Category Archives: Uncategorized

Yesterday, we discovered that Steven had come to convention with only one dress shoe.

Oops.

I texted Mom and said, “If you find a ride for Steven’s shoe, please send up my swimsuit.” Because there is a swimming pool here at our hotel.

Today, after hours and hours of judging platform events, we finally got off and I went to supper. On the way I ran into a whole gaggle of Brownsville boys.

“Emily!” they said, wide eyed and horrified.

“Yes?”

“We saw your bathing suit!”

Hmm. Really? Later, I tried to track it down. I asked Dad if he had seen it.

“There was something flying around in the van, and the boys were giggling,” said Dad. “But when I asked what it was, they handed me a bag with some shoes in it.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Why is a swimsuit so funny?”

“Well, you know boys. Things are funny. Like farts.”

I didn’t exactly see how a swimsuit was like farting, but whatever. Dad found my swimsuit, on the floor of the van, and everything was fine.

Let me see. Shanea got second in ping pong, but was beat by Melinda, who is the famous ping-pong nemesis. Maybe next year Shanea will finally best her.

Maybe I shouldn’t call Melinda a nemesis. She is the sweetest nicest little lady. But she is a beast at ping-pong, and she always just beats the Brownsville girls. Humph.

If you think chilvery is dead, you should go to an ACE convention. I am just saying, you pretty much never have to open a door for yourself. People carry your dishes, say “yes ma’am” when you ask them a question, and wear ties all the time. Except, of course, the Mennonite boys don’t wear ties.

“Why arent you wearing ties?” One boy asked us.

“We’re Mennonite,” said Shane.

“Oh.” The boy paused, then said, “I still don’t get it.”

There was a very awkward silance. The boys stumbled around, not sure what to say. Finally a girl who was with the questioning boy said, “I think it’s against their religion.”

Well, I need to get my young ladies to bed. Till next time!

I finally found my internet! Yay!

Right now I’m a sponsor at the ACE Regional Student Convention. Actually, RIGHT NOW I am a judge for platform events. What a busy crazy life.

The student did AMAZING on their singing of “Prepare Ye” last night. Wow. I got shivers. Will they win? I don’t know, but they COULD win.

 Spencer made this amazing trunk for woodworking. Looking at it made me think, “no one else would even need to bother.” When I mentioned something of the sort, trying to be funny, the other kids with woodworking projects got annoyed at me.

Oops. 

I should realize some time that I’m not all that funny, especially when I am spouting things to try to break the awkwardness of being the one in charge.

It just makes things more awkward.

Students are also cleaning it up in pace bowl, so we’ll see if that trend continues. As usual, even though Steven in the best checkers player in the school he got out as soon as he played a girl. Ha. Kendall is still in the running, and Alicia and Shanea are dominating in ping pong.

Till later!

My mother tagged me to be part of a meme, which, in my day, was called a “tag.” (That was back when blogging was for social media purposes. Now that blogging is all artsy fartsy, it’s no wonder they changed the name to “meme.”)

The rules:
Post these rules.
Each person must post 11 things about herself on his/her blog.
Answer the questions the “tagger” listed for you in her post.

Here are the questions I was asked:

1. How long have you been blogging, and how often do you post?

I have been blogging for six and a half years. Since I was fifteen.

I posted 256 posts on my xanga site, and then I moved to wordpress and posted 242 more posts. That makes a total of 498 posts, which means this will be my 499′th, and the next will be my 500′th post. Wow!

Approximately one post every 4-5 days.

2. Have you had anything published, and if so, what and when?

Yes.

A memoir.

A few articles for my college newspaper.

Some CLP short stories which I was terribly embarrassed by.

Some articles for a website called Ypulse.

3. Who is the author who best speaks your language and who you would most like to be like, in style and message?

Emily Smucker.

Oh wait, do I not count? Well, I want Jerry Spinelli’s characters and Louis Sachar’s plots and Gail Carson Levine’s fairy tale world and C S Lewis’s way of adding spiritual meaning to stories and Robin McKinley’s magical way of stringing words together and Sharon Creech’s realness.

(Yep, they’re all Newberry winners, only with CS Lewis thrown in for good measure. Anyone want to guess what award I dream of winning someday?)

4. What do you see as the unique message God has given you to share with the world?

There isn’t one.

5. Who or what has made you believe in yourself as a writer?

My mom, obviously. All the people who follow my blog. My editor, when she decided that my writing was good enough to be put in a book.

6. Who or what has done the opposite?

Nothing. Okay fine. I am sure there was something, but I obviously wasn’t too scarred by it, because I can’t think of anything.

7. Besides blogging, what types of writing have you done? (journaling, poetry, news articles, letters, short stories, etc.)

I write EVERYTHING. Songs and scripts and ideas and quotes. Poetry incorporating my love life with random things I’ve been learning in college. Essay about why I hate the game “king’s base.”

There is always ink on my left hand and my right leg. I just write.

8. Where would you like to be, writing-wise, in five years?

Disciplined.

9. What would need to happen to move you from here to there?

Discipline.

10. Any advice for beginning bloggers/writers?

Yes. People would rather read something fun and funny than something deep and full of long paragraphs.

If you get good enough at the fun and funny stuff, you learn how to write the deep stuff without the long paragraphs.

Then people will actually read what you have to say.

11. Just for fun: what’s a skill you have that almost no one knows about? (example: I know how to develop black and white film in a darkroom.)

I used to teach myself morse code and how to play the spoons while I was waiting on my slow computer. Now days I just read a book or do homework.

Now I am supposed to tag people, which I don’t feel like doing. Instead I will invite you to ask whatever random question of me you wish, and I will answer it in my next post.

So many things.

I am reading a book right now called “I capture the castle.”

The main character lives in a house built on the ruins of an old castle. Her Father once wrote a very literary book called “Jacob Wrestling,” but hasn’t been able to write anything since. Thus, they are all dirt poor.

About the middle of the book, the Father changes somewhat. He starts becoming obsessed with random things. An old blue willow plate, a moth-eaten carpet bag, a herring skeleton…he finds them fascinating and drags them up to the gatehouse where he spends his time.

Sometimes his wife or daughter will think he is writing again, but when they actually get a peek at him they realize he is doing something silly, like crossword puzzles, or taping comic strips all over the walls.

He is thinking about his next book though. All the patterns and textures and shapes are meaning something, he just isn’t sure what. If he could just take his ideas and make them fit together somehow, a lovely thing would result, and he could begin to write it down. But they won’t fit together.

…

That is how I feel right now.

That is how I feel about life.
That is how I feel about writing.
That is how I feel about God.

SO MUCH and SO BEAUTIFUL and SO MANY THINGS but they are not forming together into anything practical.

I call this feeling “The Bear Under the Bridge” because the title doesn’t make sense and neither does the feeling.

A few cellular phone snaps of my life.

There was a beautiful sunset today, so Jenny went on the roof and danced the hula.

I love my sister.

When I see a hole in fabric I have an intense desire to rip the hole as big as possible. I don’t know why.

I think my mother may have been playing with my phone. I do not recall taking this picture. But it made me laugh.

Monday I watched chicks hatch for the first time in my life. So amazing!

Also on Monday, I began to teach my writing class about poetry. I asked them to write a free verse poem, and one young man decided to write about my cell phone:

the black verizon
small
scratches on screen

It made me laugh, though one kid pointed out that it is not a verizon, it is a samsung. Also, it is purple. But I still thought the poem was cute.