Second Post

Life and Death
       Life
Life is like a tree,
Blooming and full of joy
Sharing happiness with those who will see
Until it has had its first grief
And every death is a fallen leaf.
        Death 
Death is like a rainbow
And life is like the rain;
Full of grief and foes
With an abundance of pain.
But after life there is the Paradise,
No more rain and ice,
It is like a rainbow
Where all will want to go.

    - Isa D. Curtis

I found this poem about 3 months ago. I don't think Isa D. Curtis' poetry flows very well, but I see her point and I agree with her. Life is like a tree. Eventually you lose all of your leaves and die. And I think life is like the rain, because death is like a rainbow.

My friend, Dan Robinson died June 3rd, 2008 at the young age of 13. He was riding to basketball practice with his older brother, Tom  and their two close friends, Schuyler and Sam. They were hit at an intersection in the country. The other driver had been drinking and was on his cell phone. Dan died instantly and the others were hospitalized. When we heard there had been an accident, Moo and  I went to the Robinson's house to watch their sister, Jami's younger kids so the family could go to the hospital to see their boys. We stayed overnight, waiting for recent news. We had a few 'false' alarms, that scared us to death. But in the end, they were true. The entire time I was too tired to move, yet awake enough to run around the house. Those two days were easily the worst days of my life.

I love taking pictures, especially of flowers. A couple years ago I babysat 2 dogs for a few days and earned $200 dollars. I bought a nice digital, purple Casio. That year I took so many pictures, and that year was 2008. The flowers were so amazing that year. The day before the accident, Dan came over and extended our garden and planted some flowers. We were very dedicated to our garden that year. Flowers are so beautiful, and as soon as you see one you immediately feel a little happier. In one corner of our simple flower garden is Dan's Salvia. The flower salvia has long stems with purple petals. This year we have worked on our back yard.
Before-  There was hardly any grass. Weeds covered most of the area and it looked very dirty. People did not feel very welcome.
After- A new brick sidewalk leading to the back porch adds a welcoming feeling for the visitor.(by the way, I never want to see another brick again) Instead of crabgrass, there is a brick-outlined mulch area. In the middle of this area is a sophisticated vegetable\herb garden on a raised bed made of pallets, which are made of recycled wood. The 4 boxwood trees add an elegant touch to this cottage-style house.

Our house is a 2 bedroom bungalow with carpet everywhere. It is very good carpet, but the colors aren't so good. There is pink, pink with blue dots, green and there used to be blue. Our house is about 60 years old, but it was renovated in the 80s. So now we have brass door knobs, brass handles, brass faucets and brass outlet covers. We are now in the process of replacing all of these fixtures with bronze. Also all of our walls had wallpaper. We have painted about half of the house. The kitchen is sort of a dark calico. The dining room is a yellowish orange. The first bathroom is undecided and the second bathroom will be a pretty grey. And yes, I spell grey with an e. My room is a light, creamy orange and the outside of the house is a dark yellow with dark red shutters. There are a lot of built-ins in our house. And I have a cute little alcove in my room that always gets in the way.

So all in all, we have charming house with a lot of character.

Dado is a graphic designer. Moo cleans a house every two weeks to pay for our fitness center fee. The Fitness Center is about 2 blocks away and we occasionally go there a few times a week. (We, in this case refers to 'Moo and I') We want to go often but we don't.

For about 6 years I took dance at Margene's Dance Studio in Mattoon. I took ballet, tap and jazz. Emily decided to do ballet again and she introduced me to Richland Community College's ballet classes. I went to one of her classes and my legs were killing me the next day. I was never sore after Margene's classes. I decided to take only ballet at Richland. I soon discovered that I should have been farther along for my age and that I did enjoy ballet. Margene's is a good place until you are about 10. Amy Little was my ballet teacher at Richland. For 2 years I did ballet 4\5, and I have improved so much. This year I am going in Nancy's class. DUN DUN DUN!!! Nancy teaches 2 ballet classes, intermediate-advanced and advanced. This is big step up and I am completely thrilled about it. I started pointe last year and the hardest thing I can do in pointe is a developpe. I need to do more roll-ups to increase my strength.


We are starting school September 6. These are my subjects, Algebra II, Biology, English I, Speech (writing speeches), Debate, Ancient History, American History, Italian, Art, Music Theory and Latin. And I am teaching a ballet class and a Music Appreciation class. I think I will be very busy this year! I do need to get more serious with my school as I am going into high school. I am an only child, but my cousin  is also homeschooled. I went to public school until 4th grade and at first I thought I would hate homeschooling, but I was wrong. We went to some homeschool classes twice a week. I loved it. There were many people making me feel welcome. Mostly Dan and Emily though.

Very recently (today actually), we completely switched to almond milk. Once upon a time, when I was about 9, I was lactose intolerant. So I bought special kind of milk without lactose. 2 years later I wasn't. Then all of a sudden, 6 months ago, Moo was lactose intolerant. So we bought soy milk. Then we discovered that scientists put a little, tiny bit of pig DNA in the soybean DNA. Do you know why? Because the farmers spray some stuff all over the field to kill the weeds. But the stuff started killing the soybeans, too. But if the soybeans had a little bit of pig in it, then the stuff wouldn't kill it. So we switched to almond milk. We recently tried almond butter and it is very good. So is Nutella, which is a hazelnut spread with some chocolate.

Well, I am done with my 2nd post and I will write more soon!