On my schedule this year...

Monday: piano lesson and student-teaching/assisting with some younger students

Tuesday: Swimming, Broadway Dance and Theatre class.

Wednesday: Swimming, water polo, possibly Adv. Acting (not decided yet) and Radical Wednesday (Wednesday night church meeting).

Thursday: Swimming

Friday: Teaching my own piano students.

Throw in school, and my siblings' activities like band, basketball and baseball and it makes for a fuller schedule than it appears.

For my "super" senior year, I'm doing business math, Human Biology, Spanish (still...) and an assortment of history, writing and literature books. For the first time, I get to choose what I'd like to do, instead of what I need to graduate! The beginning of school is always exciting, with new books and the prospect of interesting things to learn, but the excitement usually fades very quickly for me. This year I anticipate enjoying my "school" work much more. Mostly because I don't feel like it IS school, since I'm learning things that will be useful and interesting for me!

Along with school-type books, I've also selected several books on Christianity, health, etc. to read as a part of school this year... an idea that I got from Meredith. =) I began with Stepping Heavenward on Sunday, and finished it Monday in the car as we drove to Wilmington to visit my Nana. I've never been able to read in the car without feeling sick before, so I've either outgrown it, or the book was just so engrossing that I didn't feel sick... whatever is was, I REALLY enjoyed Stepping Heavenward!

I'm also adjusting my sleeping schedule so that I go to bed earlier, and get up earlier. When I was younger I didn't understand why "early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise," but now I realize that you get so much more productive work done when you get up early. It truly gives you more DAY time, and as my late evenings are usually spent in some unproductive activity like TV or computer, I think rising early is an important habit for me to form. It is also healthier, because 10pm-2am are the best hours of sleep, and if you get those hours of sleep you can spend less time sleeping, but still wake up feeling refreshed and energized.

I'm so excited about everything this school year may hold!

~Lizzie

Oh, the wonders of Plantain!

I was innocently yard-saling with Mom this morning (early, before we went over the JCHE conference and book sale... more on that in a bit...) and saw this lovely desk. As I wove through furniture to look at it, I suddenly felt a pain in my ankle, much like a piece of glass being stabbed into my skin, and then scraped in a circular motion underneath the skin around the stabbing point. I yelped, and bent over to brush/scrape/ANYTHING to remove the source of pain. But as I leaned over, I felt a tingling, prickling sensation all over my body, and then I realized I was sitting on the tarp that was laid out for the yard sale. The wound on my ankle was throbbing, and with each throb, it felt like I was being stabbed with the piece of glass again. At that point, I was too confused and terrified to care what it was that had bitten or stung me (I knew it wasn't actually a piece of glass) I just wanted the stabbing to stop. I was rubbing the injury unconsciously, not knowing whether it was the wise thing to do or not.

Mom located the bee, which I'd killed in frantic attempt to stop the pain. Apparently it was some sort of ground bee (the tarp was probably placed over its hive, and I was perceived as the threat) and it left a round hole in my skin, much like some sort of bite or something. It was raw, almost bleeding, and the area around it on that side of my ankle was becoming red and swollen, while a smaller, white circle was expanding around the red welt. This was, by far, the most painful bee sting I have every experienced. Regular, fuzzy, bumblebee stings are NOTHING compared to this.

I was terrified almost to hysteria to notice another such bee buzzing around me as I sat on the tarp in my bewildered pain, and I leapt to my feet and ran from the yard sale (without getting to check out the desk I was going for in the first place...). Mom followed, more sanely and looking for plantain.

Now, for those who may not know, plantain is what most Americans consider "a weed." But plantain is in fact a very useful herb, which my family uses constantly on mosquito bites, fly bites or any kind of bite or sting. It removes the poison and instantly begins to bring relief.

Unfortunately for me, however, this neighborhood appeared to be the typical American neighborhood in which everyone uses some kind of weed killer, and therefore has nothing but grass in the yards. We searched, with yard-sales in between, for possibly ten to fifteen minutes (maybe less, but it seemed like longer to me) before finally finding some in a wild area which appeared to belong to no one. At least, no one was cutting the grass, and no one was spraying weed killer. The plantain was very small, but I was so overcome with relief that I didn't care. I picked all the leaves, chewed them, and spit them on the sting.

That may sound disgusting, but you try getting stung by a ground bee and see what you'll do to ease the pain.

We continued yard-saling, and every time I saw more plantain, I'd pick it, chew it up and add it to my poultice.


The leaves aren't very well chewed up here. Mostly because I was too anxious to get them on my ankle, but also because they don't taste that great. This picture includes the first and second doses. The first dose was barely enough to cover the welt. The second dose covered the red, swollen area. At this point I was feeling well enough to think of blogging and taking pictures, which I think relieved Mom.

A little later, we were going close by our house anyway, so we stopped to pick a BUNCH of plantain (which I chewed VERY well), and apply it along with plastic wrap and an Ace bandage (just to hold it in place) so that I could yard sale some more instead of just sitting in the car while Mom shopped.

And wouldn't you know it... after all those weeks of me wearing an Ace bandage because I actually sprained my ankle, the first time a stranger says, "Oh, did you sprain your ankle?" I'm caught unawares, and end up blabbering something about a bee sting and "stuff" to "help it." Why didn't they ask when I could just answer a simple, "Yes"?

So anyway. I survived and Mom and I made it over to the conference. I hung out with Daddy and the boys until the late afternoon at the table promoting Christian Community Sports... featuring a poster board of pictures and info put together by Sarah and me... designed by Sarah... and almost all the pictures are pictures Sarah took. I was just the unworthy, completely in-artistic assistant, who cut tape and stuck it to the back of pictures and paper for Sarah to place. Pictures coming soon! =P

And now, I should have been in bed a long time ago, because we have the Greater Raleigh Championship Meet tomorrow, and I need my sleep.

~Lizzie

It's called Thanksgiving, not Turkey Day.

So when I wrote this I wasn't thinking I'd be posting it on the blog. Lizzie read it and said that I had to post it so there ya go. :P
The following is VERY long a perhaps boring, feel free not to read it, and there will be no need for applause at the end. (:P @ Jessica)

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Thanksgiving. It's the only holiday in which gluttony is considered part of the observing the special day. Really though, it's not about food, just look at its name. Thanksgiving may cause us to think about turkey, but it honestly doesn't have the word turkey in it anywhere. 'Thanks' is a expression of gratitude, 'thanksgiving' is the act of giving thanks, so thanksgiving is a day for giving out of 'expressions of gratitude'.
So, who do we give these expressions of gratitude? Probably, the host(ess) of the thanksgiving lunch, and all the people who helped cook all the food. Special thanks may go to the person(s) who cooked that delicious turkey. If any members of your party are Christians, or even simply go to church, or really, if anyone is not an atheist, someone will pray before you eat (or maybe if they forget, after a bite or so) and thank God for the food, friends and family. Perhaps later, your party may take turns telling about what they're thankful for. Everyone says friends and family (duh, no one wants anyone else to think they're not grateful for that) Christians will say they are thankful for their God, who saved them. Probably everyone will think of something they're thankful for, that they'd rather not say. Kids, who don't really think about stuff like that might repeat what a parent said. After that, everyone is glad that's over; now they can eat the rest of the day and not feel ungrateful.

I admit, last year I was one of those kids. I never asked myself what I was thankful for, I just wanted food. (Thanksgiving! Mmm... turkey day) Then when I was asked by some one else, I just repeated my parents. The only thing on my mind was drumsticks and dessert.
This year was different. Very different. First of all the day I described above didn't happen. But I'll get to that later. Also, this year I asked my self the question, 'what am I thankful for?' This is to answer that question.

In order to understand what I'm thankful for, you must understand how my year went. I said it was different, and it was. A lot happened that I never dreamed of in the year before.

Only a month after I couldn't think for myself on what I was thankful for, I got sick. Just a few days before Christmas. It was the sickest I've been in a long, long time. I remember falling asleep on the bathroom floor, because I was too dizzy and tired to make it back to bed. I was still sick when the family came for Christmas. No delicious turkey for me. I was only a little better on Christmas day. Nevertheless, there was something about it that made it a very good Christmas for me. Perhaps it was simply because the worldly part of Christmas was taken away (no food and I couldn't properly enjoy the opening of gifts). All I was left with was the Christmas spirit.

Occasionally, during the basketball season, my sister, brother, dad and I would take the time to cheer for the Raleigh Hawks, the team my swim Coach coached. We were the only people who went to the games regularly, but didn't have family on the team. I took a small amount of pride in that. I thoroughly enjoyed these games, and took a boatload of pictures with my Canon Rebel XTi.

March was the East Coast Homeschool Basketball Championships. I imagine it was 'East Coast' because it was hosted on the east coast. Liberty University in Lynchburg Virginia to be exact. Any homeschool team in America could compete in the championship. I was thrilled when my dad decided to drive nearly 5 hours to watch two games, (the championship games for JV and Varsity) and then drive 5 hours back again. We arrived in the enormous court just in time to see our JV boys lose, and get second. It didn't take me long to realize, second means there was only one team better then us in the whole competition. After a couple hours break, it was the Varsity boys' turn. It was a amazing game. They were tied nearly the whole time, but our boys pulled it out, winning by 2 points in overtime. The best of the best. I was enthralled.

Not at all long after, the baseball season officially cranked up. Coached by the same coach of those awesome basketball guys. Even several of those guys played baseball as well. The teams' name was Raleigh Hawks too. This though, was a bit different, because my younger (but not smaller) brother started playing on the middle school team. I was pleased with this because it meant I could go to all the games... and I did. I tried to savor them, enjoy every minute, and capture the great times with photos and dairy entries. Still, the season swept by quickly leaving me suddenly depressed, and wondering where it had gone.

Sometime in the middle of the baseball season, NRCA's Beauty and the Beast snuck up on us unprepared. Somehow, we managed to get tickets, and after a baseball game, a small group of us headed over early to try and save good seats for a few more people. We arrived early, but too late for good seats. We sat in the very, very back. The rest of our party arrived a few minutes after the performance was supposed to begin, and after we were threatened with having our saved seats taken away for other people if they did not come soon. Fortunately, they were running late, and started just after the rest of our group came. The show was absolutely incredible, even with the bad seats. It was all worth it.

Two years ago, I was thrilled to see one of my ultimate favorite books hit the big screen. C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. since then I counted the days for the second book out of seven to also come to theaters. May 16th was the day Prince Caspian premiered, and I was going to begin to see it within the very first few minutes of that day. I didn't, however think I would see it with friends, though I wished I could. It was last minute, as it is often, but there we were, goofing off in the near-empty theater, and hallway until midnight. I had so much adrenalin I couldn't contain myself. Then again, I didn't exactly try.

Ever since the beginning of the year, North Carolina had been in a drought. Because of this, a law was passed that owners of pools may only open their pools if there was water already in the pool, or if they had a well. Coach, the coach of the basketball, baseball and swim teams owns a out door pool, where we have our summer meets. It had no water in it and there was no well. Or any money for a well. So our summer pool did not open. Instead, we swam inside, as we did over winter, and was always the away team in our meets.

Not only did we swim indoors, we swam long course (50 meters a lap instead of 25) two days of the three our team practiced. I absolutely hated long course. With a burning and undying passion. Because of that I began to hate swim practice. I lived for meets and water polo. Water polo became my passion, a reason to go through with the week. I began to love it even more than I hated long course.

In the middle of these strange changes, the play "Annie" which we'd been working on for some eight months sprang up on us. (plays have a way of doing that) we hadn't even run all the way through on production day. Since there was two performances, the first was like our dress rehearsal. Surprisingly, (but then again, not really) both went rather well. Still, I was glad for not having a main role.

July rolled around. Slowly.
I had turned fifteen in May, and was rather annoyed with myself for still not having taken Driver's Ed. I wanted to do it with people I knew. So when the opportunity came to take it with three other people, I took it. Even though the class was at a high school, so I'd be one of very few homeschoolers, I figured it'd be okay. I'm still not sure if I was right or wrong. On one hand I learned how to drive properly, and had a bit of fun with my friends. I also built a considerable amount of character. It was definitely a experience. On the other hand.... I got headaches almost every day from sitting in front of the computer for so long, the teacher wasn't especially good or nice, and my mind was numb by the end from forcing so much boring information in it. It definitely could have been better.

Now I had been taking private flute lessons for four years, and known of the Lighthouse Christian Homeschool Band for nearly just as long. Mum and Dad seemed to want me to join, but I felt that it was too much of a unknown. I simply didn't know enough about the particular band, or even being in a band in general.

During the baseball season I met the director of the wind ensemble. When he heard of how long I had been playing he told me that he thought I should be good enough to make it.
In my opinion, that suddenly made the band so much less of a unknown. I began to seriously consider trying out. There was one not-so-slight problem. Band Practices were on Monday and Wednesday, and the Wednesday practice conflicted with water polo. Thinking maybe I could skip out on Wednesday every so often in order to play water polo, I tried out, making second and also last chair.

After the first band practice I realized what a bad idea it was to try and play water polo, even only so often. Every Wednesday since, I've showed up at that church where we practice, at least five minutes early. With a undying longing to play water polo inside.
It's not that I don't love band, if I didn't, I could just quit. But I haven't, because I do love it. I just wish that somehow I could do both.

It didn't seem like very long after Annie until theatre started again. This time we were doing "Oklahoma!" I tried out for the part of Laurey, knowing I wouldn't get it, and was not surprised. Nevertheless, I took the time to learn the monologue and song, and then I got stressed because I'm a perfectionist.

With the stress of everything that was happening, I could hardly concentrate on my projects for the NC State Fair. Before I knew it, I was rushing, and didn't finish all that I wanted to enter. I ended up with seven entries. I was very pleased when out of those seven, four won first and one won second. Wining a considerable amount of money.

A very short baseball season followed. My brother practiced but didn't play with the team, and we went to all the games.

Then basketball season started, and both my brothers joined the team. As the first game came up I realized a problem. A considerable amount of games are on Tuesday nights. Theatre is on Tuesday nights. Last year everything seemed to fit together like a puzzle. This year? Not so much. Now I was really glad I didn't get a main role; it wouldn't be so bad when I missed a few rehearsals. I skipped theatre to go to the first two games of the season on Tuesday.

NRCA's production of "It's a Wonderful Life" didn't sneak up us. Who am I kidding? Really, it certainly did. We bought our tickets at the door.
There was a guy I knew who was playing the lead role George Bailey. I was rather looking forward to seeing him play the crazy character. Imagine my surprise and disappointment when I read the playbill, which declared that he would be playing George in the night show. Not the one I was at already. I thoroughly enjoyed the show, but couldn't get over that minor detail. We came back that night just to see the guy I knew play George. I actually enjoyed it more than the first time.

The day before "It's a Wonderful Life" we noticed that my cat, Shadow was acting strange. She was refusing to eat and just sitting around. We tried to figure it out, but when nothing changed we took her to the hospital. She has kidney failure. The doctor's figured there was nothing we could really do, and hinted that we might be wasting our money. Somehow, she got better. Well, enough to come home. It was honestly nothing short of a miracle. She progressed slowly after that, and even stopped eating, but slowly began again.
Today (Thanksgiving) she ate some turkey.
Because of Shadow we went nowhere for Thanksgiving. Normally, we would've gone to my Aunt's and my Grandmother's. Instead we had our own meal, all by ourselves, at home.

What you have just read is what I'm thankful for. Not all of it mind you; it's just the out-of-the-ordinary things. The things which have happened to me... really, the things that made me even think of writing this. Not friends family possessions or food. I am, of course still thankful for those things, and I'm thankful for my loving God. But mostly, I'm thankful to my God.
Thanksgiving has two similar definitions: the act of giving thanks, and, a payer expressing gratitude. This holiday is for giving thanks to God. For everything. What we have and what we don't, what we've lost and what we may lose. The good, bad, the painful and wonderful.
There is nothing for which we should not thank Him.

--Sarah

Randomness

Whenever someone finds out that I'm homeschooled, the first question they usually ask is, "Do you like it?" with the inflection in their voice making it sound as if they were asking if I liked eating dirt. I always answer in something of a shocked tone. "Yes, of course I like it!" I mean, who wouldn't like not having to get up at 5 to go to a building full of teenagers and a few adults trying to keep their sanity, keep order and cram information into unwilling heads? Instead, I get up with a full night's sleep, eat a leisurely breakfast with my family, do school work at my own pace (actually learning something!) and then head off to swimming/theatre/dance/voice.... where I get plenty of socialization with my friends. The weekends are nice, but I'm certainly not dreading the return of the weekdays like most public-school kids do.

So, I was just musing about how my perception of time has changed. I remember about 12 years ago, on the day after my 5th birthday, I couldn't wait to be 6. (I'm not sure why.) So I asked my mom, "How many days til I'm 6?" And she told me that since my birthday was only yesterday, it was another whole year. And I was devastated. That was like forever. But now, 12 years later, it doesn't even seem that long ago. Now I understand what my parents meant when they said, "Time flies." That used to confuse me so bad. I wonder what changed. Time isn't going any faster than it ever did, but it feels like it is. Perhaps the difference is that when you look back, you remember the good times. And, you know, "time flies when you're having fun."

~Lizzie