I wanted to say something before I forgot it, but am now beginning to think that it's too paltry a post for this honored position. Fifty posts. And since I've been on since Wednesday, June 11th, 2008. That makes fifty posts in 167 days. Averaging .2994 posts per day, about 2.08 per week. While Soul Skittles, for example, manages to churn out a lot more in the same amount of time.
Of course, all that was typed last Wednesday, so now my average has dropped even more. :'( I need to post more.
So, when was the last time I posted? Ah, yes, Saturday, the 22nd. What has happened since then?
Sunday (23): Nuthin. Church, as usual. I can't think of anything else.
Monday (24th): Instead of school, we cleaned some, then went to the library. I got a really stupid book that had a deceiving cover. It's called In the Shadow of the Ark, and it's about this girl, Re Jana, who travels to where Noah is building the ark. She falls in love with Ham (That sounds so funny. "Oh, I'm in love with Ham! *sigh*"), who loves her back, but he has to marry this other lady, Neeleta, because of her financial status. Re Jana's mother dies (actually, she knows she's dieing so she has her husband burn her alive to get it over with), so Re Jana's father builds her a reed gondola, as is their people's custom because they used to live by the sea and put the dead bodies in the gondola, then set fire to it and let it float out. But the mother refuses to be put in the gondola, so it just stays there. Then, after a whole lotta stuff happens, the flood starts, Re Jana's adopted brother, Put, is secreted onto the ark by Neeleta, and Ham sneaks Re Jana on, also. So long, complicated story short, Japheth's wife finds Re Jana and forces her to sacrifice some of the animals (including Noah's dove) to the old gods, hoping that then the waters will go down. No one notices that half the quail are missing, or some of the other birds. And then, it ends up that Re Jana, Put, and even their father (who floated in the gondola all that time) survive, even though they were not the Chosen People. It didn't make any sense to me, and I don't recommend it.
Tuesday (25th): Ummmmm... I made the scalloped corn for Thanksgiving dinner and stuck it in the freezer. I also discovered that I hate this kitchen. It's nice and large, yes, but the cabinets come down too low, and the counter isn't wide enough. And there's no counter next to the stove (that fact will play a role in my next adventure), so I had to keep scooting back and forth between the counter and the stove.
For supper, Mom made 'Cheesy Ham Potatoes'. The pan was sitting on the stove with a dish of corn beside it, and I was dishing up my food with my plate in one hand and the spoon in the other. Suddenly, the pan decided to scoot, and it burned my hand! Thankfully, Mom saw right away and was able to move it quickly. If there had been a counter by the stove, I could have set my plate down and avoided that mishap. >:-[
Wednesday (26th): I made a Cherry Pie for Thanksgiving. We went to our church's Thanksgiving Eve service. Oh, and I finished Grandma and Grandpa's Christmas card. Here's the front:
It's actually a bit brighter than it appears to be here. Inside, in the same font and color as the 'peace', is 'Peace on earth and goodwill to men.' That earned me $20, minus the $3.50 Mom and Dad charged me for paper and ink. $16.50. Sweet.Thursday (Thanksgiving, the 27th): We drove three hours back to Grandma and Grandpa's house in Iowa for Thanksgiving. I LOVE the smell of turkey! And I love Thanksgiving meals. And we had PIE, four kinds of it. Cherry, Pumpkin, Apple, and Pecan. I'm sorely tempted to re-post my PIE post, but instead I'll just put that link up.
We watched about six and a half hours of Newhart. WGN was playing a marathon of it. I like Newhart! My sister said that afterwards, I was starting to sound like Stephanie! I think that's bad....
Friday (28th): We left Grandma and Grandpa's house after lunch, and stopped by Borders book store so Rapunzel could get a book. I had hoped to run into a friend or two there, but nope. Then, Dad drove until we crossed the Mississippi River into Illinois, and then he pulled over and (here's the good part) they let me drive!!! It went well. I had to pass a tractor *shiver* and only one person passed me. I need to work on my turns a bit more, because the other two drivers in the car who kept telling me what to do and distracting me, so I couldn't concentrate. I will name no names, but they're my parents. I like driving. :) I drove all the way from the Iowa/Illinois border to an unnamed little town near the Illinois/Cheeseland border--about two hours of driving. :) Driving is fun.
Saturday (29th): We carried, dragged, lugged, and hauled boxes into the basement from the garage. Big whoop. Quite entertaining.
After lunch, TOO (my new nickname for my twelve-year-old brother. The Odd One.) informed me that some friends had been walking by on the street behind the empty lot behind our house, and invited us to go explore the woods by the park with them. TOO left about five minutes before I could, and it was agreed that we'd meet at the park. I arrived, but no TOO, no friends, nobody. Long story short, they weren't at the friends' house, where I checked next, so I went back to the park and found them then. While we were back in the woods, we started construction on a 'fort' or 'hideout' or whatever you want to call it. I think I'll suggest calling it 'The Stronghold' or 'The Keep' (the safest part of a castle) instead of 'The Fort'. The Fort sounds more like some little hideout a kid would build, while The Stronghold sounds better to me. It's sort of a hexagonal structure. Starting at the west corner and going counter-clockwise, it's pine tree, tall-skinny-unknown tree, tall-skinny-unknown tree, pine tree again, another unknown forked tree, another unknown forked tree, then back to the first pine tree.
Sunday (30th): I woke up around seven-thirty and it was unnaturally dark. Looking out my window, I found the problem. Snow. Probably about an inch and a half? I don't know. Then while we were in church, it all melted. It was snowing hard most of the way through the service but not sticking. Then we came home, ate, cleaned, and a new friend (who just happens to live about five minutes away) came over and we watched Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in The Road to Morocco. We were going to watch The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, but that VHS tape wouldn't work. The library needs to start replacing VHSs with DVDs. We made hot chocolate (hint: add dried coffee creamer to the chocolate mix. Hazelnut is good. Or, if you put milk in it also, replace some of the milk with coffee creamer. It makes it even better.), and as we watched the movie about three inches of snow fell.
Monday (1st): I did my school work, which involved watching Amazing Grace for history. I really like that movie! We saw it in the theater either the day it came out, or soon after.
I finished a scarf I have been knitting since late October. It's taller than Monkey by quite a bit, and almost as tall as TOO, who's just over five feet. It's long enough for me to wrap around my neck twice and above my eyes 1 1/2 times! Sort of like the scarf Randy Parker's mom put on him in A Christmas Story. Then, we called up our friends and went out into the woods again. You would not believe (okay, maybe some of you would....Dagmar and Matt) how different the woods look when they're covered in snow! Two of the pine trees we had used as landmarks were unrecognizable, as they were bent over with snow--all the way over! We got more work done on the Stronghold. Saw deer tracks. Heard voices in the woods. Saw strange footprints in the snow. Heard something that sounded like a cross between yip-yap dogs, birds, and a group of wild indians. Picked up two trees. (they're about twelve-twenty feet in length, and they're the tall, skinny ones without many branches. The trees fall over, sit there on the ground for who knows how long, then we pick them up and prop them against things.) So far, all the walls have framework, now what we need to do is weave other sticks in with the big branches and logs.
Tuesday (today, 2nd): I finished my work quickly, except my STUPID LITERATURE where they ask me DUMB QUESTIONS that I don't have answers for. Dad gave us ice cream after lunch. I started serious work on our Christmas card for the year. No picture of that yet, not until it has already been sent out.
I'm planning on going tramping again today. There's not really much else to do. Read, computer, television, paint, wait impatiently for the Fourteenth of December. I need more exercise. Oh, that's something to do! I'll look up the My-ville ice skating arena and see when they let us mortals who are not prodigies at skating in. Perchance after Christmas we can go skating.
Now, I have a tag to do, but I'm going to save that until tomorrow. If I post it now, I won't have anything to post tomorrow, will I?
Goodbye. I'll try not to freeze.
~Kiwi da Fruit
P.S. I sat down and figured out that I have only recieved ummm.... three letters here at this address. I have about ten friends who promised they would write to me, and still have not. It makes me very unhappy, very unhappy indeed. Please write to me, Dagmar, Avalon, Catfreak, Miranda, Abbie, Rachel, Avalonandcatfreakssisters! I miss you! Write soon!!
By der way, Thanks for the comment, Rachel!
This was my Grandpa M. in 1980-something. Grandpa was born on April 5th, 1923 in the middle of a freak blizzard in Northern Illinois. He passed away on November 2nd, 2008. He was 85 years old. My Grandpa grew up on a farm, then started one of his own when he and Grandma married. He raised milk cows and Chester White hogs, then started on Cheviot sheep when my uncle wanted some for 4-H.