and no one will notice, LOL!), but it is still helpful to have a deadline. One or two verses a week is not unreasonable to start with.
Say it every day. Five to ten times is a good amount. Say the reference before and after the verse, too. This may help you remember it, so you will know where to find it in your Bible if the need arises.
Write out the verse several times and tape it up around the house. Seeing and reading it several times a day and in different places will help you learn it. Also, the writing part alone is good, too.
Make a desktop picture with a Bible verse on it. If you like to play around with photoshopping, this can be fun. Just about every time you get on the computer you will be reminded of the Bible verse!
Unscramble the words. Write the verse out, cut all the words apart, and work on getting them all back in the right order. If you want to play the difficult version of this game, cut all the letters and punctuation apart, too!
Play every-other-word with a friend or sibling. First, you start, then they say the next word, you say the next word, and so on. After you say the verse a few times like this, say two or three words at a time. After saying it several times like this you will have it down!!
Put the words to music. It's amazing how well you can remember lyrics! Put the Bible to music. It doesn't have to be fancy -- you could even try to use a tune you already know. Sometimes the tune will be too short by just a couple words, and then it is pretty funny trying to squeeze all the words in!
Make a bookmark with the Bible verse. Then stick it in the book you are reading. Every time you open your book, remember to say your verse a few times.
Make a recording. Using a tape player, mp3 recorder, or microphone on your computer, make a recording of the verse. Listen to it while you work on something like penmanship or something else you don't really have to concentrate on.
Draw a picture. If you like to draw or paint, try illustrating the Bible verse. Then write the verse below it in your very best handwriting. Hang it in your room.
Repeat-after-me. Do this with a younger sibling. First you say a small section, and have him/her repeat after you. As you both become more familiar with the verse, lengthen the sections until you can say the entire thing at once!
Say it with a rhythm. Like this: "Look not EVERY man on his OWN things, but every man ALSO on the things of OTHERS."
Refrain from looking at your Bible as much as possible! Of course, look at it every once in a while to make sure you aren't saying the verse wrong. You don't want to have to un-learn and re-learn the verse because you practiced it wrong.
Do you have any other fun memorizing tricks to share?
Am I the only homeschooled girl interested in Linux?
Is there anyone out there reading my blog who is into everything computer related? I was hesitant to post this, because I don't know if any of you actually are "into" computers. I felt like I would just be speaking another language to all my friends and since no one would have a clue what I was talking about, why bother? But maybe there are some of you lurking who really are into computers like I am, and this would be my chance to connect!
So if you really don't care about computer programming or different operatings systems or RAM or BIOS or booting from a CD or anything like that, then you may want to click off my blog at this time. Otherwise, please stick around and leave me a comment -- maybe you are the person I am looking for!
After using Windows XP Home Edition for several years, I am ready to step out into something new and exciting... Linux!
I really, really want to learn how to use this other operating system! What I love about it is that it's free! There are so many different distributions of Linux, so knowing which one to start with was hard. But I read a little bit about it and decided to go with Kubuntu, since it's supposed to be easier for Windows users to get used to.
It was supposed to be only a little bit of research to find out what the system requirements were to run Linux, but I got so excited about it that when I read that I could download Kubuntu and make a live CD out of it, I got antsy and went ahead and downloaded it. BTW, a live CD simply means that you run the operating system off the CD, instead of installing in on your hard drive. The downside to this is that it runs v.e.r.y. s.l.o.w.ly. E.x.t.r.e.m.e.l.y s.l.o.w.l.y. But it is great for demonstration purposes. So, like I just said, I got excited about it, and decided to try this live CD idea.
Easier said than done. The following few paragraphs tell the story of how I had to fight my computer nearly every step of the way (I am determined, LOL!).
The first step was to download the ISO file. Simpy, I thought. Well, yeah. Until you find out that your download is only coming in at an average of 30 KB per second. Sigh. Okay, this would just take a while (the download was 699 MB!!). So I waited for hours for this download to complete, and somehow the connection with the server got messed up (partly my fault for clicking on pause/resume too many times, trying to get a faster connection) at around 70%. It had taken SIX HOURS to get to 70%. I shut the computer off and went to bed.
Early the next morning, I turned my computer on to try the download again. I would get an early start on the download since it would take all day to complete. This time, I picked a different server. Would you believe it? This time my download speed was about 380 KB per second, and the download was complete in 30 minutes. If only I could have somehow figured that out the day before!!!
Next I had to download a program called Md5Sum to verify that the download was intact and not damaged. That sounded like a good idea, so I went ahead and installed it and ran the check, although I have no idea what a hash code is or why comparing them is important. Thankfully, that was no problem. The download was fine. It had all safely made it and was still all in one piece.
Sadly, my troubles were not yet over. The next step was to burn the ISO file to a CD. This was a frustration waiting to happen. I have a stack of CDs that my computer USED to like. They worked great. But now, when I put them in the CD burner, my computer hates them. The light will blink and blink. It will not read the CD, let me burn anything to it, or even acknowledge its presence. It's a mystery to me. This time (I should have known better, it has done this for a while), I tried one of those naughty CDs again, hoping it would work. It didn't. The CD drive would not even open up this time. I pressed the button repeatedly. I right clicked on the drive and clicked "Eject." Nothing. Not even a flashing light. So I had to restart the computer. Fortunately, I know of one kind of CD that my computer WILL use with relatively no problems.
I downloaded another program to burn the ISO file onto the CD. I popped the good CD in, told the computer to burn it, and walked off to eat supper. Well! When I came back, it was supposedly "done." Great, I thought! I put the "burned" CD into the computer... and would you believe it! It told me it was blank!! I selected a slower writing speed and went through the process again. This time, it worked. Whew!
The moment of truth had come. I put the CD in and restarted the computer. If all was well, the computer should boot directly from the CD and give me the option to boot into Linux. Unbelieveably, it worked on the first try! I checked the CD for defects, to make sure everything was fine, and it was! After waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and... WAITING (yes, it really was painfully slow) for Kubuntu to start up, it finally did. And it was fun to look around a little bit. But running it from the CD was way too slow to really get a good feel for it. I want to install it to the hard drive.
We have another problem. This computer is partly owned by my dear sister, who, I'm afraid, will not consent to letting me install another operating system. I'm a bit nervous to take the plunge, myself, especially since it includes re-partitioning the hard disk, and "this step cannot be undone." !!! So maybe if I could buy another computer for cheap... It is definitely worth looking into, at least. But it sure would be nice to install it to this computer and save the electricity cost for running ANOTHER computer. Would it be a good idea to install it to a virtual PC program? Would that slow my computer down too much? Would getting more RAM help (I only have 512 MB right now)? Help would be appreciated.
If you read down through all of that, congratulations! You must really and truly be a computer geek. Please contact me! But seriously. If you have any experience at all with Linux, please let me know!! I would love some help getting started!
Free Graphics, Music, Sound Effects, etc. Compliation
If you are like me, you are probably always wondering where those websites are that have all the free stuff. I love coming across a website that offers completely free graphics or photos or whatever. Over time, I have collected several sites in my "bookmarks" that I look through if I happen to be working on a project that needs a little something. Like a template that needs just the right touch. Or an audio project that need some sound effects or music. So I've decided to list some on my blog as a handy resource for others. I don't have a lot, but as I come across more, I may add them. So be sure to check back.
Each site has its own terms of use. Be sure to read them before using their content. Also, it would probably be best to browse with a parent, as I haven't looked at everything on these sites, and don't know if there's anything inappropriate.
Smart Web Centers
TONS of public domain backgrounds. Lots to choose from.
Bigfoto.com
Large photos of scenery, places, etc. from around the world.
Dreamwork Designs Mostly sets of beautiful artwork (paintings) to be used on your personal website/blogs. Very nice stuff here, if you can figure out how to arrange it tastefully (not my specialty!).
Thanks to my sister Amy for providing me with many of the graphics links!
Free Music
Wikipedia compliation
So handy! I have a bunch of this music on my iPod. Mostly classical. The draw-back is that all of the music is in OGG format, so you may not be able to play it without changing the file-format first.
Freesfx.co.uk
I love this site! They don't have a ton to choose from, but it is fun to browse and get ideas from it.
Soundsnap.com
A great resource. Thousands of sound effects to look through. Browse by category or search for something specific.
Partners in Rhyme I think some of these (if not all) are duplicates of the ones on Freesfx.co.uk. I'm not sure about that, though.
I hope you can find something in there. If you know of some other great resources along those lines, please send them to me so I can consider adding them!
We'll start this new category off simple enough. Field trips are always funner and easier than book work, right? Well, these two were especially more fun and easy. Very low key, and maybe there wasn't that much learning involved, but it was fun, and it counts for school. Sort of.
My dad (who just got a blog, btw -- YAY!! -- Be sure to go see it and learn what my dad is like, hee hee.Click here.) is always riding his bike in the mountains surrounding our home. Ahem. That is, he was UNTIL he tore his leg open (okay, okay, it wasn't that bad. But it makes for a better story, don't you think?). Now he is healing and regaining use of his leg. But, as I was saying -- one of the places he has ridden is Sitgreaves Pass. Sitgreaves Pass used to be THE route if you were traveling from Chicago to LA. Now it is more or less abandoned (although people still travel it. I'm not sure why... Do they just want to see it?). Anyway, Dad wanted the rest of the family to see this famous road, so we all piled in the van at 8:30 a.m. yesterday (gotta beat the heat, of course!!). After traveling through Oatman (a Ghost town of sorts) we came to Sitgreaves Pass. One of the first things we saw was a wreck:
Beware. Going too fast will send you off the road!!
Here's the "super highway." That skinny, winding, two-lane road looks impressive, huh? LOL!
Cemetery out in the middle of nowhere. What I want to know is how in the world they dug that many graves in that hard dirt? And were there really that many people dying out there????
A mine shaft! Wouldn't it be fun to go exploring? Oh, wait. That sign says DANGER! KEEP OUT! Oh, well. *sigh*
Belive it or not, there's even a nice little restroom out there. How fancy!!!
This one was today's adventure. My BFF (aka sister Amy) loves cooking. She loves to watch cooking. Last time we were at Wal*Mart together, we were walking through the store by ourselves. She glanced at one of the many TV's they have throughout the store and immediately stopped and said, "I HAVE to watch this!!" It was the cooking program (we don't have TV at our house). I was in a hurry, so I pulled her along and said, "You can watch it on the TV closer to where we're going." But that's beside the point.
Recently she said she wanted to go to the Community College to watch the cooking class through the big windows around the kitchen. So Mom got the schedule for the cooking class, and she took Amy and me over there this morning. Sure enough, there were people in the kitchen making donuts, rice, soup, and fresh bread.
Almost immediately after we got there, we were offered some fresh donuts. At first my mom tried to turn it down, but how can you say no to warm donuts??? So we hesitantly took some. After that, we talked to the instructor, and he told us about their classes and schedule, etc. The instructor called to one of the students and asked if the soup was done yet. The man replied, "Yep, it's done." Can you guess? Yep, the instructor forced some soup and bread on us too! Free lunch.
Me in pink, Amy in orange (who actually did not want the soup -- she was just posing. Hee hee).
Soon after, quite a few people showed up and just walked right into the kitchen for their free lunch, too. The president of the college came by just as we were finishing, and since we kind of know him in "real life" (LOL!) he stopped and said hi and talked for a few minutes, trying to sell us on college classes early. When the cook came out, we asked him for six donuts, one for each person in our family, but he hollered into the kitchen, "Hey, wrap up a dozen donuts for these ladies!" So we ended up bringing home thirteen donuts (baker's dozen, you know) instead of just six. Nice guy!
So... what did we learn on this field trip? Well, we learned that the cook, G. Michael Harris, is a really nice man. We learned that if we show up at about 11:30 at the college, we can get a free meal. Oh, you want to know if we learned something about cooking? Of course we did! We learned that you can thicken glaze by adding corn starch. So there.
Stay tuned to find out what other exciting things we do for school around here.
Whew. It was about time. You would think I had taken another break.
I am starting a new category. I have decided to start a series about what I am doing for school this year. I hope I don't bore anyone. Because doesn't it kind of seem like a homeschooling mom kind of thing to post what their kids are doing for school this year? You certainly won't be forced to read it, especially if it makes you want to conk out. But on the other hand, maybe I am doing something for school that sounds really fun to you, and maybe you could do it too and have more fun with school. Or... something like that... Hee hee. So I will be starting that up soon.
Other things... I turned 14 last Saturday (October 4th). It was a nice birthday. My sisters and I made Brittany's Pineapple Cake. It was good! And we also had mango ice cream. I got some nice presents, one of which was the Violin One part to the Messiah music!!!! (Yes, Mom, I really am still excited about this gift, even though I haven't played it in a week. That's because I keep wasting so much time every day that I'm not getting all my other things done in order to have some "free time" to go play.) I have the recordings for almost all of it, and it's very fun to play along with the CD.
Some other nice things I got were some candy (which I keep sneaking all day long -- well, not exactly. ), a backpack which matches my sister Amy's (can't wait until we both wear them somewhere!), and a beautiful new journal (for when I fill this one up, of course). I have somewhat of a strange memory to associate with this birthday. I had put just about all my birthday presents in my backpack, and the backpack was sitting right next to my desk, UNZIPPED. Big mistake!! I don't know why it wasn't zipped. I usually had it zipped, I guess I just forgot. So on Sunday night, I came into my room in a big hurry and knocked a nearly-full glass of water into my open backpack. !! Needless to say, I was NOT happy. I soaked (okay, not quite, that damage wasn't that bad) my new books and things. Thankfully, my Messiah music was on my music stand, so it escaped! Whew!! Not to worry, except for a few spots on a couple of my books and my new journal, you would not be able to tell. Hopefully I learned my lesson about haste making waste... or at least a disaster. LOL! I don't think it did much good. I'm still doing things in a hurry.
We're going on a trip coming up very soon... I'm planning on posting about that when we get back. It should be fun! Stay tuned.
This isn't part of the "snapshot," but I simply must report that yesterday at church, two people were saved!! One was someone I had been praying for for weeks, and she was in my thoughts a lot during the service. I am thrilled for both of them. I have been thanking the Lord all day long. It has been sooo long since the Lord has saved anyone at our church. Hopefully, this will only be the beginning of something big!! What can I say but that God is great. Praise him!!
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Not too long ago, I wrote a "scene." I kind of planned that I would just start writing "scenes" -- not short stories, just little clips of this and that here and there. I'll be doing something and then process my actions or thoughts like I was writing it in a book or story. "She took a flying leap from halfway across the room and landed in her bed, shaking the bunk bed and barely avoiding hitting her head on the bottom of the top bunk." That wasn't the greatest example, but that's sort of what I've been doing. I don't try to think like that. I just do (I have a lot of "weird" ways that I think about things. Maybe someday I should write a post on it. Maybe I'm not as weird as I think -- maybe a lot of other people think like me, too!).
So here is my first "scene." I don't know how many more I'll do -- maybe none -- but this one was fun. Yep, it's about me (it happened a few months ago) and it's even almost true. The main idea for the story actually happened, but I made up many of the details (can you tell what's true and what's not?). I think part of the reason I wrote this was because I was wanting to ride my bike so bad, and writing about it was the second best thing to actually doing it. Here you go:
Let’s see… I only have five problems left! I thought, glad that it was almost done. I picked up my pencil and began to work on my math lesson with renewed fervor. However, only two problems later, I got stuck on a tough one. I wrote and erased, and wrote and erased, just getting frustrated. Usually math is my best subject! What’s wrong with me? I wondered. I had a feeling that it wasn’t really that hard to solve – but my brain had kind of stalled for the moment. I looked up and saw that my cup of water was empty. Of course, knowing that I didn’t have any water immediately made me feel thirsty.
Happy to have a diversion from my schoolwork, I carried my cup out to the kitchen for a refill. The rest of the family was all working on something. Mom was on the computer, looking on the internet for some kind of worksheets for one of my sisters. My sister Amy, who is just two years younger than me, was practicing the piano. Emily, age four, was running in circles in the living room and singing along loudly with my Amy’s piano playing. Elisabeth, eight years old, was sitting at her desk, bent over her science book.
I leaned against the fridge, waiting for my cup to get filled up, wishing the water would come out faster than a trickle. Of course, I could have used the spigot at the sink, but I wanted the cold water that came out of the refrigerator. It was worth waiting for sometimes. Especially if there was a tough math problem waiting for me to come back to as soon as my cup was filled up. The longer the break, the better!
The phone rang. “I’ll get it,” I shouted to be heard over the piano playing and singing. “Amy, could you please stop for a second?” I set my cup – which was only half full – down on the counter, picked up the cordless phone from off its base, pressed the “talk” button, and held it to my ear. “Hello, Johnsons’, Alison speaking.”
“Hello, Johnsons’, Alison speaking!” the caller replied.
I groaned. “Dad! Why do you always have to do that?” But I couldn’t help smiling in spite of myself.
Dad ignored my remark. “Hey, I have a job for you. Go in my room and get a twenty out of my wallet.”
I began walking in the direction of my parent’s bedroom. “Okay…”
“Have you got it?”
“No, I can’t find your wallet!” I searched his desk frantically with my eyes, using one hand to pick up pieces of paper so I could look under them.
“It’s right beside my Bible,” he directed patiently.
My eyes darted over to his Bible. Sure enough, there it was – in plain sight even! A lot of the time I totally miss the obvious, whether it be not being able to figure out some bit of strategy (usually in chess), or, in this case, not being able to find something that’s right in front of me. “Okay, I’ve got it.”
“Now would you get on your bike and meet me at the stoplight by the park? I’m biking towards you right now. I didn’t bring enough money with me to buy this part.”
Dad was working on a plumbing project in the kitchen. Plumbing wasn’t exactly his area of expertise, and, so far this morning, it was the third or fourth time that he had ridden his bike to the plumbing store to buy a different part or ask for some help.
“Okay, I’ll be right there,” I replied. I flew across the house to my room and tossed the phone onto my bed. I can worry about putting it away later. I pushed the door shut and leaped toward the closet. Yanking my bike-riding skirt off a hanger, I changed into it in a jiffy. A quick glance in the mirror screamed the fact that my newcombination of clothes clashed terribly, but I was in too much of a hurry to bother to change into a matching shirt as well. I didn’t want Dad to be almost home by the time I got my bike out. That would kind of defeat the purpose.
“Bye, Mom! I have to go run an errand for Dad,” I said as I dashed by her. “I’m taking my bike and I have to meet him somewhere with some money.” The words came out in a rush, and, as she was deeply engrossed in what she was reading on the computer, I’m not sure if she heard everything I said. She looked up for a minute and had a kind of blank look on her face, like her brain was trying to register what I had said.
Amy had finished practicing the piano and followed me outside. “What are you doing?” she asked, not wanting to miss out on the excitement, even if she wasn’t coming along.
“Dad needs me to bring him some money,” I repeated. I explained the rest to her in a few simple sentences as I rolled my bicycle out of the shed and snapped the helmet buckle shut under my chin. “Would you explain everything to Mom for me? I’m not sure she understood what I told her, since I ran by her so fast.” Amy promised that she would, so I took off down the driveway and waved to her. “See you later!”
I didn’t completely stop when I got to the stop sign – I’ve heard my dad say that bicyclists don’t have to actually stop at a stop sign, as long as they slow down a lot and make sure there are no cars coming. Believe me, it sure came in handy this time! As soon as I saw that the coast was clear, I took off like there was a herd of angry buffalo after me. I shifted my three-speed into third gear so I could go even faster, and pedaled with all my strength, leaning forward into the breeze.
A few seconds later, I had gotten going at a pretty fast pace, but I had also gotten to my turn. So I had to slow way down and lose lots of my speed. I bumped along through the dirt parking lot shortcut to the street, only to find out that I had to wait for a string of eleven cars all to go by before I could cross. “C’mon,” I urged under my breath, drumming my fingers on my handlebars. I wondered what these people were thinking of me – biking in a skirt! Let alone wearing this horribly un-matching outfit. Oh, well, who cares what they think. I shrugged. I probably look like I just got out of bed or something. My hair was a bit of a mess, too. Finally, all the cars passed, and I was able to cross the street and ride the rest of the way to the stoplight.
Just as the light turned green for me to cross the intersection I saw my Daddy riding towards me on the other side. I grinned and rode across to meet him. “Here you go,” I said, and handed him the money. It had looked so nice and crisp when I pulled it out of his wallet, but now it was kind of wadded up and also a bit sweaty. “Sorry,” I apologized.
He shrugged. “It’s still worth the same!”
“True,” I admitted.
“Do you want to go back to the plumbing shop with me?” he asked.
Of course I wasn’t going turn down an opportunity to ride with my dad, so I immediately accepted. He called my mom on his cell phone so she wouldn’t worry about me (and she actually did find the phone on my bed, but it took a few rings), and we were off!
Just my dad and me, riding off to the plumbing store by ourselves. And I got to put off that tough math problem for even longer.
...And with a new template, even! Yes, this is the same theme I used last autumn, but I like it, and it's just way too much of a bother to dig up more graphics or come up with new color sets. I kind of thought about going back to only one sidebar... I just don't have enough ideas to fill up both of them. Maybe if I just spent a little bit of time at it... but it's definitely not one of my top priorities! Did anyone (besides, you, Dad) enjoy the daily chess puzzles that used to be at the top of this column? If it was a popular thing, I'll consider putting it back up.
Stay tuned for some posts. I have several ideas, but I just need to get them all typed up and posted. Plus I need to keep those creativity gears grinding away and putting out more post ideas. For this long of a break, I should have lots and lots and lots of ideas -- but, I don't!
But I am getting plenty written on my book. Even though I feel like I really need some more ideas for it, I'm making pretty good progress on what I do have. I'm biking to the library once a week to work on it at the computer lab. It is soooo much fun! And it's a great environment for writing. It's quiet for the most part, and there are not very many distractions... that is, unless I start looking around at all the other people and seeing what everyone else is doing. My word count is now over 16,000 words, but I've still got a TON of stuff that has to happen.
So maybe you are wondering what my book is about... well, I haven't really even told everything to my family. It seems like if I tell everyone what it's about, then I won't want to write it anymore, or something like that. So please be patient until I finish writing. I will say this, though -- it is a challenge to write about stuff you know about, trying to make is sound like you really don't know anything about it, and especially writing it in first person!!! Try it sometime. It's very hard.
Was there anything else I wanted to say? I can't remember. My daddy left yesterday and flew to Wichita. He preached there last night and today he is flying back to preach at our church tonight (yes, we have midweek service on Thursdays, not Wednesdays). He should be back in a little over an hour, I think.
At the moment I'm listening to one of the Brandenburg Concertos on Kylie's playlist. Thanks, Kylie! That reminds me -- did you know that you can get a ton of free music from Wikipedia? Just go to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sound/list . You can listen to bunches of it right there, and if you want, you can download it as well. It is so handy!!
I think that pretty much wraps it up. I'd betters save something for a later post, huh?
Welcome to my blog! I'm a fourteen-year-old girl who enjoys writing -- not only for my blog but also fictional stories and the like. Here you'll find stories, devotional thoughts, miscellaneous aspects of life, and more. Enjoy!
Who says Arizona never gets snow?!? That is such a lie. Yeah, I'll admit, it's rare to get that much here, and we don't get any at our house ever, but the fact of the matter is, Arizona DOES get snow. Lots of it.
Look at all those kids!! That's not even all of them, there's still another goat that's going to have her babies any day now. You've got to love the names -- Knit and Perl are the twins, and Matthew, Mark, Mary, and Martha are the quadruplets! We also fed the sheep and petted the two friendly (but big) dogs. 
I thought this was adorable!! Aren't they the cutest things?
But she was coming up with all kinds of ideas like (saying to my mom), "Well, if you just drive her up to my house, I'll take her the rest of the way and even drive her home again." But, no, it's just not going to work out. I'm not all that disappointed. If we had something like that in our own town, yeah, it would be great to be involved... maybe. But I guess we'll just have to trust that the Lord has something better in store.
Thanks!
The rules (I know you don't care, skip this part): Post the rules on your blog. Write six random things about yourself. Tag six-or-so other people at the bottom of your post -- and leave comments on their blogs letting them know they've been tagged. Let the person who tagged you know when you've written the post. So here we go:
My dad (who just got a blog, btw -- YAY!! -- Be sure to go see it and learn what my dad is like, hee hee. 
Beware. Going too fast will send you off the road!!
Here's the "super highway." That skinny, winding, two-lane road looks impressive, huh? LOL!
Cemetery out in the middle of nowhere. What I want to know is how in the world they dug that many graves in that hard dirt? And were there really that many people dying out there????
A mine shaft! Wouldn't it be fun to go exploring? Oh, wait. That sign says DANGER! KEEP OUT! Oh, well. *sigh*
Scenery. 
Me in pink, Amy in orange (who actually did not want the soup -- she was just posing. Hee hee).
!! Needless to say, I was NOT happy. I soaked (okay, not quite, that damage wasn't that bad) my new books and things. Thankfully, my Messiah music was on my music stand, so it escaped! Whew!! Not to worry, except for a few spots on a couple of my books and my new journal, you would not be able to tell. Hopefully I learned my lesson about haste making waste... or at least a disaster. LOL! I don't think it did much good. I'm still doing things in a hurry.
