Raindrops On Roses

This post is all about raindrops.

I lie awake in my warm bed

The wind whistling outside my room

I close my eyes

Enjoying what some call "gloom"

Hearing the soft tapping

Of raindrops on the ground

Almost makes me feel

Like I'm the only one around

The darkness closes in

Small bugs and animals scatter

To find a warm, dry shelter

From the rain's pitter patter

I pull back the covers

And look through the glass

At the dancing raindrops

Bouncing off the grass

I wish I could go outside

To feel the rain against my cheek

I don't understand why

Others say rain is bleak

I love to listen

To raindrops in the dark

Where everything is so still and quiet

Not even a dog will bark

~Anonymous

It's Raining, It's Pouring!

After a long dry summer it has finally started to rain! I am so excited because things are greening up and turning pretty again! We are no longer living in a world of brown and dust, but instead in a land of fall colors, cool temperatures, and rain. It is very exciting for me.

I mean, look at these colors! They are gorgeous!

Here I was being crazy artistic. Yup, I'm cool like that.

And in this one I got a little crazy, and dizzy. I tell ya though, it is hard to do a good cartwheel while holding a camera.

But then mom asked me if I would kindly start acting like an adult, and so I composed myself and returned to snapping photos like this one. I still like it, and I stayed a lot cleaner.

I Can't SpElL

I have a confession to make. I can't spell. I was horrible at spelling in elementary, I was horrible at spelling in middle school, and I am horrible at spelling in high school. I sense a pattern here. So anyway, if I misspell something please, please overlook it. I sometimes forget to use spell check (my best friend) and misspell certain words. So far, I have been alerted to misspelling: because, congratulations (unfortunately this one was typed in a huge font and so your eyes were immediately drawn to it), room (this was intentional), and various other words. Please bare with me, I do try, and how long can this last. I mean seriously, I've been doing this for my whole life, so it should wear of soon, right? Right? We can only hope so.

p.s. I jut clicked spell check, and I only misspelled 3 words! It is wearing off!

CONGRATULATIONS VERONICA!

Wow...we seem to do that a lot on this blog. Remember when she graduated? She had a 'CONGRATULATIONS VERONICA' post, and another when she had a birthday, and when she got the job at the Maui Ocean Center and when she was in the paper for 'Student of the Month', and then, well you get the idea. She is just too darn good. There should be a whole blog called CONGRATULATIONS VERONICA, and I'm sure we could post something new everyday. Like, CONGRATULATIONS VERONICA you just graduated, and the next day CONGRATULATIONS VERONICA you just moved, and now CONGRATULATIONS VERONICA you just got the highest California High School Exit Exam score in the history of Oakview High School!

WOW!! I think that deserves a HUGE CONGRATULATIONS!!

We are all so very proud of you Veronica! Dad already told Neal and he was really happy for you too.

You gotta slow down girl! You're beginning to make me look bad, and you're not even here! I guess I better go study some more if I plan on keeping up with you.

It's so hard being the youngest.....

Hear Ye, Hear Ye!

Today, mom and I, tired of sitting at home all day, decided that we would get out and do something fun. So, we decided that we would go to the Renaissance Festival at Anderson River Park.

We got there around 11:30 and so missed the after-Church crowd, and a good thing too, because when we came out, there wasn't a parking spot anywhere.

So, we wandered around a bit, and admired all the people's costumes, and watched as they did their little, renaissance antics. But, we really came to see the joust, so headed to the jousting arena right away.

These were the two knights: Sir Charles, the one without the hat, and his nephew, Sir Something. There horses were Guinness, and Buddy Weiser.

First they had to prove how good they were by spearing straw bales. They wanted to do it on Frenchmen, but no one in the audience would admit to being French, so they had to use the bales. Some people just aren't any fun at all.

So, after they sufficiently speared the hay bales, they decided to prove their accuracy with the lance, by spearing some rings. They both got 100% on that and so decided to really test their skills and put a helmet on some peasant, and then put a head of cabbage on top of that. The riders had to cut the cabbage in half without killing the peasant. The nephew did fine, but Sir Charles decided it wasn't hard enough and so had them place an apple on the helmet instead. The first time he missed and we had to get a new peasant, but the second time it worked great.

I guess, they decide they had better get on with actual joust before they lost all their help, and so they put on all of their armor.

This is the nephew.

And here's Sir Charles. He looks mean.

Here's the joust!

CHARGE!!

And again....

They did this, like ten times. But eventually Sir Charles was beat by his nephew.

Congratulations Sir Nephew on your win.

Because I know that you were all secretly wishing for more....

I decided to post some more pictures!

We decided to take a walk at Anderson River Park the other night and I decided it would be a good time to take some photos for my photography class. So I grabbed my camera as we went out the door and got these shots.

This was taken as we were eating our very nutritious and tasty Long John Silver's meal. I will forever think of hush puppies when I see this picture.

This was when dad set up the tripod and made me try out different settings on the camera. I learned a lot but I don't really know what to think of the pictures. I like the outline of the leaves, but I have 20 pictures just like this. Not really, it's more like 15.

Since I was tired of the tripod and not really inspired by the pictures I was taking I ditched mom and dad and headed down to the river. It's a good thing I ditched them too, because to get this shot I put the camera right on the edge of the water and I don't even want to think what would have happened it a rogue wave had come along. I do know that I wouldn't be here writing this blog today.

I like this image, but I didn't feel that it had good framing; there was nothing really to look at. So, I got really clever, and a little wet, and got this picture. I really like it because of the framing and the rocks. I also used a slower shutter speed to kind of flow the water a little. I like the effect.

But I was kinda afraid that it was too dark, and I like the rocks to be more visible. So, I took off the sunset setting and got this:

I like it a lot, but wondered what it would look like horizontal.

I like this a lot too, but got to thinking, (and yes, I did write it on the calendar) that it might look pretty cool without the thorn bush.

And horizontal:

Around this time mom and dad started wondering whether I had drowned or something and started calling for me. That's okay though, because I feel that I got some pretty good pics, and I had been down there for a little while. So I headed back to the path and we walked on. Until we got to a pond and dad set up the tripod again...

I've Been Nominated!

for President! Not really, but I thought I'd say it anyway. But I have been nominated for something. I am one of three, high school, junior girls in my school to have been nominated to attend Girls State! I am really excited about it.
To qualify to attend, the participant has to "have high moral character, have leadership abilities, have an above average scholastic standing, and be interested in government and current events." Does that just scream "VANESSA" or what? I thought so too.
It's not definite yet that I'll be attending, I still have to go through an interview and such, but Mrs. Olsen says that I stand a very good chance of going. In fact all three of us do. I guess the public school's around here couldn't nominate anyone, because they don't have any juniors that have 4.0 G.P.A. So, we get to send extra people. Hey, works for us!
So, what exactly is Girls State? Good question. Girls State is sponsored by the American Legion Auxiliary, and they choose the brightest, young, female minds in the state (or rather the schools do) and get them all together in a college campus for a week. I'm not exactly sure where I'll be going if I go, but I think it's around Disney Land.
So, once we're all there, we live in a dorm room for a week, and create a miniature state. We elect a governor, and other government officials, and learn about government in general. At the end of the one "rigorous week of study", two girls are chosen to attend Girls Nation. There they act as senators in the "Girls Nation" and meet with real senators and representatives, and possibly, the President.
So there you have it, direct from me to you.
Wish me luck!

Out of the Spare Oom, and into MY Room

For those of you wondering if I suddenly forgot, or never learned, how to spell room, let me put to rest your fears. I am not that challenged at spelling, but was trying to be funny by referencing C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. When Lucy first enters Narnia and meets Mr. Tumnus, he thinks she comes from the land of War Drobe, and the country of Spare Oom. So it may, or may not be funny, but I liked it, and as I am the one running this blog, I get to decide what goes on it. So there.

Back to my magical journey out of the land of Spare Oom, and into my new, sweet, room. I call it......ummm......Vanessa's new, sweet room. So that makes it my journey from Spare Oom to Sweet Room. Yeah, that's awesome.

The first, and hardest, part of switching rooms with Veronica is picking up all the stuff she left behind. Seriously, when she packed, she only packed what she was taking and left the rest lying around. So, we spent, like forever just packing her stuff into boxes. Then, when we finaly got her stuff taken care of we piled it all in the living room (Mom loved this part.)

Here's what the walls looked like originally.

Wow. That's ugly.

After we got all the junk stuff out, we applied the primer coat. It was almost as bad as the brown.

Notice, how I said almost as ugly. It's an improvement, but not much.

Then, da da da dummmmm.......we applied the first blue!

Hmmm....it's not very dark.

I started to panic here. It doesn't look very dark. It lookes like a baby blue! Oh no! I'm going to live in a baby's room! AAAHHHH!! Take it off! I liked it better before! Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh nooooooo..... Then I fell on the floor and started shaking. Then mom got me a drink of water, and I felt better and we started painting again.

And this is what we got:

Three blue walls, and one white wall. That's becuase the white wall is going to be a darker blue. Hehehe...we're so creative.

And here we are, with the walls completely painted!

I don't know if I like the red stripe, it was supposed to go with my bedspread but it was such a pain to paint that I don't dislike it enough to redo it.

Anyway, here is my completed bedroom!

So here it is. It's still not done, I have a few more pictures to put up, and that stupid cork board/white board. But overall, I like it.

Let me know what you think!

Oregon State University

As you know, we've been visiting college campuses. Or more accurately, two college campuses. The first was University of California, Berkeley. The second was Oregon State University, located in the charming, farm town of Corvallis.

The first thing I liked about OSU was......




....it is incredibly beautiful! Seriously, this is one of the most gorgeous campuses (or is it campi?) that I have ever seen. Corvallis, well, Oregon in general, was soooo much greener than Redding. It was the most green I've seen since.....since.....well, probably since Maui. It was so green that I couldn't stop taking picture of it.

LOOK! A green field!

Wow! Another green field.

Hey look over there! Its a green field!

It's kinda sad really. I mean, enough is enough already. It's just a bunch of grass.

Oh, if that were only so. It may be a bunch of grass but its a green bunch of grass. My eyes were starving after five months of nothing but baked brown to see such a lush and wonderful green.

Once I saw the grass, I decided that I didn't care what the actual college was like, I was definitely putting OSU towards he top of my list. But the wonderful thing was, OSU was actually a pretty neat college for these reasons:

a.) They have green grass. (sorry, I had to mention it....it's like a need)

b.) They have the coolest mascot ever: the beaver! How amazingly, wonderfully, frighteningly, cool and intimidating is that?! Seriously, we were made for each other.
I think he looks like me...maybe its the hair.....or the teeth...something. There's definitely a resemblance there.

c.) The campus is GORGEOUS!

Check these out:

BAM! Right outside the window. How lovely.

Love towers, and this one isn't too high, or too low. Just the right size.

Hey! She's wearing black and orange! Which brings me to number 4....(or d, whichever you prefer). I guess it could've gone with b, but I like it so much that I'll give it it's own letter.

d.) Their colors are......BLACK AND ORANGE!!

Orange is my favorite color, and black does go nicely with it. I think this pretty much speaks for itself.

Oh yeah, and the academics are pretty cool too. But I really like the grass.....

What do you think...

...of these pictures?

This....

...is the Sundial Bridge, with some kind of flower. (I'm sure someone out there could tell me what kind of flower!)

And for some reason

I'm kinda obsessed with this picture. I think its the combination of shapes, shade and sun.

And this flower just seems to make me happy.

Maybe it's becuase for the first time in my life, I was able to make the camera focus on what I wanted it to! YAY! for cameras that focus!

This, is my last picture of the day.

I'm not sure I like the sun...but I LOVE the colors!

So, tell me what you think. I'd love to hear comments!

Can you believe...

that I am a high school junior? Two more years and then mom and dad will toss me out of the house and hold a party for everyone in the park. Yep. They are going to have a fine life. For the first time in 30 years, they will be child free and boy, are they looking forward to it. It's almost insulting actually. I never really realized how much they were looking forward to this until last week though.
I was sitting in my room playing computer games doing homework when dad came in and asked what I was going to do this Tuesday. I found this a rather odd question, becuase I don't do anything with my time off. I think it's becuase I don't have time off. I am a high school junior (as mentioned above) and so my life is filled with complex math equations, Spanish verbs, and pop quizes. My mind doesn't think about what I could be doing, it only sees what it is doing, and it certainly doesn't think about what it could be doing next Tuesday. That would be too much for my teenage neurons to handle. So I stared at him blankly for a few minutes and then said, "Wait a minute. What?"
"I asked what you have planned for this Tuesday." He was speaking slowly, pronouncing each sylable hoping that this time, the message would make it through the mass a gray matter that was my brain and somehow be interpreted into understanding.
"Oh. You know, nothing. Why?"
"Good, becuase I think we ought to start looking at schools."
Still abosorbed in my game math, I didn't understand this statement either. "Why? I already go to school."
"College, Vanessa, college!"
"Ah!," dawning comprehension. "Why?"
Dad sighed. "Becuase eventually, you will have to go there you know, so I thought you would want to start looking around. In fact, I was looking at Berkeley the other day online, and it looks pretty cool. I think we ought to go there."
"Umm. Okay. Yeah, sure."
"Do you want to go there?" He was speaking slowly again.
"Yeah, that sounds great. When are we going?"
"TUESDAY!"
"Oh, right."


Now why anyone would be eager to be rid of their children after 30 years of conversations like this one, I can't imagine. But it might just be my teenage brain again....


It wasn't until later, when I was actually studying that I got to thinking about the conversation. Why were mom and dad suddenly so eager to go see colleges? They didn't usually leave Redding unless it was to ship a kid off at the airport. And, I was after all only a junior. I didn't think we would be doing this kind of thing until next summer. Besides, this would mean that they would actually have had to spend time thinking about me at college. Then, it hit me. They they weren't just thinking about me being at college, they were daydreaming about me being at college! Getting me into college was the last step in a 30 year process of putting four kids through high school, and they couldn't wait for those 30 years to be up! I felt slightly hurt that they didn't appreciate my company anymore, after all, I add so much to the family conversations. But I guess that if I had been raising kids for the last 30 years, I might look forward to a break as well.


So the next Tuesday, we all piled in the truck with everything we would need for any situation. This family can't just go somewhere, no, we have to go prepared for anything. Blizzards, floods, deserts, nuclear explosions. We have the supplies to survive it all. And so loaded down, with our many coolers of pepsi and water, and overnight packs (just in case), we set out to explore the far distant land of college campus.


After three or four hours (it felt like six) of RUSH LIMBAUGH and SEAN HANEDY and every other talk show host who has a show on AM radio between 9:00a.m. and 1:00p.m., mom and I were going slightly crazy. Our many attempts at conversation were dashed with an annoyed "SSHHH!" from dad, and if we even hinted at music....."Are you crazy!" But despite this, we did make it to Berkeley alive, and for the most part, well.


We explored the gymnasium, becuase it was the closest building with bathrooms, and then decided to find a map of campus. We headed to the bookstore and spent a good two hours perusing the shelves. I must say that I was very impressed with the bookstore, it was full of books that I found interesting and Dad and I both came away with a book apiece.


Then we decided to check out the food court and get something to eat, so we headed towards the main part of campus and had just gotten in line when classes got out. I have never seen so many people of one age, in a single space before in my life. College students were everywhere! They swarmed towards the food and filled every empty space with their chatter and books. Realizing that we wouldn't have any luck finding a table, we headed off down a small path and found some nice benches.


After we ate, we headed through Berkeley's main gates and really started looking around the campus. It was okay, but I didn't really like it. It was too crowded and seemed very unwelcoming. One bright spot of the campus was a huge bell tower. An elevator took you to the top and you could look out over the whole campus from under the bells. You could also see the bay in the distance, it was really cool. We stayed up there for about fifteen minutes becuase we wanted to hear the bells chime. But we got caught up in the view and forgot about them, so at 3:00 when the bells chimed, we were scared out of our wits! I think we also lost some hearing, but it was still very cool.


About now we decided that if we were going to check out Pier 39 before heading home, we had better get going. So we searched the campus looking for our truck, and then, happy that we had found it, crossed the bridge into San Fransisco.


Pier 39 was every bit as enjoyable as we remembered it. I bought a really nice Audrey Hepburn picture for my new room (posts coming soon on that!), and we walked through some very interesting shops. Can you believe that they already have Christmas things out?! I was shocked, it's not even Halloween yet!



After Pier 39 we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and headed home.

I'm sorry this post is so long, but I wanted to include everything we did, and I also apologize for its lack of photos but they are all currently on dad's laptop and he takes that to work at night...