It's been a busy summer...

You wanna know something horrible? I can't even remember the last time I blogged. Yes, 'tis such a tragedy. Anti-blogging syndrome truly is a curse. Every time I even so much as thought about my blog, I would write reminders all over my arm to update it. Of course this did nothing, but along with that, every time I saw the reminders, a blog post would spontaneously begin to write itself in my head. So by now, I have somewhere between twenty and thirty unfinished entries crowding my space up there. 

Since the last time I blogged, so much has happened that I don't even know where to begin. Most of my days for a while simply consisted of hanging out at the rental house or going to the pool with Nate and our new summer nanny Rebekah. At some point after this, my *Girl Scout troop taught orienteering lessons to a small group. I went home with my demi-god father and his son, Conner. They are all like family to us and, naturally, I was really jealous that my brother had the them as his god parents so Roger made up the phrase "demi-god" and it stuck. Anyways, so I slept over at their house and then Hannah (demi-god sis and one of my closest friends) came back with me to our house. Because of family problems, she stayed with us for an entire week until things got worse and my mom and I took her home. We stayed and were comforting for a while until it was time for us to take our leave.

The week after was just as jam packed. So I wrote about Ranger's Apprentice camp done by BookPeople already, and last week was Camp Half Blood. No, not like Harry Potter. This camp is based on the series Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan. In short, the concept is that the ancient Greek gods are still alive and having children with mortals, producing hero children of half-god, half-human origin. This causes lots of trouble for said children and, often, they don't live past thirteen with the mass amounts of monsters that want to kill them. The camp was invented to train these kids to stay alive as long as possible and, if needed, save the world from peril. Within this setting, I am a child of Apollo. He is the, I have to admit, pretty awesome. God of prophecy, the sun, archery, music, drama, etc. It's almost creepy how well those people can place you. But yeah, the camp is really fun and action-packed with kidnap, gorgons, and evil feds. I am going to be able to go back for the last week of this summer and I really hope I'll be able to be a Counselor In Training there next year.

So all is wonderful this summer... and then there's the homework. Because I'll be going back to CHB, my parents say I now have to finish all of my school homework before the fourteenth. That means reading and annotating all of House of the Scorpion in less than two weeks. So far, I'm making steady process but it feels agonizing. Oh well... at least now I have motivation to move faster.

And at the end of this week we'll be moving again into a lake house. My mother's description is that you can walk conveniently down to the dock, then jump off, walk some more in a dry hole, then reach the water. Oh Austin. We do love our droughts.

*Most people think of Girl Scouts as cute girlie-girls who do nothing more than sell cookies. (I wouldn't be surprised if this is because people only buy cookies from the cute girlie-girls) Well they really aren't. I guess it depends on your troop, but most of us are the opposite. The gritty camper type.

"The beginning of a beautiful story"

First, I'd like to say that multitasking is the devil. I always have had this issue with decisions, so usually I end up either grumpily doing one thing, or doing both at the same time. But I am also so easily distracted that when I don't concentrate hard on both at once, I'll get tied up in one thing and completely forget about the other... It is an absolutely horrid affliction. So here I am, torn between playing some fantasy find it game with my mom and blogging about my beautiful day. 

Anyways, today was wonderful. Most of you people will probably be gleefully watching fireworks, or partying all night, but for us backwards people that all happened yesterday. So yesterday my friend slept over since we got back so late, we woke up around 11:00 and had some of my dad's giant pancake for breakfast, she went home, and I was left to my own devices. Translation - I read some, then I napped some, then I read some more, then I napped some more. It was wonderful. I have never slept better. So yeah. Then I woke up just in time for pizza and we went for a walk with the dogs. Rollingwood is beautiful. It is full of a mix of old and new houses, small and large. And somehow they all go together perfectly. Walking along the road there, I was even reminded of some Utopian dream I had of myself as a single writer, coming home from a walk with my two dogs to sit at the computer and type up a beautiful story. Mom's reply was that I should do just that by going back to our new house to write a beautiful blog. "The beginning of a beautiful story." I admit that now looking back on it, it sounds a bit weird but yeah, it's still really comforting.

Anti-blogging Syndrome

For some reason this week I have simply not been  able to blog. Like I got home and told myself, "I'm too tired to blog right now. I just want to enjoy being back home with my family." Then there was the day after, and the day after that, etc. So my best analysis of myself was that I felt like I was writing back home when I was was blogging in Savannah, but now that I am home, it seems kind of obsolete. So here I go, forcing myself to blog again. 

A brief summary of this/last week:

Wednesday-
Leave Fort Worth, visit FUNimation, get to new home, visit with brother and parents, meet neighbors. Oh right, then I went and watched the Will it Blend videos with my little brother and a Nova special on dreams.

Me in front of the FUNimation building

It's actually in Flower Mound... not Fort Worth... quite a nuisance...

Our new temporary home

My room

The cockroach infested bathroom...

Thursday-
Um... Thursday is kind of a blank... oh wait, my friend came for a sleep over and we hung out, surfed YouTube, and stuff. Evetually she convinced me to play hide and seek, at which point my brother Nate and his friend enthusiastically joined in. Half the time I got bored and came out as soon as someone else was found so I wouldn't be "it", but Zelda however, had way more patience.Then we all had dinner, full of extremely hilarious and awkward table conversation. We stayed up late that night watching Legend of the Seeker which is an awesome show.

Friday- 

Apparently Zelda tried to wake me up by excessive poking, which I sort of felt, but didn't register, being half asleep as always. Then she talked to me, and according to her, that is what woke me. I can't even remember what she said, but no one has ever woken me up that way. It just doesn't happen. I mean, I've even been thrown across a room before, but it didn't wake me up. So we got up, had coffee cake for breakfast, hung out, played some more hide and seek, and then she went home, leaving me with the first two mangas of Alice in the Country of Hearts. I finished them both that day.

Saturday- 

On Saturday, Gammy left us to head back to Fort Worth. Later, I convinced my dad to take me out to get the rest of the books in the series, which we did. I pretty much spent the rest of the day reading those and debating with myself as to how in the world this related to Lewis Carroll's original books. I did still enjoy the manga though. We also picked up the book Raised by Wolves and I observed that now Barnes and Noble has a whole section dedicated to "Teen Paranormal Romance". It was great to lay around and read all day. I'm pretty sure we also took the dogs for a walk that day. There was also an interesting conversation at dinner where Nate commented that he was "stuffed" and noticed that he was "covered with cheese", so my mom started "roasting" him by asking him lots of intensive questions.

Sunday-

Yesterday was really exciting. I read for a while in the morning, and after a quick lunch, we went and picked up my friend Emily to go to a party at my "aunt's" house. She isn't really my aunt, but she's an extremely close family friend, so close enough. We drove forty minutes to get to her house, playing Bop It most of the way. I tried to convince Emily to read manga, but she looked at it for about one second and decided that it was simply too confusing to read backwards. Then we went to the pool at their country club, went back to their house for showers, and returned to eat lots of food and play video games and such at a party hosted by the club. Since it was so late when we came home, Emily slept over and we watched anime a bit.

My time away from home was just extended...

Well, like I said yesterday, here i am in Fort Worth. The flight wasn't too bad. I watched Stardust on the way. That, my readers, is a good movie. If you haven't read the book and can commit not to be biased,  it really is a good thing to pass the time. It is based off the book, also Stardust, by Neil Gaiman. It is kinda vivid, but really hilarious. There is just one part I find so entertaining when Septimus' body is taken over by voodoo and his ghost brothers all look over at him as if to say We thought you were dead like us. The look he gives them in reply is absolutely priceless. Well, Anywho, when I got to the airport Gammy was standing there at the gate waiting for me. Apparently since we have the same last name she was able to convince them that she had like a five year old grandchild who was incapable of walking through the airport by herself.  So we went to the baggage check, found my bag, and went to my grandparents house where we were met by my great Aunt Fay, her new husband, and my grandpa Grumps. They are all really fun to hang around, but I was pretty much drop dead tired since I had lost an hour coming from Georgia, so I went to my room and read my book for a while before falling asleep. 

This morning I lay in bed half asleep for a while before  getting up for breakfast. (In case you haven't noticed, I tend to be half asleep every time before I wake up, just staring at a wall or something.) After breakfast, we sat around and talked, then I wandered a bit. (Another thing I tend to do quite a lot) And once I got tired of that, I went and finished my book, Uncommon Criminals by Ally Carter. Then Gammy and Fay went to see my great great Aunt Wanda, while I stayed behind and decorated a cigar box (which we have an abundance of here... the smoke drives my asthma insane) by wrapping it in a pretty green cloth, while listening to the men talk about politics, annoying calls from the government, and food. Yes, our family is a foodie family. Grump's philosophy is "Food is not only to sustain life. It is also part of enjoying life." Finally, after much argument with Gammy, "Madam Director", over the phone, it was decided that Wanda was to come have dinner with us. 

Once they arrived, the small talk commenced and my box was highly praised. I was asked to make another once I finish this, so I'll probably be doing that tonight as a stand in for my lack of reading material. Grumps went out to work on the dinner, very grumpy, as he tends to get when he is hungry. The food was delicious. In our family there is a joke that when it's quiet, the food is good. Well as we chowed down on garlic salad, medium rare steak, baked potatoes, and tiny onions it was absolutely silent. Eventually, the evening had to come to a close though, so we all said farewell to Wanda and I came in here for some blogging/role playing/checking of email. It was then that I learned that FUNimantion is in Fort Worth! Sadly though, I leave here tomorrow and I won't be able to even see the building where my idols labor ingeniously away to make amazing works of art. Sigh. So here I am, blogging, role playing, and checking email (all at once mind you) with a bowl of coffee ice cream.

My last day in Savannah

So today is, yes another beautiful day in Savannah Georgia. Earlier in the week the forest fires from South of here (down near the Okefenokee Swamp) sent up a ton of smoke and it has been driving my asthma insane. Thankfully, the loads of rain we've been getting up here finally thinned it up. Today I have a flight at 6:20 to the Dallas airport where I will be meeting my other grandmother, who we call Gammy, and my grandfather, Grumps (he chose the name himself). My aunt Fay and my brand new uncle will also be there. I am looking forward to spending some time with them, but I do miss home. You know how you get homesick on long vacations and then you learn that your time away from home was just extended? It's kind of exciting and irritating at the same time. And then when I finally get back to Texas, I won't be going to the same home. You see, my parents decided that our kitchen needs to be remodeled so we're moving out into a 1200 square foot home. And everyone's stuff is already there but mine. So as soon as I get home (Tuesday or Wednesday), I go to the house, greet my beautiful  dogs, and pack some more. Nope, no unpacking for Emily.

Now Gram and I have decided to finally look through all of my photos from photography school. It's kind of fun to critique your own work. I, sadly tend to be a bit of a pessimist. Not only in my photography, but in life. I'm working on that, but everyone else seems to love them. It's pretty likely that as soon as Dad gets a hold of them they'll be on Flickr, so I'll probably set up a link or something, if I can find out how.  And now that we've started sharing our works, Gram read to me some of her writing, a story about Adam and Eve. It was simply beautiful. Now I feel as if I need to go and find all the writing, all the poetry I've ever done and reread it.

A typical day for me in Savannah

Okay. So today was what I suppose you'd call blissful. My cousin and I stayed up well... late last night, with her reading some dramatic novel and I watching Black Butler on my laptop. This morning I was only half awake when her alarm clock all the sudden started blasting the radio and scared me to death. I slunk out of the room to see that only my aunt and uncle were awake and happened to be making pancakes. When they learned that I would prefer pop tarts, I was assaulted with all the reasons as to why pancakes are amazing. So I held strong and read my book as I nibbled away on a fabulous blue berry pop tart. Yum. Then, after both of my cousin's were awake, we went out and bought boiled peanuts on the way to my grandparents' house. And for all you Texans who are skeptical, you have to eat them first. They're AMAZING! Then we walked out through the *front yard and down to the dock. Once we got bored of jumping off the railing, we decided to go get a ladder and jump off the roof into the water about 20-30 feet below. It was fun. And, I got some new wounds to add to my collection. Over the summer I've manage to accumulate bug bites, cat scratches, dog scratches, cuts from falling off cliffs, scrapes from sliding across wooden floors, and now I have a gouge on my knee from the top of the ladder, and a welt on my forehead from walking into it. It did not feel good in salt water. Anyways, after about an hour, we decided to go out on our cute little boat named Just Cuz. You know, it's a pun because it's the cousins that own it. I have a sixth. So we rode around at sunset, the wind pulling back our hair, the salty water spraying our clothes, and music blaring from the radio.

 *Here, the front isn't the side with the street... it's the side with the river. And riding around the block means boating on the water in a circle.

My Summer Blog

Okay, I know this is really late, but I finally decided to start my blog, so I'll just go over what happened in general this summer.

Two weeks ago I was at Ranger's Apprentice camp. This is a summer day camp set up the local Austin store, BookPeople based off of John Flanagan's Ranger's Apprentice book series. (His site is www.rangersapprentice.com) The camp director, Topher Bradley, is really amazing and all of the actors and counselors are spot on. Sadly, I had to leave in the middle of week two, just as the plot was thickening. (My dad, being the camera geek he is, posted pics online at his flickr account - Chris Pencis) So i was shipped away to Savannah Georgia to take a photography class at the Telfair museum of art. That generally consisted of a week wandering around Goergia's wonderfully green parks and snapping pictures from black and whit to color, manual to digital. Now that it's the weekend, I think it's finally getting to me how weird my family is. The night before last, I couldn't resist chatting my friend about it:

 okay... so at dinner there was an argument on gay people that lasted forever... all the family girls were defending and the males were prosecuting, the cousin (his name is Jacob, btw) leading them... that was generally the big debate... now they've just sent Jacob outside;
Gram (my grandma): "Jake, since you're done with dinner, would you go water they plants on the deck?"

  His sister Collyn: "Sucks for you"

 Jake: "Yeah sure. Which ones."

  Gramdaddy (my grandpa): "The ones that are hanging, you know?"

 Gram: "The ones that look like they're dead."

  Jake: "Oh, so pretty much all of them then"

 and now Uncle Tim suggested that Gramdaddy get a new grill and Gramdaddy is saying that he doesn't wanna spend thousands on one...

  and more yelling...

 and out comes the butternut pecan cake... pronounced pee-can here

oh right, and i forgot to tell you that at one point out dinner conversation somehow got to farm animals... that lead to stories:
- humans being eaten by pigs (apparently it's an expression)
- a woman who was run over by her cow that was protecting it's calf

 - a girl who jumped over a five foot fence to get away from a charging bull

  - and tying a dead chicken to a dog's neck to try and get it to stop killing them...

  dessert...

  brb

  Jake: "... and Mr. Collins was like, 'What are you gonna do without me around?' and Garrett said, 'Everything'"
Collyn: "HAHAHA! wow... I would just sit around and have intelligent conversations without anyone saying, '_what_?'"
Jake: "Wait. You're intelligent?"
(typical brother sister love)
...
Gram (without context): "Yes, Jacob is the most wonderful loser in the world"
Jake: "GRAM!"
Aunt Karen: "wow that came out wrong..."
Gram: "Oh... not that kind... a loser of things. He loses everything."
...

And now they're fussing about the gov't taxing a non profit hospital

 and now they're yelling at Aunt Karen for never checking her email... i'm getting annoyed suggestive glances thrown my way

and they just had me look up how many oceans there are because it was a debate between five and seven... this was because Jake's history book was wrong

  it's five

then they had me look up flights... i'm thinking it's getting dangerous to be here with a computer

Jake: ~points to the large glasses sitting on his nose... gramdaddy's glasses~ "Gramdaddy, do you like these glasses?"

  Gramdaddy: "Those glasses had better be back where you found them when you leave."

 Jake: "They will..." ~he lifts the glasses up and down his nose really fast~ "I've always wanted to do this!"

  Me: "It's your life's dream?"

Jake: "Yes. It's my life's dream"

  ...

 and now they're talking about world crises

... and then all the sudden -
Uncle Tim: "I'm going home..."

That wasn't even all of it! And then last night was just as entertaining:

                      Just spent like the last three hours, till 12:15, playing ATTACK UNO with my Aunt, Uncle,    and cousins while they sang along obnoxiously to Georgia country music and laughed so hard they sounded insane... and now they want to go out to get "small square hamburgers"... and they aren't gonna let my Uncle drive because he was asking the dog for advice during the game...

Well, now I'd better get back so I don't miss anything. Bye readers... if you exist.