Post-Thanksgiving post

The day after Thanksgiving. Black Friday, National Leftover Day, National Start-Counting-Down-The-Days-Till-Christmas Day..... The aliases are endless. 

I'm back to writing, though I'm still not sure what to write about. I have a story building up in my mind, but its kind of a "dead-end" story; meaning, I'm not sure where I'm going with it. Its about a really big family who lives in a beach house and theres a mystery or something... I haven't worked out the details. 

Yesterday I wowed some people by telling them that the longest thing I've ever written is almost 9,000 words. Its not crazy impressive compared to some people I know, but I'm proud of it (Its my Claire story that I recently finished). I have a problem with starting a story then getting bored of it, so when I finished Claire's story, I was pretty proud of myself. In fact, I was so proud, I managed to get Blaze to read it, and he never likes reading any of my stuff. At the end, I asked him what he thought and he said, "Really weird." I should have expected that. He thinks everything I write is "strange. weird, but strange." XD Besides, its a love story, so I wouldn't expect him to love it. 

He also doesn't like music, so I can't really trust his opinion. 

Who doesn't like music????? 

I finally put my new watercolor pencils to use: 

Pretty fancy clipboard, huh? 

It's my take on the burning bush story from the Old Testament. Sorry its such a bad photo. I feel like I went overboard. I don't like the background, the weeds shouldn't be there, and I HAD to add Moses's staff and sandals. Why...? *sob* But I like the bush. And the fire's pretty good too. 

I'm going to try and do some writing today, but sadly, I have some history homework I have to finish first. I'll see what I can do... 

--Abby

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Sorry it's so blurry

GUESS WHAT! I'M NOT MAKING COOKIES!! Aren't you proud? I made stuffing. Well, yes, I did have a little help, but I've never made stuffing before so cut me some slack. 

Its eighty degrees outside, the sky is blue, you can see the ocean from where I'm sitting, my stuffing's done, and I'm still wearing the clothes I slept in last night. Its so hot. It's like Thanksgiving on the face of the sun, as my dad put it. 

Blaze is playing chess with Mary Rose (who is getting help from my mom). Chess is a big thing in my family. My brothers play my grandpa a lot and they play each other a lot. My mom played it when she was growing up. I don't really have a lot of patience for chess, nor do I have much strategic ability. However, every once in a while I'll play Blaze or my grandpa and loose. Naturally. But it's fun, I simply can't sit still for that long. 

I'm planning out some drawings and Leslie is getting me back into writing (yes you are, Leslie. You may not know that you are, but you are XD). I have an outline for a story and I'm going to start it within the next few days. 

I love Thanksgiving. It's the only holiday where you can eat as much as you want and more without having people look at you weird. Plus you get to eat leftovers for like a week!

Now I'm off to stuff my face help make more food. Hope y'all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I know I have so much to be thankful for. 

--Abby

Pre-Thanksgiving post

Yes, I was going to wait to post tomorrow, but now's a good a time as any, right? 

*crickets* 

Ok then. 

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I'm really excited! Every seven years or so, my birthday is on Thanksgiving. The perks of that: I get an AWEOME birthday dinner! The drawback: I don't get to choose my birthday dinner. I mean, turkey's great and everything, and pies are delicious, and omigoodness, I could live on stuffing. But theres something very satisfying about picking out your dinner and whatnot. 

Anywho. 

Thanksgiving is such a great holiday. Not quite as great as Christmas, but pretty close. (When Christmas rolls around, I'll get to do another post about how amazing Christmas is, but for now I'm sticking to November) My dad usually makes Thanksgiving dinner, but this year I'm helping out. I'm more of a baker than a cook, but I'm also not an amazing baker. The hardest thing I've ever baked is cookies, so that should say something about my lack of baking. But this year, I'm going to do something more! 

(Watch as I end up making cookies XD) 

When I think of Thanksgiving, I think of great food, family, colorful leaves, autumn-y, homemade center pieces for the dining table, cider, fire places blazing... 
Usually, this is where the my writer instincts kick in and I write an impromptu poem/sonnet/story about Thanksgiving, but honestly, I got nothin'. My writers block is gone, I think, but I haven't done a ton of writing of the late and once you get out of the habit, it's hard to get back into it. I feel like drawing more, these days. It might be the watercolor pencils I got for my birthday... I don't have very good drawing paper though... I'll figure something out. 

In other news, I finished reading The Blood of Olympus and have passed it on to Blaze.

SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU WOULD RATHER NOT HAVE THE BOOK RUINED FOR YOU.

 The ending was both happy and disappointing, like 
*sigh* Oh I'm so glad he didn't die. He really doesn't deserve it. That was such a peaceful ending. 
but also 
SERIOUSLY??? Thats how your going to end it????? They fly of into the sunset, the end???  

Really, for five books they worried and stressed about Gaea and go on this huge quest plus a bunch of mini quests to stop her, and then it turns out that she awakens, does minimal destruction, is only like twenty feet tall (I was expecting her to be bigger than all the giants considering she's, you know, the earth), and they stop her by having a little battle, and all it takes is Piper telling her to go back to sleep and a missile thing and poof: problem solved. They really built it up too much. I was expecting more. 

SPOILERS OVER.

Well, I'll probably post tomorrow. But in the unlikely event that I don't (which is very likely) 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!! 

--Abby

Gala auction

Last night was not only my birthday (I'm a big kid now guys!!!!!) but it was my school's gala. It was at the Ronald Reagan Library, which is a really cool place, if you've never been there. 

So I got there and went upstairs into the little cafeteria where the student volunteers were eating dinner before the guests arrived. Everyone wished me a happy birthday XD. I barely ate anything because I was nervous. I had never done this before and this auction is what keeps my school's doors open , so I had good reason to be nervous. Screwing important stuff up kinda comes naturally to me... 

My first task was... standing. I stood next to the wine raffle table for a looooooong time. Hour and a half, maybe? Basically, if someone comes over and wants to buy a raffle ticket I had to direct them to Erica who was walking around with the tickets. I got really tired of standing there after a while. Finally, all the tickets were sold and I (very happily) put the "sold out" sign on the table and declared, "I'm free!" 

For the rest of the night, I ran around doing other tasks, trying not to trip on my long dress, and congratulating myself for not wearing heels that night. The choir sang beautifully, and the speeches were very moving. 

Every chance I got, I would go back to the greenroom where the students were situated, kinda like a backstage dressing room, and collapse on the ground until I had to go work again. That greenroom was extremely small, especially when all twenty student volunteers were in it. 

The whole thing reminded me of a ballet performance. The greenroom was like the little dressing rooms, the stage, the fancy dresses and makeup, the chaos, running through the halls "backstage", laughing and rehearsing with the other students... It was a lot like performing the Nutcracker. I loved it a lot. It was really fun, even if it was exhausting. 

I can't wait for next year. 

--Abby

Happy birthday to me!

Hey guys--

So today is my birthday! I'm fifteen! I've never been fifteen before so this is kinda a big deal. Last night to celebrate I went out for sea food with some friends (you can read their blog; the link's on my sidebar: stories and sketches). We all got chowder and fries (which were amazing) and onion rings. And lemons. With salt and ketchup. It was my idea. It wasn't as bad as you would think! I think some people thought we were insane, but hey, you only turn fifteen once XD. 

The same friends got me the Blood of Olympus! And a Snoopy mug which is SO CUTE. And tea, and chocolate. Which we're still eating because its so good! 
We also watched Sabrina which is one of the bestest movies out there, even though the ending is kinda weird. Now I'm singing French songs every five minutes. 

Now I must bid you all good day because we're going out to breakfast and I'm going to try to eat as many pancakes as I can in the least amount of time. 
Hope your day is fabulatastic! 
--Abby

Lol I know, wishing myself a happy birthday. So lame

50th post!!!

CONGRATULATIONS QUILLS AND CURTSIES!! WE HAVE DONE FIFTY POSTS!! 

*confetti* *lotsa confetti* 

YAY!!!!! 

The dance was a lot of fun, thanks for asking :). It was fairly cold and I was shivering a bit but they had a fire pit going which helped. Yes, I did dance, a lot actually. I danced with one of my teachers who's a bit of a crazy dancer. That was interesting. By the time the dance was half-way through, my feet hurt and my right hand was frozen. But it was a lot of fun. My school is kinda crazy, everyone got extremely hyper especially when the Cupid Shuffle came on. And the towards the end they got even more hyper and started bouncing around and dancing like crazy. I personally was exhausted but yes, I still danced at the end. 

What I like most about my school is that it's so small everyone knows each other. I could name everyone there, which is proof of how small it is. 

Now, have some art: 

Yes, I felt a need to put that "Elf" there

Something's wrong with her arm. I should fix that. But other than that I think she turned out pretty well. I started her thinking, "Oh what am I doing, I can't draw people! This'll probably end up looking like garbage." But BEHOLD: ELF!!! (or if you prefer dead languages; ECCE: ELFUS!!!)

I call her Rowan. Her nickname's Dee. She prefers Dee. I don't know where the heck Dee came from, but it stuck. 

And now I shall leave you. Until next time where I shall do my 51st post!! 

--Abby

Dresses, dances, and writers block (oh my)

I'm posting less and less often. So sorry. I've been busy. 

The auction is next week, so the school gave all us girls who are helping out at it our dresses that we're going to wear. They're.... not the prettiest thing I've seen. But I can honestly say, I think its the fanciest dress I've ever owned. They're long (really really long) and black and simple. 

Haha yup, I got Blaze to hold it up. 

THATS A LONG DRESS. 
They want us to wear a pearl necklace too. 

...

I'm going to look like Audrey Hepburn. Which I guess isn't a bad thing. 

Tonight's the first high school dance of the year. I'm hoping it wont be too cold because I'd really like to not be shivering the whole time. Last February, they had a dance and I was freezing the entire time! I think I had had a cold right before the dance and I was still getting over it. Not my finest hour. 

I have this horrible case of writers block, and I realized this when I sat down to write a story for a friend of mine (I'll call her Leslie). We both love to write and we used to exchange stories a lot. She moved away a few years ago but we still exchange stories. She had sent me one a few days ago and so I was guilted into sending her one as well, since she went through the trouble of typing it out for me and all. Anywho, I sit down, I look for some inspiration, and five minutes later I'm still looking at a blank sheet of paper. So I pulled out an old purple folder overflowing with three years worth of short stories written by yours truly and started reading those instead, hoping it'll give me some inspiration. Nothing came to me, so I'm going to be stuck with my writers block for a bit. 
So, I apologize, Leslie, but you'll have to wait a few days. And I hope you like your name, by the way. 

--Abby

Hi there! I'm still here

Wow, I haven't posted in a week. You were probably wondering if I had been kidnapped by ninja pirates and taken to Mars to be the alien queen. Ha. Ha. Ha. Alien queen. Me. Totally works.
No.
Yesterday was our first official play meeting. It was after school from 3-5, which was strange as I don't think I've ever stayed after school that long. I had a twenty minute free block between last period and play meeting so I went to the lab and played with this weird clay for a bit with some friends until I had to go. I started making a star but it didn't turn out well. My friend took it and made it into something that actually looked like a star. My other friend started doing The Thinker but gave up and made a little Greek temple instead.
So that was fun.
Then I left and ran to the hall where the meeting was. When I got here they had already started doing some acting drills so I just kinda snuck in the back and joined in quietly. We did some more acting drills and then read through the entire play, and may I just say, it's SHORT. But it's pretty funny, I think we're going to get some big laughs. I'm playing one of Sir Josephs relatives, which should be interesting. I'm not a phenominal actor, so I'm fairly satisfied with this.
We got out fourty-five minutes early, so my friends Tessa and Jill and I went to the soccer field and acted crazy until Jill left. Then it was just Tessa and I, freezing on the field. But it was nice. I love cold weather. I actually had an excuse to wear my sweater! Imagine that! Today was a bit hotter, but now its cold again.
Well, I must bid you farewell, for my sisters are in need of me to babysit them. I hope your autumn is much colder and more deliciously winter-y than mine.
--Abby

NaNoWriMo and why I'm NOT doing it

I have proved to myself that I indeed CAN control myself. Sometimes I give myself too much and then end up stressing and stressing and stressing some more. 

Ninth grade? 

Piece of cake. 

Art class? 

Breeze. 

Piano? 

Bring it. 

I tend to think I can do it all, especially when I hear about something I really want to do, I simply add it to the pile. 

But NO. I have control over myself! 

Do you? 

Ugh, these italics are so negative. 

YES. 

I have proof!! 

NaNoWriMo. 

I would LOVE to do it. And I almost did. Can you imagine how much weight that would add to my pile? A LOT. A LOT LOT. 

Writing a 50,000 word novel in thirty days? 

Easy. 

Wrong. 

Not so easy. 

Maybe when I graduate college and I'm living in a little apartment by the boardwalk with my cat.... 

Or I could try it in the Summer. Not officially doing NaNoWriMo, but trying to see how far I could get writing it on my own. Create my own deadline AS IF I was actually doing it, and seeing how I do. 

Sounds like a plan. 

I can't wait till Summer... 

My school has a gala auction every year and every year they ask some high schoolers to work at it. Apparently, its kind of an honor to be asked and a lot of students want to do it. I got a letter asking if I would like to work at it, and I said sure. 

Theres one teensy weensy problem: 

Its on my birthday!

Of all the days in November, my birthday! Is this some kind of sick joke? My fifteenth birthday. What a horrible coincidence. 

But maybe it'll be fun. Who knows. And if I decide I REALLY just don't want to do it, I can have someone take my place. Someone's already asked me if I want them to replace me 'cause its my birthday and all... 

I shall leave you with my art: 

Good day. 

--Abby

A special post done by Blaze and Penguin

For today's post, the editor has left her 12 year old brother in charge of her blog. Mistake? She thinks so. Be warned that Blaze is truly insane and the usual editor may have to come back later to clean up the destruction. Have fun! 

OK, I am not insane. But I have to admit, I do not understand me ALL the time. HI I'm BLAZE. I'm like the  AWESOME one, I think you remember me. Anyway I'm a baseball/basketball/football player.My favorite color is black.And..........

FINE I will stop talking about me and start talking about HALLOWEEN.We went to our friends house. ABBY was a looser and stayed home.When we went trick or treating,we split up big kids and little kids(thank goodness).We got a good amount of candy.We always trade candy after.It's a lot of fun.I'm going to give the mike to Penguin so later peeps!   

                                            ::                      ::                     :: 

HELLO I finished my first Rick Riordan book, The Lightning Thief. I am ten years old and I'm a very humble kid XD. I'm the third oldest kid too. My favorite color is green. I like gila

monsters a lot. I also like baseball and I like hot dogs. Sometimes I play football with my brother. 

The Lightning Thief. Ahem. There was a lightning bolt that was stolen by (spoiler alert) Luke. Luke is a bad guy. Luke is a really bad guy. He stole my dessert. I liked that Luke was a bad guy. I totally knew that he would be bad. I'm like the Oracle. Except a lot smarter. 

Sometimes I like to sit down and think. Do birds eat ice cream...? 

Ok, later people! Abby's back and wants to clean up the mess. 

                                       ::                           ::                           ::   

ALRIGHT I'M SORRY but I did warn you that my bros are slightly crazy. 

So now you have and idea of what I live with. I'll leave you with that. 

--Abby

                                   

Ah, November...

I got my wish! It started last night when my family left to go trick-or-treating and I got the house to myself. I did what any other person would do if they were alone on Haloween night: drink tea and watch Cupcake Wars. 

Then it started to rain. 

When my family got back from trick-or-treating it started pouring! We all ran into the sun room and you could really hear it; a sound like giants stomping on the roof. It's was fantastic! 

Then we were all in the living room at about ten-thirty p.m. (except Blaze who has gone to bed and Lilian who was brushing her teeth) and suddenly it went pitch black. We all groaned, "Are you serious???" Except Lilian who started screaming from down the hall, "I CANT SEE!!!" 

Our power returned later that night, but until then we proceeded to find some light: candles, phones, glow sticks, and Rosie's Ninja Turtle flashlight. 

So that was my Halloween. 

This morning it was sunny, much against my wishes. Then it turned rainy again. Right now It's deliciously dismal and depressing and cold. Im outside and even with my sweater in freezing. 

Actually I'm at a park with my sibs, my dad, and some family friends. They're playing sports which I simply cannot do. So to pass the time I wrote my sonnet for English class and took some pictures of these beautiful picture-perfect clouds.  

I love black and white clouds. And I love autumn. And I love rain. 

Oh and speaking of autumn, this is what happened when I decided to experiment with autumn colors: 

Makes me think of Picaso/ a crazy person who just kinda scribbled all over the place. Oh wait, that's me ;p 

Before I sign off, here's my sonnet. Remember, it's a first draft, so its not amazing.

My sonnet 

When spotlights shine on the stages here. 

There is no actress sweetly chanting lines.

 An empty stage for no one does appear.

They have not heard, they do not see the signs.

Oh how I wish to be that actress brave! 

So confident; recite my tale to all.

I sit here with my mask, oh, just a slave.

A face that people see but don't recall. 

My face is hid'n and hidden it shall stay.

I cower in my shadow here I cry.

Alone in all my sins I wait and lay.

So many times I ask the question why.

By me my sins were done and now I crave 

The day when He will come to me and save. 

I will make changes. You can be sure of that. 

I hope you liked it! It's kinda sad and depressing, but I like it and it's my sonnet so I can do with it what I will.

--Abby