Happy birthday to me~can I be five again?

     Throughout my childhood I wished I'd grow up faster, be able to make my own decisions. Now on the day of my fourteenth birthday, my birthday wish is simple. Can I be five again?

     I loved being five. Kindergarten, I had an awesome teacher. My brother and I got along pretty well. I had lots of friends in a time before we even knew what backstabbing was. I started dance that year and my love for dance just developed more and more as the year went on. In short, when I was five was one of the happiest years of my life.

     The last year for me has been amazing and has sucked in it's own way. The good? I got to go to Cedar Point and Washington D.C. I saw my dance company do it's own version of A Christmas Carol. I got into an amazing school, one I should be happy at. And I made some pretty close friendships.

     The bad? My dog died, my friends are all going to different high schools then me and my mom's been sick oh and my brother (who is one of my best friends but I'd never admit it to him) got into a college away from home.

     Still I ask, can I be five again? No worries other than the newest doll. The hardest thing was learning to read and remembering to brush my teeth each night. My biggest fear was spiders.

     Now it's different. I'm worried about my grades and my mom. The hardest thing is going to be keeping up with my orchestra. My biggest fear is losing my family and friends. So yeah I want to be five again. But since I can't be. I want a gift card for my birthday. I need some new books.

Happy Birthday Mom!

    Well let's do this simply. Happy birthday Mom.

     I couldn't do a Mother's day post because I was out of town. So this isn't really for her birthday, more for me to talk about her.

      My mom is a writer and I rank her up there with J.K. Rowling and Tolkien (okay so maybe not that high, but she's pretty darn good). I love reading what she writes, and I especially love it when she writes about me because she'll say things about me I don't normally hear otherwise.

      She's also a wonderful person. She cries a lot and that bothers me because I feel like the things she's crying over don't need to be cried about but I realize it's just her way of dealing with stuff. She puts up with me when I'm being a brat (which is quite often) and she runs my brother and I all over the place.

     She just got out of the hospital for the second time this month. The first time every possible thing that might have been wrong with her crossed my mind. What if something happened? What if it was cancer or some other deadly sickness? What if she died? Well she didn't (thank god) but that doesn't mean it didn't shake my world to it's core. The second time was just for a surgery (a simple surgery) that went smoothly. Both times made me realize just how much I loved my mom, and how much she takes care of me.

      My mom loves cats. And books. And oldies music (well oldies to me, they're Beatles to her).

     She's obsessed with history and I can't count the amount of battlefields she's dragged me to.

     She has a big family that's sometimes hard for me to keep track of.

      Much to my dismay she likes to watch black and white silent movies and since today is her birthday she has free reign of the television all day (I'll get it on Saturday).

      She works hard to take care of my family and I'm proud of her. I've never had to be a kid who worried about their parents getting a divorce, or had one of their parents incarcerated or didn't even know who one of their parents were.

      So Happy Birthday mom, your little girl loves you even if I'm not so little anymore.

                                                              

Oh and just for the record?

This picture is about five years old.

     

50 week beer run okay fine mom, root beer run

     A good friend of mine Meg on the Go (she can be found at http://icyfar582.blogspot.com/ ) has mentioned Pennsic in many of her posts. Well I also attend Pennsic.

     While for me the best way to describe Pennsic is home, I suppose you need to know what it really is. Pennsic is a medieval reenactment. This year makes forty-two wars. Over ten thousand people attend this event and each person brings something new and wonderful that makes the Pennsic Wars what it is. It was created by SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) and takes place in Butler, Pennsylvania sometime in July and August each year.

     I can shoot a bow and dance like a medieval princess because of this event. I know how to spin and knit and if I tried really hard, I could probably make glass. I can give you details on the witch hunts in the fifteen hundreds and the Spanish Inquisition thanks to the classes I can take.

   There's nothing like walking out of your camp in a corset and a full length skirt and saying hi to a man wearing a kilt. To some it seems surreal,  a dream. To me? It's reality, and it's home.

     Because of this event I get to laugh when a girl at my school says "I wish I could wear a corset." My response will always be "Careful what you wish for, they make it hard to breathe."

     These pictures will help you understand at least a little (but they won't help you to see the magnitude of it).

     I have made friends that will be my friends for the rest of my life. I love being able to walk barefoot and say hi to total strangers without being afraid of what could happen to me (except on Mardi Gras night, that party is a whole other story). I love waking up in my tent and rolling off a deflated air mattress while trying to put on a dress without being able to stand up entirely.

     I can never explain to someone the smell of coals that cooled over the night, or in the case of my brother waking up with a wolf spider on his tent and it being completely normal.

     I can sing and make money (and then promptly buy a slushie or something chocolate) without being arrested by police. I can walk topside (think medieval downtown) without having my parents hover over me as long as my cell phone is on.

     Pennsic is home for me. I will never feel like I am home as long as I am wearing jeans and a t-shirt and carrying a book bag. And even though I have to start covering my hair this year because I'm too old to be period and not have my hair covered, I'm counting down the days till zero night.

     Pennsic, I have five weeks till I set foot on your soil again. So fellow Pennsic war goers, you have a little over a month to finish collecting your supply of root beer. Are you ready?  Because I know I am.

    

Out of town, without the parents

     Last May I traveled to Washington D.C. and not for the first time. I'd been there previously twice but with my mother and brother. This time was different. It wasn't the first time I'd been out of town well out of state without my family but it was the first time I'd been out of state with adults I hadn't known since before I could talk.

     The first time was a trip to Mammoth caves with my girl scout troop. This trip ended in disaster with our leader removing herself and her grand-daughter from our troop.

     My trip to D.C. went much better.

     I have a bit of advice for you. If you know you are going to be spending every second of the next four days with a person you consider to be your best friend...do not be her partner. My friend and I have been friends since second grade but after the second day we were ready to run away screaming from each other--I assure you, this was not an exaggeration.

     I was not used to being around these same forty kids (it was my class trip) for that long but I found myself enjoying it all the same. Another friend of mine joined me in looking at our phones to see what time it was and feeling bad for the friends that were stuck in classes like French and Algebra.

     I saw memorials I hadn't gotten to see before. Our bus driver was a veteran and managed to call in a favor so the flag at Iwo Jima was raised when we went at night to see it.

     We ate at Union Station and the Old Post Office as well as several other places. I decided to be adventurous and try crayfish, the small sliver of meat I got to eat was delicious but I couldn't figure out how to get anymore meat out.

      We made a "Harlem Shake" video on the balcony of the Kennedy Center before going back into to see a play.

     We went to the Washington zoo and saw the pandas. We went to countless museums and as stated before, monuments.

     One thing I have to tell you is a must if you are ever in D,C, Go see the Jefferson memorial lit up at night.

     I read the Gettysburg Address on the wall of the Lincoln memorial, I stood in awe looking at the statue of a man who managed the impossible and freed an entire race of people from the bonds of slavery.

     I felt really short looking at the Washington memorial and a sense of pride at places like the Korean or Vietnam memorial.

     I will never be in another place that can literally make me feel history. Not just look at a picture and say "that happened, that's really cool" but to actually feel the history. To experience it in a way I will never again do.

     Washington D.C. is officially my favorite city and I've been to New York city, twice.

If you knew my cousins...you'd understand

      Okay so let's start with cousins 1, 2, and 3. My aunt had a brilliant idea and decided to name all three of her boys with a name that begins with A. This resulted in my cousins being called 1, 2, and 3 (especially when my father is speaking). Number 1 is a computer genius and I have to love him for a while because he got me a computer--wasn't that nice? Number 2 who has a running joke with me that he is my twin even though he's six months older (he holds this over me a lot). He's probably the cousin I'm closest too. We end up doing pretty much everything together and as I'm writing this my Aunt is shopping for a party for both of us because like everything else--we do everything the same year. Number 2 will graduate high school with me, he'll get his driver's license fourteen days before I can get my temporaries (which I think just isn't fair).

     Number 3 merits his own paragraph. I have to admit, this kid annoys me to no end! On the other hand I have to like him. Okay so I don't have to like him but I do. He can be sweet sometimes (just not to cousin Number 2) and generally if he speaks to my brother or I he usually isn't a little devil. However my grandma has said that he wasn't held under long enough when he was baptized.

     Now let me add this to something for you to think about--the only cousins that live in Ohio with me are all boys. Now you feel for me.

     I have three girl cousins, one who is around my age, another who is a little younger than me and the other is the same age as Number 3. Female cousin number 1 is a little eccentric but polite and generally sweet. She also has a fascination with the color blue and butterflies--got to love her. Female cousin number 2 is absolutely obsessed with Taylor Swift, she actually gave up Taylor Swift for Lent. And Female cousin number 3 who is adorable, completely sweet (except when I'm training her) and helped me with an egg hunt on Easter. And yes she helped me, not the other way around.

     Then there's my only cousin on my mother's side that's actually older than my brother. and he's pretty cool. He's already engaged and plays a card game I love but suck at--Magic the Gathering. There's also my youngest cousin who is autistic and Female cousins 2 and 3's little brother who is absolutely obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine.

     Now you understand. And that's the shortened version of my cousins. They're actually much more...amusing and different and flat-out weird for that matter. Oh and that's just my mom's side of the family.