*You can't see me*
Our county has been having power issues. The last few nights, and during the day too, the power has been going out. For HOURS. I guess I'm just spoiled.
Monday night, we were sitting down for devotions, and suddenly darkness and silence descend. We wait a minute, expecting it to come back on, but it doesn't, so we scurry around looking for flashlights. We have a HUGE one, that lights up the room for about fifteen minutes, then starts to dim. My dad says to Jackson, "Plug it into the wall so it can recharge." We kindly remind him that the power is out. We perservere, and continue reading with smaller lights. But come nine o'clock, we give up and go upstairs.
Alas. It is Ninety degrees plus humidity, and without the fans, the loft is unbearble. I move downstairs and sleep in the hammock, wishing it were still light so I could put up a tent and sleep outside. After exchanging texts with friends in the area, I learn that not only is it out all over town, but apparently it's out all the way up to the mall, some 10 or 15 miles north. Shocking.
The power comes back on, and turns off again, and then I give up and go to sleep. A couple hours later, I wake up, the power is on once again, and I move up to the loft to my bed that doesnt give me a crick in my neck.
Tuesday. Hot as blazes. Humid as the Amazon. We decide that even with fans, the loft will be too hot and put up the tent. Good for us, 8:40 rolls around and the lights are out again. This time, they stay out till 12:15. Crystal texts me that she's doing her homework by candlelight, and we wonder if the power stays out if she'll have school in the morning.
We turn in, the boys have put up a tent across the yard from ours, and are sleeping there, except for hayden, who sets himself up on the picnic table. It's so humid, you don't want to touch anything, and the tent is on a hill so I keep rolling into Anastasia. By 10:30, it's cooled off enough that you don't sweat where you lie, not moving, and by midnight, it's cool enough to cover up with a sheet. I get up to go get a drink and as I stumbled around looking for my shoes, the lights come back on. I go in, turn off all the lights that have been left on, get a drink and go out to the tent and to sleep.
Every one was up by eight, and by nine, I'd dyed my hair back to brown. I wanted to do it last night, but it was so HOT the thought of it made me sweat. Hopefully I won't have to dye it again. I think I'm through with that.
ON an off note, my uncle went rug shopping with the first lady. :-P
The Many Adventured of My Family
So grampa asked for stories about my large family that will fit into a small country. Um, I don't have any. NOt really. I could always tell the Fletcher stories, but they're kinda all the same. Someone comes up with some stupid idea that no sane person would ever do, and Fletcher, not being sane, does it.
Idea and Author:
1. Stick beads up your nose. Anastasia
2. Tie the sled to the clothesline pole and sled down the hill. Anastasia
3. Split open a spray paint can with a trowel. Bethany
4. Climb up on the roof to get his glove. Jackson but I'm told that I'm the one that threw it up there.
I know there were more, but those are the ones that I remember off the top of my head.
Consequences:
1. Bead gets stuck, and he has to go to the hospital.
2. The chain didn't reach to the bottom of the hill, so the sled stops, Fletcher keeps going, sliding on his face til he gets to the driveway which is gravel and has no snow on it. He had a scrape right up his nose.
3. This one he decided to try when my mom wasn't home, for obvious reasons. He hates me. So as Bethany is yelling at him that she was only kidding and to stop beating on the can, the can explodes and he's covered in green paint. I've just read a book about a boy who's brother put spray paint in his eyes and made him blind, and being the encouraging sister that I am, I tell him this. Ten minutes later my mom gets home and is NOT happy and Fletcher gets his face scrubbed off with a brillo pad. All the while Bethany is crying that she told him not to do it, that she was joking.
4. So, apparently, I threw his glove up on the roof. It's fairly flat, jsut enough slope for the rain to run off, so he climbs up a ladder that doesn't quite reach the roof to retrieve it. But the ladder doesn't quite reach the roof and so he's too scared to get back down. The rest of us, seeing history in the making, run upstairs and lock all the windows that face the roof, so he can't crawl in that way. So he sits on the roof crying for a half hour while we play, until my mom figures out something is up and comes outside. Imagine her surprise to find Fletcher up on the roof crying. I don't think she was very surprised at all. The rest of us can't understand why he doesn't just drop off the edge of the roof, it's only about six feet up.
We don't really pull a lot of pranks all together, although there was a girl that used to stay with us, and we were awful to her. We managed to get ahold of her underwear and we hung it out the windows when she was talking to some guys next door. We were awful to her. We have since apologized.
We told Faith the youngest, that there was a monster in the toilet and then she wouldn't let the bathroom door be all the way shut when she was in there. Anastasia and I told Bethany that there were bad guys in the trash room of our apartment building which was below our parent's bedroom and that they would climb up into their room. Bethany actually only heard half of the scary things I imagined, and Anastasia and I were scared of them too. I had to take the trash down there every day. She didn't know about the guy with the gun hiding in the closet behind daddy's dresser. Anastasia and I wouldn't go back to our room alone when the lights were off.
It's the weirdest thing. I don't mind being outside in the dark. But a dark house gives me the willies. If I'm home alone at night, every light in the house is on, and I avoid windows. My imagination is a curse sometimes.
Oh yeah, and we take crib mattresses and slide on them down the stairs. We pile them up and jump out of the loft. Or we slide down them from the loft to the floor until they collapse and we all fall down. Pre Loft, we threw the matresses over the joists and lay up above the world hiding.
Oh, the only weird thing about having such big family, is days like today, when all three boys are gone with my dad at work, and Bethany is in London, so ther's only three kids home. The house feels so empty, and most families only have three kids to begin with.
Anyway. There you go Grampa, hope you enjoy it.
GO READ
So Bethany is in London.
I never thought I'd miss her this much. But I do. She leaves and suddenly all this stuff comes up that I need her for. AND I DON'T EVEN HAVE HER EMAIL!
But... She's having a great time and I can't ruin it with my whining. You can read about her adventures at
http://bethanysineurope.blogspot.com .
In other news, I'm out of school and enjoying it immensely. I sleep until noon. I don' t mean to, honest.
Today I won a one legged race. And I got a trophy for using Ain't correctly.
Yesterday was Mother's Day. The guys at church all went and sang for the ladies. I think we all died laughing.
What are your views on Donut Holes? Are they actually the holes of donuts? because holes are actually nothing. Also consider the quandry of jelly filled donut holes.
Note to self: January 31st.
Farewell Dear Heart!!!!
As I said at the end of my last post. My sister Bethany is leaving. She's going to be gone for a whole month! As much as I hate to admit it, I"m going to miss her. But not her borrowing my makeup and never giving it back, or my hair stuff or using my shampoo, or her leaving her clothes in our room or her telling me that I act like I"m twelve or that I'm in Looove with Tim. *rolls eyes*
But I will miss days like today. Today we went shopping, stopping at old navy to exchange some stuff, and then going to Sam's Club to buy snacks for work, and then grocery shopping for the family. We have very different styles when it comes to our clothes. Once in a long while they match, but we con't buy each other clothes. For example. For Christmas, she bought me this sweater. It was a nice sweater. But it was all preppy and this light pink and it looked awful on me and I don't have anything that it matches anyway. She leans towards.... the hip preppy look, what ever it may be, and I like the more bohemian styles, like suede boots and peasant skirts. But we can usually both find something at old navy.
Sam's we ran around like crazy people. No, not really. I'm sure we did something amusing, because we were laughing. We got smoothies.
Then we went to Ulta. Cause last fall I bought a makeup collection (the one's that have everything in them, blush and eyeshadow at least in this one), and it had THE most perfect blush we have ever come across. It's THE perfect shade for our complections. But. We've not seen it since, and then in the add we saw the same company doing another set with what looked like our blush and we jumped up and down for joy and squealed. And ran to Ulta. *sigh* We were disappointed. it was a new shade. *sniff*
That's what is so cool about sisters.
THen we went to the grocery store where teased eachother and our mom and talked and Bethany tried to get us thrown out by flicking pennies everywhere. Then my mom called her Thunder Thighs and we all fell over laughing. Not Literally of course.
Later tonight, she took my phone and called up a friend of mine and pretended to be me. We look and sound a lot alike. But then she said what and not pardon and gave the whole thing away.
She's crazy and I'm going to miss her like nobody's business.
To Be, Or Not to be!
Shakespeare! What memories it recalls.
First, there was our drama group's first run in, and I'm sure it was a disaster. A Comedy of Errors. There was the mime at the beginning where Andrew who was playing the father, took his twin sons (dolls, thankfully) and carried them around by they're heads which he squeezed with a rather disturbing amount of relish. Lines weren't memorized, costumes were, funny. The fat cook weighed about ninety pounds and was five five. (or the equivalent thereof) I was a nun.
Next was A Midsummer Night's Dream. If I put the 's in the wrong place, I apologize, I will never get it. THAT was fun. Rehearsal week, we memorized EVERYONES' lines, and the whole week, we were reciting them. Shakespeare applies to every part of life. Some of you might recall running lines in a big room with the lights off. There were also snacks. So in the middle of a line, someone would yell to pass the chips, everyone would erupt into laughter and it would take a few minutes to get back into character. Then there was the fun of saying some one else's lines, Jacob and Alex crawling around under the tables and tickling feet and stealing shoes. Once you know the play well enough, you can insert lines in wrong places and everything. Hilarious stuff.
Last year, *sniff* my last play with that group... We did Twelfth Night. Read it, it's hilarious. You know that line about "some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them"? Out of context, it sounds inspirational. When you know what's happening, it's hilarious. This guy is in love with the lady he works for, but he's a total dork. So she won't give him the time of day. For some fun, some of her other servants write a letter in her handwriting, set the trap where he'll find it, then when he reads the note he is inspired to do crazy things because he thinks she's asked him to, but since she hasn't he looks like an idiot, is thrown in prison for being crazy and then they send down a fake priest to make more fun of him and Oh Boy. That's just a sub plot.
My sister played the crazy man, I played the guy who pretended to be the priest, Jacob and Andrew (mrs. S's son, not crazy dad) played his sidekick, they work together nearly as well as Jacob and Jason did. Heather played Jacob's girlfriend who he ends up marrying. We had so many things go wrong in the performances. The first night, my guitar was waiting in the back of the auditorium through the first couple scenes before I have to bring it with me. Well I take it up and start to play, and something isn't right. I check my fingering and it's fine, as I'd been practicing nearly nonstop all week. Some of the kids running around (little kids, like preschool, a hazard of a family theater night) had messed with the nobs and it was ALL out of tune. My uncle, master guitar player, was in the audience and said I caught it fast enough that it wasn't noticeable, but... I was horrified. THEN in the scene where the crazy man is in the dungeon, and Jacob and I contrive to trick him, the robe and beard were never where they belonged. heh. Jacob is a whiz with mess ups and ad libbed thorugh it and we mimed them.
Since Jacob was supposed to be a drunk (he couldn't be CALLED that because it was a family show) it caused much hilarity.
And then.
There was the best one yet.
Perhaps of all time.
The Taming of the Shrew.
The ladies were beautiful. The guys handsome. Everyone was funny. I laughed till I cried. The make up. Like wow.
Some of you may not recognize that guy as Spencer. When he first came on stage I did an inventory trying to figure out who he was. Then I remembered. Spencer was spectacular. His voice, his walk, his mannerisms, his attitude, A wonderful job.
I have become boring.
Bethany leaves for London on Friday. *Sniff* It's so cool that she's going to the same place I did, and I get to tell her about the hair salon, or the house, or Lily, the housekeeper. She's going to go to Sevan, and Tblisi, and maybe Gumri and everything. Just thinking about it makes me want to go back. I wonder if all the same people will be there.... Like Rob and Chad, and Kerry and Tim and Arman and Roy.... Wow.
That is a post. It stinks, but it's a post.
