Our Town {or is it yours?}

The highlight of last week was most certainly preforming a scene from the play Our Town by Thornton Wilder (as an English assignment).  My mom, my best friend, and I acted out a scene from the begining of  Act II (for those of you familier with the play).

   They both had several characters to be...but luckily I arranged the script a bit so that they didn't have to be those two characters at the same time!

 My Mother acted out the Stage Manager [her script above], Si Crowell (the paper boy), and Mrs. Gibbs (the main character, Emily's, Neighbor). My friend acted out Constable Warren, and Mrs. Webb (Emily's Mother). I was Howie Newsome, the milkman.

It took most of the afternoon to re-arrange our living room into the stage minimalistic stage set that Thornton WIlder 'perscribed' to the play.

Above, I attept to hang our 'curtain' (bedsheet) while my friend captures the beauty of the sunset (which lasted approximantly ten seconds). Below: my friend tries her hand at getting the sheet to stay...it wasn't easy, but it stayed up for the whole performance!

Our usually very full living room was transformed into a minimalistic wonderland.

  Mrs. Gibbs "house" (a table, chair, and trellis [indicated by the two plants on the floor!])

It also got a very thorough cleaning!

Mrs Webb's House (the table and trellis, again indicated by the two plants)

 

I'm not even going to try to describe the play to you, but instead I will find a reveiw and link it to this and this!

 

(I also have a small description that I will edit and post another day)

 

~Ciao!

 

Note: for some reason Blogger isn't letting me use spell check, so please excuse any words that were incorrectly spelled!

 

Too much snow!

AA-Florida or Bust Bumper Sticker (Zazzle.com)

Well, if you are a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that I was greatly anticipating the first snowstorm and was just as greatly dissapointed when we got a mere three or so inches. That said; there can be too much of a good thing.

For example, take the two recent snowstorms that we had...each dropping off about a foot of snow. This combined with nowhere to shovel the new snow I beleive that we're all fed up with this thing we call magnificent winter!

Then, we can just add the three to five inches expected during the next few days and get:

•  a bunch of people fed up with winter
• a lot more snowbirds heading down to florida

I'm guessing that the only people that are really enjoying all this weather are the forcasters...because for the fourth time this winter(at least): they were right.

[If you are a weather forcaster reading this; please don't be offended, but I've had too many falls reports coming from you colleagues that I'm not sure how much I take seriously your reports!]

Image courtesy of Zazzle.com:  AA- Florida or Bust Snowbird Bumper Sticker

Inspiration {no words, just a scene}

[Why did dusk and fir-scent and the afterglow of autumnal sunsets make people say absurd things?"

— L.M. Montgomery (Emily's Quest)]

Vote! {an ad}

Well, I'm back! (you can view my apology for my week of silence here)

I think one of the best assignments I've had this year was writing an advertisement to get people to vote. The ad had to include the words:

   Absentee Ballot        Congressional District

General Elections          Nominee            

 Platforms                Political Party 

Referendum   and    Suffrage       

I thought I did a pretty good job (if I may say so myself!):

Have you voted yet?

Come to the referendum and hear your favorite candidate speak. Candidates will share their platforms and you can hear the plans that they have for your congressional district. Take advantage of your suffrage and come vote.

You can vote in the primary election, you can vote in the gubernatorial election, and you can vote in the general election! Take advantage of the right to vote and decide who will govern your country! Vote for the nominee of your political party!

Don't forget; if you are unable to attend the election at your local polling place, absentee ballots are available.

 Price and participation may vary. Must be a US citizen of at least 18 to be eligible. Cannot have incomplete confinement or parole (if convicted of a felony), and must have registered six days prior to election.

We'll see you at the polls!

and now...

[to be read in announcer voice]
...and now, after a week of silence: we find out that indeed, the writer of this blog does still care about her readers, and , not only is she very sorry that she hasn't said anything, she hopes that her silence has not offended anyone. Now,  the moment you've all been waiting for: Dancing Through Life speaks!

"Yes, hello everybody. Thank you for the wonderful introduction, I feel so...'loved. Well, folks it has been a very busy week and -embarrassingly- I've been on the computer only to do research and if there ever was a time that I was able to have a bit longer (on the computer) than 'research time' it most certainly wasn't enough time to write an entire blog post! Yes, well... I would like to say to my dear, dear readers that I hope you will be able to forgive me for my lack of attention to the blog (in the past week) and I offer my sincerest apologies!"

That from her most recent 'speech' to her readers and followers. The first post since her week of silence, and now she's back, [hopefully] better than ever!

Snowed in Suspense!

All right, all right, I shall now reveal how much snow we got, but...please don't read the rest of this post, unless you've read this one.

.  .  .

 It was snowing all day (on Wednesday) and by dinnertime, I'd say we had about 1' 5" of snow...as my friend said about the storm; "be careful what you wish for!" SO, I'm sorry that the photos are all grey and monotoned...but that's what snow looks like!

[...and it's still coming down hard!]

[Where did the porch steps go?]

After attempting to shovel the driveway in two layers (my back still hurts), I went across the street to see my friend she and I tried to play in the snow...but it was very hard given the fact that we couldn't walk a step without being sucked into and buried in a snow drift!

[I hope that wasn't a squirrel's nest!]

[Our garage was buried alive...I sill can't open the door to get my sleds out!]

My friend and I soon realized that there was just a tad too much snow for sledding, so we  decided to make a village of snow homes, under a pine grove, next to her house.

(About the sledding: Yes, we tried, but it's terribly hard to get out of a sled when the snow is higher than you while you are kneeling down.) 

[A tree as seen through the icicles]

While we're on the subject of icicles: the day after the storm was beautiful with the brightest sky of blue imaginable! The sun was shining on our many icicles and let me tell you; besides the cold, it was quite the photo op.!

[My best icicle picture ever taken...I haven't taken all that many!]

[My second best!]

[The snow, no longer on the pine tree (pictured waaaayyy above!)]

[One of my favorite views to take a picture from, it's surprising how many pictures I have from this point of view!]

To take advantage of my New Years resolution: One of the things I have been grateful for this week was the large amount of snow and snow play... I'm also thankful for having had the chance to build a wonderful igloo. But, that's a different story!

For real!?!

Hey, guess what? You know how weather.com and all those weather sites tell you that there's a blizzard coming, then they postpone it until 7PM, then10, then (oh what the heck) to one the next morning? Then everyone gets all excited and there's a billion cars in the parking lot of your super-market, 'cause everyone wants to stock up on flour, milk, eggs, and hot coco? Then, you wake up the next morning and there are five inches of snow on the ground and there are only a few schools closed because the storm actually hit the town five over and one up to the right?

Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

So, the same thing happened on Tuesday , everyone got excited, the weather people kept saying, "Oh wait, actually the storms coming in three more hours......no, actually six......well, more like 12...but it's coming!" Let me tell you, after the last 'storm': grocery store parking lots weren't exactly full.

We weren't going to be fooled this time, this time we knew that it was a hoax.

However, Wednesday morning......
[stay tuned ladies and jellybeans to find out exactly how much snow we got!]

Four things!

First of all, can I just say that I am immensely sorry for not writing (almost at all) during winter break?

Second of all: in honor of the New Year I just want to tell all of the people who are either following this blog, reading this blog, or commenting on this blog that you guys are awesome and I am very grateful to all of you!

Third of all: HAPPY NEW YEAR

Fourth of all: Lets get to the point already!

  This year, after many years of resolving to be a healthier person and to start flossing my teeth more often, etc.. I decided to resolve on something new. I decided to make myself a better person towards family, friends, and animals, partly by being thankful for the small things that make every day special!

 Hence 'second of all'. (Though I really do mean it.)

Today, I am thankful for:

• The beautiful day
• My (crazy) cat
• Getting most of my work done (before lunch)
• The fact that I am now blogging again
• much, much more!

What are you thankful for?

      What are your New Years Resolutions? (If any.)

No Day... I mean Snow Day!

First of all Merry Belated Christmas to those of you who are (unlike me) not Jewish!

Second of all: Have you ever had that disappointed feeling where you know that something's supposed to happen, then it doesn't; you know you're getting a puppy, but then you get a stuffed animal; you know you're getting a blizzard, but then you get a few inches of terrible packing snow?
  Oh, hey, that last one sounds familiar! Maybe that's because the surrounding states have gotten piles of snow, but we just got a few inches? Oh, that must be why! Anyway, (counting my blessings) at least it's pretty!

Sonnet!

For my last English unit, I was assigned to write a sonnet, it was supposed to be 14 lines and on each line, 10 syllables. The rhythmic pattern is: A, B, A, B, C, D, C, D, E, F, E, F, G, G. (This is the Elizbethan Sonnet)
  Surprisingly, I actually liked mine, so I decided to post it here:

 Sonnet 1

Licking those furry paws to perfection
She turns now and blinks to greet the new day.

The sun in her eyes ruins perception

And she sees herself in a posh new way.

Lifting her chin, she now sees as a queen

And flicks her tail to and fro with disdain.

Pretending she doesn’t care where you’ve been

Her interest in food is easy to feign

Her brother no longer can torment her,

Her staff is very easy to ignore,

She blinks demurely and begins to purr

Then forgetting manners she starts to snore.

Waken by footfalls, a large shoe she sees

“Forget being queen” so turning, she flees.

[Unfortunately for my girl cat, this Sonnet describes her perfectly!]

 [the 'tormentor'...actually he's a sweetheart!]

A 'Creative' Process

I am now going to show you the 'very creative' process of completely destroying your room, then completely undestroying it, and ending up with "whoa, that's not what my room used to look like!" (In other words; today was spent -until two thirty- pushing heavy items across the floor because for some strange reason I wanted to rearrange my room.)

[the completely destroyed room]

This would be my room in the middle of the 'creative process', at the point where; the bed was in place, but nothing else was!

[well, this is supposed to be my bed, but it was temporarily trying out for the part of bookshelf]

[need I say more?]

[umm...]

[You've guessed correctly, my jewelry is not supposed to be on top of my bookshelf! though I was seeing if I actually could live with it like that!]

Finally (around 1:00) I was able to start finishing my room, eg. putting books on there shelf, asking myself if  I really wanted my dresser on that wall, wondering where I could fit the mirror if I moved this that way a few inches... ...

[making some progress--at least, I have my bed back!]

[My jewelry collection-- the set-up was a wonderful surprise b-day present when I came home from camp]

[and now for my dresser...NOTE: it will not stay this clean for any more than 1 week]

["whoa that's not what my room used to look like!"]



After my room had -finally- been transformed, it was time to do some catching up in the civics department! Hmmm... how to write a brief paper on the differences between Democrats and Republicans? (It was completed as a surprisingly very nice poster, and somehow it was approved by the mother/teacher...yay!) Anyway, I had a pretty looooong day!

Sadly Enough...

For the past two weeks, I've been doing something that (not to brag) most home-schoolers don't get to do. I've been shadowing at possible High Schools that I could go to next year. That's right, next year I will no longer be able to call myself a home-schooler, because I'm going to go to a 'real school'.
  I suppose that there's no real reason that you want to hear me go on and on about  going to High School, but I guess it really just finally dawned on me that I'm going to HIGH SCHOOL. (then after that I go to college, but lets not get into that.)


Well, that's all...  I'll probably have a more entertaining post up on Sunday. (I'm -hopefully- rearranging my room, and who knows what I'm going to find... Not that you want to know this, but; we may have already discovered a dead mouse behind my bookcase, luckily this one -if it exists- is not because of my cat!)

[No, this is not the dead mouse behind my book shelf (or any of the other mice that have lived -and died- in my room),

 it's just a cute picture of my cat with his Hanukkah present]

Inspiration {no words, just a scene}

“Life is like a mirror, we get the best results when we smile at it.” ~Unknown

Hannukah {and Ellis Island!}

December is a great season, I love seeing all the (tasteful) holiday decorations...candles in people's windows, wreaths, menorahs, etc..

 This year, Hanukkah was pretty low key, we ate latkes, lit the menorah, sang songs, exchanged presents, preformed in The Nutcracker on the Saturday and Sunday ( yes, that was just me...not my parents), we drove off to New York for Monday and Tuesday (my dad went to a conference)...okay, so maybe it wasn't as low key as I made it sound, anyway...

[the famous statue's better side, well...maybe not!]

On Monday, we visited Ellis Island. Though I got museumitis pretty quickly, it was very interesting walking around in the same place that my ancestors had probably walked through. (The cafeteria also had very good food!)

[Who, what, when, where...the only thing this exhibit was missing is 'how'!]

Probably my favorite room in the main museum was the statistics room, I know it sounds sort of boring, but it most certainly was not! In it, there were a bunch of fun looking exhibits, some showing how many people of what origin came to America in which years (above), and some showing how many people of which gender came to America in what year (below).

[ladies first!]

[lined up with a better view]

We also got to take a quick trip to the New Jersey half of the island (no passport required!) that was fairly entertaining, crossing from New York to New Jersey all the while being on the same piece of land (and in the same building!) The story behind that: here!

[One of the hospital buildings, yes, it actually is in New Jersey...I wasn't joking!]

[test: is this the same hospital building as above? Answer: I don't know, all three of them look the same in photographs!]

All in all, my mom and I had a great time, and to add to that: it snowed, and we got to check out some great vintage consignment shops...can't wait to go back!

NaNoWriMo--DONE!

Today, (at my Thanksgiving destination) I finished my NaNoWriMo novel. I accomplished my word count goal at 10,005 words and am now going to have a very satisfying Thanksgiving.
  As I keep saying, have a wonderful holiday!


PS. Now, lucky reader, I will have more time to blog, and more time to talk about things other than NaNoWriMo and being on google!

We are on google!

OK, just a quick post to say: this blog is officially what comes up when you search 'home school diaries' on Google. Okay, (to take me off cloud nine) I am the very last result (on the first page), but still. This officially might be one of the most exciting days in my blogging career! (well, it might not be, but I think it is.)

Lets just hope I stay there!

Have the most amazing, and the happiest, Thanksgiving ever!!
(I'll still be hyper about this when I get back!)
(But I do hope you have an awesome Thanksgiving!)

NaNoWriMo {8 days left!}

Wow! NaNoWriMo has only eight days left, and I have exciting news! I am 92.58% done (meaning that I have 742 words left.) My Novel is coming along Super fantastically, and I am very excited because I'm thinking that this is a publishing worthy novel...at least I hope it is!
 All right, because I'm not sure that I'll have time to put up another post before Thanksgiving, I hope that everyone has a wonderful, safe holiday, and that (if you're driving somewhere) you don't get stuck in traffic!

Inspiration {no words, just a scene}



[Imagination is more important than knowledge. Albert Einstein]

Mediterranean Dinner

One of the reasons that I love my civics curriculum is that it has such interesting, fun projects!

 My most recent (and possibly funnest) project was making a meal out of food brought to America after 1492.

I decided to have a Mediterranean themed meal, and my parents and I spent all afternoon on Saturday making food. The Menu included:

[the table...of course!]

Lubiya (a soup with lots of spices and black eyed peas--not pictured),

Caprese Salad-from Italy (Includes: Tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil with a balsamic dressing)

 

 Mejadarah (an Egyptian dish with lentils, rice and caramelized onions)

Bulgar Pilaf and Noodles (It should be obvious that this dish includes Bulgar. Noodles and LOTS of butter)

We invited a Lebanese guest who told us that the food was marvelous...(yay, we passed the middle-eastern-person-liked-it test)  All in all, I can't wait for another fun opportunity to do something like this again!

Hey, I'm still here {mostly}

Hi, just a quick post to say that I have not forgotten about my blog, but this month with NaNoWriMo its hard for me to blog at all, so expect more next month!