Flea Market treasures

There's nothing better than waking up to the sight of the stars and the brilliant toe nail shaped moon filling the night sky with it's light. I was up and awake this morning at 5am. Mom let me take Mandie on a short walk to our stop sign and back so she would settle down and go to bed. I couldn't tear my eyes away from looking at the moon. It was so gorgeous.

Aunt B's Simply Homemade had a shop at a huge flea market today. (Aka my mom's soap selling business) I put some of my hand drawn cards and bookmarks out today for sale....lots of people picked them up and commented on how adorable they are...but nobody purchased any today. I have reasonable prices....5 card set-$12, single card-$3, and bookmarks-$2 each.
I would put up pictures.....but I don't feel like going too public with them yet. I have some really cute one's for sale though!
Dad gave both Britney and I a $20 each to spend. Which was really unusual because dad never gives us money just to spend.
I got a Christmas present for mom and a Christmas present for Britney! I'm starting early this year, haha.

And I got some really good deals today! There was this lovely jewelry place Britney and I stopped by. The starfish earrings and necklace was a set for $12...I wasn't able to afford it, so I was putting it back and the lady told me that the summer jewelry was half off. It was only $6? What? I picked it back up and bought it! I have constantly been searching for reasonably priced starfish earrings on etsy with no luck. I simply had to get it! Along with the anchor earrings! I've been searching for those as well.

Britney pointed out this Chinese calligraphy set to me, I had bought one from a thrift shop before for $2. The man running the table told me he would give me a good deal for it, I was interested, so I asked how much and he said $5. $5? Another good deal! I couldn't let it pass by! I bought it eagerly as well.

And finally I got two books, one book was from a table where all the proceeds went towards animal rescue, so I absolutely had to purchase something there to help out the animals!

A teenage guy around my age was selling the Lord of the Rings game. I think he was shocked that I had a PlayStation and that I enjoyed Lord of the Rings. For some reason it's lots of fun to fight people on PlayStation....not that I play it much any more. Our PlayStation was a hand-me-down Christmas present from my older cousin, Kurtis.

And lastly, a switchblade knife for whittling. I remember during camping with my youth group that everybody had a sharp knife and whittled sticks around the campfire in the evening. I only had a small and dull pocket knife. This was only a dollar and I'm totally taking it camping next year!

I love flea markets!

-Stephanie

Yearbook Workshop, Friendship, and Community Aid

Over these past three days my friend from Pennsylvania has been staying over at my house. She goes to CedarBrook Academy with me and we're both taking the Yearbook class this year.

      Near the beginning of each CBA school year, there's a yearbook workshop for the entire staff of The Torch.
She stayed at my house so her parents wouldn't have to drive her two days in a row to Maryland and then back again. The yearbook workshop has  been a great time to really get to know the staffers and a lot of them are less intimidating than I thought they were! Everyone is so nice and I feel like once I joined staff that I was welcomed into a whole new family at CBA.

Over the two days of the workshop I got to learn about fonts, photo composition, grids, wording, selling, and design.
There's so much that happens behind the scenes in yearbook that I've never thought of before. These people put so much into the yearbook!
It's all sounded so complicated but yet, I also think I'm really going to be able to enjoy this class.
There's only 13 staffers this year- 7 of which are seniors. Leaving behind only 3 juniors and 3 sophomores.
And there's always an editor each year. I have no idea who Mrs.Branham will choose next. Britney thinks there's a pretty good chance of me being editor next year. It's a huge and stressful role, but I would be willing to take it!

When it came time to choose a theme for the yearbook of 2013-2014, I realized what a disaster it would be if every single person thought alike. If we did, we wouldn't have had some of the awesome ideas that were brought up. Every single one of the staffers have their own angle and perspective on things, and when we're put together as a group, we brainstorm some of the best ideas.

I think this class is going to be a whole lot more fun than I originally thought.

Rachel and I had some really fun times at my house. She got here around 2pm on Monday afternoon. She brought her stuff into my room and we just sat on my floor for 2 hours and caught up and laughed at my funny board on Pinterest.  We had supper and while Mom, Dad, and Britney went to clean the church, Rachel and I stayed home and watched a chick flick called "Just My Luck" I absolutely adore that movie! Before watching it, we made homemade popcorn on the stove. I made two batches, so I kept the burner on while I put the popcorn in a bowl. While I was trying to get a good grip on the pan, a kernel went flying onto the burner and caught fire! At first I was shocked, but I wasn't panicking or freaking out- which was unusual because I would usually go berserk in those situations, but I stayed calm and just waited for it to go out on it's own.

My absolute favorite part of her stay here was the second night. We watched "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" yet another chick flick and after that was over we stalked people on facebook. Mom, Dad, and Britney headed off to bed and I closed my door so my bedroom light didn't disturb them. After we were done stalking people on facebook, she got in her bed and I turned off my light. It was about 10:30pm....then we started talking. And talking and talking and talking! We discussed so many different topics I could never list them all! We talked about deep subjects too. I really think we could have solved all the world's problems. When she got up to use the bathroom, I went out to the kitchen to check the time because I don't have a clock in my room. It was 2:00am! And we still had a workshop to attend in the morning! We talked for another half hour and drifted off to sleep.

We were both soooo tired at the workshop and I couldn't help yawning when I first got there.
I sort of feel like I'm in undercover training for the editor position because the editor this year, Michaela, and the yearbook company rep, and Mrs.Branham keep singling me out asking me questions about layouts and my opinions. Without equally singling other staffers out.
I volunteered to purchase drinks and sodas for the snack bar this year. That should be fun!
After we had come up with a theme for the yearbook, the workshop was over.
I helped Rachel put her stuff in her car and said bye.
We plan on taking another painting class with Barbara Powell in October. I'm already excited!

I went straight to my car from Rachel's and mom drove me home. We waited for Britney to get home from college and we went straight to Community Aid in Pennsylvania. I've been wanting to go up for the past few weeks to pick up some nice shirts for CBA. We always try to go on Wednesdays because everything except for a certain color tag is 50% off on Wednesdays! What a deal, right?
I picked out 10 shirts. Three of which I'm super excited about. Nooo....scratch that. I'm excited about all of them! I love that place because my 10 shirts was only $30....if I had gone to a real store? $30 probably wouldn't have even gotten me 2 shirts.

I finished my shopping early and went to the book section to read and browse until the rest of my family was ready to check out. There was an elderly man searching the books as well. I picked up a children's tale, "Jack and the Bean's Stalk- Pop up book" and sat down. Shortly after, he came around and sat in the chair next to me.
He was very nice and stroked up a conversation with me about books. We talked about how we couldn't stand digital books and then he showed me the books he was getting. One was about fasting and the other was about angels. He asked me if I had ever fasted  before and I told him I had, we had a really nice religious talk and I told him that I love that one verse in the bible talking about entertaining angels without knowing it. (I just love it. I'm pretty sure I've met quite a few angels in my lifetime already).
He told me it was nice talking and he headed for the checkout line.

What a busy week! But fun and full of learning.

Talk to you later!

-Stephanie

Acomplishments, surprise meal, and small income ideas

     There are pros and cons of school being back in. A pro is that I get my school work done and then I get to things I've been wanting to get to. Tuesday night, I syphoned and cleaned my aquariums and poured in new water in for my fish, then I cut up about 15 tomatoes and put them in the dehydrator. I also went back to my room and got out two of my necklaces that broke and super glued them back together, and even with all that done, I still had time to watch a Robin Hood episode!

      During school Wednesday, Nana stopped by for some leftover tomatoes. Just as she was getting up to go out the door she turned around and asked if we would like to join her and Aunt Esther for lunch at Burger King.  I hadn't seen Great Aunt Esther in forever! I wasn't done school just yet...but we decided to go anyway. We drove separately, that way Nana wouldn't have to drop us back off when she went back home. Mom suggested that I ride with Nana to Burger King and that Britney and mom would meet me there. Nana and I talked about my painting class the whole way there.
     We had such a fun time catching up with each other while we ate! Mom had taken a picture of my Nature's Edge painting and sent it to Nana, and from there Nana forwarded it to Aunt Esther, so Aunt Esther gave me compliments on that as well.
  Somehow, near the end of our meal, I had ended up with Nana's phone and Britney had ended up with Aunt Esther's phone. That's usually how our conversations end up with Nana, helping her out with her phone near the end of her visit. It's always fun to watch them laugh while they watch us in confusion of what we're doing.

     Once we got back home,  I dove right back into my remaining school subjects and was done in about a half hour. There was two things I really wanted to accomplish. Find out how to purchase Son of Sobek (a digital book), how to read it on my computer instead of my mom's Nook, and figure out how to fix my Studio Works for yearbook.
Son of Sobek is a short story that Rick Riordan came out with about two or three months ago and I haven't been able to read it because I've been waiting for it to come out in book form. A couple days ago Rick posted on facebook that he will not be publishing the Son of Sobek because it's too short of a book to be published and would cost too much to do it. So, I decided I should still be able to read it, so I finally just bought it. It was only $2. But it really wasn't that long either....maybe 12 pages at the most. But it was a nice short afternoon reading. I'm working on typing it up and printing it so I can put it on my bookshelf with the rest of his books.
I called Britney to come help me with Studio Works. It's kind of helpful that she had taken yearbook for three years already, so she knew the site better than I did.
It took about a half hour, but we uninstalled my Java and reinstalled it, she pressed a couple buttons and my Studio Works opened up! I'm so glad, because if it wasn't fixed, one of the guys from yearbooks staff probably would have fixed it. And it just makes me uncomfortable to have a guy on my computer for some reason. I'm relieved  to not have to worry about that anymore! The yearbook workshop is next Tuesday and Wednesday. I have a yearbook theme idea that I think has a pretty good chance of getting published. We shall see....
I don't want to say what it is yet, just incase it doesn't end up working out.

I finished school yesterday around 11am! I was so thrilled. That was the earliest I had completed school all week! We decided to go up to the craft stores after school. We had to go up to Frederick anyway because there was two Bob Ross dvds on hold for me at the Urbana library. We went to Ac Moore first. I took mom to the card and stamping section first and showed her blank cards. There was a 50 blank card set with envelopes that was only $5, so mom got that for me. Also, right above the blank card section was a waterbrush! I had been looking for one a couple weeks ago in Ac Moore! It's such a cool product that I was even considering purchasing one off of Amazon. It was $10....but I used my 40% off coupon on it and that made the price more reasonable.
I also bought a chain for my Evenstar necklace (Arwen's necklace from Lord of the Rings) I got the necklace last year for Christmas, but the chain just wasn't very elegant. And Britney has been buying these $1 chains for the necklaces that she's been making, so I decided to get one. Hopefully it will work! At Michaels I got 50 blank bookmarks for $3 and a portfolio. I've been needing to get a portfolio for my artwork really bad. I have my original pieces just laying everywhere in my room, and I want to be able to protect them from the possibility of an aquarium leaking, or being sat on or ripped and damaged.

Do you want to know why I got blank cards and blank bookmarks?

 

Why to get some small income at our flea markets of course!

 

We're going to a flea market next week and we're going to have a table for our soaps and Britney's going to take about as many necklaces as she can make in a week's amount of time and sell them for $16 each. So I decided, why can't I make a little bit of money too?

 

I'm going to sell card sets of 5 for $12 and bookmarks for $2 each.

I've already made a set of cards. I did it last night during a documentary film for school.

I was looking on Etsy and I noticed that most of the cards on there are Letterpressed. What ever that means.....but there were hardly any hand drawn cards.

 

 

I hope it brings me some small income eventually!

 

     Dad was going to take all of us to a Frederick Keys baseball game tonight, but it was raining when he got home and we weren't too sure about going, though the Key's facebook page said they were still on.

But dad still wanted to do something, and mom suggested a movie.

We never go to the movies, so I was surprised mom suggested it.

This year I've actually seen a couple movies in theater, which is really strange.

I saw the Hobbit an unexpected journey, Ironman 3, Epic, Star Trek into darkness, the Lone Ranger, and now tonight we went to see Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters.

 

We went to Chick-fil-a before the movie for supper. I love that place!

I've really been wanted to check out how the director handled this one since they changed directors from the first movie. The first movie was just terrible. The Sea of Monsters was actually pretty good. I can't complain besides the fact that they really squished everything in and it seemed rushed at times. And some of the acting didn't seem like there was passion behind it.

But if they come out with a third one, I'd check that out too!

 

I was so excited that we went to see it. I've been wanting to watch it, but knowing it will never happen because the movie tickets are at the crazy high price of $12 per person.

 

A movie date used to be such a cute thing. But paying $24 to take your girlfriend out to a movie just doesn't sound as simple and relaxing as it used to.

 

Anyway, as Britney and I walked out of the theater after all the credits (mom and dad had already gone out), there were two workers by the trash can getting ready to clean the theater.

One of them did a head bob and I thought he looked kind of familiar, but I resisted eye contact.

A couple minutes later, we were still standing in the hallway talking about the movie and Eric, a guy from our old church came around the corner with a theater uniform. We both kind of stared at each other for a few seconds, then I smiled and waved. I knew he seemed familiar! I just hadn't seen him in forever and didn't recognize him with facial hair.

It was nice to see him...I never really talked to him much, but he knew my dad pretty well.

So he came over to talk with dad a little bit.

He's going to FCC this year, the same community college that Britney is going to.

That would be cool if they could be friends.

 

-Stephanie





City Lights

     Sometimes the lights of the city are gorgeous, but I could not live there.  It's all too suffocating, the hustle and bustle. Everyone trying to out dress and out date their neighbors. I feel like the city is a hardened place for those that think of none other but them selves.
They spend their whole life doing it, that dressing up thing, that I'm more important than you thing, and  they really miss the importance of life.  Before they know it, life and time has escaped through their fingers. The skin that was once attractive and young, is now fragile and old. They look back on their life and wonder, what was all that really for? And they regret the life they've wasted.
No, I could not live there.

-Stephanie

Is the school week over yet?

Seriously though! School just started and I'm already ready for Christmas break. Or even just a weekend. A weekend would be super nice right now.

I remember falling asleep Sunday night and thinking "I'm just not mentally prepared for school to start tomorrow." And I've found out that it's really not good to not be mentally prepared for school because then you get headaches and you don't feel renewed to go back into school mode.

I'm not off to a good start mentally, but I've been doing good in my school work. But it's just that my mind keeps drifting off to other places. I'm still high on summer mode.

I asked for a ten minute break after math (my first subject) and with permission granted, I did what any other country girl would do when she gets a break, I went down to the garden and filled up a bucket of tomatoes to get crushed for v8. And I willingly did this. I just don't feel like sitting behind a desk half of my day just yet. *sigh* I keep telling myself that it will all be okay once CBA starts on September 12th. But that just adds even more to my school schedule.

Just three more days and I achieve a weekend. Whoopie!

-Stephanie

Wanderlust at the beach and memories from last year

My family and I went to Ocean City this past Thursday for a short time to pick up our Nana from vacation with my Uncle and Aunt. We got up early and made our traditional stop at Jimmy's Grill for breakfast. Whenever we go to the beach for the day, we always stop at Jimmy's Grill for a bite to eat. I used to think it was only our tradition, but I found out that when my mom would go on beach trips with her family, Pop and Nana would have the family stop at Jimmy's Grill for breakfast as well. It sort of makes me feel special now. Even though Pop had such a short time here on earth with me, I can still see traces of him where we go sometimes, and the happiness that still lingers on that he left behind.

 

One of my favorite parts of the trip is going across the bay bridge. Usually every time we go across , I like to stare at the ships and watch how fast they go, leaving nothing but lone waves in their wake. But this time my eye focus was centered on the horizon. I longed for more...I wanted to grab a boat, not even bother purchasing a map, and go explore. I had to quickly push these thoughts aside. I knew I would be hoping to vigorously for them, and just leaving my heart to ache. It just can't happen.

 My Uncle, Aunt, cousin Kurtis and his girlfriend, Bryanna  met up at the beach for the day. Sadly, the ocean was too rough for me to dare to even try getting in, but it was such a beautiful day to just stare and watch the waves in all their glory.

 

A man came up to me and told me that you could tell that a storm was coming by the way the waves were acting. A storm never came that day, but I could tell how easily he could be mistaken. Because the waves were almost exactly how I remembered them from one day on vacation last year with my Uncle and Aunt. I was out jumping waves with Kurtis, Bryanna and Britney and the waves started getting pretty big, and they were coming fast. It was overwhelming to get to them before they turned to white caps and crashed on you. It got really stressful and I made a swim back to shore. Not long after I had gotten back to land, thunder rumbled in the sky and the lifeguards called everyone out of the water.

 

We left around 2pm and went back to the beach house to get changed out of our bathing suites. Even in that short amount of time, I had gotten quite a tan! And the sun was barely making a presence beyond the clouds the whole time we were there. It could partially have to do with me not putting on any sunscreen...but I hardly ever burn, I just tan really well.

Anyway, I went upstairs to change and I couldn't help slipping into my old room from last year and taking a look out the window.

That window may as well been my favorite part of vacation. At night I would put it up and listen to the water rising and falling in the canal. It's such a relaxing sound to fall asleep to. I still find myself longing to hear that sound sometimes. I remember a couple days while we were on vacation with them, it was raining. Britney and I closed ourselves in our room and opened the window and listened to the rain pitter patter onto the roof and the canal water. Sometimes the breeze picked up and we got a mist of rain in our face. It was such a refreshing time!

I closed the memories away as I backed out of the room and closed the door behind me. I'll be back someday. I hope.

 

-Stephanie

 

 

 

 

Painting Class- Nature's Edge

Today was every bit amazing as I thought it would be!
We left home around 8:30 and got to Hobby Lobby 15 minutes before class started at 10. So it's a pretty long drive to get there.
It was a small class- but Mrs.Powell liked it that way, so then she could spend more one-on-one time helping each of us along with our painting. And I liked it that way as well.
She told us that her class before this was a full house with 12 students. So it's really unpredictable how many students she's going to get each time.
She goes on a two week break after this class though. And I don't think I'll be able to do a painting in September. But I definitely know which one I want to take in October! It's one with gorgeous mountains and a night sky with a moon high in the clouds.
I had so much fun painting today. I didn't think it would really take 5 hours because Bob Ross can whip up a painting in about half an hour, but my painting took just about every single minute of those five hours.
Rachel came down to do the painting at Hobby Lobby with me, so that was fun. Mom came back around 12pm with a meal for the both of us. Break time was just at the perfect time, where you were tired of painting but you still wanted to go on, but you just needed to step away from it for a little while. Mrs.Powell, Woody and Vicky- she's a painter that comes every Saturday to Mrs.Powell's classes and has done over a 100 paintings with her! Vicky also runs Barbara's website- sat at a table in the back and shared their lunches. Rachel and I shared a lunch closer to the front of the class room and while we ate in silence, we eavesdropped on them eating in the back. We couldn't help getting red in the face and bursting out laughing at one point when we overheard Vicky telling Woody and Mrs.Powell that there was a cat with rabies that scratched someone. I don't know if it was from the tension of being at a new place, or the stress of a painting, but it felt so good to laugh even over something that really wasn't that funny! I haven't laughed like that in so long- I was hardly able to breathe and I knew my face was super red!

When we got back to our painting it was time to put the cabin in- Mrs.Powell came around and helped both Rachel and I figure out how to hold our palate knives to make a cabin. It was sort of difficult to learn something's because she's left handed and I'm right handed, so she holds some of her tools differently than I do. Once we got around to the roof, she showed us how to make a marbled paint to put on top. We were supposed to just let it slide on the painting, but I just dabbed it several times and it made a very cute shingle look on the roofing. Mrs.Powell came around to check on my painting and was impressed. She thought it was very cute and said "I'm going to steal your idea, Stephanie!" I felt quite honored.

I just love that no matter where I tend to go to learn something, I easily click with the teachers and the other students. Adults sometimes seem much easier to talk to than teenagers.

Woody sat in the back of the class room the entire time and he was impressed with my painting as well. He would often call me back to see it from the back of the room. He called Mrs.Powell back at one point, and even though he tried to whisper, he was quite audible even to the front of the class room and he whispered "Stephanie's is very good" and she answered back in an admirable tone "I know."  I almost felt embarrassed that everyone kept looking at my painting. Even Vicky was impressed with it.

They told me that they hope I come back, and I'm definitely planning on it!

Here it is!

 

 

And this was all of ours: The one on the left is Rachel's, the middle one is mine and the one on the right it Vicky's.

 

I'm so ready to do another painting now!

 

-Stephanie