May 31

Yesterday was my 200th post!

Taylor Swift is awesome! I love her music. She has some fantastic songs, that I really love.

Tomorrow is June, the first day of winter, and the first day of my birthday month. My birthday is on the fifth of June, and I'm getting really excited.

Our teacher came around today, and it was pretty cool. She confirmed that yes, the new maths book is a device by maths teachers to torture their students. It is really awful, and now she has let us off the hook. My older brother and I can now just do the old style maths, not the instrument of torture maths. Yes!

May 30

For the last few days we have been trying to install wifi, and finally it worked! We now have wifi, and it is so cool. I'm guessing that we will spend a lot of our time sending messages to each other over wifi. Talking may become a thing of the past in our household.

Tomorrow the teacher is coming to review the work that my older brother and I are doing. We are both dismally behind in Maths, and so we are not looking forward to the visit.

My birthday is under a week away! I've already had two positive replies to my party invites, and no negatives. I can hope that all my guests will make it.

May 27

Next post will be Post 200!

I never knew how much hassle was involved in getting a new computer up and running. It seems like there are so many thing to do, and not enough time to do them in. I want to have some time to just play around on my computer, but it seems that I have too much to do for that.

Today was pretty cool. We went shopping for my birthday. I know that my little brother will get me an umbrella, because we made a deal. He gets me an umbrella for my birthday, and I get him one for him. I don't know what my sister and older brother will get me, but I'm pretty sure it will be good.

At our youth bible study this morning, we got a brand new hangout. Sometime soon, we'll have a working bee and paint it and all that sort of stuff. That should be fun, and I can hardly wait!

May 26

I have a new computer! I'm typing on it right now. It's a laptop, and it is so cool!

YAY!

I'm too excited to think about anything else right now.

May 25

It is so cold right now! I'll have to wait for Kid's Club to finish before Youth Group starts, and I'm going to be cold.

I read Little Lord Fauntleroy today, and it is such a sweet story. In the introduction they compare it to Cinderella, but I think it is better.

Kid's Club is having a Slum theme night tonight, so my little brother and sister are dressing up in their oldest clothes and covering them with dirty looking stains. They'll probably look even more realistic after tromping around in the mud for a while!

May 24

The house seems so quiet. My little brother is in the backyard, my older brother is away from the house, and the only sounds I can here are the clack of the keyboard and the sound of scissors. How would you describe the sound that scissors make? It isn't easy. Maybe a serrating sound?

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. I can hand out the last of the invitations to my party. I hope everyone I'm inviting is there. I'm not sure how I'd contact them if they aren't.

May 23

My 195th post. WOW!

My sister is sitting on the trampoline, singing Edelweiss (the song from Sound of Music). I don't know why she is, and there appears to be no reason, but she's doing it anyway. Sje just loves to sing.

Last night I discovered that the e-book The Complete Arthur Conan Doyle Collection is actually missing several Sherlock Holmes stories. That does not seem right!

My laptop is still not in commission, so once again I am on the family computer. I have to hurry up.

May 22

My laptop's death warrant is practically signed. As soon as possible, I will be getting a new computer. I'm looking forward to it. I have never had a new computer. For a while I shared a computer with my sister, then my dad gave me his old laptop, but now I should be getting a new computer all my own! I really am blessed.

My sister has taken up knitting. It is so funny to see her sitting there with this gigantic ball of wool, knitting away. It is the biggest ball of wool I have ever seen, probably the length of a ruler, and bright purple. She hasn't told anyone what she is making, except possibly our mother.

My birthday is exactly two weeks away! I'm really excited, but I'm worried that most of my presents will be IOUs. No one seems to have bought me a present yet!

We have all been really busy with schoolwork. Today my older brother and I found out that an assignment that we didn't even know about is due on Friday! My little brother and sister have their teacher coming around in two weeks, and the teacher for me and my brother is coming around next week.

Does anyone agree with me that it seems so weird to say or write 'my brother and me'? For example, which makes more sense, 'the teacher has come for my brother and I', or 'the teacher has come for my brother and I'? 'My brother and me' is grammatically correct, but doesn't sound write. My sister summed it up nicely. "The one that doesn't make sense is correct"!

May 21

My laptop is having serious technical difficulties. It is in a catatonic state, neither off, nor on, and I can't get it to be either. As a result, I am on the family computer today. I really don't like this keyboard, so today's post will not be long.

As part of my schoolwork I was studying Ivanhoe today, and it looks like a fantastic book! We actually have a copy sitting on our classics shelf, so I am hoping to read it.

I tidied my desk today. This is a rare occasion. I'm trying to sort out what books go back to which libraries, as I have borrowed books from about 4 different libraries, and 2 different people. That makes it awkward when I want to return books, but I'm not sure who I got them from.

May 20

I just finished reading The Boy In Striped Pajamas, and it wasn't as sad as I thought it would be. The movie was awful, and was so utterly despairing, but the book made it seem so matter of fact. There wasn't much emotion to it. For once, I liked the movie better than the book.

I'm writing on the family computer, because I see no point in waking up my notoriously tempermental laptop for only an hour or so. Normally I would spend hours reading on the internet at the weekend, but today I decided to decrease my pile of unread library books instead.

May 19

I'm in the middle of a story, so today's post will be fortunate to go beyond three sentences. I could only deliver two of my invitations last night, as my other friends were away for the weekend. Last sentence, I want to get back to my book!

May 18

I finally finished the unit of my history that I was working on. It took weeks, but now it is finally over. Yay! History is interesting, but it takes so long!

Tonight I give out my party invitations, and I'm excited. Now I can't wait for my party. Truth be told, I think I'm more excited about the party than my birthday. After all, I've had plenty of birthdays, but I've had far less parties.

After several days of cold weather, so cold that I wore ugboots all day, and my little brother went around the house pretending to be frozen solid, the weather is finally warming up. I'm actually hot in my long sleeves. I'm sure I'll be glad of my long sleeves tonight though. Youth group goes late.

Song Lyrics! Some songs have fantastic lyrics. My favorite lyrics tell a story. Have you ever heard the song Walking Her Home, by Mark Shultz? It has a fantastic story, that is sad, yet sweet. If you've seen The Notebook, this song will probably remind you of that movie. They are very similar.

My mother just made some fantastic cookies. As my sister described them, they are like apple pie, in cookie form! Apple pie is one of my absolute favorite foods, so I think these are totally delicious.

The Wiggle are breaking up!

sI just heard on the news that the Wiggles are breaking up. How could they do that? The Wiggles have been around for 21 years, they can't just stop. Worse, the new yellow Wiggle is going to be a girl! There has never been a girl Wiggle, and there shouldn't be now. It's tragic! I and my siblings grew up with the Wiggles. We danced around our lounge room to their songs. How could it all just end?!

May 17

I finally wrote those invitations. They are sitting beside me here as I type. My mother suggested a planets theme, and I went with it. Tomorrow I'm going to give the invitations to as many of the invitees that come to youth group. If they didn't come, maybe I'll see some at church on Sunday. Now, with the invitations printed, my birthday and birthday party seem to be getting closer!

Animate and Create, Mate

Apparently, the link I posted yesterday didn't work. The blog is called Animate and Create, Mate. The link is http://anim8andcre8mate.blogspot.com.au/

The particular post is called Chocolate. The link for that is http://anim8andcre8mate.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/chocolate_13.html

Hope it works this time!

May 16

It was so cold yesterday! At square dancing it was even colder. Some of the people who have been doing it for a while said that the hall where we dance can sometimes go down to two degrees Celsius. That is so cold, I don't even want to think about it!

This afternoon, I was reading a book called True Stories of the Strange and Unknown. There are some amazing stories there. This is one of them.

The Wonderful Watch
When Wal Williams of Charlotte, North Carolina, accidentally dropped his watch from a light plane at 600 metres, he though he'd never see it again. But next day, while gardening, he found the watch in his own backyard. It was still running-and keeping perfect time.

Isn't that so weird?

I'm currently reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Apart from the fact that we watched the movie not too long ago, I wanted to read it because it has some wonderful descriptions of winter, and chocolate. What better book is there to read on a cold winter's night, curled up under the blankets, than one that really makes you appreciate everything you have, and how blessed you are. Winter is a time when you want yummy hot meals, and there are people like Charlie who don't get them. I don't think that a visit to a chocolate factory would work for all of them though.

My birthday is coming up so quickly! It was three weeks away yesterday. None of my family have bought my presents yet, but at least they have plans to go shopping. I also still need to write invitations to my birthday party, and I want to have them written by Friday! I have to get on with that pretty soon.

May 15

I'm on the family computer today, because my older brother is hard at work and I don't want to disturb him. However, this computer is really awkward for me to type on. Having an enter key helps though.

Today, for me, has been a day of finishing things. Two of my subjects had Unit Reviews, and I spent most of the morning working on them. Tomorrow I start a whole new unit in those subjects.

I used Skype for the first ime this morning! My brother and I had a Skype call from our English teacher. It was so cool, and I'd never done it before. What a world of possibilities there are out there!

I saw a fantastic picture of chocolate on this blog. The blog is called Animate and Create, Mate, and the chocolate photos posted recently are really amazing. How does anyone make a keyboard of chocolate, and for that matter, why would they want to?

May 14

My computer is being super slow.

Mother's Day dinner last night was fantastic. My siblings prepared it while I was distracting our mother. They plated everything up nicely. It was a full three course meal with drinks. Before that was flowers, and afterwards were chocolates and her favorite drink. It was amazing, and we could tell that she loved it.

Today we went to the Abbey Museum. The lights weren't good, so my photos may be blurry, but I took heaps anyway. As a picture is a thousand words, I can't show them all, because that would be the equivalent of an essay (!), so I'll just show one or two.

May 13

On Friday I borrowed a computer game from Brisbane library. It was a Nancy Drew mystery game. This afternoon I tried to install it on my computer and play it, but it didn't work. I tried my sister's computer, with her permission, and it wouldn't work then either! So now I can't play it. The other computers are either in constant use, or the disk drives don't work properly. It's really annoying.

We are planning a really nice dinner for my mother, for Mother's Day. My sister and older brother paid for most of it, with help from our dad. I can't tell you all about it now, in case she reads this before then, but I will tomorrow.

May 11

Yesterday I went to Brisbane library, and now my card has 21 books on it. Brisbane library cards are only supposed to have 20 books on them at once. Today, we are going back, and unless I return books, I can't borrow anything! So I have to return some of the books I only borrowed yesterday, so that I can borrow more books today. Fortunately, I'm a quick reader, so I already read the books I'm returning, regardless of the fact that I only borrowed them yesterday. A train ride can be great for reading.

My little brother and I share several traits, one of which is to write at a ludicrous slant, that, on occasion, makes writing illegible. That is only sometimes though. Most of the time, we have legible writing. At least, he does. Mine, not so much. It's a bit mixed up. I can read it, but other people sometimes have trouble reading what I wrote in a hurry. One advantage of that, it keeps my siblings from reading my diary!

My sister is practicing her singing exercises. She has to listen to one song over and over again, and hum/murmur/??? along with it. It sounds kind of weird. Some more news about my sister? She had her braces changed again yesterday. They are now "pink and lavender".

May 9

I can't blog tomorrow. We'll be out all day, and we won't get back until late. In other news, one of our guinea pigs is dying, while her brother keeps escaping his cage. Mixed news indeed!

May 8

I found a really great book at the library today. It's called the Ultimate Book Guide, and it has all sorts of books, and suggestions of what you could read if you liked those books. I'll probably spend this afternoon reading this book of books!

May 7

Today's a holiday! Yay! I don't know why it's a holiday, but I'll enjoy it anyway.

Last night, to celebrate that we wouldn't have to get up early this morning, we watched both Scooby Doo movies, with all the lights out. Only my brothers lasted through both movies. My mother fell asleep near the start of the second movie.I fell asleep partway through that movie, still wearing my glasses! My sister fell asleep later in the movie. I suppose my brothers didn't really last through both movies, because they turned the movie off when they realised that they were the only ones still awake. We watched the end of it this morning.

My mother is giving the guinea pigs their worm treatment. They don't really like it. Some of them fight it, and some of them dribble it all down their fronts. One of the guinea pigs will just swallow it all down, without dripping. I think she might secretly like it.

May 6

What a boring day today! Pretty much nothing has happened, at least not anything that I would blog about. I can hear my little brother and sister playing PlayStation 2. We have quite a few games on there, including a few LEGO games, and they're playing one of those.

There has been some beautiful weather today. It has been the perfect day to sit outside and read, and for part of the day, that's what I did.

May 5

It's kind of disappointing, but there was no bonfire last night. The ground was too muddy. We still had marshmallows, but the fire was practically nonexistent. Mostly it was just coals, and it was in a trough. Nowhere near as much fun, and much hotter.

Yesterday, I found a really cool site, where you can make word clouds. All you have to do is put in a bunch of words, and it turns into something like this. It looks really cool, and isn't hard to do. The hardest bit is thinking up all the words. This one has thirty one words, and it took a while to think of that many. I had to enlist help.

I love having pancakes for breakfast. My mother makes some fantastic pancakes, all crispy at the edges, and really thin. They taste great with lemon and sugar. Those are my favorite pancake toppings. My older brother likes to eat them with peanut butter sometimes, but I think that isn't as nice. I also think that it peanut butter smells totally overpowering when you aren't the one eating it.

May 4

Sometimes my little brother does really funny and silly stuff. Today, while we were shopping, he scanned his library book at the check out machine. It said that it couldn't identify the item. No surprise there, though it would have been cool it it had!

We leave in less than an hour for the bonfire. My mother and little brother aren't coming, as it is exclusively a youth group event. My little brother goes to Kid's Club instead. I'm really looking forward to it.

May 3

As I write, I'm listening to Our Song. It's a song by Taylor Swift, my favorite of all of her songs. I love most, probably all (I haven't heard all of them) of her songs, but this is my favorite. Here are the lyrics:

"Our Song"

I was riding shotgun
With my hair undone
In the front seat of his car
He's got a one-hand feel
On the steering wheel
The other on my heart
I look around, turn the radio down
He says, "Baby is something wrong?"
I say, "Nothing,
I was just thinking
How we don't have a song"
And he says...

[Chorus:]
Our song is the slamming screen door,
Sneakin' out late, tapping on your window
When we're on the phone and you talk real slow
'cause it's late and your mama don't know
Our song is the way you laugh
The first date "Man, I didn't kiss her, and I should have"
And when I got home ... 'fore I said amen
Asking God if he could play it again

I was walking up
The front porch steps
After everything that day
Had gone all wrong
And been trampled on
And lost and thrown away
Got to the hallway,
Well on my way
To my lovin' bed
I almost didn't notice
All the roses
And the note that said...

[Chorus:]
Our song is the slamming screen door,
Sneakin' out late, tapping on your window
When we're on the phone and you talk real slow
'cause it's late and your mama don't know
Our song is the way you laugh
The first date "Man, I didn't kiss her, and I should have"
And when I got home ... 'fore I said amen
Asking God if he could play it again

I've heard every album, listened to the radio
Waited for something to come along
That was as good as our song...

[Chorus:]
'Cause our song is the slamming screen door,
Sneakin' out late, tapping on his window
When we're on the phone and he talks real slow
'cause it's late and his mama don't know
Our song is the way he laughs
The first date "Man, I didn't kiss him, and I should have."
And when I got home ... 'fore I said amen
Asking God if he could play it again

I was riding shotgun
With my hair undone
In the front seat of his car
I grabbed a pen
And an old napkin
And I wrote down our song


It feels like Friday! I can't wait for tomorrow, because it feels like it should be Friday already, so I want Friday to come. Tomorrow is the bonfire, and hopefully I won't have a sore throat by then. My throat is better today than it was yesterday, so maybe by tomorrow I'll be fine, then I can roast my own marshmallows. My sister came up with a plan for cooking me marshmallows. I find a stick, she puts them on, my brother cooks them, she says when they're done, then (her favorite part) she EATS THEM! I'm not sure how this gets me marshmallows, but she says it will work. I have no doubts that it will work to HER satisfaction.

My little brother has been working on fractions on his whiteboard. He came over to me and asked me to help him, in such a cute voice that it was almost impossible to resist. Have you ever seen Larry the Cucumber from VeggieTales? My brother is so much like that, down to the silly songs. He even likes to hop or skip around when he's happy. 

May 2

My youth group is having a bonfire on Friday night. I think it will be really fun. My sister and older brother will be going as well. I want to be able to cook marshmallow around the campfire, but I might not be able to get that close if my throat doesn't get any better. My brother likes his marshmallows hot, as in on fire. I like mine hot, but not that hot. My sister can't cook them at all, because cooked marshmallow are bad for her braces.

This afternoon I read a really good book called Can I see your ID?. The whole book is written in 2nd person. If you don't know what that means, it means that instead of being about me (1st person) or he/she/them (3rd person), this book is about you. It's a really interesting style. The book itself is all about people who have pretended to be something else, like a teenager who pretended to be a 40-something train driver. It's a really good book, and it's really cool to read all about these people, who took on a whole other identity.

May 1

I really really really hate being sick. I have a sore throat and have been coughing all day. I hate it.

There are two words fantastic for describing my little brother: irrepressible, and bubbly. He is enthusiastic in pretty much everything. He's even enthusiastic about being unenthusiastic.It's totally impossible not to smile at his antics.