christmas is pretty much upon us...

Well, Christmas is the day after tomorrow. That seems extremely surreal to me at the moment… For once, I started working on Christmas gifts shortly before Thanksgiving and FINISHED them all a couple weeks before Christmas. That’s a new thing for me :).

          We’re going to have a Christmas of firsts this year. First Christmas in New Hampshire, first Christmas with my brother and his wife, first Christmas with my nieces. It'll also be the second ever Christmas without my sister Hannah. It’ll be different, but different in a good way :).

          Today, I woke up to the first real accumulation of snow since we moved to NH. I made my first snowman in New Hampshire, and Dad grilled burgers in 2 inches of snow for the first time :).

          Last night, we drove around looking for Christmas lights for the first time in New Hampshire, and then I ran down a snowy beach in the dark for the first time :).

          Bad first: I’ve gone 2 months without seeing my best friend (Well, for the first time in 10 years, anyway).

          I’ll be singing two songs (not by myself. With a couple of other girls) in the Christmas Eve service at our church this year. There are 2 teenage girls not including Zoe and myself at Hampton, and we’ve been singing a song every week or two, typically the offertories, in church for maybe a month and a half now. I really enjoy it. Not only is it good time to bond with the other girls from the church, but it’s worship - not only for we girls, but for those people in the church who seem to greatly enjoy hearing us.

          So it’s pretty much the first this, the first that, and the first other thing for me this year. :)

          I’m looking forward to a wonderful 16th (for me) celebration of Christ’s birth, the best thing that’s ever happened. :)

yes, i did say second first batch of brownies.

I like it here. I really, really like it here.

Things are good here. With the church, the latest development is that the four teenage girls in the church (Zoe and I being two of those) are playing an offertory every week. We’ve got two guitar players (Zoe and Alex), a piano player (me), and four singers (Zoe, Alex, Makayla and I). We played for the first time last Sunday, and we’re doing it again on Sunday. It’s good. I think we’ve all enjoyed it. The only problem right now is that I have a sore throat and we’re singing a verse a cappella Sunday and practicing tomorrow… But it will work out :)

I turned 16 on Monday. It was a good day :) Addie, my niece, spent Sunday and Monday night here. So, I had Little Miss Sunshine first thing in the morning, which was definitely a good thing :). And Lydia also spent Sunday night here, so she and Zoe and I went out and got coffee Monday morning, which was fun.

I took Addie for a walk to the library in the early afternoon, and it just occurred to me that that’s probably the first few minutes I’ve ever been alone with her. She loved the books :). We brought a few home with us, and she was particularly excited about one with a baby giraffe in it. She picked up in the library and was excited about it, so I asked her if she wanted to take it to Papaw and Grammy’s with us. She was all about it, and she made the librarian smile a lot during the checkout. She wanted to carry the giraffe book the whole way! I carried her for a couple of minutes on the way home, and for most of that time, she was holding the book open against my head talking about the giraffe! I love that girl <3 :)

In the late afternoon, the girls from church took me out for a snack :). We went and got French fries and tater tots, among other things, at Fast Eddie’s. That was lots of fun :).

Then, my Grampa and Aunt Gail came over for supper, and we had my mom’s fantastic spinach lasagna, along with a cheesecake (also made by my mom, of course). It was a meal worthy of praise! We had a very good evening all around, and I got to talk to both my sister Hannah AND one of my formerly West Virginian friends, and of course both conversations just made my evening that much better :).

Tonight, I made the second ever batch of brownies in the new house. I have declared them the inaugural batch, because I didn’t realize that they were the first ones in the new house when I made some a few days after we moved in, and besides, those were too salty anyway. Let’s just say I’ll never underestimate the difference between kosher and normal salt ever again ;). So anyway, I made the second first-ever brownies in the new house tonight!  

Our West Virginian cell phone service is up a week from today, and we’re not going to get new ones for an indefinite period of time, so that’s going to take some adjusting to! But we’ll always have the landline… and Facebook… Yay! :)

Hannah’s coming for the week of Thanksgiving. Hooray! We haven’t had all my siblings and my parents together since Hannah got married in August 2009, and that was only for a few hours… so this is going to be good :). I foresee a game of Monopoly in the near future!

So, I think that’s about it for the general catching up! Good night!

wedding dresses

So, I've discovered the joy of looking at wedding dresses. This is probably not a good thing, but I do it anyway...

I really like a lot of Henry Roth's dresses.

And Alita Graham's, too.

So, even though I'm almost certainly not spending nearly this much on my wedding dress... Maybe one of these will be on major clearance by the time I get married! ;)

here we are 26 days later...

I was looking at my calendar tonight and realizing that it’s only been 26 days since Dad was unanimously voted in as the pastor of First Baptist Church of Hampton, New Hampshire.

For some reason, most of those involved seemed to think that we needed to move up here in order for Dad to carry out the duties of his new job ;).

So, here I am. I got here 2 weeks ago.

We just kinda went home and packed up everything at a break-neck pace. I think it was, like, ten days in between the voting date and the moving date. Or the getting-home date and the moving date. Something like that.

Since my 16^th birthday is November 8^th, my friends and I had a small celebration on the 8^th of October. We knew we’d be here by my actual birthday, and I really just wanted to do something with the girlies I know well :).  We watched a great movie, at great food, and had a great time. It was my last sleepover as a resident of WV. I can hardly believe it.

Girlsies: I miss you tons. Megan, I’m calling you this week. Accept any calls from a 603 number.

Our last day in West Virginia, 13 people from River Ridge or formerly of River Ridge came to help us pack up. We had a 21-foot truck stuffed to the gills by the end of the day.

Lydia came in that day from Worcester, and I also said goodbye to my best friends of ten years. They’ve been our neighbors and girlfriends all this time… We went from a distance of 1,000 feet between our back doors to a distance of 830 miles (and, as you know, 830 is just a hop, skip and a jump away from 1,00 ;p).

We spent our last night at my Mama’s, and left around 9 the next morning. It was really hard to say goodbye to my grandparents, also.

We broke the trip up, spending the night in Pennsylvania. Zoe and I alternated between the truck and the car (Mom drove the car, Dad drove the truck).

Some funny things that happened along the way:

1. I saw a license plate with the letters “OMG” on it.
2. The doggy rest area at one place we stopped at had two fire hydrants in it.
3. I saw someone that looked pretty much exactly like my aunt’s stepson’s daughter driving in Massachusetts traffic.
4. I almost left my camera at a rest stop.
5. James had a really, really funny reaction to the elevators in the hotel. He would follow you in boldly, then try to go back out right away. As you went up, he would sorta crouch with his legs sprawled out under him. When the doors opened, he was always the first off :).
6. We tied a porch swing to the roof of our little Pontiac Vibe :). We got a lot of Beverly Hillbilly jokes from friends and family :).

And we finally got here on Friday night :). There were people from the church here painting for us! Also, Jared and Becky came with Ruby not long after we got here and fixed us dinner. It was great :).

We had a long day of unloading and unpacking the next day, and my Aunt Gail came down and spent from Saturday to Wednesday with us.

Well, I really need to get to be now. I’ll be getting up at six tomorrow morning to babysit my dear cousins for about 7 hours. More on that and other subjects in what will hopefully be the near future :).

corny jokes and hampton

“We’ve got our dog trained: ‘Sit down- or whatever‘. We tell him to sit down and he does whatever!” -Grampa.

The corny jokes fly when we’re at Gramp’s house. It seems like every time we come, Dad and Grampa both pull out all their silly puns. They’re smart (or should I say witty?), so it’s not hard for them to have half a dozen jokes in just a few sentences. And with the rest of us hearing that all the time, it’s no wonder we come up with some of our own once in a while.

I love being at Grampa’s. Grampa and I made a strawberry-rhubarb pie this morning. It's going to be delicious!

Zoe and I have been sleeping on the best air mattress ever for the last couple of nights. It’s about 2.5 feet thick, and it doesn’t lose a ton of air when you sleep on it. We blow it up at night and suck the air out of it in the mornings.

As I was writing, I remembered the pie crust cookies I made out of the left over bits of crust and stuck in the oven a few minutes ago. I remembered too late. The best way to eat them is to break off the burnt bottom layer and have a glass of water/milk handy- they’re dry.

Grampa made us a HUGE breakfast this morning. We had eggs, bacon, and biscuits. Yummy :).

I forgot to mention why we’re here at Grampa’s.

Dad is being voted on as pastor at First Baptist Church of Hampton in New Hampshire. The vote is on Sunday, October 3rd. He’s preached there three times so far, and we’re hoping he’ll preach there many, many more times. The church has a wide age range. There’s a 6-year-old, and there’s a 92-year-old. There are representatives from most of the generations currently alive, I think. But there aren’t many of them. A regular service probably has about 30. We really like the people. They’re a family, and that’s what we want in a church.

As for where we’ll live if this goes through, the church has a parsonage. It’s a tiny little house with funnily shaped rooms. You have to go through one of the bedrooms upstairs to get to the bathroom. There are ways to avoid that, but it’ll take some work. But I like the house overall. With a lot of paint and a few other small improvements, it’ll be beautiful. It just needs somebody to love it :). There are plenty of windows, which is a must, and even though the front yard=the parking lot of the church, there’s a little space out back for James.





And I have to say. Hampton is on the coast (the church is 2 miles from the beach), and you can walk pretty much everywhere- grocery store, pharmacy, Dunkin's. Yup :)
I have to go check my pie, but hopefully I’ll be writing more soon.

i must have been desperate to sew.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of clutter-purging lately, getting ready to move. A couple weeks ago, Mom and I both went through our fabric scraps, and we both found some of my handiwork from when I was little.
When I was little (as in possible as young as 4), Mom would cut fabric squares for me to make little nine-patch “quilts” with. Several times, she paired the squares with other matching squares for me to sew in a little pattern. The ones she paired are very decent, respectable-looking little quilts. Here are some of the ones she helped with:

But sometimes, I cut and/or paired my own. These are fearfully and wonderfully contrived, I assure you! If you need a laugh, here it is:

Aren’t they original? But wait, there’s more! I also started a “quilt”- a real, big quilt, not just a baby-doll one.

This one was actually a large piece of fabric that Mom cut up and I sewed back together!

the whole quilt.

This one is actually decent-looking! :)

Suffice it to say that that’s coming apart. Maybe eventually I really will make one, though :).
Note: all the pictures say they were taken on 1/13/2007. Well, they weren't. I need to both fix the date on my camera and take that ugly date stamp off...

Photoshoot 2

Today, Zoe and I had a little photoshoot. She likes to take pictures, and I like to model for her, so we make a good team ;).

Here are a few of the best:

Love is Not Against the Law

Politics or love
Can make you blind or make you see
Make you a slave or make you free
But only one does it all.

And that’s giving up your life
For the ones you hate the most
It’s giving them your gown
When they’ve taken your coat

It’s learning to admit
When you’ve had a hand
In setting them up
And tearing them down

Because love is not against the law
Love is not against the law
Love, love, love, love

Are we defending life
When we just pick and choose
Lives acceptable to lose
And which ones to defend

Cause you cannot choose your friends
But you choose your enemies
And what if they were one
One and the same

Could you find a way
To love them the same
To give them your name

Because love is not against the law
Love is not against the law
Love, love, love, love

That amazing song, titled Love is Not Against the Law, is by Derek Webb.
I’ve played that on the piano several times in the last few days, and the lyrics are now permanently imprinted on my brain. So I’ve been thinking about the words a lot, and realizing that he says a lot of things in this song that I hope will be true of me soon (if that makes any sense).
I want God’s love to make me see. I want to be a slave to God, which would make me free. I always want to remember the amazing sacrifice that Jesus made fore me. I want to be willing to turn the other cheek. I want to be generous. I want to spread God’s love all around with my actions and words and thoughts.
I need to learn to admit when I’m wrong, and to apologize for things in a way that glorifies God.
Without love, nothing means anything (there’s a really great Charlie Dodrill song on that subject). Even the law is nothing without love.
My enemies usually start out as my friends. But I let myself forget the good thing that first made me want to know them, and soon all I see in them is their bad qualities. And that’s one of my bad qualities. I need to let go- to stop letting certain things irritate me in people. And I need to be loving to all people. To stop picking and choosing my friends.
Jesus loved us all, and He knew all of our bad qualities. But He chose to love us and even like us anyway. He even gave us His life, and lets us use His name. His actions have made all the difference in my life, and I want to share them, so He can make all the difference in the lives of other people.
If I obey all the law all my life and don’t love, it is meaningless. I don’t want to be meaningless. I want to love. I want to be brave, and let myself be vulnerable by being open, honest, and loving with even the people I don’t like so much.
By the grace of God, I hope to become more loving.

gingersnaps and canada mints

My Grampa bought me some gingersnaps while we were in Maine. I think gingersnaps are awesome. They’re probably my favorite cookie.
My Grammy loved gingersnaps, and we always had them in Maine. Never at home, although all of us like them.
Not even home-made gingersnaps. Just regular, store-bought ones.
I hadn’t had one since Grammy died, back in January 2006. But they were just as good as ever.
I guess maybe I associate them with happiness or something, because being in Maine has almost always been happy for me.
Anyway, I missed them. I'm glad they were as good as I remember them being.

I also had Canada mints while I was up there. I brought some home. I just got them because I remembered Hannah getting them a lot and liking them when she shared. So, I decided to get some.
My Aunt Gail told me when she saw I'd gotten some that my Grammy always liked Canada mints. Which is something I had not realized.
I miss my Grammy. Maine is different without her.
Sometimes, it seems like things can never be as good as they once were (which, by the way, is not true. And I know that. But, still).

vacation in new england

Today has been a good day. But long. One of those nights on which you think back to the morning and ask, “Was that really today?”

This vacation has really been phenomenal. It just seems better than last trip, somehow. This time there hasn’t been as much running around, and we haven’t had to cram visiting everyone into 10 days :).

We arrived at Grampa’s last Wednesday around lunch time, and it was odd. It was odd because Lydia was the only one at Grampa’s house! Grampa had gone to the dump or something and Aunt Gail was making lunch at the Community Center in Bridgton, something she does once a week. So we had a few minutes alone with Lydia at first, full of unpacking the car and giving/getting some lovely elongated hugs :). We’ve done a lot of things since we got here, but it hasn’t been too crazily busy. We went to Freeport yesterday. It was the first time Zoe and I had ever been to an L.L. Bean. That was fun. They have a trout pond with several trout swimming around in the fishing and boating store. And we found a couple good bargains in the seconds outlet, too :). The L.L. Bean in Freeport is divided between 3 buildings!

We also went to Crabtree and Evelyn, The Beadin’ Path, The Cosmetics Company Store, and The Banana Republic Outlet. Such fun! The excursion was made by Mom, Aunt Gail, Zoe and I. I got some free lotion from CT&E. Smells wonderful! And ooh, we topped off our morning out with lunch at the Bridgton House of Pizza, which has some of the BEST pizza ever. They make their own crust at the shop every day. The food was SO yummy!!

When we got home, Zoe and I went swimming at Naples Town Beach on Long Lake (10 minutes from Grampa’s house) with our 9-year-old second cousin Caleb. We hadn’t seen Caleb in about 3 years, but we had a lot of fun with him that day :).

But I found out something freaky this morning. About the same time Zoe and I were swimming with Caleb in Long Lake, a man drowned in Brandy Pond. Brandy Pond is essentially right across a bridge from where we were swimming in Long Lake…

One day, we went over to Malia’s. Malia is the daughter of Grampa’s pastor, and she is my age and her birthday is the same day as Zoe’s [just two years earlier :)]. We have done something with her every year when we come up for as long as I can remember. We have mainly gone swimming the last few years, and this year was no different :). Brandy Pond was nice and warm that day :).

Jared and Becky came to Grampa’s last weekend, and stayed from Thursday night to Saturday night. It was awesome :). We all love to see Addie in the mornings, because she is simply a morning person. She’s so talkative and happy when she first wakes up, she’s a blast :). And we celebrated Aunt Gail’s birthday on Saturday. A couple of my aunts and uncles and a few cousins came over, which was fun :). We always find something to celebrate when we’re up here, mainly so we can get everyone together ;).

So, I mentioned that all my cousins came over. I really enjoy seeing my cousins, but we don’t often spend a lot of time together. Because both my parents are the youngest children in their families, and because there is such a gap of years between Lydia and I, Zoe and I are the only grandchildren or great-grandchildren of both our sets of grandparents who are between 10 and 20. Caleb is 9 and Leah is 21.

Ooh, there was a first on this trip. This was the first time we’ve ever been at Grampa’s when Grampa has left for an extended trip while we were there. He left a few days ago for Arkansas, to see my cousin graduate from college.

We left Grampa’s and came to Jared and Becky’s today. We stopped at Patternworks (A "wicked good" [in the vernacular] yarn store) on the way! I really, really enjoyed it. There was a lot of sale yarn, and when I got up to the register Mom told me that all the sale items were an extra 20% off! So I got 4 skeins of yarn for $12. Really nice yarn- bamboo, wool, cotton, and soybean, and all of it soft. I wanted to stay longer! But I was just really glad we went :). I hope to go back some time soon. I’ll probably post some pictures of the yarn later.

Like I said, it’s been a long day. And this has been a long post. And this long post is now over.

i'm going to maine.

Ramona and Beezus was cute :). There were some parts that weren’t true to the book, which I disliked, but they worked some of the best moments from the book into it- and added some cute ones of their own.

I came home and stayed outside for a few minutes. There are these really pretty purple flowers that just come up in our yard every year in late July. We didn’t plant them, they just come up. But all in a row right in front of our house. So I decided to take some pictures of them :).

I love these. I think they’re some kind of lilies.

Today, I need to pack. We’re going to Maine tomorrow! Yay :). I’ve always kind of enjoyed the trip to Maine. I liked it best when we were all together. I remember being in the huge van. I even remember a trip from when I was so young I was still in my car seat. I had a cooler under my feet and Jared sat next to me.

Another trip, Hannah, Zoe and I were in the back seat of the Chevy Conversion Van. Jared and Lydia were in the captain’s chairs, and Mom and Dad, of course, were in the front. Dad was really tired, we were almost there, and we were dancing. Sitting down, of course. But we were playing music and laughing and just having fun. Then we got pulled over. Hannah whispered to Zoe and I: “Pretend you’re asleep.” So we, of course, laid down on the backseat bed (you could push a button and the seat would flatten out and be a bed. And it was awesome) and pretended to be asleep. We listened quietly as the officer talked to Dad. Dad, as I mentioned, was exhausted. The officer had really pulled us over because we were unbuckled on the bed in the back. He said something along the lines of “Why are your kids pretending to be asleep?”

“Stop pretending to be asleep, kids!” Mom called from the front.

The officer wanted us to buckle up, so we had to. THAT was uncomfortable.

The officer told Dad he was weaving and asked him how old his kids were. Dad almost couldn’t tell him, and Mom had to rescue him a couple times.

The officer made Dad get out and walk the line on the road. Dad could just barely do it, but the officer had to let us go.

But we laugh about that a lot now. I remember Hannah saying something after the guy let us go about us not having been buckled up because in order to be buckled we would have to have straps conveniently situated across our necks and ankles.

I remember the year we had to stop at a hotel because the weather was too bad to keep going that night. Mom, Dad, Hannah and Lydia got the two beds, and Jared had to sleep on the floor. Zoe and I were on a rollaway bed, my head at one end with her feet right next to it and her head on the other end kept company by my feet. It was uncomfortable, but now that I think about it I’m glad I didn’t have to sleep on the floor like Jared :).

It might have been that same year that we tied some soda Dad had gotten from the Mission on top of the van to keep it cold. We got a lot of funny looks, and the woman at the McDonald’s drive-through was laughing as she took our order. But we had very cold sodas that day. In fact, they were more like slushies! :)

I remember singing in the car. We sang rounds of “Row Your Boat” and “Frere Jacques.” (I have no idea how to spell ‘brother’ in French. Sorry.) We made up two new verses to “Do Your Ears Hang Low.” No, seriously, we did.

I miss my siblings most at Christmas and in Maine.

I remember staying in the pink room upstairs at Grampa’s with Hannah, Lydia, and Zoe. We would be awake “late” telling blond jokes and knock-knock jokes at least one night per trip. And we would talk about all sorts of things. And I loved every minute of it. I’m always a little sad that we can’t do it again when we go.

But as we’ve gotten older we’ve had good memories too. Last year, Lydia was sleeping in Aunt Gail’s room and Zoe and I were downstairs on the air mattress. Lydia went to bed at the same time as Aunt Gail, knowing that she would be awake for hours because it was too early for her to go to bed. Well, Zoe and I wound up going to her room and calling her downstairs to watch Good Eats with us, and we watched it (it was about lemon meringue pie). Lydia just never went upstairs. She stayed between us on the air mattress, and we talked for about 2 hours before we fell asleep. That was definitely the most fun night of that trip.

So, anyway. I’m looking forward to being at Grampa’s house :).

the goings on

This has been a pretty busy week for us. It’s been our last week at River Ridge, complete with sleepovers and a going away party. I’m sad to go, but getting used to the idea of it. We hope to move to New Hampshire as soon as possible, but don’t have a definite plan of action yet.

            Since November, I’ve been writing for FlipSide, the teen section of the Charleston Gazette. I’m supposed to go to a meeting for that this afternoon. I’ll probably wind up quitting today, maybe writing just one more article before we leave.

            After the meeting, I’m going to go see Ramona and Beezus with Hannah, Zoe and Mom. If you’ve never read the Ramona Quimby books (by Beverly Cleary), you should. They’re awesome. Mom thinks that they really get a kids perspective, and I agree. They are way better than Junie B. Jones (which I occasionally have to read while babysitting). Anyway, I can hardly wait to see the movie. I really hope they did a good job. But if they didn’t, at least I can give an educated opinion on it :)

            Tomorrow is Hannah’s birthday, so we’re going to go eat dinner with Hannah and Chris at their apartment. It will be fun :).

            Tuesday we’re going to Maine. I am so excited to have a vacation! We’re going to see my Grampa, my aunts and uncles, Jared, Becky, Addie, Ruby, and Lydia. YAY!! Lydia has been at Grampa’s for a few days now, and she plans to stay there until we get there! Which makes me incredibly happy. And Jared and Becky are coming to Grampa’s too! Jared will actually be quitting his job and going to a new one, so the fact that he has already used his puny five days off work for the YEAR from this job means nothing. He’s quitting a day early and coming to spend part of the weekend with us. So minus Hannah (huge, huge minus), we’re all going to be together! Hooray!

            Meanwhile, my knitting needles are occupied with a pair of socks- Breeze is the name of the pattern- from Knitty Summer 2007. I’m making them with some yarn I got from Ewe’ll Love It, a yarn store in Nashua, New Hampshire (and I do love it). I have one sock done, and the other well underway. They’re the first socks I’ve done (except those chevron socks last winter) that have an actual design on them instead of just plain stockinette stitch. I just kinda started them on a whim, but I like them a lot :).