The Best Five Years

"Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use." -Unknown Hmm. Where to begin. I have not posted recently and must make an amendment to my original claim of writing one post per week, though it pains me to do so. It is simply too much, and I do not have time. Instead, I will try to afford monthly editions with lots of pictures and stories. The start of the new year has provided a surprising lack of interest. Our Winter Break was a smooth quiet one, and since then, we have been reassuming schedule and order. One thing of great excitement did occur, and it was easily the best day of the new year so far. We went to a bookstore that was going out of business! Every book was ten cents! I got 60. They are amazing. I just finished Drivers Ed, so that's new! Oh, and the 22 Father Daughter Ball was last night! On the right is a picture that I took, completely unaltered. Pretty! :)...

"I believe that the nicest and sweetest of days are not those which anything very splendid or wonderful happens, but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls falling off a string." -L. M. Montgomery    For the last three weeks, my schedule has been less than normal. That is to say; I have been doing delightful(if simple) things nonstop. Thanksgiving I went up to my Grandparent's house and nine family members who had previously not met Penka, Petra, Ivan, and Donka, met them. We had a lovely, relaxed and tasty Thanksgiving Dinner, and many things proved memorable.    A favorite family (extended I mean) game of ours' is called Pictionary. It goes by several names. Each person has a stack of note cards and writes a sentence. Then you pass your pile to the person on your left, and the person on your right gives you their stack. You then draw a picture of their sentence. This process continues until the stack has been p...

"For what do we live but to make sport of our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?" -Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice         Sunday morning we had our first snow in the Tri-Cities Cities! Of course, it did not last for more than an hour, as the first snow of our deserty town never does, but it was a highly pleasurable thing to wake up and see frosty flakes wisping around in the chilly air. I took Petra and Ellisa out to the mall for their birthdays, and we had a good time.  She bought little Paris earrings and a heart necklace, but her favourite gift was (surprisingly to me) a balloon horse that was on a leash. It was pretty cute.      On an entirely different note, we moved the Monday following the Sunday outing to the mall! We only decided Monday morning that we were going to move, so it has been a crazy week. Now our family has moved back into a house that we owned, and were renting out. All the kids are super happy about it. ...

"I am so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers." -L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables      School is in full swing, and rightly so, for I am learning much. I am so thankful that I have the opportunity to be homeschooled and to learn in the way that I am learning. We have done many fun things the past few weeks. The highlights are visiting a pumpkin patch, biking, running and playing outside.              I have been going to Youth Group again, which is nice. All of the Fall Feasts began on a Wednesday night this year, and so I had missed about five consecutive youth group meetings.            Mom has been teaching Penka and Petra to crochet, and for Sukkot, Mom and Dad gave Donka a charming Princess Drawing kit. Ivan and Petra are just finishing soccer for the fall season, at which Ivan especially has excelled. I, for my part, have acquired new slippers.        ...

Walter reflected a moment and then responded, “Sadness, I daresay, is what shapes a person. It is what mends their flaws, and what matures them. I cannot say that I am sorry of this news, though I fully comprehend your unhappiness. As to life continuing on the same, what a bore that would be.” -Miriam Billing, A Rose, The Unfinished Novel I wanted to share a favorite passage from the book I am writing with you today as my quote. I would gladly share several more quotes from the book but do not because I am never sure what I will end up keeping. This line, however, I am positive about, because I love it so much. This week I have started participating in the Drama club at Hanford High. I am working with the makeup crew. It has been an all-new kind of experience. We are doing nine old person faces for the upcoming show, and I have learned a good deal about makeup from the other girls there. School is also in full throttle, and I must admit that I have quite a bit...

"And the Sun took a step back, the Leaves lulled themselves to Sleep, and the Autumn awakened." - Raquel Franco It is true that I know that Fall is still a week away, but I am simply too excited to wait that long for a Fall quote.  Just picture it... Warm scarves... smores... Crackling bonfires... Books... (The last word was supposed to be Boots, but Books is even better...) Waking up on a frostbitten morning and watching your breath in the air as it freezes... Foggy car windows... Pumpkin Spice... Rosh Hashanah... Sukkot... Singing and Dancing... And all things fall... Am I excited? Yes, yes. I am excited.  The past weeks have been rhythmical, calm, and new.        School has once again taken hold of all our lives, and the workaday world seems but a step and a sigh away. And yet, the joy of order and reliability that these days afford is a treasure itself. A greater reward than that of a hectic, everywhere-at-once summer as I have just finished. No, t...

"True friends are always together in Spirit." L. M. Montgomery      The last few weeks were filled with the crazy. (It should have been "the busiest moments of life," but it had to be "The crazy.") The first week I did not write, I was at my Grandma's house. As I assume she will read this, I must add that I had an enjoyable time there, and I think Penka did too. We went to the lake, floated the river, and went on a rope swing, as well as many other fun things.     The next week we went to(Drumroll please!) TRI Family Camp, which I have long labeled as one of the very best weeks of summer. We made lots of fun memories, such as staying up until 1 am watching and Italian opera with subtitles, and staying up until 2 am watching The Phantom of the Opera another night. All this, not to mention playing capture the flag in the dark, being in puppet shows, having Italian sodas from the snack shack, and hearing some fascinating teaching. I made some pretty a...