I can not believe myself. It is exactly one week until Christmas (!!!) and I JUST decorated my room!!! I'm terrible, but I started listening to Christmas music in August, so I guess that makes up for it! I have 9 snowflakes hanging from the ceiling that I made myself! Let me remind the world, and myself that I do not get along well with hot glue guns. It's just a fact. Your fingers get burned, and glued together at the same time! That's just cruelty! However, I am still alive and I have beautiful snowflakes so the burnt fingers were worth it... I hope! So here is a picture of a corner of my room... (the rest looks pretty much the same.... I just couldn't get it all into one picture! :))
So some days you are just not having a good day. You know what I mean. There are those days where nothing is going right and everything seems awful. Yeah I was having one of those days until I did these 5 brilliant things and they made my day 100% better!
I can't think of a song to do today for Musical Monday's so it's just going to be a blog post with my thoughts today! =) (and I really should come up with more creative titles... maybe something like "the thoughts of a bored homeschooler who is procrastinating on school" or something more vague "thoughts" that's not very vague though... anyway....)
My sister and I ran a half marathon yesterday! It was great! We beat my personal best time by almost five minutes! (I know, that's not a lot, but still, we beat it!) I have grown to love running so much! It's awesome! I really want to run a full marathon, but that is such a long way!! Like I can't even imagine running 26.2 miles... That's a scary thought! I still hope to do it maybe in June! Running marathons can be addicting! I've seen it happen to so many of my friends and now it's happening to me too!! I find that hilarious. I have come to believe, that if you are physically capable you should run at least a half marathon at some point in your life. It's totally worth it! I mean seriously, you get a medal and a shirt!! What could be better than that?!?!? At the half marathon yesterday they had pizza that they were giving to the runners!! That made me so happy!! Who doesn't like pizza?!
Anyway, lately I've had this great desire to go ice skating again... I've only every gone once, but I just love it!!! (I'm really terrible at it, but who cares? ;)) I wish I could be really good and do things like this, because that's just beautiful! However, some things will just have to remain a dream.... :)
I started teaching!! It was really scary at first, but as soon as we started playing violin the whole atmosphere lightened up and it is so much fun to help people discover the beauty of playing an instrument! I hope to teach a lot more students in the future because it is so much fun!!!
Anyway, Mother just caught up with me... time to get back to those lovely school books! =D Maybe I'll get two posts in this week! I hope to soon do a Christmas song every day! We'll see if that happens! Have a wonderfulicious day!
Well, now! I've made it to 100 posts!!! Yay!!!! I'm sorry I've been so horrid at posting lately! But today I've got a post coming your way!!! I hope you still read this blog... :( that would make me sad if nobody reads my blog anymore...
Anyway, happier thoughts! I read Mr. Knightly's Diary this week and I LOVED it!!! I highly recommend it for anyone who likes Emma. While I don't think it was as good as Mr. Darcy's Diary, I still think it was a very good book and totally worth reading! I'm about to dive into Death Comes to Pemberly I'll have to let you know what I think of it! =) I love new books to read!!! And I have a dear friend who recommends them and owns them and lets me borrow them and read them!! =D *happy dance*
My iPod quit working a few weeks ago... =( I was very sad, but I've discovered that my productivity level has soared since then... these things might be related? Oh, of course not... :P I'm taking the ACT test again on Saturday! I hope I do much better on it this time! (Not that I didn't do well the first time, I just wish I could have done better, so I'm doing it again!)
Oh, and other than the fact that fall is the best season of the year, I've had a great fall!! My quartet has already played at two events and we have another one on Saturday! It's a wonderful thing to be able to get together with your friends and play music together and get paid for it at the same time! Yes, indeed, this girl is very happy!
So the big thing that has kept me busy the past couple of weeks was something very monumental for me! I ran a half marathon on Saturday, October 19, 2013! =D I still can't believe it! It was one of the most memorable experiences of my life! (it goes right up there with watching the sunrise with my dad!) Marathon weekend started on Friday when my sister and I drove to Indianapolis. We got there in time for some pasta and bananagrams before we went to bed. It was fun! =) We were all up early Saturday morning and headed out the door! We picked up a friend who braved the cold to give us all some encouragement and hold all our stuff! =) The race was awesome! There were definitely moments when I was ready for it to be OVER. But I made it through and I gave Him the glory and that's all that matters! After the race Bub's Burgers for lunch and I was actually quite surprised at the quality of the food! =) After lunch my sister and I went to visit my other sister and her family and that was tiring but fun! By this time we were really exhausted so we went back to our friends house and watched Despicable Me (I managed to stay awake for the whole thing) and then I stayed up (sleeping) while everyone else talked until the wee hours of the morning!! We left Sunday, and stopped for Frosty's on the way! =) It was a great weekend!!! It totally exhausted me, but it was totally worth it! Well, this was a longer post than usual! I hope you enjoy it, and I'll work really hard at getting better at blogging! (I hope!) Have a great weekend!!!! (and enjoy this lovely fall weather!)
I had a crazy weekend that included a college visit, a cast party, and other random school junk and life stuff! I am totally blank today! This post might end up being really random... typical me! =) So, I keep hoping that life will get less busy soon, I have a half marathon I'm running this weekend, so I won't be spending so much time training for that and I'll potentially have more time for writing blog posts? We can always hope! =D I've missed writing my blog so much!! I hope you've missed me too! ;) Anyway, I don't have all day to write this post so I'll get to the music now!
Today I'm sharing with you something very, very special. Over the summer when he didn't have school my brother decided to record a piece of music. He spent hours working in his room, all summer long, to get the perfect result. He had so many setbacks and just plain frustrating moments, but he pulled through in the end, and before school started again in the fall he was able to release something very special, and this is it. A recording of one of the most epic pieces known to man. Barber's Adagio for Strings. I hope you enjoy it and have a great week!
As it is Musical Monday, I'm going to talk about music! =) "... happy thought indeed." One of the main reasons that I haven't *ahem* been posting as often as I should is because my sister and I volunteered with a theatre company in our area on a musical! I had hoped to sing in it, but when they had the auditions I had the most horrid head cold you ever heard of and I could not sing to save my life! 'Twas a pity though, I could have sung in it... Oh well! I played my violin in the pit and it was an enjoyable experience overall (though, I won't lie, it definitely had it's stressful moments!) However, everyone pulled it together in the end and we had some very successful performances!!! Today though, I'm just going to mention a few of my favorite songs from the musical! (They won't be in chronological order they will mostly be in order, with the songs I love the most at the end! You know, save the best for last? =)) Hold On I really like this song because it's basically Martha telling Mary that God is gonna help her get through this tough time. It's also a really neat song musically with interesting rhythms and f flats.... yeah... it was fun to play! =) I really love how encouraging this song is!! A Girl in the Valley This song is just so sweet!! I love how they have Lily be a big part of the musical even though she's dead! This scene was so much fun to play in the musical because they had people waltzing on stage while we played it!!! It was fun to see the girls in their big dresses out of the corner of my eye! Plus it's just a really sweet song!!! =) Where in the World This song is intense!!! It's so passionate!!! I love how heartbreaking it is!!! I just melt every time I hear it!!!! =) At the end of this song in the musical he falls on his knees almost with a bang (but I don't think it was on purpose) but I never realized how close he really was and then I'd look up and I'd start! He was like right there!!!! It was so weird!!! but I love this song! Lily's Eyes *sigh* I don't think anything really needs to be said about this song. It really speaks for itself doesn't it? It was wonderful playing this, I cried almost every time, it was beautiful! Well, I finished this post! Finally!!! And it's still Monday!!! =D Have a great night!
I have a friend who wanted me to post this as a guest post! So I am! =) I'll post something 'real' (as in from me!) later! =)
17 Things I Love about Julia
By Bek
1. Julia loves to talk. She can talk your ear off with tons of interesting and funny stories!
2. Julia is gorgeous. Seriously.
3. Julia knows how to do hair! She is patient enough to help me with mine. Who knew it took that long to curl your hair?
4. Julia plays the violin really well. Okay I'll admit it, she's better than me. :) Even on Kabablevsky. :)
5. Julia's fingers are as fast as lightning even all the way up to the nosebleed section. Now that's impressive!
6. Julia loves her family. Especially that crazy brother of hers Michael. Happy birthday to him too!
7. Julia eats frosty's the normal way. You would be surprised all the crazy ways you can eat frosty's!!
8. Julia is honest. She's realistic about problems. This might just be a nice way to say she complains a lot.... :) Just kidding!!
9. Julia likes "teapot" movies. I didn't realize this was a good thing until I watched one with her. I'm hooked!
10. Julia remembers things for a long time. Like that she still owes me cupcakes!
11. Julia can always make me smile. Either by doing something so ridiculous you can't help laughing or just by being nice.
12. Julia has endurance. She can run for 40 minutes straight!! Personally, I struggle with 10 minutes. Julia blows my mind.
13. Julia has a good laugh. Some people sound like donkeys, other people are afraid to actually laugh. Julia has a good laugh that she's not afraid to use for all my funny stories!
14. Julia is prepared. Anytime you need a kazoo or a plastic knife or a few decks of cards ask her. Her purse is the epitome of preparedness.
15. Julia is a gardener. She devotes a large portion of her time to weeding. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didnt the virtuous woman have a big garden too?
16. Julia is a good memorizer. She has 1/4 of all the parts of the Mendelssohn octet memorized.
17. Julia is my friend. I'm so glad you were born!! Happy birthday!!!
So, I'm out here at 'the seaside' (:)) and this morning my dad and I got up really early and went to the shore to watch the sun rise! It was so amazing!!! The sun just crept over the shoreline and grew every second! I was snapping pictures like crazy!!! (most of them weren't any good since I was paying more attention to watching the sun rise than get good pictures! ;)) However, I did get a few good ones that I am going to share with you today! I must say that watching the sunrise has been the highlight of my vacation so far!!! It was magical!!! Praise the Lord!!!! =D
It's starting to come up!
I love the way the clouds were in front of it!!! So beautiful!!
*sigh*
It's about to come out!!!!
There it is!!! It was so amazing to see it slowly creep over the shoreline!!!!! =D
It's getting bigger!
And it's out! And gorgeous! It was so amazing!!! =) I hope you enjoyed looking at the pictures as much as I enjoyed watching the sunrise and taking them!! (even though the pictures don't even come close to doing it justice!)
I hope you have a great rest of your week!! God Bless!!!
I know I told you I was going to take a break from blogging, well I only kind of lied, I was going to take a break but I have time today and I took some cool pictures yesterday when we were on the road driving home. I just have to share them with you!
I really enjoyed taking them and I hope you enjoyed looking at them!!! :) I hope your next couple of weeks are wonderful!!! :) God Bless!
Sooooo, where have I been????? (not on my computer obviously!) I finally have that post I was going to post a week ago done!!! :D And I am actually going to finish the Little Dorrit post!!! Today you get two posts, and who knows when the next one will be??? Haha!!! I had no idea my summer could be so busy!! And it's like almost over!!! What happened!??! Oh, just warning everyone, I will be taking an official break from blogging after next week for about three weeks! (You see, the past few weeks have been an unofficial break... :P) But this is going to be a real break because I'm going to a music camp and then to my best friends house for her graduation open house, and then my family is going on vacation! (This is pretty much our first 'real' vacation in about 7 years so I'm really, really excited!!!)
Here is a song that I can't seem to stop listening to! :)
(My computer is doing weird things so you'll just have to be content with a link...)
Wow, I can't believe it! I haven't posted for over a week!!! Gahh!!! I have a good excuse though, we had 8 people coming to stay at our house over the weekend and our house was a big mess the whole week before they arrived! :D We got it all cleaned up and finished our bonus room so we were able to do stuff up there!!! Score! We also had a pretty amazing weekend and that was good!! I wasn't as bad at volleyball as I thought I was going to be! (I hadn't played since August of last year.... yeah... it started off pretty bad!) We also played a lot of Dutch Blitz where Bekah and I dominated! (as usual!!) All in all it was a great weekend!!! I can't wait to see all of them again in July!!!
However, I haven't been blogging, and I promise that all of my posts won't be "oh man! I didn't blog at all last week! Sorry!" Haha!!! I'll just get better with time management!!! I'll have another post out tonight!!!
This post is merely to make you all sure that I haven't dropped off the face of the planet! I'm still here! :) I'm doing well, just keeping busy! I applied and was interviewed (phone interview) for my first job ever! We'll see how that turns out! I also have been really digging in on my ACT studying and my violin practicing! So all that along with the garden and weeding work that comes with summer, I haven't had much time to blog... Anyway I was on pinterest and found this picture and so I'm sharing it with you!
I always thought this would be a great idea! I even planned all sorts of vehicles that we would have in the tunnels! I still like the idea... :)
So I haven't posted here in a while... I'm sorry, I've been really busy!! However, today I have something special to tell you because, today is a very special day!!! It's my dear sister Melissa's birthday!!! Yay!!! :) She is such a wonderful person!!! I love her so much!!! She is so patient, sweet and kind! I am so blessed to have her as my sister! So, in her honor, I'm posting a blog post for her! :) Here are my 23 favorite things about her:
1. She is a Christian and strives daily to grow closer to God.
2. She loves gardening and farming! (Because of her hard work and determination (even when we make fun of her) we have lots of delicious things to eat!!)
3. She likes playing music with Michael and I! She often is the one who says "Hey! Let's play this together!" and we always have tons of fun!
4. She buys cute clothes!! (So I can borrow them right? :))
5. She doesn't mind *that* much when I come into her room and just take clothes... :) and never give them back!! :D
6. She likes doing special things for people!
7. She made me a special drink for me when I wasn't feeling very good!
8. She is really sweet! :)
9. She likes playing 'big girl' dress up!
10. She sews really well!! (She always has a HUGE pile of articles (not always clothing) that people have given her to fix!)
11. She and I can look at things on Pinterest until midnight... and still be ready to keep looking!
12. She fixed lasagna on Monday night!!
13. She likes designing things.
14. If she could, she would be an amazing interior designer.
15. She is ambitious!
16. She isn't afraid of hard work.
17. She's sympathetic... when I'm not being pathetic...
18. She has a servants heart.
19. She's beautiful! :)
20. She's really good with kids!
21. She is such a great teacher!!!
22. She likes costuming!
23. She's my sister!!!!!!! :)
As you can see, Melissa is just wonderful!!!! I love her so much! I have no idea how I would survive if she wasn't around!!! Here is a song that when I asked her what her favorite song was, this is what she said... I think she likes other songs better... but I'll share this one for grins and giggles!!!
Last night I was sitting in my room reading when I looked out the window and saw a gorgeous sunset! I went down and got the camera out and took a picture. As usual it didn't look as beautiful in the picture as it did in real life, but it was still pretty!
So then I went inside and did a few things and about five minutes later I looked out the window and saw this:
It was so beautiful!!! I thoroughly enjoyed it!!
"Great are the works of the LORD; they are pondered by all who delight in them. Glorious and majestic are his deeds, and his righteousness endures forever!" Psalm 111:2-3
I want to start by saying I had an amazing weekend! (by the way, this post is gonna have a lot of exclamations in it... to make up for the last post which had none! :)) My weekend started out with a Side-By-Side concert on Friday night for which four of our best friend family members came up for. It was a long but fun concert! I really enjoyed every part of it!!!! The Friday night I stayed up talking to my bestest friend until 3 am. It was awesome!!! I think I almost died laughing!!! (we learned that I can't lay down and laugh really hard at the same time, I have to sit up!) Needless to say, for like the first time ever Bekah and I slept in!!! It was weird!!! But then on Saturday we just had a great time all morning while the boys mowed the lawn, and then we fixed lunch. After lunch we went into town and had an AMAZING time!!! We didn't buy any chocolate at the chocolate store but we did buy ourselves some ice cream!!! We put our sunglasses on and people watched! We are so awesome!! :) (Michael thought we were crazy, but we were sooo right!!) There was also a wedding going on right downtown but Melissa and Casey wouldn't let us go down there to watch... :( The best part of the afternoon though was when Melissa, Casey, and Carl went into the antique store and Michael, Chad, Bekah, and I stood out on the sidewalk and waved at all the cars that drove by!! It was so much fun!!! Some people were really weirded out but a lot of them laughed and waved back!! One guy even honked!!!! It was awesome to say the least! Then we went home and played badminton in the backyard until dinner! After and kind of during dinner we played Setteler's of Catan and Bekah and I won!!!! I've never won that game before and neither had Bekah!! We were pretty happy!! Then we danced!! We had a blast dancing, we had to teach Carl and Casey the new dance and that was fun!!! On Sunday we (of course) went to church, but we visited a new church and I thought it was really good! :) After church we went home and ate and then we (Michael, Melissa, and I) had to leave for orchestra concert. It was weird to leave when our friends were still at home! Haha! The orchestra concert was sooo much fun!!!! We played Mendelssohn Octet in the lobby before the concert started and it was so fun but exhausting!!! I'm so glad we did it though!!! The concert itself wasn't that amazing, but Josh played well!!! After the concert I didn't get any cookies!!! For the first time EVER!!! I was too busy talking to everyone and getting signatures on my program!!! :( Sad. Speaking of sad, I hate it when things end!!! Like orchestra, it's over until September!!! Noooooooooo!!!! There are so many people I know from there that I might never ever see again!!! :( Why do things have to change??? On a lighter note, it's so nice outside!!! I just finished a super busy few weeks and now I'm gonna sit back and finish school!!! I'm also planning on spending my summer doing some awesome practicing!!! :) Oh yeah, this should be good!!! Haha!!! Well, this post was really long!! :) I hope you all have a great week!!!
I'm doing school, (obviously) and I decided that I was in the mood for Christmas music! So I hopped over to my brother's blog and I'm listening to everything!!! Well, almost everything! All my favorites that is... which might as well be everything!!!
I know, I know, you're thinking, "Christmas music? Is she serious? Christmas was 4 months ago!! Spring finally started and she's listening to Christmas music!! What is wrong with her?" Yeah, I know! There is nothing wrong with me!!! I'm super excited about Spring and all the trees budding and everything being green and beautiful!! I'm so excited to start working in the garden and mowing the lawn and weeding the flowerbeds!! But all this Christmas music is just amazing!!!! So I have to listen to it, and I don't care what you think!!! :) It's happy music!!! I mean really ♪"It's the most wonderful time of the year!"♪ I think this can be sung at the beginning of every season!! :) I hope you have a great week!!!
Thunderstorms are so cool!! It is so amazing to see them roll in and then hear the thunder and see the lightning! I love thunderstorms!!!! If I was allowed to stand outside the whole time I would, but Mom and
Dad (wisely) make me come in after it starts raining. There's just something about the wind whipping my skirt and my hair as I stand there watching the clouds roll angrily across the sky! Everything about it makes my spine tingle and excitement build up inside of me! Last summer an incredible storm blew in while I was fixing lunch, my nieces were questioning my sanity! It was soo cool!!!
Guess who took this awesome picture? You guessed it, I did!! :) Haha! I'm getting excited all over again just looking at it!!! It's so cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't have a song for today, but I do still have a recipe and a song for later this week for you all!!! :) That is, if I get to writing them! Sometime, I'm gonna get you a post that doesn't have any exclamation points, just to prove someone wrong! ;)
.jpg)
