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
Sadly, this one turned out blurry, but I couldn't bring myself to delete it because it's the only one of both of them that I managed to get. They were evading the camera. Anyway, this is Joel and David on the way to our week vacation at the beach. All the stuff piled in the back behind them is the stuff we "needed" for the week.
