So much for May flowers.

Or should they be June flowers now? I don't know. Either way, there are no flowers. Just rain.

Lots of it.

My meteorologist said via Twitter that this week was going to be as awful as John Mayer in concert, which, I've never seen him in concert before, but considering the rain outside, it must not be pleasant. 

And it's gonna be like this for the whole week. The whole week, you guys. 

My face resembled the rain when I read the first fourteen chapters of Between Shades of Gray by Ruth Sepetys. I saw it coming, since it's about what was going on in Russia during World War II and World War II is the most depressing event for me to read about. 

It's up there with the Civil War.

The fact that I made it through The Hiding Place is a miracle. I was three chapters in Between Shades of Gray before I burst into tears, and there are like, what, eighty plus chapters in the book? (The chapters are two to five pages long each, so yeah)

I'll probably have more things to blog about soon, since my mom's birthday is coming up and my brother Tyler is flying in from NC the day after. 

But I always say that I have something to blog about and then I post nothing. 

But I will blog more stuff, I swear.

Meep.

April Showers bring May Downpours

A summary of most of last night/early this morning in a cruddy poem that I wrote.

The lighting dashed,
The thunder crashed,
And I woke up in a fright.
I wanted to sleep,
So I squeezed my eyes shut,
And I tossed and turned
And tossed and turned.
When things seemed tranquil,
There was suddenly hail, 
So I plugged my ears tight.
I still wanted sleep,
So I squeezed my eyes shut,
And I tossed and turned
And tossed and turned.
When the storm ran away
And the silence remained,
I barely stay awake anymore.
Then I looked at the clock,
It was eight AM sharp,
Therefore, my sleep was taken by the storm.


Yes, there was a terrible storm last night that decided to bring hail along for the ride, and I think another storm is supposed to come tonight. I don't get why some people like storms. They scare the crud out of me.
So much for May flowers.

Confession time.

Confession: I wish I could say that I've been insanely busy or I'm worried about not blogging about something "perfect" (which would prompt a 'I-want-to-be-real' post), but the truth is, I just procrastinate and need to start planning blog posts and stuff like that. I've had way too much down time this week.

Confession: I'm learning Spanish (why that is I'll tell you some other time) and it is way too fun. So far, I can ask if a person can speak English or Spanish and I can also ask someone if they're American. I have a tendency to roll my tongue when I speak Spanish, which is probably why I enjoy it.

  
Confession: I've been reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett lately. This should be the third time I've read it in my life, since I tried to read it at the age of seven when I got it for Christmas and then I read it again when I was ten or eleven. I'm starting to actually understand what is going on in the story, but I still feel like I'm revisiting some old friends. I actually almost cried during the first chapter.

Confession: I've been experimenting with the thriller/suspense genre with a slow-going writing project. It's basically about a perfect family in an Edward Scissorhands-like suburban town who kills off any family that does anything better than them. Actually, they kind of rule the town. Aren't I so sane?

Confession: When I was really little, I was obsessed with cornrows. Yes, it had everything to do with my desire to be black during that same age. I went to the Root Cellar today - there are usually at least three girls there every week with braids or cornrows - and realized that my obsession wasn't done just yet. I know I can't cornrow my hair, but seriously, cornrows look so gorgeous. I feel the need to braid my hair 23178932 times now.

Confession: So You Think You Can Dance was on last night, and honestly, I enjoy it more than American Idol (especially this year. Colton Dixon forever, baby). There was one contestant who quit his job at the San Francisco Ballet Institute to audition. He was, by no surprise, crazy talented and amazing.

Confession: I can't think of anything, so have a great Memorial Day weekend.

WE'RE GONNA PAAARR-TTAAAAYY.

So school ended yesterday and my family had a campfire to celebrate. There were s'mores, too, but for me, that part didn't come around until 8:30-ish PM because we didn't have any graham crackers in our house and I asked Dad to go to the store and buy crackers. I learned that night that s'mores without graham crackers is like an iPad without Angry Birds.

We also shaved our dog on Thursday and now he's cold all the time. Fun.

Also, while Dad was getting the graham crackers, we found two deer in the woods beside our yard. Deer aren't all that abnormal where I live, but it was still strange, having a bunch of deer stalking us. My brother got a picture of one, but all you can see is its eyes. Its creepy, glowing eyes.

If you just look REALLY REALLY CLOSE, you can see its body.

Y'know, I never expected school to be, like, DONE. In January I thought this is never going to end but now it has ended. Summer festivities shall ensue. Movies shall be watched repetitively. And fun shall be had.
 

Masks!

Recently, I've been starting to like pop art. For those who don't know, pop art is a really bright and graphic painting style that started in the late 1950s and is still popular today. I'm especially in love with the comic book styles and pictures of multiplied photos with different colors in each photo.

You're probably wondering what that last paragraph has to do with anything. 

See, I got bored today and wanted to do something that didn't involve the Internet, so I stole some markers, went into my bedroom and drew a picture of the closest thing I'll probably ever get to pop art.

BEHOLD..."Masks."

This has probably been done before and the proportions are off - actually, I'm not completely sure that this even classifies as pop art - but I'm content with it. Also, in case you're wondering why I didn't color the whole paper yellow, that's because I had to practically murder about five yellow markers just to fill in that space. Since I'm finishing school tomorrow (*happy dance*), I'll have a lot more time on my hands to do more productive things, like riding my bike and writing stories and stuff like that.

And making dandelion bouquets. Don't tell me that this is not productive.

A Mother's Day message that should've been in a card.

I feel afraid to write this post because I didn't do squat for Mother's Day.

Well, okay, not nothing - my family went to Bob's Clam Hut for lunch and we bought Mom a pair of slippers at a shoe outlet. I, however, planned to make a card and ended up not doing so because I'm a filthy procrastinator.

How lame is that?

Old Mother/Daughter picture for sentimentality's sake. 

So, to make up for the card that does not exist, I'm going to tell you all this.

I have a wonderful, and I repeat wonderful, mother. That is a fact that should be written in an encyclopedia. I've recently come to the realization that my mom is a lot more graceful to me than what I probably deserve. When I figured out about my lactose intolerance, she went right along with it, helping me eat better and scheduling doctor's appointments. If my math got too hard for me, she'd sit beside me and explain the equations to me, and then make sure I did them right the second (or third) time. If I had a bad day and cried a lot, she would make tea for me. She's put up with me for the fourteen years that I've been alive, and I feel incredibly grateful for such a blessing.

Long story short - Mom, I love you, thanks for always being there for me, and as much as I wish that this could have been written inside of a handwritten card, it's the thought that counts, right?

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (and THE MAGIC)

So, because I lost one of my assigned school books earlier last month (Spoiler Alert - I found it later on), my mom let me choose from our rather extensive selection of books to read. A small copy of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe sat on the shelf, looking lonely and almost new (though we've had it for a while now). So I chose that book and as of today, I finished.

You guys. It was the most magical reading experience ever.

The movies were great, but the book...WOW.

My favorite moments had almost nothing to do with the plot. They were moments when I felt like C.S. Lewis was sitting in front of a bonfire, telling the story.

For example.

"And now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was anymore than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different. Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something which you don't understand but in the dream it feels as if it had some enormous meaning - either a terrifying one which turns the whole dream into a nightmare or else a lovely meaning too lovely to put into words, which makes the dream so beautiful that you remember it all your life and are always wishing you could get into that dream again. It was like that now." (Pages 67-68)


I read that paragraph multiple times, just to make sure I understood its meaning. I've read a lot of books before, but I don't remember coming across a paragraph like that. Ever.

There's also this piece from when Lucy and Susan ride on Aslan's back to the battlefield.

"That ride was perhaps the most wonderful thing that happened to them in Narnia. Have you ever had a gallop on a horse? Think of that; and then take away the heavy noise of the hoofs and the jingle of the bits and imagine instead the almost noiseless padding of the great paws. Then imagine instead of the black or gray or chestnut back of the horse the soft roughness of golden fur, and the mane flying back in the wind. And then imagine you are going about twice as fast as the fastest racehorse. But this is a mount that doesn't need to be guided and never grows tired. He rushes on and on, never missing his footing, never hesitating, threading his way with perfect skill between tree trunks, jumping over bush and briar and the smaller streams, wading the larger, swimming the largest of all. And you are riding not on a road nor a park nor even on the downs, but right across Narnia, in spring, down solemn avenues of beech and across sunny glades of oak, through wild orchards of snow-white cherry trees, past roaring waterfalls and mossy rocks and echoing caverns, up windy slopes alight with gorse bushes, and across the shoulders of heathery mountains and along giddy ridges and down, down, down again into wild valleys and out into acres of blue flowers." (Page 165)


And that, friends, is what I'm probably going to be dreaming about tonight.