The Ordinary Family

    Ever since I was little I have loved writing. I would take up a notebook and jot out a story that I never seemed to finish. One day, I must have been 11 or 12, I was riding up to church seated next to Claire holding a brand new beautiful composition book.
    I turned to her and presented the book. "I am going to write a story where all of my friends are part of one big family!" I told her. "Should I call it Ordinary Family or The Ordinary Family?"
    Claire looked at my notebook and said thoughtfully. "The Ordinary Family."
    I didn't waste any time, after that I began to scribble pages and stories into that notebook that included my closest friends. Time hurried passed however and I was writing the last few words onto the very bottom of the last page. It was sad I had finished the Ordinary Family.
    What a great book it had been. It was so much fun to write it. I was determined not to let it end there. I picked up another composition book and scrawled out the title on the front: The Ordinary Family 2. I started into that book and as the series progressed my writing became better and the plots grew to become more intricate and detailed. I ended the second book with such a passion for the story and my characters that I pressed forward into the third and finished within a few months.
    The Fourth was cracked open and the next part of the story had begun. The years trailed behind me as I added to the careful world I had created.
    Currently, I am at the very midst of my fourth book. Each one of my friends holding a valuable part in the story. I can't believe how far it's come since that ride up to church. Looking back through the books I have discovered they have been like a diary for me and I can pinpoint exactly what part in time I wrote what.
    I have never been a very big journal keeper I always had so much pleasure in the fictional worlds of my imagination rather than the black and white life most of us live. Finding that this was my form of journaling was not only rewarding but also rather exciting.
    Soon after I started writing I took the time to read Claire each new section as it was formed and she and I would laugh and add new thoughts and comments as I went along. In almost no time Claire and I began quoting the page's of the book and laughing when a reference would come into play and everyone would just ignore us, because they didn't understand them.
    I bring the Ordinary Family with me nearly everywhere and when there is a null in the conversation or a dip in my day I take a seat and write out the next adventure in my little composition book. This year for my birthday Paige and Nathan presented me with a stack of composition books. I was thrilled! The Ordinary Family was no where near it's end.
    So much room left for the characters to grow and so much time left for me to discover what the next page would hold for them. The Ordinary Family is far from the end.

Until Next Time,
    Katherine Rose

Memory Board

    A little while ago I got a bulletin board, and it has finally been hung on my wall. I decorated it with all kinds of things that remind me of my goals and of the special people in my life.
    Here is a picture:

    It's still partially empty waiting to be filled with memories of things that haven't happened yet.
    The locket hanging on it is from Paige. I got it some years ago from her as a Christmas present. The locket eventually broke but I still wear it. I never got around to putting a picture in it so I tell people it's a picture of my imaginary boyfriend -Steve.
    The valentine is from Emily. For Valentine's Day we had a competition to see who could make the other the best Valentine. I would say Emily won :)
    The pencil is from Rebecca. She decorated it and gave it to me for one of my birthday's. I never had the nerve to use it, but I held on to it. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that the pencil would never get it's proper use in and would stand as a decoration instead.
    The drawing with the word Mom on it is of a Deer. Keith drew it for me (he's 4). He also drew me another one on the same day and when I held out the deer and thanked him for it he looked at me skeptically and said, "Where are the other ones?" I had to reassure him that I still had them and they were simply in my bag.
    My friend Nathan (not Paige's brother; to minimize confusion I will call him Nathan C.) made the origami boats. He's very creative and attends my homeschool group, church and we were on the same soccer team last year.
    The two cards hanging up I received for my 14th birthday. The sock puppet one is from Alexis; inside it tells the story of Rufus and how he should be a motivational speaker, even though he can't talk. Then the one beside it is from Ryan and Micah; inside it are all of the important characters that have developed -including Steve, Joe (Unicorn), Juan Pedro (Unicorn) and Not Olivia (Soccer ball).
    The guitar picks stand as a reminder of how much I enjoy music and also I don't mind leaving them up there, because I absolutely despise playing the guitar with a pick. It becomes to loud.
    As the days and weeks go by I hope my Memory Board will grow more and more crowded, with fond remembrances that I will have to cherish for the rest of my life.

Until Next Time,
    Katherine Rose

What We Did to Paige :)

    Today, on our way to volunteer at the nursing home, we passed the store where Paige works. Nathaniel and Nicole were going with us. As we drove by, we managed to formulate a beautiful plan.
    On our way back we stopped at the store and Claire, Nathaniel and I walked inside. Sure enough, Paige was working the cash register contently. We waved to her as we walked in, trying our best to act nonchalant.
    Inside of Nathaniel's hand was 25 cents worth in pennies. Unfortunately the only thing we could find to buy cost 29 cents. Claire dug into her wallet in search of the four missing pennies, but we didn't have them. However, we came up with an even better plan.
    "Paige, do you wanna check us out?" I asked her.
    "No." Paige laughed. "But it's my job."
    Nathaniel set the merchandise on the counter (a small bag with two truffles in it). "This is all we're getting." He informed her.
    Now, by this time Paige was already suspicious, but she rang up our order.
    "What's our grand total?" Nathaniel asked jokingly.
    "Twenty-nine cents." Paige said. Nathaniel dumped the handful of 25 pennies onto the counter. 
    Paige glared at him as she set the tiny truffle bag into the grocery bag. "I'm going to triple bag this for you." She declared, when she had finished she handed me the triple bagged tiny bag of two truffles. Then, she went about counting the pennies.
    We all stood and watched her count them out. It took a good amount of time and the lady behind us in line was already laughing. Finally, she dropped the last few pennies into her hand. "There's only 25 pennies here." She informed us.
    "Oh." Nathaniel nodded and carefully set a quarter down on the counter. 
    At this time, everyone couldn't help themselves and we all started laughing. Paige made sure to give us all a good glare amidst her laughter and she took the quarter and four of the pennies.
    "Could we have our change?" Nathaniel requested. Paige dumped the handful of pennies (minus four of course) back into his hand. Laughing, we exited the store and Paige went on to tend to her next customer.

Until Next Time,
    Katherine Rose

Traveling Towards Glacier National Park

    We woke up and began packing to leave. Mom and Claire went shopping, while Jane and I stayed in the camper with Dad and tidied up a bit.
    Then we set out for Glacier National Park. Claire and I went through my camera role and I would like to share one of the pictures I rediscovered:

    The story behind the picture is: I made three rubber band unicorn charms. One for me (pink) named Joe, one for Ryan(blue) named Juan Pedro (although Micah and Claire may tell you otherwise) and one for Alexis (purple) named Sally.
    The dolphin is Ryan's and his name is Joseph. It was actually kind of hard to get all three together at the same time, because I gave Ryan and Alexis their unicorns at different times.
    Anyway, the drive continued on for quite a while. Claire and I played some games to occupy our time.
    Finally however, we arrived at Glacier National Park. The view was gorgeous as we drove along towards the campground. We stopped early at Johnson's campground, set up and left the trailer there. Then we headed to the Visitors center.
    When we arrived, we sat in a theatre and watched part of a film about the park. We left the visitors center and drove up going to sun road a little way in order to get a sort of sample of it. Dad took us up until we had a pretty good view of the mountains here is a picture:

    Then we turned around and headed back. Claire drove part of the way. She is becoming a better driver. However, I am not so sure how comfortable the rest of her passengers were as we drove along a cliff on the road.
    We got back and had tacos for dinner. Then we took our 6 minute showers and relaxed a bit before going to bed. I stayed up for a little while in bed typing and playing spider solitaire. Finally, I went to sleep.
   
Until Next Time,
    Katherine Rose

A little bit of everything

    Yesterday Paige came over to celebrate Claire's long past birthday. She is staying through today so that promises some fun. We took Paige over to our neighbor's farm to bale hay yesterday. That went surprisingly well and Paige said It wasn't as bad as she expected.
    Nicole came over to play with Jane yesterday, but left sometime in the evening (I wasn't around when she left). Jane and Nicole focused most of their day on preparing a home for the cats in the barn.
    Paige, Claire and I walked into the kitchen to find them making tiny pillows for the kittens out of scrap fabric and foam.
    We also moved the horses from one pasture to the other which took a little time, because they were very frisky and decided to run all across the fields.
    Today we have a pretty clear schedule and tonight we have soccer games which should be fun. Up until now we have basically been playing video games :)
   
Until Next Time,
    Katherine Rose

Looking back

    Every year our homeschool group puts on a show, so that family and friends can see what we have accomplished in the past year. Usually it's a puppetry show, a drama or a talent show or a good mix of all three.
    Recently, we have been going back and watching some of the older ones to see how we have grown and progressed in the past years. It's fun sometimes to look back and see just how far we have really come.
    As we watched the shows, I recalled what was going on in my life then.
    This past year I participated in a lot of classes, but my favorite was by far the creative writing class. The class was very loosely held together because there were only three of us in it. The rest of the group was participating in the puppetry performance which held practices during that time.
    We wrote lots of stories using the writing prompts from the book, 712 More Things to Write About  by The San Francisco Writers' Grotto.
    Since there were so few of us in the class, we got to read all the stories we wrote out loud. Some of them were silly, some were short, some were long.
    I would like to share with you one of the stories I wrote using the writing prompt:
    Walking to school with a broken heart...

    I stare at the stop sign at the end of the street. My boyfriend and I broke up last night and the thought of love is disgusting.
    My walk to school in this delicate state would usually have been manageable on any ordinary day, but today is not ordinary.
    A man holding a bouquet walks by and says, "Have a wonderful Valentine's day." My stomach lurches.
    "Shut it." I mutter under my breath.
    I continue on my way and pass a couple sitting on a bench near the library.
    "I love you." One coos.
    "I love you more." The other giggles.
    "I hate you both." I grumble as I kick at the dirt.
    This superficial holiday has put me in a remarkably bad mood, but the next thing that happens throws me out of control.
    An Elvis Presley impersonator is singing a beautiful love ballad in the park while he strums his guitar and admits his emotions from the very depths of his soul. The lyrics are wonderfully romantic.
    If I was strolling by with my special someone, I might squeeze their hand or whisper something into their ear; instead I beat up the guy and smash his guitar over his head.
    Good news! I didn't have to finish walking to school. Bad news, I got a nice ride to the police station.
    I am now a juvenile delinquent. Yeah me.
    I knew I should have called in sick.

     The End

Friends

    Summer is finally here. Even though it is my favorite season, there is not as much going on during this time of year, so obviously I am not going to see my friends as much.

    I would like to make a post about them.
    Nicole is first. Nicole and I are very good friends. She's really Jane's friend, but I like to mess with her sometimes.
    Next is Ryan. He is a part of my home school group and we go to the same church. He's pretty cool. Ryan, Alexis and I were all in a writing class together last year.
    Alexis is also my best friend. She and I have been friends for a long time, but when I first met her (when she started coming to my homeschool group) I didn't really like her very much at all. Now she and I are very close and I am glad I got to know her.
    I'll mention Nathan next. Nathan, I have known for a long time. The reason we actually got acquainted is because his sister, Paige, became friends with Claire and they started hanging out and having each other over. Now all four of us get along together.
    Paige and I became friends a little later on, because at first I always just thought of her as Claire's friend, but as we got older we started hanging out with the same people, since there isn't really that much of an age gap between us anyway.
    Nathaniel, I recently got to know. He is a pretty interesting character and I'd call him a friend, I really enjoy beating him at video games. It's one of my hobbies and sometimes he does win, but that's what makes it a challenge and winning is what makes it fun :)
    Claire, although she is my sister, she is also my friend. I usually confide in her before anyone else.
    Jane is my sister and good friend. Anytime I want to jump into a good game or start a massive, impossible project. I usually will go to Jane.
    Rebecca is also a good friend of mine, she goes to my homeschool group and church. We aren't buddy-buddy tight, but she is definitely a friend.
    The way you turn out usually has something to do with the company you keep. I try to keep myself in good company. With all of these friends, that's pretty easy.

Until Next Time,
    Meredith   

My Friend's Cat

    This is kind of a weird title, but why not?
    So, my friend has a cat. Let's call her attack cat. We don't really get along very well. She and I have been getting into cat fights (if you will) since she arrived.
    She was worse when she was younger, but when I was younger she launched an assault from the stairs.  It was directed at me! I was innocently walking up the stairs when out of no where came attack cat.
    No serious physical damage was done. (Frankly, I can't even remember if she scratched me. Chances are she didn't.), but the emotional damage was done. From that moment on. We weren't going to have the kind of friendship most strangers have with stranger cats.
    Not long ago I was over at my friend's house. Playing with...er...using the electric guitar amp my friend happens to have when attack cat struck. I will admit I was aggravating her prior to this, but nevertheless when I reached to turn on the amp that she was sitting on (to aggravate her again :) she batted at my hand turned and leaped to safety behind a couch and she stayed back there hiding. (Like she was the one that needed to hide.)
    Attack cat and I still don't really get along but I am making an attempt to make things right. Okay, who am I kidding. No, I am not.

    Until next time,
Meredith