O.O

I'm soo sorry. This time, the lack of updating wasn't my fault! The stupid blog wouldn't let me in. But it's okay, cuz I finally figgured it out and, well, here I am.

To those who are reading my story (of which there is only one chapter posted thus far) the next chapter will be posted by the end of next week. Thanks so much for your patience.

weekend

I wanted to get to this earlier, but I've been home sick for the last couple of days and haven't been in much of a mood for writing. I'm feeling a little better now, though, so it's time to tell about the LAST SPEECH MEET OF THE YEAR! Duh duh duh DUH!!!

Well, technically it's no the last meet. We still have districts, but it's the last normal meet. It was last Friday. I had felt fine in the morning, but after the hour long drive to the school were it was being hosted, I had a sore throat, headache, and a fever. Yay, me. All that made the competition interesting. Very interesting, in fact. More so than I had expected, because for some reason, I made it into finals!! I don't if this sounds like a big deal or not, but I haven't broken into finals once all year. Being the last meet before districts, I was elated. I ended up getting 11th place out of 70 odd competitors over all. Now I'm excited for next week. I feel as if I might have a chance at making it to state.

The ride home was unpleasant, despite my high ranking. It was the wind was blowing like mad, sweeping snow over the road and blocking our vision. There were times when we literally couldn't see anything. I was scared out of my whits. Plus, my headache had come back worse than before. I was in tears by the time we were finally home.

After a long sleep, my headache was gone, but my throat was still sore and my fever hadn't gone away. For three days, I was confined to my room which gave me a lot of time to do stuff like watch a ton of movies and a few episodes of an anime that my friend introduced me to on youtube. That and talk for hours on the phone with my boyfriend. He was a sweety, saving me from my lonesomeness.

So that was about the extent of it all. My fever went away last night, but I'm still to weak to try to go to school yet. Maybe tomorrow. At least I'm not contagious so can be upstairs now.

Intro

As the title suggests, this is the intro to the book I'm writing. I'm hoping that by having people read as i go, it'll give me more of a motive to finish it. But don't get too attached, because knowing me, that won't happen. Anyway, here's the preface.

Tyleen stared out the window, wanting to murder the mailman. He was an older model, the city didn’t often replace their worker robots, so he wasn’t able to move extremely quickly, but it seemed to Tyleen that he moved deliberately slowly today. His box-like figure inched carelessly along on rickety wheels driving her nearly insane. By the time he began crawling up her front walk, she was kicking herself to keep from rushing out to him then and there. If she ran out and created a scene, the others would see. They would know.
The doorbell rang. Tyleen squeezed her eyes shut and slowly counted to three. She didn’t want to open the door too soon and appear anxious. Taking a deep breath, she stood and strode to the door. After inhaling once more, trying to compose herself, she opened it.
“Good morning,” said the box. His voice was dull and metallic, one of the things Ty hated about the old models.
“Just give me my mail,” she retorted irritably.
A small slot opened and half a dozen letters slid out. She grabbed them, perhaps too quickly, and shuffled through them, checking names, addresses, and anything else she could think of that might hold a sign. There was nothing. Her shoulders dropped, and with a furious sigh she put her hand on the door, ready to slam it shut in the robots stupid, blank, metallic face. Before she could, however, a larger slot opened on the mailman’s front.
“You have a package. Please sign and place your finger on the sliver box.”
Tyleen’s heart pounded as a writing pad and pen appeared from the opening. She quickly scribbled her name on the digital screen, returned the pen, and placed her finger on the small, sliver square that the robot offered to her. There was a quick pinprick as a sample of her blood was taken, and then she pulled her hand back. The mailman had already pulled a medium sized cardboard box out from somewhere in his interior with tow metal claws.
Tyleen snatched the box, shut the door, and rant into the kitchen, leaving the other mail on the living room couch.
This was it.
Using a pair of scissors, she cut through the packaging tape and tore open the cardboard flaps. Shining beautifully on top of a bed of packaging peanuts were two small, platinum blasters. On top of one was taped a small note with four hastily written words.
“Don’t tell your mother.”

poem

I got creative. Here's a poem for y'all...or something


When I smile at you from across the room...
It means I can't get you off of my mind
When I say "I love you" a little too much...
It means that I'm overflowing and it just leaks out
When I walk a little closer than normal...
It means I want the world to look at us and be jealous of what we have
When I seem clingy...
It means I've had a bad day and know the one person who can make things better
When I apologize for things I can't control...
It means I want to be perfect for you, and know I can't
When I sacrifice something for your benefit...
It means you're my world and I want you to be happy
When I ask to pray for you...
It means I can't make everything right in life, but I know the one who can

Kearney Adventures--Day 2

As I'm writing this, the lights are dimming all around. I think I jinxed us last night when I complained about the power not being off long enough to enjoy it. We've had no power all day. It wasn't until 5:30 that we were returned into the world of electricity. We had a really fun day, though. At first, we were all worried because the house had no heat and we couldn't find a hotel to stay in for the night because there were no vacancies. Soon, we found a place at an out-of-the-way inn, but at least it had power. They told us not to come for a few hours so they could clean our rooms, so we were stuck at home. We broke out 'Life Stories' again and played that until people slowly lost interest and then we moved on to lunch. It turned out heat wasn't going to be a problem either because the sun was streaming in through the window. I even shed a few of my five layers because it got kind so warm. After lunch, we sat around in the living room talking, reading, just being together. We also listened to the radio. Mom, not wanting to stay in Kearney long if we weren't going to have power, wanted to go home. However, the interstate exits and a lot of the streets were all closed, so any hope of getting somewhere that wouldn't freeze us out at night was dashed. But at least we were together, so we'd be okay.

I challenged my brother to a game of Risk (which I stomped him at, by the way ^_^) And the others played Cranium. We had just finished our game, and Cranium was about half way done when the lights flickered back on. All of us did our happy dance, and it was literally about 45 seconds until the boys had abandoned the game and turned on the Game Cube. I, sadly, also went to the electronics, but not before cleaning up and only so that I could blog, so I'm not in the wrong…right? >.>; Don't answer that.

Hopefully the power doesn't go out again, but we can only pray. We really don't give those power guys enough credit. We're always thanking the firemen and police a lot of credit. Not that they don't deserve a lot of credit, but you never realize how much power is needed in our society today until you loose it. So thanks, power guys. You all are really great ^_^

As a final note, I'd like to wish a happy New Year to everyone, and I'll see you in '07.

Kearney Adventures--Day 1

My family, including Grandma and Grandpa, trucked it up to Kearney today to visit my Aunt Reanna and Uncle Rick. They spent Christmas with Rea's side of the family, so we're spending New Years and celebrating Christmas at their house at the same time.

This morning was a little bit stressful. Not so much for me, but Mom and Dad were kinda freaking as they rushed to make sure that we could get out of the house on time. I did manage to pull out for a few minutes to call and tell Randy good-bye. Shortly afterward, we were on the road. This soooo did not release any of the tension. First,
Gareth started complaining that he felt sick, so we had to make a side stop at Food-4-Less for a bucket in case he needed to throw up. When we got to York we started getting pelted with rain, which eventually turned to sleet as the temperature dropped. Then the roads got SUPER icy and the wind started blowing really hard. We passed a lot of cars that had spun off the road, and Mom got really worried. Finally, Liam needed to pee an hour away from Kearney where there are no rest stops. Lucky for him, we had an empty water bottle on hand. At first, he was a little hesitant, but once he finished he thought peeing in a bottle was the coolest thing ever. He cracked many “Don’t forget it’s not lemonade” jokes by the time we got to the house. When we went to throw it away, we saw just how bad he had to go. He filled the whole freaking bottle!!! That boy can pee! Gareth was the only one not amused by this. He though it was a total abomination to go to the bathroom in something you’re supposed to drink out of.

At the house, it took a little while to calm down. The ice on the roads was really scary, so we needed a lot of hugs once in the house. I didn’t realize just how bad it was until I looked at the grass. Every single blade was coated in a cylinder of ice the size of my fingers so that it looked more like a crystal wonderland than a front lawn.

Moods soon lightened as we sat around the dinner table, talking and laughing while the lights flickered above our heads as a result to the terrible wind outside. Just as we were about to clean up and open Christmas presents, the lights went out entirely. We all ran to get the candles and gathered around the table and the soft glowing light. We didn’t even get time to enjoy the comfy hominess of the candle lit room when the lights came on again. With a sigh, we finished the dishes and sat in the living room to open gifts. My second youngest cousin, Molly, got a Baby Alive doll. It’s a baby doll that you have to play with, feed, and change her diapers to keep content. Because you know that we don’t have enough real baby poop in the world, so we need to change an artificial diaper every now and again. –sigh- I don’t understand kids.

Right now, everyone’s kind of settling down and getting ready for bed. It looks like we’ve got a pretty fun weekend ahead of us.

Christmas has...changed

Christmas in my family has slowly been evolving over the past years. We still keep the same traditions and all, and maybe it's just because I've been getting older, but I've started to see things change a little bit. For the better, of course ^_^

At about 7, my dad came to wake me up because, unlike my brothers, I hadn't gotten up at five in the morning to stare at the Christmas tree and the gifts leaking out from underneath. As I rose sleepily, Dad commented, "You must be turning into a grownup. You're tired on Christmas morning!"

I trudged up the stares and took my place on the living room couch, where my parents started to divvy up the presents. I already knew what part of my gift would be because every year I get a doll, usually porcelain, to add to my collection downstairs. In years past, I've received little girls riding ponies and princesses with their dresses all pretty. This year it was a gothic pirate girl holding a skull with a blade clamped between its teeth. My other gifts were similar. A Jack Skellington jacket, and a hoodie that reads "Pink Goth" across the front. Oh yeah. Change is good.

After a quick clean up, it was off to Grandma's. There, the gifts weren't quite as dark, but they were all just as wonderful. My one big gift was a keyboard that I had been asking for since September!! WOO HOO!!! As a thank you, I tinkered around on it, playing carols until the rest of the family arrived.

I love Christmas at my grandparents house because it's always such a loving environment. That much has always stayed the same. Sounds of cooking came from the kitchen as the rest of the adults set the table for breakfast, and Gareth sat in the living room playing with his two Godzilla toys which he has named "Triangle Godzilla" and "Godzilla House".....don't ask me why.

Another thing that stays the same every Christmas is the tradition of ebleskivers. Ebleskivers, if you don't know, are a little pancake balls usually filled with some kind of treat like peanut butter, cherries, or bananas. In recent years, Grandma has added another filling to the list. A nickel. Obviously, no one eats the nickel, but whoever is lucky enough to find it gets five dollars. It adds a little friendly competition to breakfast, and it makes sure that there won't be many left overs. All of us dived into the two platters as soon as they touched the table. We also partook of the other dishes, of course, because that's part of the rules. You have to eat the other food, too.

After a long time of competitive face-stuffing, Grandma reveled that the nickel was in the tray on my side of the table. Everyone suddenly became hungry again. Finally, with only a handful of ebleskivers left on the tray, there were only two people who weren't too stuffed to eat them: Rowan and my cousin Leah. Rowan just grabbed five of them randomly and started eating, but Leah and I, deciding to work together, took another rout. I took a clean spoon and gently used it to turn every ebleskiver on the tray, looking for some sign of a filling. Any that had one were pushed aside. One of them, though, didn't have any peanut butter or cherry juice leaking out the side...and it looked strangely flat. I tossed it onto Leah's plate, and as she cut it open, the silver of a nickel poked up through the dough. We had won! That's what you get for teamwork, I suppose. ^_^

The final change, probably the best, was a game. Grandma had suggested that Dad bring the game "Life Stories" along so we could play it after breakfast. The game has four stacks of cards, each with different kinds of questions on them, but all of them ask you to dig into your past and recall, as the game says, your life stories. I didn't know that there was so much about my family that I didn't know. It was absolutely amazing some of the things they had to say. I'm thinking that this should definitely become a tradition.

My weekend

So, my weekend was quite the adventure. It goes as follows:

Saturday, the first thing I did was clean my room. Now, why this may not sound exciting, it really was, because I haven't seen my floor in at least 2 months, and finding it again was almost miraculous. It feels really nice being in a clean room again. I think I'm going to try to keep it that way. (Inner voice: Yeah, like that's ever going to happen)

After that, I went to a photo shoot. A photographer friend of ours, Terry, wanted to make business cards with my face on them so I can hand them out to my friends and say "See this? This photographer rocks. Get your Senior pics from him." The best of the shoot, I posted in my photo gallery. They're the last two on the list. Check them out ^_^

Finally, at about 6:30, came what I had been looking forward to all week. Randy, his friend Michael, Amber, and I were all going to go out to see Stranger than Fiction (which was a very good movie, by the way. I recommend it). Now, I had never met Michael before, and all I knew of him was Randy saying "He's my complete opposite." I had expected that this meant something along the lines of him being a little more out spoken than Randy is. No. The description was extreamly accurate. The first thing he said to me when we piled into the car was, "Hey, just so you know, I'm a stud." Then he went on about how he met these two hott girls at Taco Bell who were going to another movie and were probably going to call him later. Little did he know (and I only found this out today) that those two "hott girls" were actually two very close friends of mine. Small world.

So the night went on with Randy, Amber and I kind of following Michael around the mall as he gave high fives to everyone he encountered. This kid has no fear. I was waiting for someone to clock him, but it never happened. He just got a lot of strange looks.

Sunday, Terry (the photographer) came over with the pictures, and Randy came and hung out for a few hours. My grandparents came over, and so Randy got to meet them. I expect that it was an odd first impression though. Grandma was skimming over the pictures and noticed that in one of them that I was wearing a ring that looked strangely like a wedding band. Noting this, she turned and shot a stare at Randy who, turning red, backed up in an "I swear it wasn't me!" kind of way. I explained to her that it was my purity ring and she need not worry. She laughed.

We then all sat down in the living room, talking and laughing, and Randy played "Stairway to Heaven" on our guitar quite awesomely. Soon, though, everyone had to leave because Mom and Dad had to go to a small group meeting and so I watched Monster House with the little one and tucked him into bed.

So, yeah. Pretty awesome weekend. I had fun, anyway.