Friday Favorites

Okay, so, admittedly I've kind of slacked off for the past few weeks. I've been so busy, I haven't had the time to post.
1. I've had dance practice for the past 2 weeks. 4 hours a day, 4 days a week. That's a whopping 16 hours per week. 32 hours so far, and counting. Despite sore muscles and exhaustion, it's been super fun.
2. Girls' Camp was a couple weeks ago. It was very fun, and strengthened my testimony so much. I can't wait until next year.
3. I had a very crazy day today. And I mean really, really crazy. But so far, the ending has been good. I just hope it stays that way.
4. I got a haircut this Wednesday! It's really cute. I now have layers and bangs.
5. I'm looking forward to next week. It'll be filled with 36 hours of dance camp; from 8 in the morning until 8 at night for three days, and a vacation to a full on dude ranch. What's not to like?

Girls' Camp

Yes. As the title suggests, I am heading off to Girls' Camp this Tuesday. I am super excited, but I will have to forgo the Friday Favorites this week, or at least do them a day late on Saturday. If I do, I'm sure I'll have a lot to post. Anyway, with any luck I won't get incinerated by an out of hand bonfire or get frozen to the point where my remains resemble a frostbitten ice-cube. Ew. Wish me luck!

Friday Favorites

1. I got a bunch of dance stuff yesterday. Also, an awesome pair of dark blue and neon pink shoes. They're so awesome! But sadly, they don't match my neon pink shorts.
2. So far, I've had a totally lazy summer. It's nice to have one unoccupied week before I get really busy.
3. I'm looking forward to Girls' Camp next week. It's going to be a blast!
4. I discovered that I'm a great Tex Richman doo-wop girl. Don't ask.
5. I finished all of my 20-something library books in pretty much two days, and now I'm searching for new ones. The "favorite" part of this comes in when my mom lent me a medical thriller that reminds me a bit of Dick Francis, and actually is quite enthralling. I need to finish it, though. I set it down after about an hour and about 170 pages.
6. I got a new dresser the other day. No more crammed clothes! Yay!

Friday Favorites

So, last week I kinda sorta accidentally forgot to do Friday Favorites. Oops. Oh, well, I'm doing them this week, and there's lots of stuff to put on the list.
1. School is officially over for summer. That one deserves a large hurrah, to be sure.
2. Yearbook day was yesterday, and everyone got their yearbooks. This doesn't really sound like a big deal, but I was on Yearbook Staff this year, and put a lot of time and effort into helping make the book.
3. Yesterday, I got as many signatures per class in my yearbook as I could. I'm really going to miss everyone, and my school. Even some of the seventh graders, though I hate to admit it.
4. Wednesday, all the 8th graders went to Lagoon. We got to stay there from about 9:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m., and it was super fun. I hung out with my three besties, and we went on all the big and scary rides possible, as many as we could. They included Wicked, Samurai, this huge new roller coaster that was just added that I don't know the name of, etc. We wanted to go on the Rocket but we didn't have time.
5. While at Lagoon, I ate Arby's. This in itself is not shocking, but the fact that I didn't find a finger in my sandwich is. Google it if you are confused.
6. I learned how to make a campfire with a flint stone and knife while certifying for Girls' Camp. It took a while, but it was surprisingly easy.
7. I had five finals on Tuesday, and passed them all, three of the five with above 100% due to extra credit opportunities, and the other two with an A. I was freaking out, so it's a miracle I passed any of them, let alone all of them.
8. I am looking forward to going to the library today. That's always fun. Yippee!

Makeover

Hi folks! Most of you probably didn't notice because of the nifty little gadget called Google Reader, but I recently gave my blog a makeover. So, anyway, feel free to comment with your opinion. Actually, that's strongly encouraged. And if you get sick of me, please let me know also and I'll 'make like a tree and leaf.' (Love that expression.) Sayonara for now!

Friday Favorites III

Yeesh, the weeks go by so fast. One week just blurs into the next. Really, the past week has been surprisingly uneventful. However, I have managed to scrape together a handful of favorites.
1. We are done with End of Level Testing. (I'm actually not entirely sure if it is capitalized or not, but they're so intimidating they deserve capital letters.)Anyway, they're also called CRTs, and if I hadn't mentioned before, they're OVER. For reals. (Insert victory dance, courtesy of my brother, Big, here.)
2. My siblings, who have been extra annoying this week, are surprisingly not dead. Now that's an accomplishment. I think this is deserving of applause.
3. It was Big's birthday yesterday. The big 5. Quite an occasion.
4. I have so far managed not to fall over from exhaustion. Again, an astounding statement.
5. I have amazing friends who don't put grass in my hair (sometimes), don't squish my Goldfish crackers (most of the time), and put up with my craziness (all the time). Thanks, guys!
Like I said, it's only a handful, but hopefully there's more to come next week.

Friday Favorites

Okay, so once again, I am posting my Friday Favorites, luckily on time, this time.
1. We performed our final Seussical performance on Monday, after another successful weekend of performance. My mom posted about our closing night. Click here and ignore the embarrassing/slightly snarky comments.
2. After our Saturday performance, we had a fabulous cast party, until reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally late at night. It was absolutely crazy, and extremely fun.
3. The morning following the aforementioned party, I got to go to work with my dad and see a amazing choir performance with all the behind the scenes jazz as well. Purty darn spiffy, if you ask me.
4. I got braces. Not exactly one to put on a "favorites" list, but last I checked, there wasn't a "at the moment I don't really like it but I'll be glad I had them someday" list in sight. My mom also posted about this as well. Click here if you aren't squeamish at the sight of extreme horror and metal detector upsetting ugliness. I have officially earned myself the nickname 'fence face.'
5. I am currently not (really) affected from getting braces and a minimal amount of sleep. So what else is new? (Actually, this is a miracle unto itself, if you ask me.)
6. Life is good. I am astounded I can say this, but somehow, I can. That's always a plus.
This is quite a pitiful list, (pathetic, really) but it will have to do. Signing off until next week! That is, as long as my brain, which currently is functioning as if it were the size of a walnut, remembers. Oh, well. Toodles!

Hello? Anyone There?

I feel (not surprisingly) that I have a sudden lack of readers. I think I scared them all off. Also not surprising. Just allow me to say...

Ha. Now I can post whatever I want.

Friday Favorites (on Saturday)

Wow. First time of this and already I'm doing it a day late. This doesn't really start my future Friday Favorites blogging off on a good note. But hey, I was busy performing all night last night. I'm afraid this post might be slightly performance oriented, but here goes.

1. As I mentioned before, I have performed four times this week. Once, the previous Saturday for a ballet performance, and then the other three times I performed the school musical for several random audiences. I'm looking forward to another tonight.

2. I am officially done with ballet, at least for a year, as of Saturday.

3. I did not (thankfully, and somewhat surprisingly) mess up horribly last night at the evening performance.

4. I got to pass out programs and take tickets last night when the doors opened. It was really fun, and I got to wear my Bird Girl/showgirl headdress. I got a lot of little kids asking me if I was a bird, and then staring at me like I was about to explode when I said that I was. Somehow, I got the impression that they didn't believe me. Thankfully, my full costume convinced them.

5. I have not gone crazy yet. This sounds like a given, but, with 3:00-8:00 practices after school plus homework and no food can do that to a person. So, really, it's quite an accomplishment.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Kind of pathetic, actually, but it'll do for now.

Assorted Random Ramblings from the Past, Present, and Future...

So, um, yeah, my recent posts haven't had much detail in them. Allow me to elaborate. Right now, my family is partaking of one of the blissful joys of Spring Break: doing absolutely nothing. Believe me, it's wonderful to actually have over a week to do whatever I want, uninterrupted. Unless you count the impending loads of laundry. Blah. And they call my mom the "Laundry Queen." But aside from that, the days surrounding have been deliciously blank, boring, and bland. Quite a nice change. The things I am looking forward to include: an orthodontist appointment (yeesh), the restarting of school (double yeesh), and, once again, a buttload of homework (TRIPLE YEESH!). But anyway, as mentioned before in previous posts, I made my high school's dance team. Collected privileges of the undertaking of this opportunity include: a mercifully brief and dance-heavy summer program, halftime and assembly performances, participation in various competitions, including one in San Francisco! Just allow me to say, EEEEEEEEE!

Friday Favorites??????

Hi folks! I've decided to start posting on my blog again, after a hiatus of I don't really know (or want to know) how long. Let's just say it's probably a couple years. Anyway, to keep me motivated and my few remaining readers informed, I have been considering following in my mother's footsteps and doing Friday Favorites. I set up a poll (kind of a nifty little gadget really) on the side of my blog, so you can vote on what I should do. But hurry! You can only vote until April 20th!

Hello Again!

Yikes! I really haven't posted in a while. Life is wonderful, and totally changing. I am quitting ballet and just barely (as in literally 5 minutes ago) got the news that I was accepted onto the competition dance team of the high school I'll be attending this Fall. I am totally stoked! Shocked, as well, because I honestly did not expect that. Hopefully this means I'll have a little more time at my disposal after school. Yikes times two! That's a new concept. What will I do? I have a feeling I'll figure something out pretty quickly. Or at least my new teachers will. Homework alert! Oh, well. It was a stellar end to a stellar week. (Now I sound like my mom. She uses 'stellar' all the time. Heck, maybe I'll go the whole hog and start doing Friday Favorites too. Then again, maybe not.)

Sorry!!!

Wow, that's sad. I just realized I haven't posted on my blog for over a year. Anyway, stuff that's new... Oh, yeah. I'm going into 8th grade now, I'm almost 13, I'm finally getting my wish and am moving up dance classes fairly quickly, we just moved and now I have my own room, and.... oh yeah. It's summer! I am sooo glad it's finally here! We just went on the best vacation ever (which I'll tell about in a later post)and it was awesome. It was a family reunion on my mom's side. It scares me just thinking about it: we have our family reunions once every two years, so the next family reunion I'll be almost 15! Yikes. Anyway, more posts to come! (Hopefully.)

Hansel and Gretel

Well, this weekend I was a cotton-candy in Hansel and Gretel. We've been rehearsing for weeks, months even, so it feels strange to have that all done. It went well for the most part. The dressing room got kinda crowded, though. It took forever to get my makeup and hair done, and even more time to get it off. The costumes were super cute. They were all pink and sparkly and pretty. We got to carry these bunches of cotton on sticks with pink ribbons tied around the stick, and it looked a lot like real cotton-candy. The only problem was, people kept pretending to eat them. It was funny at first, but then it started to get annoying. The stage lights were really bright and hot! Standing next to them in the wings was like landing on the sun. I can't wait for the next performance!

Recent Events

Well, what do you know. We just got locked out of our own house. My grandparents are away in California, so they took the key with them, and we don't have a key ourselves, and the garage door got locked, so we were completely locked out. Good thing my little brother Big leaves the window open slightly sometimes, so we were able to break in, with the help of a screwdriver and my dad. We sent Bud through the window, and he unlocked the door. Oh, and I also got a haircut! I now have side bangs and layers. I'll post a picture soon.

Beavers

Well, today we went to the river to see what the beavers had done (a.k.a. made dams). It wasn't very much of a drive, just 10 minutes or so, so we were there in no time. To get to the part of the river where the beavers were, we had to walk through a thicket of sticks that some beavers had gnawed on. We got to the water and saw some logs that the beavers chewed up. We didn't expect to see beavers, but then my dad spotted two! They fought for a second over who would investigate us, and then one swam off and the other swam slowly towards us. We could see the water glistening off it's thick, coarse brown fur. It got within a 10-foot range before diving under!

S-P-E-L-L Results

Well, for the most part, the regional went well. There were 56 kids from 4 counties, and it was actually easier than I thought. Sadly, we had to face the audience, which made it worse, but oh, well. I got to the place early, so we had to wait for a while for the sign-in place to set up. Well, I got number 34, which was interesting. Then I walked into the room after a short break. It didn't look too fun, with the cold metal chairs and the cracked paint, but I walked in anyway. It was 8:00, and the bee started at 9:00, so I had an hour of time to fill, so I played Scrabble on my dad's phone. At 8:45 I began wishing I hadn't had oatmeal for breakfast. 15 minutes later I was glad it was time to go onstage, because I had the worst letters ever. But once I got onstage I thought otherwise. I sat down and then there was a brief review of the rules, and then we had to get used to the microphone, so we went up and said our names and our schools. Then..... the first round began. It started out easy enough, with interrupt, which the boy actually missed. It went on until it was my turn. I got up, walked to the podium like a normal person, and then the lady spoke. "Croquette," was the first thing out of her mouth. I asked for the definition, just to make sure, and then I spelled. "Correct," she said. I heard someone in the audience whistle. I had just gotten started. The round progressed, with people getting out left and right, and then it was the second round. Well, there were some instances with unspecified homonyms, and they had to listen to the tape once, but it went smoothly. I spelled aristocracy correctly, no biggie, and then it was time for the third round. Hedonism was the word thrown at me, which I spelled, and then in the fourth round there was a big fuss over how a girl spelled allegory. There were several arguments about whether she spelled it with a u or an e or an i because she spoke so fast you could hardly tell, and the judges conferred with the tape a lot, but she was allowed to stay in, but really she spelled it with a u, or at least that's what I heard. The other rounds progressed with me in them, but when we got to round eight, the lady had me spell obelisk. I, thinking it had a French origin, spelled it 'obilisque'. It was incorrect. But, however, I did get into the top fourteen. It just so happened that the one word I didn't know how to spell that had been assigned that day was given to me. I'll never forget it again in my life! Good thing I have another chance next year.

Whoo-hooooo!!!!!!!

I had the best time at ballet on Thursday! For one thing, some girls from Level 7 (the highest level, in case you were wondering) were warming up for Hansel and Gretel rehearsals in our class, so Miss Demi made the combinations extra hard, and it was so fun! Plus, it felt like I was more challenged with those combinations, instead of our usual slow "Tendu, plie, tendu, tendu." Then, for another thing, once we got to rehearsals, we got to the end of the choreography, and Smiley (a friend), Gretel, and I get to push the witch into the "oven"!!!!! And then, after class, we got to try on our costumes! They were pink, sparkly, and completely gorgeous. And, might I add, they were comfortable, and I looked good! Not to mention the fact that I popped the big pointe shoe question to Miss Demi...... Here is how it went:
Me: (super excited) Miss Demi, when do you think I'll get pointe shoes?

Miss Demi: (looking thoughtful) Wellllll........ I haven't handed the pointe shoe evaluation out yet, but definitely in the summer.

Me: Wow!!!!!!!!!!

And so I went to tell Smiley and Patience (another friend, so called because she has been waiting for her pointe shoes for a long, long, long time). They were super excited for me, and Patience said that Miss Demi had said the same thing to her! Smiley had asked a while ago, and she had gotten the same answer, too. So it looks like the three of us will be going on pointe together. Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have just one thing to say: Never get pets on your blog. I got one that carried a TROJAN HORSE. Now that's just scary, isn't it? I had no idea these supposedly harmless little animals could carry viruses! And you don't want anyone getting your personal information, now do you?

Medieval Feast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today was the medieval feast! I had been awaiting this day ever since first grade, so it was a big, HUGE event. My grandma had helped me make my dress the night before (it was purple, with a floral panel down the middle), so I was all set. First was the coronation of the kings and queens of our grade. They had to take some oaths about ruling their 'kingdoms' well. Then was the catapult contest. There were awards for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, and lots of launched marshmallows. After that we went back to class to watch a movie. Finally, it was time for the feast. Everyone filed into the gym, which was decked out in traditional medieval flair. The kings and queens sat up on the stage. Table by table got food. There was cheesy bread, rolls, pumpkin bread, scones, grapes, chicken, cantaloupe, bananas, cheese, crackers, more scones, ginger ale and fruit juice, etc. We were supposed to be the entertainment for the king and queen, so we ate while expecting to be chosen. If some came unprepared or had a performance that did not please the royals or nobility (which some did) they had to do a certain amount of push-ups. I was doing a dance with some friends (ballet) so I waited and waited for our group to be called. I waited through a guy beat-boxing while humming through his nose and several piano performances, until finally we were called. It just so happened that two of my friends were in the bathroom washing off sticky hands, so we had to wait while a guy sang 'Don't Stop Believing' until my friends came back. The performance went well for the most part, though I messed up badly. Everyone still told us we did good, and no one noticed that I messed up. Too bad it's over!