Homeschool Academy, dancing, and more! {Life update}

This blog is feeling pretty empty now! The weird thing is that I feel like I'm writing stuff for this blog all the time, but you guys don't realize it. The back end of this blog has probably close to 50 unpublished drafts of posts. Some of those are terrible, and will never see the light of day, but some might... We'll see.

I think it's time for a little life update! I'm blogging (semi-regularly) on The Daily Ramble about my day to day life, so for a more complete idea of what I'm up to, go over there.

I've been pretty busy this summer. I'm teaching Latin still, plus some friends and I teamed up for Homeschool Academy, where we teach a bunch of cool classes. I'm co-teaching Geology, plus I'm teaching Irish dancing each week. It's a ton of fun, and it's super relaxed and laid back, which is nice.

I'm not doing any ballet this summer, but I am doing Irish, and we have some more performances coming up! We're dancing and the Whidbey Island Highland Games in a few weeks, and then at Birch Bay State Park a few weeks after that.

College searching continues. This weekend we're going to the east side of the state to visit Gonzaga University and WSU. I don't have any interest in WSU, but my sister wants to visit, and I love college campuses, so it should be fun. Plus, I've never been to either Pullman or Spokane, so it'll be fun to see more of the state.

I just finalized my class schedule for the fall. I'm taking Intermediate Algebra (unfortunately I didn't get into Precalc I), German I, and Introduction to World Religions. I think it should be a fun load, albeit a challenging one.

In the winter, I'll be taking Precalc, German II, and Western Civ III (assuming all goes according to plan.

That's my life right now! Here are some pictures from the last few weeks:

Prep for the Lit Analysis class I taught for the Homeschool Acadmey.

Aslan and I.

Bad pic, but I got a WTNV shirt!

Awesome necklace I bought at the steampunk festival yesterday!

Beautiful sunset over the dogpark

Week in the Life: Coming Soon!

In my last post, I mentioned a few posts that I was working on, but, I haven't actually finished any of them. I have been really busy, and things aren't going to be slowing down for a while.

Since I realized that I won't be having any more time to really sit down and blog for a while, I thought that maybe I'd do a "Week in the Life" series. I did this almost two years ago on my old blog (which isn't up anymore), and it was pretty popular. Also, on homeschooling websites and blogs, one of the most common questions is "What do you do all day?" I thought this would be a good way of showing you a little of our schedule.

Granted, this is a way busier than normal week, but all of the normal activities are happening, and any given week we usually have a few extra things going on anyway. To give you a little context, I thought I'd tell you a little about what's been going on the past few days, and what we're doing today, and then the firs real DITL post will be tomorrow. I'll start the post in the morning, and publish is, and then edit it throughout the day as I have time with what's been happening. I'll see if I can edit the post from my phone, because if I can't, there may be a few days with nothing until the evening (mainly Sunday). If I can, I'll post pictures from the day too, but no guarantees.

So, this weekend was my 16th birthday party (yay!) which was a ton of fun. My friends and I painted some pottery at a local place (I'll try to post pics of the finished product later), went on a scavenger hunt through the beautiful part of Bellingham called Fairhaven, and ended up at a pizza place for dinner.

Sunday we went to hear some friends sing, and then went back to their house for a party. Also fun, but overall kind of exhausting. Monday, I volunteered at the library, and then went to dance class.

Today, I've been working on school all morning, and then I'm teaching a Latin class to four girls this afternoon at a friend's house.

Come back tomorrow for the first in a week's worth of "real life" posts.

Dancing, Gaming, and Blogging {Life Update}

The blog's been a little quiet lately, so it seems like a good time to do a little updating. First of all, some blog stuff. The rest of the Disneyworld posts are coming, I just need to finish writing them. There are two or three left, and should all be up by the end of next week. Also, there are several book reviews that are coming soon from books I read some time ago, but forgot to review. Homeschool posts should be coming back this week as well.

My mom is on spring break (she works at a community college), which is awesome. She also has a two week spring break this year, which is even more awesome. I'll still be doing school the whole time, but having her home and getting to sleep in are vacation enough. :)

I've always thought of myself as a geek, but the one part of that that I've been lacking in is my tabletop gaming skills. This week, I think I've managed to remedy that by learning to play two major geek games that I'd heard plenty about but never played: 7 wonders, and Magic: The Gathering. The second one I've resisted learning for probably two years, but I succumed to peer pressure. :) It actually was sort of fun, though mainly really confusing. I actually had to leave before finishing the game, but I promised my friend that I'd play again so that he could finish teaching it to me. 

Last weekend I danced in a dance show. It was fun, and it made me realize how much I want to try some other dance styles. I've done Irish dance for almost two years, but I'd really like to try jazz, tap, and maybe ballet. I've always kind of dismissed ballet, since it seems like if you're older than about eight you're too old, but it's not like I would expect to dance professionally or anything. It would just be for fun.

I've been sick the last week, and I was actually feeling pretty bad during our dance performances, but I made it through our two on Saturday (which were at nursing homes), and felt a bit better for our bigger show on Sunday. I wish I hadn't been sick, since I think I would have danced better then, but it still went well I think. :)

I also went to see a movie called "Walking the Camino" on Thursday, which I'm going to review in a separate post sometime in the next week or two.

I also have a post in the works about reading and why to read different types of books. It's still mostly an idea, but it should be done in a week or two as well.

So, the blog should be much less quiet soon! Is there anything you want me to write about, or any books you think I should read? Let me know. The post will probably happen, and I'll try to read the book, though my reading schedule is pretty packed. :)

Busy, Busy, Busy {Life Update}

Today, I don't actually have time to write up a fancy post, so this is all that is going up. Life has been insane lately, and it's not slowing down. On Friday, we had our first choir performance, which went fine. On Saturday, I also danced with the Scottish Highland Dancers at the holiday festival at the port, and I took part in an Irish dance as part of that.

The Irish dance we did was one that a friend and I put together ourselves, the night before. It went really well, considering, but I do wish we could have practiced it a few more times. Today, I have another choir performance, and then a Christmas party, which should be a lot of fun, and, hopefully, somewhat relaxing.

Last Tuesday, our World Lit group got together to read the play, A Doll's House outloud together. It was a lot of fun. We each took a character to play. It took us over three hours, but we made it. I'll post a book review (and more about our reading) soon. My upcoming week is just as busy, with something (or multiple things) happening every day. According to Google Calender, the first free day I have is Dec. 17th. That's one of just three empty days between now and Christmas, though I'm sure they'll fill up quickly.

Anyways,  I don't need to just tell you how busy I am. This is just an update on what I'm up to, and now you at least know a little bit of it. School has been a little hard to fit in lately, but I'm planning on doing a comprehensive Homeschool Friday post this coming Friday. I'll talk a little about what's been going on and how things are going.

I've had a lot to do and think about lately, so this is all I have time to write at the moment. I'll be back tomorrow!

Life Update {Illness, Dancing, Singing, and Writing}

Hey guys! It is way past time for me to write one of these. The last month was INSANE, and I know that the one coming up won't be much better.

I have been really sick this last week, and in fact had to stay home while my family went to Thanksgiving with relatives. As a result, I did no school, and am quite behind there, and not a lot of writing. In fact, I was pretty sure that this was going to be the year I didn't win NaNoWriMo, but I managed to pull through in the end, which was a bit of a miracle.

Since I know that there are some of you in the Bellingham area who read this (and some family and friends who may be interested in coming), I thought I would post the dates and times of some of my performances for choir and dance over the next week or so.

On Saturday, December 7th, our Scottish Dance group will be performing at the Port Festival at from noon to 1pm. There will also be an Irish Dance or two from those of us who do both types of dance.

On Tuesday, December 10th, our Homeschool Choir will be performing as part of the Whatcom Homeschool Association Annual Christmas program, which begins at 7pm, and includes many performers. This will be at Kulshan Middle School and is open to the public.

There will probably be more choir performances, but they have not been finalized as of right now.

I have a lot of practice for all these, and overall I am swamped. I am really glad that NaNo is over, because if I am this overwhelmed with out writing 2k each day, I would be going crazy trying to fit that in too!

In the past week, I also saw Catching Fire (review coming soon) and Ender's Game (read review here). I also watched 5 episodes of Lost on Thanksgiving, and I am finally up to the beginning of Season Five. It's only taken two years. Oh well. At the current rate, it'll take almost another year to finish.

Also, this might sound a little crazy, but I want to try to put up a blog post every day for the rest of December. I really want to see if I can manage it. It will be a mix of holiday stuff, book and movie reviews (I have a ton stacked up waiting to be finished), some school stuff (I haven't done a HF post in weeks!), some other fun things I don't want to talk about yet, and some general chatty life update posts for the days I don't have anything else.

It should be fun, and crazy, and I might not make it, but I also might. I really just want to see if I can manage to do it. On that note, I have some ideas of ways things may be changing a little around here in the new year, but I'm going to wait a little while to talk more about that.

I hope you are all had a good Thanksgiving, and are enjoying the coming holiday season!

NaNoWriMo Update: Two-Thirds Done! + Mini Life Update

Let's try to pretend I'm not almost a whole week late on this one... I'm just going to combine Homeschool Friday posts again, since I did not get the one for last week done.

According to the calender, November is 2/3 of the way over, though my word count does not reflect that at the moment. You can always see my current word count in the side bar, and right now that is 26,332 words. This is a lot less than I would like, but I'm not yet TOO worried about it. In 2011, I had 26,928 words on the 20th, and in 2012 I had 31,479. The 2011 numbers are very close, and I still managed to come back and win that year.

This NaNoWriMo has been the hardest one yet. My story is coming together, sort of, but my other life keeps getting in the way. School has been demanding a lot of time and attention, and it remains my first priority most of the time. I have also been sick nearly the entire month, which has resulted in having several days with no writing.

I had a cold in late October which never quite went away (there was a nasty lingering cough), and last week it seemed to come back in full force again. I don't know if this is something totally different, or if I have relapsed, but I have been feeling pretty terrible for the last week or so, which has negatively effected my writing.

I have also had a lot of other stuff going on that I have been doing. I agreed to go to three Scottish Country Dancing classes so that I could perform with them in three weeks at the port festival (I have never done any Scottish before in my life, though it is similar to Irish, which I have been doing for over a year now). I also have several choir performances coming up. I know I have some local readers, so as the time gets closer, I'll post some dates and places that you can come see me sing or dance if you so desire.

NaNo itself has been going okay. My novel is still very strange, and I sometimes hate it, but I am feeling a little bit better about it. Last Thursday, I went to a Write In at a local coffee shop (my first in three years of NaNo), which was fun. I was nervous because I knew I would be the youngest person there (I was, the rest of the people were college students), but it was still fun. One of the people asked where I went to college when I first got there, which boosted my confidence level a bit.

I was going to go to another one last night, but this cough I have has gotten so bad that I didn't think it was a good idea. Even though I didn't feel too bad, I would certainly have disturbed everyone else with my literal non-stop coughing fits. If I feel up for it, I'll go to the Thursday one again this week.

I think I'll go and try to get some school done. I think I am going to block three thirty to five as my dedicated writing time today, so I have until then to do as much school as possible.

How are you all doing on your novels? Are you feeling confidant, or are you getting nervous?

Homeschool Friday: October 21-25, 2013 {Week 8} + Life Update

I'm sorry this post is so late! I'm going to quickly go over school stuff here:

School Stuff
School didn't go super well this week. With being sick and busy, a lot didn't get done. In history, I read 20 pages out of my textbook, did a bunch of mini bios on important people from the reading, did a map, and added some dates to my timeline. That was everything I had wanted to get done for the week. For math, I was supposed to do five lessons, but only did three. Also, in science, I did two of the three I had hoped to do. In Spanish, I got almost all of it done, and in Latin, I only did about half a week's worth.

So, school didn't go too well, but I need to make some allowances. This was certainly the busiest week of the school year so far, and I was feeling pretty crappy for a lot of it. On that note, here is the promised Life Update:

Life Update
On Monday, I felt terrible, and skipped dance, though I did still volunteer at the library (mostly because I was able to choose tasks where I could sit the whole time. In dance, that's not really an option).

Tuesday, we hosted the current events discussion group, where we talked about (and voted on) many of the local ballot issues this election.

Wednesday, I went to park day, and got to see a friend I don't see too much any more, as well as her new puppy.

Thursday, I was feeling somewhat better, and I spent the afternoon at a friend's house, helping them decorate from their annual Halloween party. The family has two boys about the age of my sister and I, and we split into teams, Isabelle with the younger boy, and I was with the older. I may need to go back before the 31st though, since the project we were working on (which is a HUGE project) was not done when I left, and I think they might need help finishing. I'd say what it is, but I know some friends of mine read here, and I don't want to ruin the surprise before the party. :)

Friday, I went with some friends to the Washington State corn maze, which was amazing. It is 12 acres, and in the shape of WA. All the paths through it are major highways. We had maps, and went around looking for landmarks, which all had mini versions in the corn maze. We found the Grand Cooley Dam, the Space Needle, and the Peace Arch. Almost every town had a sign, and we found many, including Bellingham, Ferndale, Blaine, Concrete, Mt. Vernon, and many more on the East Side.

Saturday (yesterday), my Mom and I went to see the Joy Luck Club at a local theater. It was an amazing performance, and very true to the book.

Today is my sister's 12th birthday, and we are rushing around trying to prepare for all the celebrations, and to host choir at our house this afternoon as well!

So, that's why I didn't too much school done. I mostly feel better now, though there is a pesky cough that doesn't want to go away.