Yesterday I placed several miniature pumpkins – each about five inches across – atop plastic-covered tables in preparation for the annual Grandma’s Side of the Family Reunion. Now that I’m a Hoosier, I can actually attend these gatherings…. even with just a week’s notice. So much for advance planning, eh? Just about everyone who came was my aunt’s age or older. Mostly retired folks, it looked like, with the exception of one man who said he worked at Target; a son-in-law to one of my dad’s cousins… or something like that. I’m not entirely sure how he was connected to the family tree. I had one sibling and two cousins there to keep me company, but otherwise, all the cousins a generation older than me started gabbing about the Indianapolis Colts game or various and sundry family happenings that even my aunt (who is a bona fide member of that generation of cousins) couldn’t follow. The dirt pudding (an Oreo/vanilla dessert, for the uninitiated) was delicioso , though, and the Waldorf sa...

I'm taking my sister's advice to tell about what I've just been doing the past several days. Not particularly enthralling, I warn you, but here goes. I learned today that it takes precisely 8 seconds to cross a two-lane, one-way street downtown, walking at a rate of two steps per second. That is, one complete set of steps per second, one right-footed and one left-footed. If that makes sense. And yesterday, I checked five books out from the library. Three of them were related to journalism: "Letters to a Young Journalist," Sam Freedman "Newsonomics: 12 new trends that will shape the news you get" "The Best Business Stories of the Year: 2004" "Studies in Words," C.S. Lewis "Spanglish: The making of a new American language" I've already read bits out of "Letters" and the business stories compilation. Quite interesting. Once I get my laptop back up and running, I'll write a little more about the bo...

Thank you, Lord, for giving us the years we had with Grandpa. We’ll look forward to the reunion.

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me / A partridge in a pear tree. On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me / Two turtledoves, and a partridge in a pear tree. So, I know that the Twelve Days of Christmas come after Christmas and before Epiphany (January 6th, I believe), but I never know whether the “First day of Christmas” is Christmas Day proper or if it’s Boxing Day… Anyways, I’ve had two family Christmas celebrations so far—one with my dad’s side of my extended family, and my immediate family Christmas. My most exciting gift was a passive guitar pickup for my acoustic guitar. (Google Images is handy for this sort of picture.) I got to use this pickup yesterday at church, where I play guitar for our praise team, and boy did it sound MUCH better than trying to mic my guitar with a normal mic! And this way I didn’t have to worry about hitting the mic with my hand while strumming. The last family Christmas—with my mom’s side of our family—is this S...

My dad was at work this afternoon. Slow day, so he called me and we chatted a couple times. (He had to hang up at one point to take care of some people that showed up.) We talked for about 27 minutes total, 15 minutes the first time then 12 minutes a little later. This is what I love about conversations with my dad: He’s hilarious. For example—once in a while, he will ask if I have any romantic relationships or anything. However, he doesn’t awkwardly ask if I have a boyfriend. He always asks creatively. Today, this is how he broached the subject of my (nonexistent) love life: “So—I’m going to sound like a father now. In what decade to you plan to get married?” I laughed and told him this decade, I supposed. “OK. You know, if you plan to get married in this decade, there are certain steps to be taken. Have you taken any of those steps?” I told him not at this point, no. From that he asked: “So, does this mean you have a glimmer in your eye?” Again, I laughed. He then informed me ...

As you may recall, I’m participating in a Boundless Webzine summer challenge. One of this week’s tasks had to do with adoption, and I found out that Focus on the Family had a website devoted to the ministry of adopting children: ICareAboutOrphans.org . It fits the mission of Focus on the Family, so it shouldn’t surprise me; also, it appears as thorough and organized as most of the other FotF ministries do. I just found it incredibly interesting… …especially since a presentation in church today emphasized the church’s call to care for the widows and orphans (and orphans was particularly pointed out, in this case). …and especially because I’ve already come to respect two particular families in my church who have adopted multiple children through the local foster care system. (One lady ended up with 24 children, 3 of whom were biological.)

So odd. Today, the third person in my group of students today revealed she didn't realize I had siblings. If she had thought about it, she may have realized it, since she had seen her when we met at the airport to leave the States, and I had said she was my sis. Once before, I was hanging out/prepping for a presentation with a couple other students in my group, and for some reason I mentioned my sister (or maybe my brother) and they, too, told me they had thought I was an only child. Now, we've been studying the differences between "warm" and "cold" cultures in one of our classes--one difference being the emphasis on relationships that warm cultures (like here in Central America) have, versus the emphasis on doing things or getting work done that cold cultures (like that of the United States) have. It occurred to me that this sort of thing would never have happened in a cold culture. I couldn't have been in a group of twelve students for six weeks withou...

A couple days ago, my mamá was on the phone a lot. I came home after classes and she was on the phone for half an hour longer. Once she got off, she explained that was a family member, and that her husband's grandfather was dying. It is best now, she said, because he's been suffering a lot, and he's getting up there in years. Cancer was taking its toll.... Today, my mamá said he was just a few hours away from death. My papá went to his grandfather's place today, instead of to his workplace. They had been preparing for this point, of course; my mamá said this part had started in January; but still. My mamá told me about her grandparents, too, a little. She is close with them--they live nearby, and all--and she said she wishes they could live forever, but she knows that everyone has a time to die. My hermanito told me today, multiple times, that he was sad. He will miss his great-grandfather.

And it was a BLAST!!

My sister had her graduation party, as did another good friend of ours (well, friend mostly of my brother, but we've known the family for ten years, probably). So Saturday was filled to the brim, and Friday was taken up planning for Saturday. And Sunday, of course, was Father's Day. :) My daddy got to watch "Live Free or Die Hard," the only Die Hard that's not rated R (and consequently it's acceptable in our house). I enjoy it almost as much as Dad does, to be honest. The script/characters are quite amusing. So, come Monday, and I find out that several books are waiting for me at the library! :) These books were: --Jane Austen's "Emma" --Jane Austen's early works --Jane Austen's "Sanditon" and other short novels (more early works) --and "A History of the Ancient World," by Susan Wise Bauer. Can you tell I'm on a Jane Austen kick? :) (By the way--if you're an Ohioan, call or e-mail your legislature and the ...

This weekend was spent with my cousins and their cousins--my cousins' cousins, or CC's for short. Anyhow, this was due to my one cousin's graduation and the attending festivities! We had a lovely time, complete with kittens and a party and just plain fun with the cousins and CC's (whom we have not seen in two years). And I'm attempting to upload pictures to Facebook... but it hates me.

With every holiday comes the visit to relatives. Not always the same relatives, mind you, but usually at least one set of extended family gets to host us for the weekend. We don't live very near anyone in our extended family, so that's the only time we get to see most of them. Therefore, Easter = a day trip to my grandpa's to see him and my cousins/aunts & uncles, and an hour-plus trip to said location. I love going to see them, but I almost got roped into driving the van up. I hate driving. Mom usually drives, but she had had maybe six hours of sleep the night before (she's not in college anymore... can't pull that) and had been planning to take a nap. Well, she was wide awake after lunch, so she drove after all and I was happy to take a back seat and watch the scenery. I love being chauffered. And it's a good thing... about an hour into our trip, when we were still miles away from my grandpa's, the car suddenly started shaking. Mom tried to pull...

The nature of a J-term is peculiar. The student has only one class, but this class lasts only three and a half weeks. It's an intensive course, but at the same time J-term is the most relaxed time of the year. And a snowstorm will affect a J-term more than a normal semester, because any snow day is bound to cancel at least one hour of class, more likely two. (We had a snow day this past week; 'twas quite fun.) And between the J-term and the spring semester is a break for a few days; mine lasts from today through Wednesday. It's a time to go back to visit family for the first time since around New Year's, and to remember anew how cold one's family keeps one's home (it's like sixty-six here, if that! And my room at college is much warmer than that!). I've delved right back into the little affairs of the family. I'm probably going to help Mom some today, and I've already talked to my sis about books and given her a couple that I picked up from...

On New Year's Eve, I spent the entire evening (until one A.M.!) playing group games with a couple other homeschooling families (whom I hardly get to see otherwise). I narrated a couple games of Mafia, and participated in a game similar to both Charades and Catchphrase. We had snacks. I visited with cousins the past couple days. It was lovely. I caught up with the cousin I used to be practically best friends with... I don't get to see her nearly enough! And we had our final Christmas! So, I got some amazing gifts, over this whole Christmas season. I shall relish writing my thank-you notes--of which some may become letters (one at least will). candy the pocket edition of "Daring Book for Girls" earring-necklace set, handmade by my roomie :-) earrings two hatboxes a cute rustic-y wreath of fabric and wire money from my grandparents a DVD of three Audrey Hepburn movies a baby-doll shirt (the kind with the shirred elastic) an Audrey Hepburn-esque dress thing an SD car...

So my brother has been trying his best to install a version of Linux onto an old Mac computer we recently acquired. It's not as easy as it sounds.... because it's PPC, whatever that means. I'm only aware of all the troubles he's having because I'm acting as a mediator of sorts between my brother and one of my friends who happens also to be somewhat of a computer geek (and has actually tackled this problem before, albeit minimally). I've also been treading my way through War and Peace . Got into the 200s today... (That would be pages, meaning I got past the 200th page sometime this afternoon.) So far it's not half bad. I think I like Tolstoy's writing style very much; although the sentences occasionally get very long, it seems as if the way he thinks is similar to how I think, if only peripherally. I love the way he describes the expressions on the faces of the characters. I did make it through the chapters about the first big battle (the one in whi...

And now for your sporadic update on the life of the ReaderSis! 1. I just went on midterm break last week... it was busy, but lovely. I love visiting my family. :-) I also love playing guitar for my church, so I did that over break too. (As part of the praise team... there are very few guitar players at church that will just look at the songs on Sunday and play them with minimal practice.) Those two things are probably what I miss most about being home. 2. I also got my hair cut over midterm break! And I love it! See, my hair has some natural curl... not too much, but just enough that I can sport a layered look and it actually looks good. I've gotten several compliments on my new haircut. And I don't have to do much with my hair in the morning. 'Swonderful. 3. I'm working on a paper now, about the bailout that Congress passed three weeks ago. It's fairly interesting. And as a result of some of my research, I'm now much more aware of the state of intern...

The following is a fairy tale my sister wrote (and which I think is hilarious). It's basically all the fairy tales you ever heard rolled into one. ************ Of Mice and Men Or, the Troubles of a Mouse by mafia (all rights reserved; don't steal this story!) Once upon a time, in a forest filled with trees, there resided--for the time being--a little grey mouse whose name was Patrick. Patrick was very sad and lonely, because he wasn't really supposed to be a mouse at all, but a little boy; but that was such along time ago. Unfortunately, the other forest dwellers left him all alone because they knew he was different. Today was an unusual day, for he was feeling more depressed than normal. Walking through the forest, there came an old, old man who stopped when he saw the poor little mouse sitting there. “Little friend,” he said “be not so woeful, your troubles can be overcome. Travel to the Shining City you see in the distance, I'm sure someone can help you there.”...

Yep, I'm moved out of the dorm and enjoying life with my family. :-)

Wow. This has been one of the most important weeks of my life; it will probably be the most important week of this year, and we're not even out of January yet! My grandmother died... I'm going to D.C. for the first time in my life... I found out I've made the cut for the select voice ensemble here... And I've just been offered my first minimum-wage job. Now doesn't that sound like a huge week to you? Not to mention my two parts in a one-act play here, for which I will be practicing four hours today; it's my first ever theatrical experience (not counting cute, no-budget Christmas programs at church). Man, I didn't know my eighteenth year would carry with it so many changes....