New Year's Apology (With a Resolution In There Somewhere)

Greetings.


Sorry I have not posted in a while. My email with Ally was down and she's the main reader of my blog, Claire a close second. I didn't see a point in posting for no one. Plus, I have been kind of bust. Not a lot, except for finals (easy), but busy enough. Speaking of school, I am bummed that vacation went by so fast and I STILL haven't started reading GREAT EXPECTATIONS. It just means a buttload of work when I get back to school and I hate that. Poop.

Anyways, Christmas was kind of bittersweet. I got to see Josie and Jeremy and Uncle Sam and (ugh) Aunt Gertie at dinner a few days beforehand and I spent all day Christmas Day with Josie and Jeremy. I love my little cousins, they are so cute. And I had my family - Bev, Dad, Bentley, Sam, Gertie, Josie, Jeremy, Gertie's dad Lorenzo, Josephine, Nana, and Gramps. But the bitter part: I got five items, out of thirty, that I wanted. That's not even twenty percent. It's like Nana and Bev are TRYING not to listen to me and they do a really great job. I know, I know, "HM, you should be thankful that you even GET presents! Think about those kids in Uganda who are dying!"

Screw you. I want my fricking presents. (Though I did donate my entire bank account - what little was left, about two hundred bucks - to the Invisible Children fund AND I made one of those Samaritan's Purse boxes. So stuff it.)

I threw Claire a surprise party yesterday. Her birthday is three days after Christmas so she rarely gets a party. We went to this karaoke restaurant that she loves - we call it the "NASCAR Bar" because of the rednecks - and surprised her so badly that she screamed. I just told her that Joseph, Ernie, and William were taking her to dinner for her birthday and we did technically but I think she peed her pants with surprise. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! She loved it. And, through the magic of Facebook (yes, we have Internet in South Dakota too!), I managed to get some of her friends that she hasn't seen in forever.

Speaking of people someone hasn't seen in forever, JAKE MICHAELS CAME TO TOWN! I don't know if I said anything much about Jake before, but during sixth grade at Southington Heights Christian Academy, he and Pauley Border were whom I considered my best friends. We have kind of grown apart over the years, but the three of us always have a movie night whenever Jake is in town. (He moved north to Fort Yates.) So today we went to see TRON: LEGACY. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't my favorite. I hate the ending. Anyways, I was so happy to see Jake and Pauley!

Hmm, what else? I haven't seen my sisters or Joseph all that much, which sucks, but I did get to see them at least once. Joss, Claire, and Joseph were at the surprise party and I've seen Bennie twice. The only one I haven't seen is Ally and I have four presents for her! Perhaps I'll go over tomorrow. I need to sometime.

Anyways, Happy New Year from your favorite fat cynic, Harmony Margaret Juniper Leeann Heloise Walker-Lowell. Also, Merry Belated Christmas, Happy Late Hanukkah, Merry After Kwanzaa, et cetera. =)


Hugz,
HM

Thanksgiving

Greetings.


Happy Thanksgiving! ¡Felíz Día de Acción de Gracias! Merry Turkey Day! Or, in my cousin Ginger's abridged words: Be happy or screw you.

Well I am happy. Oh, believe me, I'm happy. MY POPPY IS THE GREATEST GUY EVER!!!!!!!! HE IS SETTING UP A TRUST FOR ME TO PAY FOR ALL OF MY COLLEGE, MY CAR, MY EVERYTHING EDUCATION-RELATED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's right, you read me. I will never have to pay student loans or debt or ANYTHING! I can buy books and clothes and rent an APARTMENT until I either A) get my Master's or B) turn 24. HELL, I'M GETTING MY MASTER'S DEGREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And the best part is that I can rent an apartment with Joss and Bennie and all they'd have to worry about it their own tuition and books! I could drive them around and pay for rent and all that other stuff so that we could live near the campus and eat!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY POPPY IS AMAZING AND I DON'T CARE IF YOU ARE ANNOYED BECAUSE I AM SAYING IT SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, sorry, I am just really psyched.

We had 18 people over for Thanksgiving as follows: me, Bentley, Dad, Bev, Nana, Gramps, Poppy (sadly, Mammy expired last year), Aunt Gertie, Uncle Sam, Cousins Josie and Jeremy, Bev's cousin Rue and her three kids, Anna (23), John (19), and Marianne (16), Nana's friend Josephina, Dad's cousin Clark, and Gertie's recently widowed father, Lorenzo. Yeah, we needed four tables. But the food was great, I haven't seen John in a while and he's my buddy (before I knew better, like, when I was nine, I had the slightest crush on him. He's an army man now.) and we hung out and talked about video games. Josie, Jeremy, and I played a video game after dinner (The Bible Game, and they love it) and I enjoyed time with my rarely-seen cousins. The food was cooked to perfection. The rolls were great, the potatoes were great, the turkey was AMAZING (thank you, Gramps), and the company was fun. When we gave thanks, we had a lot of laughs - mostly because of me, yay! - and while I was overloaded a bit, I had fun. (I love my family, I do. In small, intermittent doses.)

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and may the Lord bless you for the rest of the year. (What happens next year is out of my hands.) ;)


Hugz
HM

Independence Day (also Homecoming)

Greetings.


It's been a while since I have posted something. I don't know where to start, so I'll start with today.

As you can tell, today is Independence Day, the Fourth of July. The day all the furniture stores have monster sales that save you 'Washingtons". Cheap paper plates, tri-tip, and fireworks are very common around my house on 7/4. Bentley and Dad work on our backyard for our big Independence Day bonanza like cleaning off the patio and scrubbing the pool while Bev and I vacuum and dust and Windex and mop and do everything on the inside. I hate cleaning. Organizing I can do, cleaning, not a chance. Unless I'm paid.

Then the usuals come over: Ally, Colleen, Wanda, Robert Clay, Aunt Gertie, Uncle Sam, Jeremy, and Josie Lowell, a few stragglers whose names I have never bothered to learn, and sometimes our neighbors from across the street, the Andersons. Joy Ann has been quite smitten with Bentley for as long as I can remember. And I had a crush on her older brother Corbin when I was little. We all swim, eat barbecue, and then wait for dark to start the fireworks. Joy Ann, Bentley, Colleen, and some of the stragglers' littler ones have fun with sparklers. Sometimes Ally and I join in but I'm not a big sparklers girl. Bev hides in the house; she's a pyrophobe. Then as soon as the sun sets, Dad breaks out the good stuff. I'm not talking about sissy Piccolo Petes here (please, no, they give me headaches) I'm talking big ol' honking dinosaur fireworks. While Bev is a pyrophobe, Bentley and Dad are pyromaniacs. They LOVE their fire. I am flexible either way. But I like 7/4 because I get to see Ally. I STILL have her birthday presents from MAY.

Another thing; I was working Vacation Bible School with the kids and Joseph was playing (ironically) Joseph, like the guy with the coat with a lot of colors, in the VBS skit thing. Beforehand, he was just being really... playful. He was messing with my face, like pushing it around and stuff, and I asked him why. He just shrugged and said "I dunno." It was great...

I actually like working with the kids. I'm really good with kids. They like me too. I know how to talk to them, Bev says. Now I'm torn between teaching elementary or high school students. I love the little kids, ideally I'd teach third or second grade, but I want to teach a high school curriculum. I even have extra credit assignments ready, assignments that I can't do with little kids. And I just want t teach both. I love both. I'm torn...


Hugz
HM

Mother's Day

Greetings.

I hope all you mamas out there had a wonderful day today.
Okay, I got my mom two presents: GORGEOUS earrings and a white vest in a style that Bev REALLY wanted. I thought I was going to win this year. See, Dad and I (Bentley never actually shops for Bev's present) always compete for who gets the best present(s). And this year I thought I had won. I mean, those are AWESOME gifts.
But then Dad comes in out of nowhere and swoops this awesome gift for her: one of those digital picture frames that can hold 6400 pics. I even fell for it. Nana, Aunt Gertie, Uncle Sam, Josie, Jeremy, Bentley, and I just sat there looking at the pictures for, like, twenty minutes. (Man, I was CUTE when I was younger!)
As I mentioned before, Aunt Gertie, Uncle Sam, Josie, and Jeremy came for Mother's Day. Josie, Jeremy, and I had a lot of fun. They always love playing my games on my Nintendo DS, especially my vintage GameBoy game with Risk, Battleship, and Clue on it. Jeremy, age 9, is probably one of my favorite distant relatives. (Well, not like DISTANT distant, he's my cousin on Bev's side. But he's not my IMMEDIATE family. Plus, he lives two hours from me.) He's a cute little boy with a bad case of ADD, but he's adorable. And he's more talkative than Josie, age 5, at least he is where I'm concerned. But Josie came around later during Brunch when she saw her brother beat Battleship on my GameBoy in, like, seven minutes. She then went on to beat his record by two minutes. (Of course she had a little help. But, since she didn't want the help, she and Jeremy had a tug-of-war over my DS which caused part of it to break.)
Then we went back to Gramps and Nana's and opened presents, yadda yadda yadda. Then Bev and Bentley dropped me off home so they could go see IRON MAN 2 (which I am going to see next Saturday as part of Joseph's birthday celebration because his birthday's on a Sunday this year) and Dad went to his school to work on a few things. I stayed home and... did nothing. Hm. Perhaps I should have gone to the gym.
Nah, I was TIRED. I mean, I was so tired yesterday that I fell asleep at Joseph's. Sheesh. THAT'S tired.

Hugz
HM