Category Archives: Family & Friends

Week Three=*bulldozes ahead*

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*zooms in* I’m finally ahead!!!!! My NaNoWriMo word count is finally filling up quicker than quicksand sucks someone down the drain!!! (Where did that analogy come from? And all those extra exclamation points? o_o)

But, yes, yes, indeed, I am not only ahead, I am a whole day ahead.

I happen to be bouncing off the ceiling at this very moment, using the built-in anti-gravity boosters on the computer for the first time since they were invented five seconds ago.

Er, sorry. (I think the sci-fi aspect of the story I’m writing is taking over my brain. Eeeee. Help.)

So, anyway, my superbly awesome NaNoWriMo word count/graph/thingy:

*continues bouncing off the ceiling*

And, because I’m so happy, I just can’t resist giving you this series of adorable pictures, featuring my siblings as they were five years ago (ish). :mrgreen:

Aren’t they adorable? XDXD <3 <3

Sharpie Art

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Normally I sketch with a plain old pencil and eraser, but a few days ago I drew a portrait of Naomi with my Sharpies. It was so fun! XD The picture doesn’t really resemble Naomi, but I’m delighted with it all the same. :P

Naomi doesn’t like the picture very much, but for some reason she never likes the drawings I make of her. :roll: Sorry, Naomi. :P

Not for Arachnophobics

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We found this MASSIVE spider lurking in the beans while gardening today. He was pretty cool. :D Check out his coloring! It looks like a face! :P Albeit a somewhat creepy face…

Even though Naomi is a little freaked out by spiders in general, she was interested enough to take this picture. Which–and I think you’ll agree–is a pretty awesome picture. :D

I’ve been really interested in phobias recently, ’cause my NaNoWriMo heroine is an aquaphobic. And I have very little idea what that means, since I love water. So, yes, I need to do some research. ^_^ Are there varying degrees of aquaphobia? Will she be terrified of something like drinking a glass of water, or is it only bigger things that freak her out?

Of Tomatoes and Peppers

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Yesterday, I took a bite out of a hot pepper, thinking it was a bell pepper. Cue ten minutes of agony. :P OW…

At the end of the ten minutes, after I’ve drained my water bottle, eaten a banana and several tomatoes, and am finally feeling better, Mikah holds out something red and says,

“Haniya, would you like another tomato?”

My heart melted just there. :P

“Oh, no thanks, Mikah… I would, but– MIKAH!”

I recognized the red “something” in his hand.

“That isn’t a tomato!”

Restoring the Ruins (Part 2)

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The recap post part 2 is finally here. :D Now, because I’m terrible awkward at introduction paragraphs, I shall jump right in to the awesomeness of this post. :P

I’M IN HIGH SCHOOL!

I’m thrilled because…

  1. It isn’t just called 9th grade. No. It’s called my freshman year of high school. And that’s coolness in and of itself. :D
  2. My social studies is called world geography.
  3. My science is called biology. Now, while my favorites of the science “ologies” are climatology, seismology, geology in general, and a couple other things, biology remains, as ever, pretty awesome.
  4. I’m officially in algebra! *faint* YAY! I love algebra! Or at least pre-algebra. I’ve peeked in my heavy-duty, 2 inch thick workbook and–apart from the fact that the size of the font is maybe 2x smaller than my last workbook–everything is overwhelming. o_o

And, guess what?! We have chicks! They up and wandered into our barn during evening milking a couple weeks ago. Awwwwww. :D They’re pretty cute.

And because they have grown up quite a bit since that last picture, here’s another one. :mrgreen:

Photo credit my sister, Naomi. :D

Ta-ta for now, folks! *rides zooms into the sunset mountains with her nonexistent snazzy Jeep*

Restoring the Ruins (Part 1)

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I’ve been terrible. This blog has gone to ruins! And look at me, having had adventures in Kansas and California, now safely tucked away in my spinny chair at home.

Okay, so, I promise to look after this lovely blog more. *pats blog* And a promise is a promise, right? :D I also have a new resolution! Sort of like a New Year’s resolution, except this one…is random and completely out of nowhere. It needs a home. Let’s give it a home, ‘kay?

The resolution (drum roll please): To write more about my writing. I mean, I realized while in the car the other day, that I’ve been writing about only one part of my life. School and animals. Buuuuut what about my writing and drawing? They have been cast to the curb, nursing their wounds of rejection!

Wow, drama queen moment there. But all kidding aside, I solemnly promise to write about my writing. *nod*

And now, I shall continue in this recap post. :D

My trip to Kansas was the peak of awesomeness, topped with maybe a dozen cherries. No, countless cherries. Thank you so much, Mr. and Mrs. S, Auntie, Grandma, Auntie BB, Jenan, my hospitable hosts and cousins, the campus of MNU (it was goooooorgeous), the speakers at the workshop and my friends. <3 I love you all bunches. For those of you who want to know what on earth I was doing in Kansas when I’ve never been east of Montana before–I went to visit Dorothy! :D No, really, I went to a writing workshop. ^_^

My California trip…well, if I were giving out awards for Best Trip of the Year (who knows, I might take that up sometime), it would tie for first with EKT (Epic Kansas Trip). :D The family reunion might have caused an earthquake it rocked so much (I know, I know, I shouldn’t try to crack puns :P ), Yosemite, King’s Canyon, and Sequoia National Parks’ beauty blew me away, the pool was freezing, I got to visit San Franny (plus the architecture and my cousins were awesome), my birthday makes me cry when I think about it–but not in a bad way!–and I really should stop trying to sum up how awesome a trip it was. ;)

And yes, that is the Golden Gate Bridge. Be awed. :P

Thus ends my recap…part one. Bwaha. I shall be back! And to end this post on a very happy note:

You should stay off the walls.

*disappears with a poof*

The Union of Two Beloved Souls

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Nope, this isn’t about the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton. :P This marriage happened months ago, and I haven’t written about it yet. Well…

Naomi started a sourdough starter after I did (I don’t remember if I mentioned it or not) and with three sourdough starters in the house (mine, Mom’s, and Naomi’s) things got pretty crazy. Organisms were jumping bowls and Mom’s starter, which is from New England, hibernated for a bit. We think the organisms from the other starters launched an attack and sort of overwhelmed her organisms. At any rate, it came back eventually, flying Oregon’s colors! :P

Back to being overwhelmed with sourdough-ness. My starter (Brenda Jean) and Naomi’s starter (Frankenstein) fell in love. <3 Awwwwww. Yes, it was very sweet. And with Mom’s starter the presiding pastor, they got married (a.k.a. combined into one bowl!)!

To be completely honest, Mom’s starter was thrown into the mix too. So, now, Mom’s starter, Brenda Jean, and Frankenstein all live happily ever after on the counter.

The End.

Crazy Things!

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We watched Tangled Wednesday afternoon. :D It was. so. awesome. Really cute, funny, sweet, absolutely quote-able, and huh, what-do-you-know, AWESOME! :mrgreen:

Rapunzel: Something brought you here, Flynn Rider. Call it what you will… fate… destiny…
Flynn: A horse.

We have been singing the soundtrack non-stop ever since, and Mom even joined in the fun when we re-watched it last night! She said she was going to read her book and watch Tangled at the same time but… she didn’t seem to be doin’ a whole lot of reading. :P Sorry, Mom! ;)

My favorite characters are Maximus, Rapunzel, Mother Gothel, and, of course, Flynn Rider. From the soundtrack, my favorite songs are “When Will My Life Begin,” “Mother Knows Best,” “I See The Light,” and “Kingdom Dance.”

Flynn: All right, Blondie.
Rapunzel: Rapunzel.
Flynn: Gesundheit.

Baba was gone on work stuff from Tuesday morning until this afternoon, and we did some crazy things! Watching Tangled, for one, and also going to see Soul Surfer in the theater after evening milking on the same day! Phew. :P Mom made pizza for dinner, chocolate chip cookies for dessert, and off we went. Soul Surfer was really good–and the theater we saw it in was definitely small-town compared to other theaters we’ve been to! :P

AnnaSophia Robb, the girl who played the main role of Bethany Hamilton in Soul Surfer did a great job. :D I like her as an actress anyway, though! :cool:

Our Very Own Garden… Kinda

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Some friends of ours have a garden, and offered to give us what we grow in it if we help out! :D We had our very first garden in California, and it was just boomin’, but then we moved here and… hm. Our first garden here was a floppin’ failure. We brought in compost, but eventually discovered it was dead. Also, the deer plagued it as they hadn’t pestered our old garden in the California city. To sum it all up, nothing grew. :(

Five years later, here we are again! :D


Mom drove over there to plan everything out a couple weeks ago, and then she, Naomi, and Mikah went over there yesterday to get started. They laid down compost, tilled it, planted, and got everything going. I stayed home to take care of the animals here and apparently, I missed out on all the hard labor. :P


They came home pretty much dead-on-their-feet. No, scratch that, they were dead-on-their-feet before they left! :P

We’re going back in a week or two (and that time Naomi’s staying home while I go!) to check on our plants’ progress and do a bit of watering and weeding.

*bounces in*

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Helloooo! :D

Can you tell I’m excited?

*eeeep*

I GOT MY BRACES OFF! :D

It was a surprise from everyone except Mom, my aunt, my tata, a couple friends, and of course, my awesome orthodontist office. :P The long-awaited event was scheduled for Thursday, the 14th of April (isn’t that a simply splendid date for such a momentous moment?). I was sooooo nervous the morning of because I might not have gotten my braces off at all. The doctor said if a tooth didn’t align itself correctly in the two weeks preceding the appointment, we’d have to wait a bit.

So…I didn’t know whether to get my hopes up or not.

We arrived at the orthodontist office about five minutes early for my appointment, which was scheduled for 9:40 in the morning.

I needn’t have worried, though, ’cause a minute after the doctor sat down to examine me (“Let’s see if we can delay this thing a bit!”), he pronounced me DONE (“Ahhh! I can’t find anything!”).

Done as in, like, forever. Forever and ever. :cool: AND ever. :P

Anyway, the assistant snapped off my brackets and tugged off my bands (stubborn ol’ things) and pulled the whole dealio out! YAY! ‘Course, then she had to do the other jaw. ;)

But soon enough, she set down to polishing and scraping all the left-behind cement off my teeth. Then the doctor came along and polished or something a bit more. And then, he handed me a mirror.

*gasp*

My first impression: THEY’RE HUGE! :shock:

Those brackets were hiding the real thing! :P I’ve gotten used to my teeth now but still…it was pretty scary at first.

After that, I got to brush. No, I didn’t take forever at the sink. Just a little short of that. :mrgreen:

Then the assistant came back and took impressions (to make a retainer, which I picked up the next day), gave me a balloon and a mug filled with all the candy I wasn’t supposed to eat while I had braces, and sent me off. :D

We visited my dad after a quick stop at a friends’ house, and even though he wasn’t supposed to know, somehow he put two and two together and got four before we told him the answer. Oh well. It was still a blast! :D

We got home eventually (after running some more errands and stopping for ice cream cones to celebrate…heehee!), and Naomi ran down the driveway to meet us. She berated us for being late (we’d promised to be home by noon, and it was 2 o’clock–the orthodontist appointment took a while!), hugged Mom, and then looked up…and down…and up again…

She gasped, covered her face with her hands, and whispered,

“You got them off…”

And then,

“BUT THEY’RE HUGE! That means mine are going to be even bigger!”

Heehee. :D

Mikah’s reaction was:

“Oh.”

Sounds like a boy, no? :P

Anyway, it was a great time, and I’m lovin’ my teeth! It’s definitely been worth two years of braces!

Είμαι πίσω

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The title of this post is Greek for “I am back.” :D

Well…where to begin. :P Miracle is the most adorkable (love that word!) baby goat EVER. I know I say that every time we have a baby around but it’s true! ;) She’s grown a bit and jumps on everything. If you sit down somewhere, you’re liable to have a baby in your lap in about five seconds. And once she’s in your lap, she plunks down and starts chewing her cud.

It’s seriously CUTE. :D

She also climbs into the hay rack and snoozes in there. And she comes into the people area of the barn. She’s small enough that she fits through the holes in the cattle panel fencing. ;)

In other news, Gracie is doing excellent! She’s giving 30+ cups of milk a day. Practically 2 gallons. And her calf, Mercy, is wonderful too. We lock Mercy up with Fiddlesticks and Miracle in the baby stall every night so Mercy doesn’t drink all of Gracie’s milk during the night. Because of that, Miracle and Mercy have become great friends. :)

Let’s see what else… Oh, my novels are coming along great! :D I got a ton of work done yesterday on my fantasy novel and hopefully I can accomplish as much, if not more, work today as then. I’m praying! Freedom Trek, which, if you’ll remember, is the novella I finished in 2009, I’m editing again. It’s currently on its 3rd edit and…yeah. I’m waiting for Naomi to finish reading/critiquing it so I can wrap it up! I’m also working on a sequel for Freedom Trek, but that’s on hold as of a couple weeks ago. Basically right now I’m putting all my novel energy into finishing my fantasy novel, which I’m bringing to…

…KANSAS THIS SUMMER!

I don’t know if I told you, but my OYAN class has a summer workshops/reunion annually in Kansas. I wasn’t able to go last year, which was the first time it was held, but my awesome auntie and super grandma ( ;) ) are taking me this year.

So anyway, I need to finish my fantasy novel so I can get it critiqued when I go.

One last thing, I think. I should get my braces off in a couple months! :D I know it was six mouths away in August but since my top 12-year molars decided to be tricky, my time has been extended. :( Still, as long as my last molar to come in comes in well and fast, they should be off soon! I’m so excited. :D June 24th, 2011 marks my 2-year anniversary of braces so I’m hoping to have them off by then. :P

Ooh, and that’s my signal to wrap this up! My laundry is beeping!