70 Years Ago...

So, this week has been a little crazy. On Friday, I went over to Emma's house for a birthday party/sleepover. I had a lot of fun...eating pizza, going to Blockbuster, eating cake, watching movies, and staying up until 4 in the morning with Emma, Anita and Sylvia.
On Saturday, I watched a little tv until my grandmother came over to sit with my bro and I while my parents went to a Christmas party hosted by one of my dad's friends, our seatmates at the Wake basketball games, the Goodman's. They ended up bringing home some cream puffs and cheesecake for us, and it was delicious.
On Sunday, my dad and I watched some football, even though his fantasy team is officially out of the playoffs. We almost finished the crossword puzzle from the newspaper, and that pretty much sums up our weekend.
Yesterday, my mom went to the dentist, then over to the oral surgeon's to have a wisdom tooth pulled. Now she gets to (sort of) feel how I felt when I got mine removed...except she only had to get one pulled, and she didn't have to be put under, have stitches, etc. but I digress.
Today, we are celebrating her birthday (which btw, is today). My aunt is coming over for dinner, and then giving Mom her gift. They are also exchanging their annual "ornament exchange" ornaments (a family tradition between Mom and her sisters). So tonight promises to be a good evening.

Now, onto my reasoning for the title of this post, my new semi-obsession, Gone With The Wind, which premiered 70 years ago to the day in Atlanta, Georgia (that's 1939 for those of you who don't like math). If you haven't seen the movie, I seriously suggest you do...it's worth the length (3 and 3/4 hours). Warning: spoilers coming up, so skip the next paragraph or two if you want to read the book or see the movie and don't want to know what happens ahead of time.
Basically, it's about a young girl, (well, not really a girl...she's 16 at the beginning of the movie, 28 at the end), Scarlett O'Hara, who lives in Georgia at the start of the Civil War. She is deeply in love with her neighbor, Ashley Wilkes, but Ashley is getting married to his cousin, Melanie (weird, I know...apparently, it's tradition that the Wilkes' marry their cousins). So anyway, Scarlett, being the hard-headed woman that she is, still proclaims to Ashley that she loves him when she speaks with him alone in the library during a barbecue at his family's home. Overhearing this conversation is the rogue blockader from Charleston, Rhett Butler, who, over the course of the story, falls in love with Scarlett, who is still enamored with Ashley. Scarlett marries twice, but she never really loved either of her husbands, only marrying Charles to make Ashley jealous, and Frank for the money to pay the taxes on her family home, Tara. She marries Rhett after Frank's death, and they have a daughter, Bonnie, whom Rhett dotes on constantly. But Scarlett and Rhett's relationship soon becomes rocky when Scarlett suffers a miscarriage after falling down a flight of stairs trying to hit Rhett, and Bonnie dies when she tries to jump a tall fence with her pony. Rhett, tired of Scarlett's never-ending love for Ashley Wilkes, leaves her the night Melanie dies of a miscarriage. Upon asking what would become of her after he left, Rhett's last, and most famous words to Scarlett, are "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
The heartbreaking story details not only the physical struggles Scarlett faces during and after the war (like working in the fields when all the slaves their family owned had been freed), but also the emotional struggles (like the deaths of both of her parents, her first two husbands, and eventually, her daughter, and sister-in-law). Over the course of the story, Scarlett grows, not only physically, but, more importantly, emotionally, and realizes that her love of Ashley was nothing more than infatuation, and that in that infatuation, had pushed away the person she really loved, Rhett. The story ends with her vowing to get Rhett back, and her famous line, "Tomorrow is another day."

Overall, it's a wonderful story. In celebration of the 70th anniversary, TCM (Turner Classic Movies) is showing the movie on tv at 8:00pm tonight, followed by a "Making of a Legend" segment, describing the making of the movie. (I'm DVRing/recording both, even though I'm probably going to be receiving the DVD for Christmas.) And if you like the movie, I would really suggest reading the book. As always, the book goes into much more detail than the movie. Don't be afraid of the length (1,037 pages), since it's such an easy read. But the movie is an easy alternative...I mean , you can't go wrong with Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, Olivia de Havilland, and Leslie Howard in the leading roles. A great story of love and loss, Gone With The Wind is truly a classic.

Dirty Santa Party & The Rockettes

So the day finally came. I was planning on sleeping in until close to 10, but I ended up waking up around 9 cuz Aaron texted me. And it wasn't until 10:30 that I told him that I needed to stop texting so I could get some stuff done for the party. When my mom came home from work, we started working on the food. We made quite a bit of stuff, including a double batch of canolli dip. I got dressed in my new red dress from Deb with silver sequin flats, a choker, and a bracelet.
Sylvia arrived first, followed by Anita. Then, everyone came in a rush, with Ryan and Maggie coming later. We chatted, snacked on food, and laughed so hard. Some of us went downstairs to let Ella out, but it wasn't worth it since she was scared of everyone.
Then, the fun began. We went upstairs, squeezed all 12 of us into the living room, and began the game of Dirty Santa. Here's who ended up with what:
Me: Best Buy gift card
Anita: Bath and body set
Emma: Books
Chelsea: Amani beads
Alicia: Olivia the Pig & gloves
Maggie: Starbucks gift card
Sylvia: iTunes gift card
Ryan: Target gift card
Patrick: Chocolate
Aaron: Rubix 360
Robyn: Snowglobe
Elizabeth: Dove necklace (but it got lost, so I gave her one of the extra gifts I had bought)
So, then we all chatted for the last hour or so, took a group picture, and everyone left. I had so much fun!

Today, we didn't do much. We ended up relaxing for the day. Then, we went to the LJVM Coliseum for the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. It was an awesome show! It started out with Santa and his reindeer, then went to a shortened version of the Nutcracker, which was adorable! Among the other performances was the "Christmas in New York" segment where all of the Rockettes get on a bus, and they take you on a tour of NYC, through a combination of the computerized backdrop and the spinning of the bus, which makes you feel like you're really there. The costumes were amazing throughout the whole show...I loved the richness of the colors during the nativity scene, and the shimmer of the last costume for the Rockettes. One of the funniest parts of the evening was that the people who bought floor seats got sprayed with confetti and streamers - there was a guard/security guy right in front of the stage that had fake snow all over his head and shoulders during one scene! The whole show was incredible to watch...I wish I could go to NYC and see the performance at Radio City Music Hall; it would just make the experience so much more festive. But, this performance was wonderful for the time being.

On the agenda for tomorrow...not that much. Probably watching football, but other than that, idk.

Party Prep

This week is going to be very tiring...I can tell already.

Our long weekend was spent putting up decorations, cleaning, and painting (my dad took care of the last one). We basically have been doing party prep for the past few days, but it's nice to have things clean and tidy.
So today, we rearranged the furniture in our basement, which I guess really isn't a basement since it isn't really separate from the house. But anyway, we put our couch, which had previously been in the living room, down there, since my aunt got a new couch and gave us her old one, which was practically brand new. Then, we moved the air hockey table out, because instead of being used for its intended purpose, it's been used as a collection table, where all our junk ends up. We moved around the chairs, and vacuumed. Then, we dropped my dad's leaf blower off to get it fixed, and picked up lunch from Taco Bell. I ended up in my room in a futile attempt to finish cleaning my room, and was interrupted by my mom asking if I wanted to head to the mall. We needed to see if Deb had any more of my dress in the same size because the strap had been sewn on wrong. They didn't, so my mom will be sewing it prior to the party on Friday. We went next door to the Shoe Dept. and I found a cute pair of silver sequin flats that I'm planning on wearing with my dress. Then, we went to Sears, and my mom bought a new lamp base for our living room. On our way home, we stopped at AC Moore to get a ribbon bow for the wreath on the front door.
I've been playing with Ella, and watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Shrek the Halls, then transitioning to football. My dad won his fantasy game this week!

Alright, so that's my day. And really that's what I'm going to be doing all week, too. But it will all pay off on Friday!

Thanksgiving & Today's Stuff

This year we went to my aunt & uncle's as always for Thanksgiving. We had the traditional turkey, stuffing, cranberries, veggies, pie, etc. We talked about anything and everything there was to talk about - the gym, my drivers ed, cars, latest news, etc. I had a really great time.

Today, we started decorating the house for the holidays. The tree actually went up the night before (Thanksgiving night) but we did pretty much everything else today. We brought down our two humongous nutcrackers that I swear are as tall as I am, the garland for the staircase, a few light-up villages, my personal mini-tree for my bedroom, and lots of other stuff. I was really exhausted afterward, and ended up eating our own Thanksgiving meal since my mom likes to make our own turkey & stuffing to have around the house for sandwiches and leftovers. Plus, we all think it tastes better. Then, we re-watched Merry Madagascar, which was just as funny the second time around, and watched some of the other things that we had DVRed from this week. Then, my mom and I made some more pink ribbons for Dad for work, and then said goodnight.

This week is going to be crazy. With the party coming up this Friday, I'm gonna have a lot of stuff to do, including shopping, cleaning, making food, and last minute touches. And with my dad on a business trip the last part of the week, that means that all the lights on the house have to get put up prior to his leaving, since he won't be back until the night of the party. So, I'm trying not to freak out right now...lol.

The Holidays Are Approaching...

This week has been very fun overall. Except for driver's ed, that is.

So besides having driver's ed this past Monday through Friday for 3 hours each day, I haven't been doing much. I went to see Sylvia perform in "Ask Any Girl" at Reagan yesterday, and Emma and I sat together. And Quinn's snake bit him yesterday, not badly, but still news-worthy in my opinion. My mom, brother, aunt and I went to the Whimsical Women craft show this morning. I didn't buy anything, but it was fun just to go and look around. Then, the four of us had lunch at Coppola's. I'm now at home, but will be leaving in about half an hour to go to Whistlestop until 7:00pm.

So I finally started thinking about how fast time had flown. I mean, it's already less than a week until Thanksgiving! And then only a few weeks after that is Christmas and New Year's. I'm trying to get into the holiday spirit by listening to 99.5 WMAG, and I think it's been helping. I'm also in the midst of planning a holiday party for some of my friends from middle school whom I haven't talked to or seen in months. I'm trying to get the invitations sent this weekend.
I really can't wait to set up the decorations. I love putting up the tree (artificial one, but it's pre-lit, so it's easier) in the living room, as well as the small white one that goes in my room. And all the other decorations that we have...and we have a lot of them! My dad is gonna put the lights on the house this weekend, I think.

I finish my in-class portion of driver's ed this coming Tuesday. The person from the DMV is coming on Monday to do the vision tests for all of us, which has now dwindled to maybe 25 students because of behavior and attendance issues. I can't wait to be done with it - it breaks up my day just enough that I can't get anything done.

Alright, so that's my life right now...

What A Week!

This week has been all too tiring for me.

So, this Tuesday marked my first day of Driver's Ed class. It was just okay. I saw one person I knew, Courtney, one of my friends when I was in elementary school. The second day of class (which was Thursday because of Veteran's Day) was better, except that we were crammed into this tiny classroom (btw, there's 40-50 people in our class) because of a baby shower that was going on in the cafeteria, our normal meeting place. And I met two other people that I knew, Katie and Ciara, also from my old elementary school. And today (Friday) was better than the first two - 1) We weren't crammed in a tiny classroom and 2) I sat with Courtney, and (get this!) another girl whom I had been friends with at Gibson, Rachael.

Today, I went to another Wake basketball game. They played some school called Oral Roberts, and I really don't have a clue whether ORU is a high-ranking team or not - I really don't keep up with the standings. It was pretty fun, until about the end of the first half, when some family (it looked like a mother, father, their two sons and a friend of the younger son) sat down in the seats in front of us (idk why they came in so late). And I feel bad for saying this, but they were kinda annoying. They mom had on a leg wrap/brace and was constantly shifting it around or taking off/putting on the thing, and the older son had some sort of mental disability because he was constantly bobbing back and forth (he was sitting in front of me, and I swear I couldn't concentrate on the game because of his bobbing, which I know wasn't his fault, since he probably can't control it, but it was still annoying just the same, and I do realize I'm being mean, so I'm going to say "I'm sorry" right now to make up for it). But Wake won, so it was fun.

And today I had my first feeling of "hey, I'm kinda popular". Well, not really, but kinda. Why? Well, I was talking with Aaron on my cell (btw, I'm glad you like the blog!) and got a text from Sylvia at the same time. And in the process, I completely stopped talking with Aaron so I could look at my phone to see what it was (sorry Aaron!). So, of course, I thought "well, this must be what it's like to be really popular". But, yeah...okay, that was stupid.

Okay, it's like, 1:15 am now, so I'm gonna stop right here. And there's really not all that much more to say, so bye for now!

Long Post

I think I've been kinda lazy about posting...but better now than never I guess.

Okay, so let me start where I left off...Patrick's Halloween party. It was interesting to say the least. Music, candy, movies, etc. all add up to a pretty good night. Except for the fact that I couldn't fit through the basement door with my wings on...I had to pull them to my sides every time I went in or out.

Halloween was fun... we really don't get a lot of trick-or-treaters down in our neighborhood, so we decided that we weren't giving out candy. So while my mom and brother went out, my dad and I watched TV and played with Ella like any other Saturday night.

Wednesday, we went on our first field trip as homeschoolers - to the NC Zoo in Asheboro. We had quite a bit of fun. We walked to basically every exhibit that was open, had lunch, and walked some more before catching the shuttle back to the parking lot.

And on Thursday, I went to the opening Wake Forest men's basketball game at the Joel Coliseum. My dad and I met our seat-mates, the Goodmans, at Applebee's for dinner, then we drove to the game. And although it was only an exhibition game, it was fun - we have better seats than the previous years we had gone (instead of being in the top level corner section, we're in the top level middle section, right around half court). I saw Will P. as we were leaving, and I think I saw Chandler B. as we were coming in.

Friday, we went to Kohl's to look for a coat for me. I found one, although it's not a very good one (it's unlined, so it's really itchy if you have to wear short sleeves under it). But at least I have something other than my huge hoodie. We were looking through the holiday displays there when we happened upon the Hallmark ornaments display. We found one that was modeled after the "leg lamp" from the movie A Christmas Story (maybe it's "The" instead of "A", I'm not sure.... We bought that one, but we also saw one from the same movie that had Ralphie dressed in the pink bunny outfit...lol.)

So yesterday and today I was at Whistlestop with mom. Saturdays are more interesting... I made lots of ribbons/bows for wrapping gifts, probably the most I've made in one weekend. Boring, but whatever.

Oh, and I start driver's ed on Tuesday. I have to take it at North Forsyth since that's my district school. It goes for two weeks of in-class stuff, then three days of in-car after it. My dad's gonna let me drive around at my elementary school parking lot (right up the road from my house) before I do the in-car stuff, which should be very interesting...

And now for my random thing of the week: I watched a 1937 screwball comedy this week called "It's Love I'm After". It was pretty funny, not the funniest thing I've ever seen, but it had its scenes where you couldn't stop laughing.

So, yep, that's my post for today...