An Interesting Day

Okay, so I'm gonna make this a short post because I'm not going into all the details. I'm just too tired to explain it all...

So today, I woke up at 7:45 and left the house at 8:45. Mom signed the consent form when we got to Dr. Peoples' office, then I went back to one of the rooms. They hooked up various things, like heart monitors, IV stuff, and a blood pressure cuff. They gave me oxygen through a nose mask, then changed it to laughing gas, while Dr. Peoples found a blood vessel for the IV, which he sprayed with a solution that makes your arm feel cold (he calls it "penguin pee"), then sticks the needle in. And then, I was out.
I woke up with all the instruments taken off me, and gauze in my mouth. The nurse led me out to the car, and Mom drove me home. I slept for a couple of hours, then came out and had applesauce and water, then my antibiotic and pain medications. Then, I helped Mom finish the puzzle we had been working on, before coming back into my room. I think I'm going to watch the premiere of Leno tonight, that is, if I can stay up for it, which I think I'll be able to do.

So, in conclusion, I'm okay right now. The pain-killer medication is working, and somehow, I'm not drowsy...but we'll see how it goes later.

Gatlinburg Trip

So we spent a total of a day and a half in Gatlinburg, TN. We arrived just after noon on Sunday, parked at the hotel, then walked down the road to have lunch. We ended up eating at the Bubba Gump's right on the corner, and it was really yummy. And the restaurant itself was pretty cool, too. They had all sorts of Forrest Gump stuff on the walls, and the waitresses asked you trivia questions about the movie (I really need to see that movie again...I didn't know the answers to over half the questions our waitress asked!). So after lunch, we played a round of mini-golf at the Black Light course, a 9-hole, indoor one which was full of black lights, making the underwater theme look even cooler. And like half the songs they played were from The Little Mermaid, so I made a fool of myself (but had fun) singing along with every song. Then, we played one of the outdoor courses, walked around, went in some shops, then turned around, and walked back up the road by the stream. We got close to our hotel, and then decided to try the skylift, a chairlift that goes up the side of the mountain. It was really neat and relaxing. We went back to our hotel, watched a little TV, then went to dinner at one of the restaurants along the main road. We played another round of golf, then got funnel cake and headed back to the hotel for the night.
On Monday morning, we had breakfast at the Log Cabin Pancake House, then went out and played at Circus golf, which was really cool because you played with 3-D glasses on, so everything looked weird. Then, we went through the mirror maze, which was hilarious, because my parents didn't quite understand the concept of "look for the mirror that doesn't have your reflection", so my brother and I finished in no time flat. Then, we played at Treasure Quest golf. We messed around with the palm reading machines along the outskirts of the course - I got "lucky in love" on the one I tried. So then, we went up the space needle, which was really neat, before heading back to the hotel to get our car and leave town.
I had lots of fun, and as for our family mini-golf tournament, I won for the second year in a row!

Today, I worked on my school stuff, then Mom took me over to the drugstore to get my prescriptions filled for the surgery on Monday. And now, I'm downstairs, letting Ella run around, while I prepare to watch the opening kickoff of the NFL regular season. My dad's doing fantasy football again this year, which I'm so excited for...

First Day of School

Okay, so today was my first official day of high school! Yesterday, we got all our workbooks, textbooks, and notebooks together. And, after running errands, which included a dentist visit for my mom, a stop at Barnes & Noble for some books, and a trip to Costco (where we talked with Mrs. Wheeler), we started our lessons.

So what kinds of things am I doing? Wordly Wise (which is like the thing in 6th grade we did in the morning - learning words & their definitions, with fill-in-the-blank type activities), geometry, economics, American literature (reading books by Hemingway, Crane, and Steinbeck), short stories, poetry (Dickinson, Poe, etc.), Spanish, learning about checking accounts, and I don't really know yet what for science.

Today was pretty easy, except for geometry, which took a little while to figure out (and the fact that I couldn't remember how to do roots on the calculator for the warm-up questions). But anyway, a good day overall...

Oh, and my outfit:
- black t-shirt with neon (pink, yellow, orange, & purple) peace signs
- denim shorts
- black sandals

Gatlinburg trip post coming soon!

Impromptu Trip

Okay, so let me start with the fact that I'm leaving on an impromptu trip in less than 12 hours. My parents somehow decided that we needed to just go somewhere, so all of a sudden, my brother brings up mini-golf in our conversation tonight, being that my dad had taken us over to the driving range (for those of you not well-educated in golf terminology, it's a place where you hit/"drive" golf balls for distance, not play the whole course...okay, bad description. Look it up if you want.) So anyway, my brother brings it up, and my dad pulls out this huge stack of print-outs from Gatlinburg, Tennessee, which somehow has about as many mini-golf places as Myrtle Beach. And so that is where I'll be Sunday and Monday, and I'll be back on Monday night.

So I guess I'll recap my day for you... My dad took my brother and I to the driving range, and after hitting golf balls for about an hour, my hands were so raw. My left hand especially... But anyway, after that, I went with my mom to Whistlestop from 2:30 to 7:00. When we got home, we watched The Sound of Music, which was on at the time, not only because it's a cute movie, but because we wanted to see if we could recognize anything from our day in Salzburg, Austria, during the Europe trip last summer. Then, I cleaned Ella's cage, bought some songs on iTunes, and am now at the computer simultaneously using Blogger and Facebook.

And I've realized that everything for me revolves around the 14th of September, the day of my surgery. I can't even say, "Oh I can't wait for the premiere of "Flash Forward" on the 24th..." because I'm still thinking of the 14th... But the good thing about the whole thing is that I get to basically boss my brother around for a few days after, when I'll be tired enough to stay in bed most of the day, and Quinn will have to get stuff for me!

Killer Recap [For You Scaredy-Cats Out There]

SPOILER ALERT!!! DO NOT READ THIS POST UNLESS YOU PLAN ON NOT READING THE BOOK!

So this is the basics for Killer by Sara Shepard. I found this on yahoo answers or something. Short, but to-the-point.

Emily broke up with Isaac because his mom hated her, and when she told Isaac he didn't believe her.
Spencer met with her "real mom" in New York City and wanted to move there so she contacted her "real mom's" real estate agent and paid for her new apartment and when she got to New York it didn't exist, so the whole thing was a scam.
Aria was avoiding her mom's boyfriend Xavier and started seeing Jason DiLaurentis but "A" lead her to his house pretending to be him and he wasn’t there when he got home he freaked out and sent her away. Later she found out that he used to go to a mental institute called the Radley.
Hannah was competing with her stepsister, Kate, for Mike Montgomery, Aria's brother.
The four girls told Wilden about where they had found Isaac's dead body and when they showed him he wasn't there then they got messages from Ian. Spencer talked to him online and he told her that Wilden and Jason DiLaurentis killed Ali. After they found out, someone in the woods set Spencer's barn on fire while they were in it, and they escaped. Aria was on her way back through the woods with Ali's flag piece that she stole in 6th grade; she heard someone cry for help in the woods, and she helped them, and when all four girls were away from the barn together the person that Aria had helped took off their hood, and when they looked at the person it was Ali.

Not the best, most detailed summary, but I figure it's good enough for those of you who won't read it for whatever reason. If you want more, just read the book - it's not all that scary! I promise!

Oriental Trip, Surgery, & Books

I really should have posted this a long time ago, but oh well.

Oriental was so fun! Thanks for giving me something to look forward to at the end of a pretty boring summer. Anyway, kayaking, sailing, biking, and shopping with you guys was so fun! I posted the pics on Facebook - I'll try to figure out how to share them with those of you not on Facebook.

Okay, so Tuesday I went to the oral surgeon for my consultation appointment. Dr. Peoples is really nice. So anyway, the official date for the surgery is Monday Sept. 14th at 9:30am. And I'm not all that scared about the actual procedure, just more about the recovery, but it should all be fine.

I reached my goal of reading 8 books over the summer! Yesterday I finished the last Jeff Shaara book I ordered, then read Death by Denim in about two and a half hours. I think I'm gonna start reading Gone With The Wind in a few days.

Killer summary coming in a few days, since I know some of you are too scared to read the book...the next one in the series, Heartless, doesn't come out until January 2010!

Weekend Stuff

I was at the toystore all day on Saturday (10am to 7pm). I'm getting the hang of using the register now. And so that was a pretty boring day.

Shannon, Elizabeth, and Robyn came over on Sunday. We went to the mall, listened to music, filled out some questionnaires in my "Coke or Pepsi" book, played with Ella, and went to dinner at Chili's.

In the morning, we had waffles, then Robyn left. Shannon and Lizzie came to the pool with me for a few hours, then we came home and had a late lunch before dropping them off at their houses. And I realized how tiring being a host can be - I came home and took a nap afterward.

Then today I went to the orthodontist, where I got my retainers, which actually aren't all that bad, except for the fact that I talk weird with them in. My mom and I went over to the pool for a few hours, and I got burned pretty bad, which was kinda my goal, since the only way I get tanned is to let a sunburn fade into a tan. I've been on the computer (on and off) for the rest of the day, along with doing some reading. My bike came yesterday, so my dad put it together today, but I haven't been able to test it out because of the rain. I also got my t-shirt and earrings, although I may have to send one of the pairs back for a new one cuz the post on one of the nickel ones is way off-center.

So that's pretty much it for today.