Sunday, September 27, 2015

Babysitting Saga II

My last babysitting saga involved McDonald's, a hotel, Disney movies, and a cab ride home at one am. 
This one is a little less exciting. 

There's this one family I babysit for often, and these kids are so freaking adorable! There's eight kids total, and last night I babysat six of them. The first thing they wanted to do was play hide-and-seek in the backyard, so that's what we did. One little boy and I were trying to find the others, and when we found his sister, he said, "Okay, now we've found two humans." I almost burst out laughing. As far as I was aware, we were only looking for humans, but I didn't bring this up as the kid was, like, four.

Then later I was getting his little sister juice. She's friends with my sister Ronnie and said to me, "Are you going back to Ronnie's house later?" 
"Yup, I live at Ronnie's house." 
"You live at Ronnie's house?" 
"Uh-huh." 
"Does your mom live at Ronnie's house too?" 
"Yup, we both live at Ronnie's house." 
"Oh. I like your mom." 
"I like my mom too." 

 It's Ronnie's house now. That is a terrifying thought. 
At least she lets me live here, otherwise we might have a problem. 

The mom came to pick me up in the afternoon and she had two of her kids with her. One was a little girl who I think is seven. She's Rosie's friend. The first thing she said to me when I got in the car was, "Did you dye your hair?" 
This girl loves my hair. She's constantly playing with it and asking if I cut it recently and telling me I should brush it more often. 
Ahem, thank you, and because you're so cute I will take that into prayerful consideration. 

After all the kids were in bed, I read some of the Iliad for English, and then I found the first Harry Potter book sitting on a shelf and started reading that and now I must finish it somehow because it's against everything I stand for to start a good book and not finish it. Some friends of mine have been telling me how good these books are and that I need to read them, but I'd never gotten around to it. I do need something to read though. I have nothing to read. 
So I'll be borrowing that book from someone at some point. 
Y'all will probably hear more about that another time. 

Football is a big thing in my family, and there's this awesome little pizza place down the street from my house that we go to to watch sports. Last year we went there to watch the World Cup, but now it's football. I'm not really a football fan, nor a sports fan in general, but I like pizza and this place is really awesome, so I go along. 
So Blaze, Penguin, Mary Rose, and I are meeting my dad there soon. Yes, that's right. I'm going to watch football in order to get my pizza. Sue me, I'm American. 
--Me

Friday, September 25, 2015

Some Deep Moments and Gala 2015:The Adventure Continues

This morning in Geometry, we were proving theorems on paper, and at the end, we write Q.E.D. to finish it off, basically saying that THE THEOREM IS PROVEN AND THE POWERS OF HELL SHALL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST IT. 
I sit next to Em, and she wrote:
QED, now I can get outta here! 
Oh wait, we still have eight months... 

*whimpers* 
Thank you, Em. 

First month is done, and yet I feel like it's been forever. Ugh. Why. It's as if Summer never even was. 

I'm in tenth grade now. I still can't wrap my mind around it. I have two years left after this, only two years. This little school that I go to is all I've really ever known, that and homeschooling. It's like I'm living in a bubble. There's sixteen other in my grade and they're what I think of when I think of school, because every day, with every challenge that the teachers throw at us, with every late-night study freakout (which I haven't had in a while, thank goodness), I know that I'm not doing it alone and that they're all there, suffering through it with me. And it's not always suffering--we have days when everything is hilarious and nobody can stop laughing, days when we play guitars and ukuleles on the soccer field, days when we eat cake in class with no real reason, besides the fact that it's cake and it's good. (There was also a time last year when #toastmygoats2015 happened, but I won't go into that...)
I have so many memories with these guys. It's going to be sad when we graduate and go our separate ways. It's going to be sad when we don't see each other every day anymore and complain about how tired we are, how done with school we are, and how much we wish we were down the street eating Jack in the Box (You can see it from the soccer field--it's torture). It's weird to think we won't always be in each other's lives. 
But there's this college I want to go to. It's near where I live, so for the moment, I won't say which college it is, but I really want to go. A lot of people in my school don't want to go to it, because it's literally a continuation of my school. We call it [name of my school] Two; the Adventure Continues. And I can see why. They do a lot of liberal arts there, which is what my school does. It's all seminars, discussion, reading, theses's, etc. 
But I really want to go there. 

On a completely unrelated topic, because sidetracking is my thing, I got into my school's gala again!! Remember last year when I worked at it and it was on my birthday and I was all ticked at first but then it was a ton of fun?? Yeah, I get to do it again xDD. It's the biggest fundraiser of the year, everybody gets super dressed up and there's months of preparation and it's kind of an honor to be picked to work at it. Like, every high schooler wants to do it. 
*happy dance* 
Second year in a row! #wutwut!! 
(I just stooped to using hashtags. What's wrong with me. I never use hashtags.I must be really excited about this.
Oh! And I get to sing at it too! My school has a really good choir. Every student is part of it, and not to brag, but we sound good. So they pick some of the students who are working at the gala and have them sing for everyone. And I get to sing! And I'm super psyched! 

Okay, it's the weekend. I'm leaving y'alls, so have a good one!
--Abby, who really doesn't have to sign off like this, seeing as she is the only one who blogs on here...  

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Nothin' much, what about you?

Taking a break from writing to do a quick post.... 
.
.
.
.
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Is something I would have said if I had been writing in the first place. I'm such a horrible person. I really really really wanna be done with this by half-way through October so I can do NaNo, but I've lost my motivation to write. It's a temporary thing, I get it now and then, I'm sure all writers do, or anyone really. I'm sure sports people sometimes lose their motivation to do sports stuff... But yeah. Once I start writing, I can usually keep going and I'll get into a "zone" of some kind and it'll take an avalanche to get me to stop, but other times, I'll write 300 words and scream and shut the computer. 
I've been working on this for almost a year now. Do you realize that? That's a lot of quality time I've spent with Miette and Caeli and company. At this point, I'm not getting sick of them, of course, but a break would be nice. Sadly, I'm far behind where I should be so I have to stick to it if I want to get anywhere, but I think this is taking a lot longer than it should be. 
I think I might just be lazy. 

Best Day was so great, even though I got seriously sunburned. Tessa and I got to play with the cutest little kid! His name was Dylan and he was four years old and Iswearhelookedlikeababypenguinomigosh! It was great, we got to play with the kids for a few hours, then they gave us lunch (Mexican food, naturally. I mean, it's California, after all) and we had an awards ceremony for the kids and then cleaned up and went home. So I got a good six service hours for school, which is great, because I never know what to do about service hours. Most of the time, I forget about them until it's April and the deadline is staring me in the face. 
After everyone had left, Tessa and I stayed at the beach and went in the water where we got totally demolished by the gigantic waves! Ugh, when a huge wave crashed right in front of you and it's like eight feet high... Scariest freaking moment of your life. Every time it happened, we screamed about how we didn't want to die. An old guy on a boogie board was laughing at us, I kid you not. I mean, I know how to dive under waves, but it's still scary. 

School's been good. It's actually been almost easy, which makes me suspicious. Geometry is harder, but its not killing me yet. Biology is super interesting! That class is a ton of fun. 
I can't wait for Christmas. On Christmas we always get together with Maddie's family, and I miss her tons. Once I was being bullied by this one kid, and it literally took everything I had to hold her back from going at him with a baseball bat. She got so ticked, and I know it's weird, but it made me happy because I have someone whose crazy enough to stand up for me and help me out of situations like that and who will be there. 
And she is crazy. She made me watch Time of the Angels at night. We almost accidentally killed a child on an escalator (super long story)(the child is alive and unharmed btw). She brought me to Taco Bell and ordered two dozen burritos. We went and got froyo before the froyo shop was even open (no stealing involved). We jumped on a trolley and rode around a mall. 
I think we all need a crazy best friend in our lives. Maybe I'm crazy to her too, I dunno. Probably. 

I really should be writing. I think I'm at 40K words now and 100 pages. 

Can you paint with all the colors of the wind? 
Goodbye. 
--Abby

Friday, September 18, 2015

Now I'm an Official Nerd.

I UNDERSTOOD SOMETHING IN GEOMETRY MY WHOLE WORLD IS TURNING UPSIDE DOWN!!!!!!!!! 

*clears throat* 

Hello. 

My home try-on glasses are here!! Basically, I chose five pairs I liked and they sent them to me ((for free)) and I get five days to decide which one I like best. When I got home from school, my dad was like, "Abby, your glasses came," and I literally screamed. Then I put on a fashion show for my family plus my dad's friend who was over, which might have been awkward if it were someone else, but this particular friend of my dad's is pretty awesome and we've known him forever, so it was chill. 

Anywhosies, TIME TO VOTE!!!!!!!!! 

Now I'm excited, LET'S DO THIS!!! 

#1 

Trying to be cool while taking a selfie because nothing says cool like
taking selfies in the middle of your living room. 
My personal fave. Love them. 

#2 

Nerdy me.
Having waaay too much fun with this.
I like these because the brown blends in pretty well but then there's also the subtle pink on the bottom. 

Closeup.
#3 

Nerd city all up in here.
All black, which is what I originally wanted. 

Geekly chic
#4 


I think these are too librarian for me... 

#5 


Or maybe these are too librarian for me... 

Semi-normal pic for a change 
Okay now vote, people, vote!! I really am leaning towards the first ones, but I also like the second ones with the pink... And I also want to get your opinion! 

"Good things come in fives: starfish arms,
high-fives, five-second rule,vowels."
It's always nice when boxes have a sense of humor. 

Here's a closeup of my favorite pair (numero uno): 

Oh my gosh, it's the invisible guy from Hotel Transylvania!!
I love how they're half-and-half like the pink ones, and I just love the gray-marbley top. Like, give me a pair of glasses with this gray top and the subtle pink bottom and I will die and go to Heaven. But I will take my glasses with me and Saint Peter will say, "Hey, nice glasses!" at the Pearly Gates. 
I'm so tired. 

Tessa talked me into doing volunteer work with her, so tomorrow I'm getting up at seven and going to the beach with her to volunteer with the Best Day Foundation. If you haven't heard of it, it's basically where you play with disabled kids at the beach and help them surf and paddle board and basically give them an awesome day. It sounds pretty great, but I'm a little bit nervous. A few of my friends have done it and they love it. Hannah is one of those friends, and so I was talking with her about it during our study period and she warned me that the kids sometimes like to run. And that they're fast. 
Gulp. 
I'm sure it'll be awesome. 

I've started watching Once Upon a Time, because people just kept telling me how great it is and I finally caved and started it. It's pretty good! I like seeing their twist on the beloved childhood fairy tales, and it's also just an really interesting plot. I mean, fairy tale characters under a curse and forced to live in the modern world? Um, yes thank you where have you been all my life?? 

So yeah. That and Doctor Who are my top two. 

I'm gonna go eat Oreos and be glad its the weekend, even though I can't sleep in tomorrow... 
--Me, who took an embarrassing amount of selfies today 

Monday, September 14, 2015

Mondays=Not Fundays

Okay, I'm not a hundred percent sure yet, but I believe I will have my driving permit before the month is over. That makes me happy :). Sadly, I recently learned that my vision isn't great, so I have to get glasses before the test. Glasses and braces? Mmmm..... No thanks. Unfortunately, the DMV requires that I look like a dork when I drive, so I really don't have much say in the matter. I just finished ordering my Warby Parker home try-on glasses, so hopefully they'll get here by next week and then I'll make an appointment with DMV and I'M STRESSED JUST THINKING ABOUT IT! 

This morning, I was in geometry class (grumble grumble) and my teacher was going on and on about a bunch of stuff I didn't understand which was weird because it's shapes, like, I passed Kindergarten, what's the problem here?? Afterwards Brooke came up to me. 

Her: I hate geometry. 
Me: I HATE GEOMETRY!! 

And I said it right in front of my geometry teacher. Of course, I didn't realize this until after I said it. cough I'm so good at this cough 
I really don't need to be on my geometry teacher's bad side, considering that I can already tell it's going to be my worst subject this year. 

My first thought in the morning is (to my alarm clock), I loath you. Blah. 

Yesterday we went to the beach with some of my parent's old friends. One lives in an awesome little beach shack. It's got a total rustic-beachy feel, surrounded by palm trees, totally hidden, with potted succulents and lawn chairs and everything. All it needed was some wind-chimes and I would've been satisfied. There's a wood fence surrounding it with a little gate/hole that you crawl through to get to the train tracks, which you cross and walk along for about two minutes before you get to this amazing, secluded beach. We stayed there all afternoon. 
It was so awesome, the water was perfect and Blaze and Penguin and I went out on our boogie boards super far. Seriously, nothing takes my breathe away like the ocean. Every time. Just the vastness of it and it's so beautiful, especially when you're in it. And I forgot how much fun boogie boarding is. I haven't done it so long, but it literally feels like flying. Call me crazy, I was giddy with happiness. 
I didn't want it to end. I knew in the back of my mind that I had to go to school and do (ugh) geometry and study water fleas under a microscope in biology and suffer through the many declensions in Latin, but it all managed to move to the back of my mind. 
I love the beach. 


So pretty.

SO PRETTY
Blaze just informed me that he's writing a poem for his English class. 
... 
EEP! 
I wanna read!! 

That is all. Kay, bye.
 --Me 

Saturday, September 12, 2015

Scrambled Post, and I think there's a Would You Rather in Here Somewhere...

It was so hot this week. I had to take cold showers every night just so I wouldn't completely roast when I was in bed. And then I had to go to aerial too, and wearing leggings on a day that hot was no fun. Everyone pretty much died at school. Seventy-five percent of the campus is outdoors. *whimpers* 
So yesterday was Mary Rose's friend Katie's ninth birthday pool party and I went because Katie is Em's cousin and it's been so hot that I couldn't resist jumping into a pool, even if it was completely taken over by five to nine year old girls. So that's what Em and I did. And Hannah and her sister Brooke and my friend Therese were there too, so it was a win-win. We basically ate too much candy and accidentally kicked each other in the pool and did handstands in the grass and danced around to country music.
So yeah.
I went to a nine year old's birthday party and it was the funnest (THAT'S A WORD) thing I've done all week. 

I also had my first biology test yesterday and I think I aced it! I know this stupid little song that helps you remember the seven levels of biological classification, and though it's dumb, it works. Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. All stuffed in my brain forever to a catchy tune that drives you just a little bit crazy. But then there's the five kingdoms and metabolism and prokaryotic cells and the like and I have no songs for those. But despite that, I did really well! 

But enough with that. Let's play Would You Rather. 

1. Would you rather have to wear only blue for a week or only red for a week? 
2. Would you rather drink tea or coffee? 
3. Would you rather listen to country music or pop? 
4. Would you rather jump into a pool on a really hot day or bundle up in a blanket with hot chocolate by the fire on a super cold day? 
5. Would you rather spend the whole day with all your best friends doing crazy things or read the day away in you room with chocolate and tea and dream about magical, fictional places? 
6. Would you rather eat a giant bug or get stung by a bee? 
7. Would you rather have breakfast in a hot air balloon or dinner in a castle? 
8. Would you rather live without electricity or indoor plumbing? 
9. Would you rather run barefoot over broken glass or hot coals? 
10. Would you rather live in a mansion or on a farm? 

Let me know in the comments! I'd love to hear your answers. 

Yesterday at the party, a friend of my mom's was dropping off her little kids and I went over and said hi. She told me that she's super excited to read my novel when it's done. 
It makes me happy that people what to read what I'm writing. I've had a lot of people ask me about it and tell me that they can't wait to read it. I'm glad that people actually care, I didn't really expect that. But so far, the only ones who have read my novel are me and Leslie. I'm a little nervous, just because I want people to like it, and I don't tend to take criticism well and also, because right now it's mine. If everyone starts reading it, it's not mine anymore, and I'm afraid they won't like what they see. 
Not that I don't want people to read it. It's just that, other than poems I've done for English class, I don't usually write for others. So it'll take some getting used to. 
My English teacher is also writing a book, and she told us that writers write for the world. I don't think that's necessarily true. I write for me. I write what I want to say, not what the world wants to read. So I guess I really shouldn't be worried about people reading my novel, but's IT'S KIND OF SCARY OKAY?? 
I'm supposed to be babysitting right now. Before my dad left, his exact words were, "Mom'll be home soon, so just make sure everyone stays alive until then." 
I'd better go do that. Babysitter of the year. 
--Abs 


Monday, September 7, 2015

Only Read if You Have a Lot of Time and are Really, Very Bored.

As promised, I have some snippets from my story for y'alls. Almost a week after I promised them. I'm so good at this. 

Okay, so here are a few little mini-snippets I like. They're just a couple phrases I cooked up and put in my story and I like them. I modified a few of them a little bit to make sense for you since you're not reading the whole thing, but the general idea is there.  

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Her eyes were on fire, like the sky at sunset. 

Sunbeams came in through the large window, catching dust in their rays. 

Her expression was mostly blank, except for her eyes; they looked shattered. 

Moonlight washed everything in it's pale light. 

Her face was bathed in the watery glow of the moon, casting shadows under her cheekbones and turning her skin white. 

It was ornamented subtly but beautifully, with stained glass windows picturing men and women in robes with rays of light around their heads and flowers at their feet. 

On the tallest wall was the most beautiful and elaborate mural I'd ever seen, depicting angels, dozens of them, dancing around a simply clad woman, her face radiating light. 

--------------------------------------------------------------

Lot's of "her"s, I'm realizing. It's not all the same girl. 

Okay, now here are some descriptions I have of some characters. First up is Uncle Roland because he's one of my favorites: 

Uncle Roland doesn't change. I don't think time means anything to him. He always wore his ugly yellow flannel over his faded Rolling Stones t-shirt and his beard was long and dusty-looking. He even made jeans look ugly. His face was frozen in a perpetual "I-own-everything-I-see-so-don't-bother-me" look. 

I have another character named Mr. Chamberlin, and I like him because he's British and dignified and he has a cool mustache, but I didn't give him a long description and he doesn't have a very big part in the story, so I'll skip him, sadly. 

Now, Mr. Cooney: 

He was an elderly man in Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. He was standing there at the end of the surf with a fishing pole, staring at the sea, probably watching a fishing line that was invisible to us... His face was weathered and wrinkly, and one eye was higher than the other.


Okay, now Camille Michaels, who is the mother of the main character. This was just one description of her on one day, she has many descriptions throughout the story, but I'm rather satisfied with this one, so here it is: 


She was up and dressed in jeans, a floral blouse, and socks, her hair brushed and curled, of all things, a cup of coffee in her hands. She had expertly covered her bruise with makeup so that it was barely visible if you looked closely.

That was sort of an outside description, not one of her personality. But that description of her is sort of scattered throughout the story. 

Okay, since we did Mom, we should do Dad too. 

He was rather young looking. He was a few months younger than my mom, but he looked like he was in his mid-twenties. He had a wisp of a black beard and a thin mustache, with dark curls on top of his head. He could have easily been mistaken for my older brother, even though his eyes were brown and mine were green, and my hair was blonde while his was dark. We had the same dark skin and the same annoying sarcastic hint in our sentences.


These are all outside descriptions, I guess. It's so hard to get an inside description down though, as I sort of scattered it throughout the pages. And there's so much to each of them that it's hard to put it all down. For most of my main characters, I don't really have one paragraph that captures their whole essence. You sort of get to know them as you read. So I'll just tell you about Caeli, Miette's best friend, who is a pretty big character. 

Caeli walks around in Converse high-tops and colors her hair bright colors with markers when she's bored. She's an amazing dancer and loves sea turtles. She's got a major sweet tooth. She is extremely bold and tends to do crazy things, so she's a pretty awesome best friend. 

Miette's character.... I'm not going to talk about her yet. She's so complicated, I don't even have her all figured out yet. But I love her. 

Now, on a totally unrelated topic. 

Happy Labor Day!! My siblings and I washed our cars today.Very un-Labor Day of us. 

Tomorrow's Lilian's first day of Kindergarten! 
Good luck with the next twenty years of you life, Lilian. It's not pretty when you're older. 

Tomorrow's also picture day, but I won't go into that right now because I'M TIRED AND I'VE BEEN TYPING FOR FREAKING EVER!!! 

Thank you all for reading this long and scrambled post. If you actually read it. To those who skimmed, my immediate response was to scold, but I would have skimmed too, so I really don't blame you. 
Good night, already. 
--Me 


Wednesday, September 2, 2015

I Wish it was Christmas.

Seeepteeembeeerrrrr. 

I needed to type it slowly to wrap my mind around the fact. 
Yesterday I went to school, like usual, then I came home and did my homework like a good little girl, and then my calender caught my eye. It was still on August, and after a few seconds, I realized, crap, it's September. 
I get thrown off so easily. I mean, Google changed their logo and just that is playing with my brain.
Ugh. 


Blaze's thirteenth birthday is tomorrow, and I've been telling myself that all day but I still can't quite process it. Today was my last day of being the only teenager in the house. That's weird to me. You might say that it's not really going to affect my life one way or another, but this is my brother we're talking about. It's going to affect my life completely. He's going to start using his age to his advantage. 
Oh well. I suppose I would have done that too if I had an older sibling. 

Other than that, life's been good. I'm easing back into school. I'm doing art again, even though I did the minimum required, which is two semesters. But this year a lot more of my friends are doing it too, and the teacher is teaching us new stuff, so I'm happy to be doing it again. 
I've been writing still, not quite as much as I used to be, but I'm writing every day, which I like. I need to send some chapters to Leslie soon, I'm so behind. 

It was hot, but for the past couple days it's been cloudy. I'm hoping for rain. I love it when it rains during a school day, everyone goes completely insane and nobody can focus on classes. We all get soaked because we're running around in the rain splashing each other and it's awesome. 


But yeah. September. 

I'll see if I can get an excerpt from my story and post it, I haven't done that in a while. But right now I need to eat something and go to aerial. 
Until next time, which could very well be October. (Doubtful, I always find random rubbish to blog about.) (Rubbish: British for "junk".) 
--Abby