It's a dreary day today, and as I write this my family is downstairs watching the Waltons, and finishing up a nice; relaxed--after we put Zeb down for a nap--lunch. (Which was very good, fyi.)
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I've decided to do a little update on some of what's been going on. So recently, I bought eight new books. Three books to the Ranger's Apprentice series, a Pendragon book, a book called Reckless, which is written by the lady who authored the Inkworld books. I also got a book called The Fire Within (which wasn't very good,) and that was written by a fella named Chris d'Lacey. I also got a book called Among The Hidden, and also a book called Airman.
So far I've finished Among The Hidden, and The Fire Within. I'm almost done with Reckless, and I've just started the Pendragon book. (Seventh in the series, titled The Quillan Games.) That's a lot of money in book, lol.
And soon I'm also hoping to get the books: The Demon King (by Cinda Williams Chima,) and Incarceron, (by Catherine Fisher.) They look interesting, so I'm eager to try them out.
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I've also been working on rewriting my dragon story (yah hear that, Lightclaw?) and so far I've got about 4930 words...not so bad, though I'd like more done by now. I hope to get quite a bit done today--I just have to wait for the moment of writing inspiration to spark...which is nearly always guaranteed to happen when I'm supposed to be sleeping, or when Quinn's on the computer. Lol; go figure. My mom says to write on paper with a pencil, which I try--but it's not the same! I can only write under certain circumstances. Lol. I can't take that argument to court, though. Nobody gets it. ;) *Dramatic sigh.*
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Besides all of that--I've been having some real trouble with my birds, lately. All of my banty hens (that's Snowflake, Jellybean, Cottontail, and Sparky,) have been killed by hawks in the past two-ish weeks, along, also, with a couple of unidentified birds, and Sparky's chick Spencer. Bantam-wise, I just have four roosters now. Pirate, Remus, Obi-wan, and Bunny. I don't understand it! What's so bad is that I haven't seen the hawks attack...
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The last day of the year-long drought had finally come to a simmering end.
Across the wide deserts a black thundercloud grew in size; mounting on itself until it towered over the dry, dusty landscape like a monster.
A gale of wind rose in a howl, picking up great sweeps of sand and small stones and tossing them for miles around: caught up in the searing crosswind. Lightning flashed, and deep, gravelly rumbles of thunder bubbled in the chest of the brewing storm. The sun was hidden behind a dark stretch of whip-lashed clouds: and a thick blanket of menacing shadows fell over the cracked earth.
All over the sparse desert, its residents sought shelter: grateful for the incoming rain, but frightened by the size of the expanding clouds, and by the striking talons of lightning which raked the air with a smoky, burning scent and seemed so close it made the ground sizzle.
For miles east, north, west, and south: sand and stone was flung in a wave of wind--a sandstorm of great proportions. With no trees, and with the land being so flat: nothing stopped the wind from racing with a fierce pleasure across the dry-lands.
And then, in the cradle of the monumental stormcloud: the first bowel of rain began to leak towards earth--the first taste of liquid the desert had drank in a long while. At first it was a calm shower, and the creatures of the desert rejoiced in the rain, feeling it fall onto their backs and faces: cool, and sweet. A heavy contrast to the hot, burning, unforgiving sun that had beat down upon them for the last year.
But then the storm turned nasty. Lightning flashed, and scoured the ground into deep black rents. The rainfall strengthened until it felt more like ice shards hissing down from the heavens in furious torrents.
Heavy, dart-hearted thunder rolled through the bellies of the fat, shadowy clouds--they hung like dark, misshaped stones stacked on top of each other throughout the air, hovering. And with the thick gray sheets of rain falling from their insides they seemed practically ready to cave in towards the earth.
The sand which had been formerly blowing outwards was sucked in towards the main cloud formation in a whirl; mud splattered, and the ground was quickly flooded by syrupy, grimy puddles and sinking quicksand’s that made the ground move, and slide until it seemed unsafe.
This master-storm wasn’t stagnate, either. Born on the most powerful winds of the past two centuries it progressed towards the east-lands, leaving a wreckage of land and floodwaters behind it. By the time it passed over them: the deserts were no longer there; instead, a good mass of the west had become a barren, muddy lake.
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So today Quinn made some smallish people. Gnomes, to be exact.
Observe.
The blue and green, bearded one on the left is named Dumblydoor. And the brown and dark green one is named Will.
Quinn already likes them better then me. Lol.
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Also today, we cleaned out the chicken coops, and on the way to put up the tools, I ran into my little buddy Remus Lupin. So naturally me and Quinn had to take pictures.
He's one my--shhhh---favorite roosters.
And he's a good boy, too. He doesn't ever get in to any fights. Though he almost had a scuffle with our oatmeal cake today...it was a near miss, lol.
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I just had to post this photo taken at the CAP TN Wing Encampment I went to.
It was at a water 'survival' course, and they had us wearing our BDUs--over our bathing-suits--to do it.
A little bit into the course the Lifeguard dude had us tie our pants around our necks so that way we could splash air into them and us them are floats.
It was absolutely hilarious. It clicked in my mind what the Lifeguard fella wanted us to do--but you should have seen the looks on some of the other cadets' faces!
It was all quite fun, and in the picture above is two of my roommates, and a few other flight members--along with a few girls from the Foxtrot Flight. (I was in Alpha Flight.)
The funniest part of it all was when one of the cadet staff members of the Encampment was doing a uniform class, and was explaining how to wear the CAP uniform(s) and how to iron them, etc. It was really funny when he was pacing back and forth in front of us all and asked, "How do you wear your pants?"
It took all of my willpower not to shout out:
"Around your neck, sir!"
I found some old pictures of Papa's horses!
Only three of them are still out there; Daisy, the paint mare was sold to a trainer a few years back.
I look so small. How old was I then? I have no idea.
Jake was the baby of the group. Such a playful boy, he was.
Daisy: she was kind of the lead mare of the group, though Sugarfoot was the grumpy one.
Sugarfoot! Such pretty colors on her.
Sugarfoot was kind of fat, lol; but she was always my favorite.
And there's Mom standing with Sandy, and trying to get Jake to shoo. I remember Mom trying to ride her...it didn't make Sandy real happy, lol.
Okay, first off: My mental note sort of failed, and I didn't take any pictures.
I am a total failure, I know.
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Now that we all recognize that--time to do a update on the past two days.
Alrighty--so Saturday. That was Rose's birthday party, and our Halloween party. Both things went great, and we all had a great time.
The biggest surprise of the day was me walking downstairs in all my cowgirl gear to see my parents. Dressed up. As Mario and Luigi.
I was--quite frankly--astounded, and started cracking up. They had me believing that they weren't going to dress up!
And it wasn't just costumes that had me laughing. My dad shaved.
All that fuzz--gone!
Poof--just like that. I was very surprised. It'd been a long time since I'd seen my dad's face. All of it, for that matter. Even my dog was surprised. She barked at him for about the whole day.
My mom made a pretty good Mario; if only she played the games and knew those little dances he does after defeating a Boss. Lol!
They ended up trimming the fake mustaches to a shorter length.
It was all very amusing.
Not just my parents dressed up. I was a cowgirl (I know, what's the difference?) and Quinn was a ninja. She teamed up with Kayleigh Broach and melted gummy candy in the fire outside.
They were quite the dangerous pair. (Note: that in the picture posted above Kayleigh does not have her ninja mask on, nor is she holding her ninja stars: which she had hidden somewhere the whole evening--ready to strike if necessary, I guess. Lol. And Quinn wore sunglasses--which made her seem very dramatic.)
Kayleigh's brother, David, was also there and dressed up. (Though I have no pictures of him, nor me, for that matter.) He was mouseketeer--uh, I mean-- a musketeer. My bad. ;)
(Next time David, you must really work on the real-feathers, thing. Lol.)
Rose--the birthday girl of the day--was a purple and pink fairy. She had a wand, wings, and everything. And purple hair--that's always the finishing touch.
Zeb was just...Zeb. In all his Zebbiness.
Willow was a vampire lady, I think. She had some fake fangs (not shown in the picture,) and as you can see she was also treated to the purple-hair thing.
Indy was a bounty-huntress. Using a mock sniper-rifle that she made out of her lightsaber, plastic tubes, and a lot of duct-tape. It even had a scope on it.
It was a pretty impressive contraption, really. :)
We also had my cousins and grandparents from up at the Lake come down' along with my cousins' mom, Aunt Amy.
That's Sierra and Quinn--smiling at the camera. They very rudely managed to fit themselves in the chair and let Kayleigh sit on the floor. Lol.
The Dotsons and the Graysons also came by a little bit later. When they all arrived out collection of dressed-up person grew. We had a transformer (Noah) a Hulk, and a Snow White, among others.
We all had a great time visiting and playing. The food and snacks (and the punch!) was all very good. :) And the candy: the candy was very good.
Me, Kayleigh, David, Quinn and Sierra all went and played on the haybales for a bit. (We still have a few out in the front pasture.) Sierra and Kayleigh couln't quite jump up on them, so I was graciously used as a step-stool for them to climb up on. It worked, for the record.
We also went to the Barefoot Castle for a little while, and I awesomely used a broom as a weapon against imaginary evil--because that's just how I roll. Lol.
Quinn stole some of my candy.
I stole it back.
*Evil cackle*
After it got dark we all bedded down and chose chairs to sit in with blankets or Snuggies. (Is that how you spell that? Lol. Anyways--you know what I mean.) We first watched the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. (I got a rock.) And then we watched the first Indiana Jones, in which during my cousin Sierra made the stunning discovery that Indiana Jones is Han Solo!
It got really cold really fast and I found Tim Grayson running around in my jacket. I was really confused at first, then realized it was mine. I was sure it looked similar! Lol.
I ended up sitting by the fire with Quinn and Kayleigh. David joined us after a while.
It was warm, and I burnt some stuff--which was entertaining. Lol.
Dolly--who I've been dog-sitting--had a blast. Man, she ran around and got petted and played with and ran around some more. :) When it got dark I put her in my room with Zelda. Zelda, the little buggar, had to stay inside nearly the whole time because she barked. And barked. And barked. Turns out she doesn't like David, and we already knew she didn't really care for my dad's knew style, or Jason Dotson, who was also there. she acted quite skittish and vicious, and ended up in her crate with a nice pig-ear.
Duke on the otherhand, didn't have a problem with anybody. Naw--he jumped up on and licked every single person there. Lol.
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Rose got lots of nice birthday presents. She even got a new kitchen set, which meant I got to burn the old one yesterday! Woot!
Noah was very excited about everything, and he kept a very close watch on what Rose was doing. Lol.
Beef jerky! What's a birthday without it, eh?
Even I got a few gifts Saturday. My grandparents from the Lake went ahead and gave me mine from them. I got a very nice pair of boots. :) Thank again for those! I really do like them, I just need to break them in a bit. Lol.
And on top of that the Broachs were kind enough to get me a card and gift card to Books-A-Million. (Even though I told them not too. Lol. But stubbornness prevailed: in a nice way.) Lol: thanks again guys!
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Speaking again about birthdays--my Mom's was yesterday. :) I meant to do a blog post telling her happy birthday, but it slipped my mind, and a I did tell her in person.
So, once more: Happy Birthday Mom! (Cha-cha-cha!) I love you. <3
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All in all it has been a very nice couple of days. :) We got to get back to school today after a busy weekend, and tomorrow is my weekly Civil Air Patrol meeting. Though I've missed the last few due to one getting canceled and me not being able to attend the one before because of me having my wisdom teeth taken out. It should be a busy meeting. I get to go there early so I can attend the cadet staff-meeting beforehand, and we also have Safety Down day, and promotions.
This morning I finished reading a book called Knighthawke, which David lent me on Saturday. It was pretty good, and the cool thing about it is that I know the author! He's our chaplain at Civil Air Patrol. Tomorrow I'm going to return David's book, and I think I might look into buying the book for myself....
But first I need to buy the next Pendragon book, and the next Ranger's Apprentice book. I dearly want both of them, lol. They are both such good series, doncha know.
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November 5th will be my birthday party, and also sometime during this week my cousins will be coming in town! I can't wait for them to get here, and am very excited that they will actually be able to come to a birthday party of mine. In my memory that hasn't ever happened before. :)
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And while I'm at it, I must also say this: (My cousin) Jordan. You have done something to me over here. Lol. I have successfully watched every single Psych episode to date--and whenever I see a pineapple at a restaurant or in a picture or something I go--"OOO!"--and point.
Also, Jordan, I have nailed Quinn with several invisible ninja stars and have a roleplay character named Clicker. Just so you know, bud. ;)
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Wishing everybody the best of the best
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Journee.
