Author: Kelly Page 3 of 8

Running hurts. 😛 After the shoulder-swimming thing, I started running a little.  It’s not fun at all.  Sometimes I feel like I can run forever without any problems. Other times it takes me four steps before I start cramping up.  My legs always hurt afterwards.  I’m terrible at pacing myself.  It hurts more to jog than to run.  I can’t go more than a mile and a half without having to walk.  My throat starts burning because of how I breathe.  Short of slowing down to a walk, NOTHING will make the cramps go away. It gets super boring after the first three laps.  The music selection at the Y does not help with the boredom.  I sweat like a pig. RUNNING STINKS!!!!

Swimming is the ultimate sport.  A good swim feels like slicing through warm, soft butter.  All my sweat is washed away.  It’s relaxing and repetitive and refreshing. It doesn’t jar my bones every time I move.  I usually get a killer workout. It’s not as boring and I don’t know why. I don’t cramp up. Breathing is easy and controlled. I know how to pace myself in the water.  It never hurts as much as running. Also, being underwater is so much cooler than running around a short track eight million times. Swimming is just plain awesome. I would do it every single day if I could. However, our Y doesn’t have an indoor pool yet and I’m still staying off of my shoulder and I’m going to need to do something all winter long and I hit a plateau on the elliptical and the elliptical is boring anyway and running is something that you can do competitively which I like and sometimes when I’m running it feels like I’m running super fast on a cloud and I could run forever and that feeling is really, really good, almost as good as swimming like butter. So running it is.

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The Big Betty Blonde t-shirt giveaway is this weekend!! So sign up with your extra e-mails, cross your fingers and anxiously await the results! 🙂

This will be brief because we are on the run today.  This is the last day before Jorge, Mari, Grandma Conchita, and the kids head back to Mexico.  We have places to go and things to do–mostly involving shopping, eating, drinking, and watching the kids play.

Three cheers for Dad and Christian! The cat tower is now complete and our kitties are very satisfied with the end result. I think it looks like a nice piece of abstract art/furniture. Very functional! I would put up a picture, but we lost the memory card.

Yesterday was our last day of 2009 swim practice.  We got to play water baseball and cross the ocean and all that good stuff. Unfortunately I did something weird to my arm at the meet last Saturday, so I was unable to swim with my arms for the whole week. I thought that because we were just playing games and not actually swimming yesterday, I would be OK.

Not so.

Cross the Ocean is usually a very fun game where you put two ‘sharks’ in the middle of the pool, and everyone else (minnows) at the end of the pool. When the sharks say “Cross the ocean!” the minnows must all jump in the water and swim to the other side of the ocean without being tagged by the two sharks. If you are tagged then you are a shark for the next round.  Fun!!!  So I got in the pool with 20 extremely energetic 6-10 year olds and all of the un-injured 11 and ups.  I did really well for the first two rounds. I made it to the other end of the pool, in fact.  Then the coach changed the rules around and made it so that the minnows could tag us on the tops of our heads only when our heads were above water.  Heads below water generally mean actually swimming, but I managed.  I was doing really really well in fact. When I was five feet away from touching the wall, this little girl who had been puppyguarding me and following me around the pool, tapped me on the top of my head as I came up for a breath. That was when I twisted around and popped my arm for the fifth time. Popping your arm hurts.  It’s like it’s twisting out of your body which is a little gross, and then it hurts a lot for like 10 minutes afterwards. Anyway, I’m not going to be swimming in the championship meet. 🙁 I am comforted by the ice-cream party afterward though. 🙂 It’s Disney-themed. I’m leaning towards dressing up as the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland since my Snow-White dress was bought when I was seven and no longer fits me.  But I don’t know. Any Disney-themed costume suggestions for Christian and I?

Cousins are coming tomorrow!!!!!!! YAY!! I am beyond excited!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 Pictures will come soon!

To my highly esteemed and greatly treasured 97 Betty Blonde subscribers:

We have one whole year’s worth of Betty Blonde comic strips behind us! One whole year’s worth!  One year of no skipped days, lots of cheesy jokes, a good chunk of character development, puffy hair, rockin’ neighbors, mysterious closet dwellers and the occasional morbid observation! One year that would never have been what it is if it weren’t for the following people:

• Dad! Dad is the magic behind the puffy hair. He has scanned and erased and suggested and pushed and pulled and programmed for an entire year, all for Betty Blonde.  He was the one who suggested I start drawing a comic strip in the first place, he was the one who organized the layout of the strip, he created BLEAX (Betty bLondE Accumulator of Comix– it’s a software program that puts together my comic strip), he was behind many of the jokes, he erased countless of inked drawings and did dozens of other things for Betty Blonde.  It literally would NOT be here today if it weren’t for dad!
• Christian.  The voice of reason, or lack thereof.  He knows my style, and even more importantly, he knows when a joke is really rotten and never hesitates to tell me so, something for which I am very very grateful.  Christian also was a major help with the t-shirt.
• MOM. For being mom. Only my family would understand.
• The inspirations for my favorite and best characters, Hannah (for Betty), Cousin Julia and cousin Kylee (for helping me find Bart and for Mr. Nobody most of all), Coach (for Coach), Christian again(for Quirk of course! who else!), male knitters and American soldiers (Hank) and all of my super-smart homeschooled friends (Faith, Hope and Charity)
• Bill Amend, Stephen Pastis, Bill Watterson, Herge, Johnny Hart and Scott Adams.  These cartoonists are my inspirations.  By studying their work (studying… mostly comprised of sitting around in Borders on Saturday afternoons laughing at The Simpsons comic books) I have learned a lot, and I hope to learn even more!
• Most of all, a thousand thanks and more to my 97 subscribers! I honestly would not have kept it up for a year if it weren’t for your comments, support, and suggestions.  Thank you thank you thank you and thank you again for everything!!!

For the very special 97 subscribers who thought Betty Blonde was cool enough to read every day in their inbox, I am starting a BETTY BLONDE T-SHIRT GIVEAWAY. Here’s what the design looks like:

If you signed up to receive Betty Blonde every day through e-mail, then you are automatically entered into a monthly drawing to win this special t-shirt! Only e-mail subscribers will be entered into the drawing. The first drawing will be held this August. Stay tuned and do tell your friends!
Or don’t. It will increase your chances of winnning. 😉

You can subscribe to Betty Blonde here.    If you don’t win a t-shirt, then you can still purchase one here. Unfortunately they are a bit pricey, but it’s totally worth it to be able to sport a picture of Spike (and friends, but mostly SPIKE!) on yourself.  Comments, suggestions, criticisms (of the constructive sort), and new subscribers are very welcome! You can e-mail me about Betty Blonde at bettyblonde@chapmankids.net.

Thanks to everyone for being supportive and helping me out!! Here’s to another great year of Betty Blonde!  Tell your friends!

Love,

Kelly Chapman
Betty Blonde
Big Wilma
Quirk
Mr. Nobody
Spike
Wolf

I finished a couple of crafty things this weekend. Herb being one of them:

This is Herb. Herb is a fire breathing dragon.

This bulletin board being another. I made it Sunday afternoon just for fun. It’s in my closet now

This is the bulletin board.

Martha-Stewart-rhinestone-enhanced pushpins

Right now I’m working on finishing a little amigurumi elephant (legs and tail), I’m starting another amigurumi pig (halfway through the head), and I NEED to finish the ears and the right arm on my amigurumi monkey. I’m also hoping to start an awesome tote bag knitting project soon. And I’ve just got to learn how to sew sometime. I should probably be learning how to drive instead but… 😀

I’ve also found some AMAZING crafting websites. I got to them off of Gourmet Amigurumi which is like…. crazy amazingly awesome. I need to look at some of the other sites, but I’ve been so engrossed in these three that I haven’t had the time

Inside a Black Apple
I really admire her work. It’s so artsy and unique and cute! Plus I think she’s from Oregon. She has a really cool fashion blog too.

Wee Wonderfuls
SO CUTE!!! And so talented!!!! It’s not fair how adorable everything here is! I adore all the little dolls. When I learn how to sew, that’s what I’m going to make.

Roxy Craft
This is also an amazing amigurumi blog. She has some really helpful ami tutorials on here too that I definitely could have used like 3 months ago. I mean, I could definitely use them NOW, but I could have used them way more a while ago because I was just starting. Also for inspiring and cute!

Oh and:
Threadbanger, the hipster website is also pretty cool. They have lots of videos and such about crafters and crafts and DIY stuff and all that. Thanks to Youngin for the site!

One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of the best crafters out there are tree-hugging, Obama-craft-making, Starbucks drinking hippies. Don’t get me wrong, I love nature as much as the next person, and Starbucks protein-chocolate-banana shakes are to die for, but FOR ONCE I’d like to see someone make a Sarah Palin t-shirt or amigurumi or tea cozy or something. I take it upon myself to be that person. Where do you find flesh colored yarn though?

*Amigurumi Dragon pattern by Ana Paula Rimoli as seen in the Knit1 Magazine Winter 2009 issue

I have been brought up to call adults by their last names.  Mr. Smith, Mrs.Jones, Mr. Pedraza.  All that.  Through the years there have been numerous adults who urge me to call them by:

Exceptions:

• Miss Turbone, who is really Mr. Bone, is called Miss Turbone because of an unfortunate read aloud in the second grade.
• Young adults, or those of you who are within ten years of my age.
• Troy and Youngin are more than ten years older than me, but it doesn’t feel like they are so I’m very conflicted about that.
• Blog commenters… Ruthie, can I call you Mrs. R?
• Workers (our preachers).  When we were little we used to call them Uncle and Aunt, but it feels kind of strange now. I’m kind of unsure about everyone but Lyle. Lyle is Lyle.

Random things:

So there you go!

Good food turns into great food when it’s been in the refrigerator for a day or two.  Take mom’s grilled salmon.  A delicious and nutritious fish, drizzled with lemon juice and garlic and grilled to perfection.  It’s wonderful when you eat it with some rice and asparagus, but it is even MORE wonderful when eaten cold.  There is nothing like cold salmon. I think it might even be my favorite food.  Other good  cold foods are pizza (#1 favorite breakfast food) and oatmeal.  Cold oatmeal has a slimy, lumpy sort of texture, but it is one of the best cold snacks out there IMHO. 

One cold food that is not very appetizing is macaroni.  There’s something about cold macaroni that is very, very unappealing to me.  Just made macaroni is wonderful though, especially if it’s made at convention. 🙂

Why all this food talk? Because that’s what’s been on my mind lately!  Friday night, the neighbor kids came over and we made all this:

If you’re interested, Jenna, Nathan, Christian and I made Baked Mac and Cheese (Joy of Cooking book), Salad (Lettuce and Tomatoes), Salad Dressing (Taste of Home), Green beans (Frozen), Biscuits (Bisquick), Pink Lemonade (Mix), and a chocolate cake (from a box, but we sprinkled coconut on top to make it look more homemade).  We had lots of fun doing that!!  Then on Memorial Day, Christian and I made shish kabobs!

The shish kabobs were the real deal this time, except for the pineapple (it was from a can). They had meat, mushrooms, pineapple chunks, tomatoes, red bell peppers, and onions on them.  We served those with rice and a salad.  That was also very fun!

We also went down to the history museum to check out the Knights of the Black Flag exhibit. It was very interesting.  Of course the whole pirate thing is really romanticized so I was expecting a bunch of stories that would shatter my stereotypes.  Well I can say that some of my illusions were shattered, but most were based in truth (if in fact the entire exhibit was not romanticized, but well researched, which I have no doubt that it was) Pirates were a dastardly, uncouth sort. They did dastardly uncouth things, and liked to wear red sashes and put up black skull and crossbones flags and other pirate-y sort of things. 

We encountered a couple of pirates there, but I expect they weren’t the real thing.  Their heads were much to small 🙂

I am in the middle of Pilgrim’s Progress right now and I am enjoying it immensely. All the characters are named after their overarching bad habit, trait or virtue (Help, Obstinate, Mistrust, Piety etc. etc.)  I got to thinking about this. Wouldn’t the world would be much simpler if everyone had one name that described them completely?  Imagine the possibilities:

“How do you do Mr. Peaceandgranola?”

“I’m groovy, thanks for asking Mrs. Busybody!  How’s your son, Nobelt Baggypants?”

“Oh he’s doing well enough. I’m afraid he’s gotten into a quarrel with the neighbor, Mr. Callous, though I’m sure I don’t know what Nobelt has done to upset him. And you know how Mr. Callous is! Always so insensitive and cruel! Not to gossip, but I hear he once threw a rock in Mrs. Rapscallion’s window because he was so angry at her.”

“Not cool dude! Sounds like he needs a little love.”

“I believe so! Oh dear me I’ve got to run. Say hello to your wife, Mrs. Braidsandhemp!”

Wonderful isn’t it? Imagine how convenient it would be. I could avoid all the mean and annoying people in the world just by knowing their name! I could surround myself with nice, beautiful people all day long. I wouldn’t have to go through the long and time-consuming process of getting to know them and becoming their friend and all that.  Life would be easy.

It wouldn’t be very fun though.  I don’t think I would actually have very many friends either. After all, no one is perfect.  Everyone has their ups and downs.  A more accurate name for the typical person might be Miss Usually-nice-except-in-the-mornings-when-she-hasn’t-had-breakfast-is-also-envious-sometimes-but-very-honest-unfortunately-often-slothful.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t appreciate the occasional help.  For example, When I’m (relatively) old it would be very helpful in finding a nice husband.  Also, some books would be a lot easier to understand if there were a Mr. Antagonist and a Mr. Cannon Fodder and a Miss Femme Fatale instead of Frank and Bob and Lucy.  Since that’s usually not the case, I am greatly enjoying and appreciating Mr. Bunyan’s work.

I have come to the conclusion that no one, and I mean no one, can ink Betty Blonde except for me.  You see, the rough drafts of Betty Blonde have little lines going everywhere, not perfect, straight lines for a guide. A lot of the inking if also very ad libbed, especially places like Mr. Nobody’s hat or Spike’s spikes. It’s pretty confusing.  That’s why I like to do it myself. Also, I think inking is just as crucial to the cartooning process as drawing or jokes are.  Maybe even more so.  I believe the way you ink really influences people’s first impressions of your comic strip.  For example, I find FoxTrot a lot more visually appealing than Calvin and Hobbes even though Calvin and Hobbes is a lot funnier.  There’s something about the chunky lines and constant cartoony style of FoxTrot that draws me in.  Sure Calvin and Hobbes is more artistic, but at first glance it doesn’t grab my attention.  Calvin and Hobbes is an acquired taste (I’m just speaking for myself.)

I lied actually. ‘No one and I mean no one’ is not true. Christian is my back up inker in case of emergencies. He knows my style better than I do.  Also, if I happen to have a favorite aunt or uncle or cousin or devoted Betty Blonde fan (of which there are many 😉 ) or friend or worker or grandparent or interested onlooker in the house, and they feel like inking, then I will relinquish the pen. (generally a Bic z4, with a 0.5 point. Works wonders.) I’m even more willing to give up the pen if the volunteer is stressed. Inking is wonderfully therapeutic, sort of like coloring, especially if you have a Dad that’s willing to share his homemade popcorn and read aloud a history book to you.  I recommend taking it up sometime

Drop on by around 5:30 PM sometime… I’d be happy to hand over the z4. 🙂

On a different but related note: I’ve heard tell that professional cartoonists use brushes or fancy fountain pens with India ink.  India ink. Isn’t that fantastic? I don’t know if it’s actually from India, but it sounds awesome, and that’s good enough for me. You know how some people dream of Ferraris, yachts, and high social status ? I dream of India Ink, an NCS membership, and (just maybe) a Reuben Award. 😛

Long time no post is a good excuse to use bullet points!

• We’ve already planted a dozen things in our garden! A couple of weeks ago Mom and Christian and I bought two cherry tomato plants (yellow for Christian, grape for me) two normal tomato plants, lavendar and basil. Saturday afternoon, Dad and I went to the Wal-Mart and got cucumber, pepper, cantaloupe, carrot, beet, radish, zucchini, watermelon and chive seeds. Mom and I planted those on Saturday evening.  I even made cute little popsicle stick signs for them!!  I’m super excited for the plants to come up.  We still need lemon cucumbers, chard and lettuce, but I have no clue how we’re going to fit them in the boxes.
• I don’t know if it was just me, but I think that the special meeting we went to yesterday was one of the most amazing ever. Words really can’t describe how helpful it was to me. It’s embarrassing to say, but I usually listen on and off at meeting! 🙁 This time I took in the entire thing, and I am so so so thankful for that.
• Swimteam starts May 18!! We’ve already started talking to all our old friends.  Everyone is super excited!!
• I’m going to start a series of interviews with random friends and relatives for the blog. I think Grandma Conchita will be first, as she has a close-up look at swine flu in Mexico… 😉

I think that’s it. Thank goodness for bullet points!

Last weekend I forgot my purse at the Chick-Fil-A. Second or third time this year that that has happened. I don’t know why I even bother carrying one around with me anymore. I always lose it somewhere!!! But carrying a purse around makes me feel awfully grown up and sophisticated, so I do. Unfortunately, this time around I had my cell phone in my purse. It’s not like I use my cell phone all the time (In fact, I had no idea it was missing until mom reminded me.) but it is a necessary little gadget. Christian and I use it a lot when we are at the bookstore on Saturdays, at our music lessons, or at a friend’s house. At first I thought I had left the purse at the Starbucks inside the Barnes and Noble, but we called and it wasn’t there.  So we racked our brains trying to remember where we had gone for lunch on Saturday.  I thought for sure that it was Wendy’s. Wendy’s is the Chapman household’s second kitchen on Saturday afternoons. BUT Mom remembered Chick-Fil-A. We called, and sure enough, they had it!!! Unfortunately, all of my CLEP US History II notecards were stashed inside one of the purse pockets and Mom called Chick-Fil-A just when we were parking in front of the CLEP testing place. 😛 No harm done though! I had my CLEP book and my notebook with me, and I did squeak by on the test, even with the little distraction of the fire alarm (see Dad’s post below)  Now I have to do it all over again twice! Sociology and Biology are coming up next…

Last Friday I received this in the mail.

If you can’t tell, it is a princess sticker. Given to me for my valor and bravery in the harrowing halls of the doctor’s office. I felt SO embarrassed when I opened the envelope and saw what it was. As you all know, I complained bitterly (for an entire paragraph!) about not receiving such a sticker after my recent visit to the doctor’s office for a tetanus shot.  Never did it occur to me that the kind-hearted souls at Cary Healthcare Associates (?) would actually take the time to post the above sticker to me.  Alas, I did nothing but sit and feel sorry for my poor, wounded, sticker-less self.  Now, however, the world is a little less lonesome, the grass is a bit greener, and the pink wall of my room is that much pinker.

Thank you Doctor Gilmore!!!!

I have a serious problem with pronouncing words correctly. I know what they mean, I can (usually) use them in context. The problem is I read them before ever having heard them so I constantly mess up. For example adolescent. Until today, when Dad corrected me, I’ve always said it uh-DAWL-uh-sent. Same with mature. According to Dictionary.com, the official pronunciation is ma-toor, but I’ve always said it ma-chur. Gambol is Gam-bowl. Sanguine is San-gwine. And tacit has always been tack-it to me. Wanton is supposed to be WON-tn, but I say it Won-tawn. Victuals is Vick-chooalz. Cached is Cash-ayed. Egregious is uh-GREE-gee-ous. Chagrin is shuh-GREEN. The list goes on and on. There are lots of words that I have butchered even more than those listed above, but I honestly can’t remember them. This butchering happens a lot, and sometimes it’s pretty embarrassing. 🙂 But honestly, why can’t people just be reasonable and pronounce words like they are written?? Yet another reason to move to Mexico.

Today I went to the doctor and got my decennial tetanus shot. I was slightly apprehensive (it’s ap-ri-hen-siv isn’t it???) because I seem to remember a horrible sting not unlike that of a hornet, 10 entire minutes of bawling and a cruel doctor who gave me an ugly dinosaur sticker. Girls of five have no use for dinosaur stickers, especially when there are Barbie princess ones nearby. My fears were in vain however!  All it was was a little poke, and a band-aid, and then I was through. This time I didn’t get a sticker though. I don’t know what those people at the doctor’s office think. Girls of fifteen want Princess barbie stickers just as much as girls of five do. 😉  On top of that, my own family didn’t even offer me a balloon or lollipop, or even a sympathy hug!! Even when I flopped onto the couch and sighed loudly, and looked mournfully at my bandaged flesh wound, they did nothing . What kind of a supportive family is that? I ask you!

What Earth Day? April 22d is National Jelly Bean Day. possibly my favorite holiday after Thanksgiving, Christmas, and National Pink Day (June 22d) I will celebrate this momentous holiday appropriately. They don’t call me Kelly Jean the Jellybean for nothing you know!

I have nothing deep or insightful or extremely interesting to say today (as if I usually do) so I’m just going to write about my Auntie Julia’s cool new idea.  Aunt Julia started a Google group challenging various of her friends and family members to “Work out every single day for 20 days” for at least 30 minutes a day.  I’m excited about it because we usually don’t go to the Y on Wednesdays or weekends, so this will really force me to be creative and play a game of soccer with the neighbor kids or do some crunches. Fun!

Jenna and Nathan brought over a baby doll yesterday. It’s Jenna’s school project. Basically the doll cries, sleeps, drinks, and wets (why is this reminding me of something Christmas-y???)  Her name is Sophie Margaret. She is very cute, but her perpetually-open eyes and crying noises are slightly disturbing. Thankfully she has an off button.

I had a lovely birthday! My wonderful family in Monterrey surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of tulips, mom and Christian and I made chocolate cupcakes with pink cream cheese frosting (Mrs. G, I’m hoping to make the cake soon. Maybe this weekend!), and Jenna stopped by with a pretty lamp for my room. Mom also made a quiche for dinner, hence today’s Betty Blonde. She remembered to chop and peel and break and mix the ingredients though, so it came out perfectly. 🙂 It was really a great day.

Last night I completely re-organized my schedule – again.  Usually I’ll wake up, read the Bible, eat breakfast, and head to the computer for math homework. Going to the computer first thing in the morning is not good for me. There’s way too much temptation to check Facebook, read blogs, and catch up on news and e-mail.  Thus the alterations to my daily schedule!  Today I woke up, read the Bible and ate breakfast. Then I went upstairs and turned on the classical station (which unfortunately for me was having a radio-thon) and spent an entire hour on CLEP US History II. I got SO much work done.  It was really incredible. Even though it slowed up my morning a bit, I got way more work done than I would have if I had started with my math and done my CLEP in the afternoon like I usually do.  I can’t avoid doing homework on the computer. I’ve got math, Spanish, and blogging to do, but today I placed non-computer homework in between all the computer homework.  It has worked very well so far!

Here’s the scarf that I finished last week:

The vast majority of the big events in my life have involved waiting in hallways. Waiting to take a test, waiting to play the piano, waiting to receive a set of scores…  Last weekend I sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair next to three other girls in similar uncomfortable plastic chairs.  One was playing air-piano, another was staring at nothing, and the third sat with her chin in her hand, looking very thoughtful. As I sat there, clutching my books and trying not to hyperventilate, the silence seemed to grow stronger (it usually does in these situations) and every note the first girl tapped on her music book almost seemed to make the atmosphere more awkward and tense.  I don’t know if everyone else felt that way, but I know I did. It may be due to the fact that in my household, it’s rarely quiet for more than two minutes.  I don’t know.

Anyway I broke the silence. I had to for the sake of my sanity and to take my mind off of the upcoming performance. I’m glad I did! We all talked.  We talked about piano and piano teachers and piano practice and piano lessons. We talked about school and New York City and Monterrey Mexico and homeschooling and little brothers and the environment.  We talked about the weather, we talked about the city, we talked about the country, we took and gave piano advice and wished each other luck. And then one by one we went to play in front of a couple of harried and hurried adjudicators.

That’s the cool thing about waiting in hallways with people. It’s almost like a mini party or something. That’s why I always force myself to speak up. However..

Although it is good to speak up sometimes, one must always remember the old adage ‘Silence is golden’. Observe:

We were coming back from an orthodontist appointment today, and Mom decided to stop by a local cake bakery to look around for my birthday.  When we walked in, I decided to be mature and ask a question. So (without a second thought) I asked the elderly clerk:

“Do you do cakes here?”

He replied with a long drawn smart remark, asking me if birds fly, if there was water in the Pacific ocean, and if there was snow on Mt. Everest.

I’m having brownies this year.

I know I’ve been writing an awful lot about my crafty projects lately, but I finally got some pictures of my amigurumi, and I really want to share them with you all! So here are the pictures, before y’all get sick of me.

P.S.!!!  Dad… can you help me out with these???

So the first is a picture of my first two attempts. Tigger was my first one, then Piggly.  The third one on the left in the second picture is one that I’m making for Jenna, my neighbor friend. She wanted a pig too. I am almost finished with it! It just needs a pair of legs.  The last picture is what they are all supposed to look like.

I am slaving away at my math homework today.  Pretty intense stuff. Dad had to read through one of my math lessons with me yesterday and explain it all to me. We haven’t done that for a long time, because most of the time I can understand it on my own. But it was very helpful! Thankfully, Dad enjoys doing that kind of thing (or at least it seems like he enjoys it 🙂 )

Soooo back to finding the zeros of polynomial equations. 😛 Ta-ta!

Those of you who know me well, know that I have always disliked Coke. I don’t think there’s anything really disgusting about it, and I don’t mind drinking it, it just seems too sweet and Coca-Cola-ish for my tastes.  But just because I dislike Coke doesn’t mean that I can’t have fun at the World of Coca Cola! Cokelandia (in Georgia) was awesome.  I wondered how people could fill an entire building with facts about Coke. I mean, there’s only so much you can say about it.  But someone did it, and it was awesome!   We watched an amazing 4-D movie about Coke.  We wore cool cardboard ‘n’ plastic glasses, our chairs bumped up and down, water was sprayed in our faces, we were jabbed in the back a couple of times.  A full chiropractic session, with entertainment!  We also taste tested 64 different drinks from all over the world.  My personal favorites were Vanilla Coke, Fruit Punch Power-Ade, Lift (Also known as Manzanita in Mexico), and good old Minute Maid Lemonade. Good stuff! I learned a few things which I want to pass along to you, just in case you ever find yourself in the Coke museum:

1. The drinks from Africa are VERY sweet
2. You’re only allowed to drink drinks in the drink drinking area 🙁 And you can’t take them outside the museum with you.
3. Everyone should have a sip of Beverly, the world’s most flavorful and distinctive soft drink.
4. Don’t worry about restrooms. There are plenty of them around. Trust me, I know.

We all got a free commemorative bottle of Coke on the way out, and we got our picture taken with a statue of John Pemberton (?), the inventor of Coca Cola himself.

I finished my Amigurumi tiger, and I only have the ears left to make on an amigurumi pig.  I would put up pictures, but the camera is messed up right now. 🙁

Most days of the week, Mom, Christian and I head down to the YMCA and work out for 35 minutes on they elliptical machine. They are nice machines… you can plug in your age and weight and goals and lots of other things and there are many different programs you can use.  I don’t think it’s as great as swimming, but we all get a good workout.

A few weeks ago I started charting how far I went and how many calories I’d burned. Since I try to do a little more than I did the time before each day, it’s been super exciting to see the dramatic difference between the first day and the latest day.  My big goal right now is to get to 4 miles in 35 minutes (although I might make it 40 minutes). I’m getting an average of 3 and a half miles and 280 calories for 35 minutes, and that’s taken me a while so I’m not exactly sure how long it will take me to get up to my goal. But it’s been really fun going through it. Dad is going to help me put my chart onto the computer so it’ll be backed up and easier to access.
 
I’m REALLY looking forward to swimteam though! I want it to be here right now! Sign up day is on April 11th (in a little more than a month!), and it starts sometime in mid-May (2 and a half months!)  TOO LONG! 

Sigh…

I see a potential Betty Blonde storyline in this. 😉