I need to take a break from blogging for say, a week. I need to wrap up (literally and figuratively) last minute gifts and do some holiday baking. Besides, I want to go do funky dance moves to techno Christmas songs. See ya!

Or rather not. I don't really ever "see" most of my readers. But that's beside the point.

Let It Snow!

So, if you at all read Kei's photography blog (see my sidebar) you know that in Washington, we have lots of snow! For once, that is; normally in western Washington we get merely a couple of inches a couple of times a year. But in this last week, it has snowed 14 inches! We are having a blast. (Yes, all you people out there who get a foot of snow every week may laugh at my enthusiam.)

Anyway, we were supposed to have a blizzard and a giant power outage on Saturday, but it never really happened. Our family knew it wouldn't happen. How did we know? We merely paid attention to one of the primary laws of nature: If you prepare for any kind of extreme weather (blizzards, high temperatures, windstorms) it won't happen. If you don't prepare, it will. This law is referred to as the law of "Contrarius Naturae." [aka Murphy's law to the old fogies] Because we did not desire a power outage, we made the usual preparations for one: purchasing fire logs, candles, pre-cooked food etc. So, we didn't have a power outage. (Just joking-God has his hand in all things)

The fire logs were the processed kind, owing to the fact that all our wood was wet. If you can believe it, written in gigantic letters on the package of logs were the words,

"CAUTION: RISK OF FIRE."

Bracie, Giles, Ava and I have been enjoying the pasttime of sledding. We have been out in the snow sledding almost constantly, except two nights ago we left the sleds out and now we are having difficulty locating them under the snow. We'll have to go hunt around.

Here is a ten second video we made at Church on Sunday.

Featuring Bracie as "The Antagonist"

And introducing Nate as "The Provoked"

Camera crew: Me!

The Importance of Subtle Morals

Morals are only tolerable when the are subtle.
Good Example: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Bad Example: Any Aesop's fable.
Do people generally like getting hit over the head with a baseball bat? (Rhetorical question: the answer is no) Obvious, glaring morals produce a very similar sensation to that of getting hit over the head.
Anyway, I didn't start this post to teach about morals. What I wanted to do was show you the absolute worst, most glaringly garish moral ever. I found it in a book called, A Hive of Busy Bees.
It would take forever to type it all out, so here is the summary:
"Little Davy" finishes eating a delicious lunch with his friend. They decide to go fishing, but before they can leave, Little Davy's mom asks him to do the dishes.
"Awww, Mom! I don't wanna do the dishes! You do them," says Davy.
"I just don't feel very well." Mrs. LittleDavy'smom says. She "gently rubs her temple."
Davy hollers, "I don't care!" and races out the door with his friend to go fishing.
After several hours of fun fishing, Little Davy comes home. He sees his mother sleeping in a chair.
"Hey mom, what's fer dinner?" he asks, but receives no answer. "What's for dinner?"
Slightly concerned, he walks over and shakes her. "Mom? MOM!!!" Little Davy realizes that his mother is DEAD, killed by the exertion of housekeeping. In horror, Davy looks over at the counter, and there sit the dinner dishes, spotlessly clean.

THE END

Can you possibly get any worse? Anyone who ever reads that story will probably be turned off from morals forever. Did the author actually think that story would "encourage" anyone to obediance? Yeeesh. If I remember right, the book has a Bible verse at the end of each story. What a way to give Christians a bad name.

P.S. Though I may be down on "morals" in an Aesop fable kind of sense, this doesn't mean I am at all for immorality. I'm for everything morals stand for, just not cheesy stories.

Lazy Ophy

I haven't been very consistent with my blogging as of late. I believe that the problem lies in the fact that I have been feeling lazy, and laziness isn't exactly inspiring. Here is a video, which won't require me to put any effort into writing.

Enjoy!

Elsie Marley's grown so fine,

She won't get up to feed the swine,

But lies in bed till eight or nine,

Lazy Elsie Marley.

At the present moment, that fits me to a T.

Home Sweet Home

I'm baaaack! Back after a lovely week, er, beginning with my cousins and Grandma. We went Christmas shopping. It was grand, but it is good to be home.
I am home to my family. Home to our beautiful Christmas tree. Home to our stockings hung on the mantle with care. Home to my cozy bedroom,


and the closet that explodes when you open it. Ahhhh, what would we do without life's little perks?

Fish Oils

Fish-oil soft gels are nasty. If you swallow them, they stick in your throat. If they burst in your mouth... it gives me shudders just to contemplate it; you get a mouthful of vile, slimy, fishy, OILY OIL!
However, its magical fishy properties render it a wonderful stimulant for the cerebrum. Or something like that. So it's supposed to make you smarter. That's enough to make me take it, oh, a several times a week.
But it is a thing of wonder to watch Ava and Milo snarf them. They simply bring a new meaning to the word clamor. They hang around the vitamen cuboard, chanting "fish-oil, fish-oil, fish-oil!" If Milo wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, er, crib, we hand him a fish oil, and BINGO, instant smile. Ditto for Ava. Fish-oils also make wonderful bribes,
"Milo, eat your mashed potatos and I'll give you a fish-oil!"
or threats.
"Ava, finish cleaning up those toys, or NO FISH-OIL!"
I can make them perform tricks for a fish-oil: "Roll over, bark, lie down, sit upand beg and I'll give you two a fish-oil." They actually do it!
So those are two little kids building up their brains who will probably rule the world someday with their superior, fish-oil stimulated brains.

"With every Christmas card I write..."

Today alone, our family received 6 Christmas cards.
This season, for the very first time, people all over the earth need to take a stand; a stand against the destruction of our natural resources and the draining of the poor postal workers' time, a stand against Christmas cards!
Do you know that every Christmas season, fifty-three million trees give their lives to become stationary? Do you realize that postal workers are forced to work countless extra hours to keep up with the grueling work that those Christmas cards make for them? ("Every night I come home at 3:00, exhausted, weary, and unable to interact with my family. I have come to hate the Christmas season." -Louisa Laborawi, Postal Worker)
I know you, gentle readers. I feel your anguish. I see the tears running down your faces. You, upon hearing this shocking news instantly wake up and resolve to put a stop to this. "But how?" you ask yourself. Then, you quickly scroll down to find out.





The answer is relatively simple, and when I say relatively simple, I mean, so-simple-an-amoeba-could-do-it. It is: follow my family's excellent example and don't send a Christmas card at all. Yep, folks, we have been way ahead of everyone else on this issue, and we never send Christmas cards.
Alright, alright, so we're just lazy, we hate addressing envelopes, and I just made up the above information. So for everyone out there who has been mad at us for never sending you a card when you've sent us one for the last umpteenth years, just know that we love you anyway. And for everybody else who doesn't know me, go ahead and send your Christmas cards. And for all you select few who never send anyone a Christmas card, give yourself a pat on the back.

Milo the Menace

The video below was taken while Mom and Dad were gone for the weekend at a retreat. We children stayed at home with our dear Grandma. Her back was turned.

I got myself into some slight trouble by taking this video. Why? Milo used to have a problem with "roaring," as you may have seen in the above video. However, this problem was corrected by sticking him in the crib about every other time he roared. Realizing that he could not "express" himself by roaring, Milo took to "sniffing" and got rather good at it. Milo's sniffing is not appreciated by his parents, so my encouraging sniffing was consquently not, er, appreciated.

Absolutely Salubrious

Last night I sat up in bed, aroused by a deep desire to gain some specific knowledge. But what knowledge, you may ask yourself is important enough to keep Ophelia from her precious and most valuable sleep? The answer is that I was struck with a longing to know what the word, "Salubrious" means.
It is actually quite strange that I have never given a second thought to words like "avuncular" and "lithogenous" and "anthropomorphism" but I in the middle of the night I sat up in bed wishing to know what salubrious means. Salubrious is probably a word I should know, and I most likely sound foolish by writing that I didn't know the definition. However, if I resolved not to say anything that might make me look foolish, I wouldn't ever say anything.
Anyway, last night I sat in my bunk pondering possible meanings for the word, "salubrious" and musing on the fact that salubrious rhymes with lugubrious. As I said before, I had a deep desire to discover the definition of salubrious, but unfortunately it was not quite deep enough! That is, it was not quite a deep enough desire to persuade me to leave the cozy comfort of my bunk in pursuit of knowledge. Likely enough salubrious meant something dull, for example; "pertaining to great Spanish literature written in the pre-Cervantes era"
If I am lazy, I am not forgetful, so today I looked it up. If you are at all interested in knowing like I was last night, the exact definition of "salubrious" is as follows:

Salubrious:

–adj.
"favorable to or promoting health; healthful: salubrious air."
Example: "He made himself a salubrious sandwich composed of germinated wheat bread, peanut butter, whey protein powder and kale."
Now that I know what this important and often used word (riiiiiight...) means I can count myself an intelligent and educated person. Okay, enough learnin' fer one day; I'm gonna go watch uh muvie.

Book Recommendation #1: Leave It to Psmith

I must say I have always had a sort of unhealthy disrespect for bloggers who write book reviews. This is a very negative aspect of my character and in the past, when I have debated with myself whether or not to write a book review, the negative aspect has always conquered.
But after reading Leave It to Psmith, I have overcome my unhealthy disrespect in my eagerness to share my new favorite book.

Leave It to Psmith is written by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse. I can't exactly imagine why any reasonably sane mother would wish to burden her poor child with a name like that, but P.G. Wodehouse has overcome it, I believe. Anyway, listen to this wonderful advertisement that Psmith puts in the paper, and if you aren't enthralled, I shall think less of you than I did before:

LEAVE IT TO PSMITH!

Psmith Will Help You

Psmith Is Ready For Anything

DO YOU WANT

Someone To manage you affairs?

Someone To Handle Your Business?

Someone To Take The Dog For A Run?

Someone To Assassinate Your Aunt?

PSMITH WILL DO IT

CRIME NOT OBJECTED TO

Whatever Job You Have To Offfer

(Provided It Has Nothing To Do With Fish)

LEAVE IT TO PSMITH!

Address Applications To 'R. Psmith, Box 365

LEAVE IT TO PSMITH!

Now doesn't that absolutely capture your intrest? This is the most absolutely hysterical book I have ever read.

P.S. By they way, "The p is silent, as in pthisis psychic, and ptarmigan"

An Introduction to Ava

Ah! Here we see my little sister Ava. She is four. We have more pictures of her than any other member of the family because she is the only one who doesn't scream and hide if Mom whips out the camera.
She is also the only person with blonde hair in our family. I think she is a doll.

The Boring Interview
Me: Ava what do you think of blogs?
Ava: What? I like them maybe.
Me: What about them do you like?
Ava: Can I have a piece of paper?
Me: Do you want a blog?
Ava gravely shakes her head.
Me: Why?
Ava: Because I want to draw on a piece of paper.
Me: Okay, forget the whole blogging thing what are you going to draw?
Ava: Flowers! And a horsey.

Me: So, Ava... Ava? Ava?

Bwahahahah!

In spite of all you people who liked that other layout, I am changing back to my simple old one. I will now watch you other-layout-lovers suffer in intense agony by having to look at the plain template.

No, that isn't really how I feel. I actually changed my profile picture to a normal picture to appease the other-layout-lovers' feelings.

The Country Bumpkins visit the Big City

The other day my parents decided to take us on an educational field trip to the King County Courthouse & sheriff's office, so we drove down to Seattle. I was pleased with the idea until we walked through the front door. Then, my spirits went down,

down,

down,

like a brick in quicksand. Wait a minute, that's a really lame, if accurate simile. Oh well.
Anyway, so what was the reason behind this sudden nose-dive off my spirits? I saw that in just inside the building was a metal detector! My eyes widened in fright, and I assumed the stance of a hunted deer.
Let me stop right here. Some people collect butterflies, some spoons, some post cards, some pretty china, and many stamps. What I collect triggers alarms when I pass through metal detectors, and it isn't spoons. I (along with several good friends who shall remain nameless) collect pocket knives. They are very practical and collectible.
"Mom," I whispered, worried that my precious knife would get confiscated like the last one (at an airport,) "I think I'll go sit in the car."
My mother did not take to the idea.
"Ophelia," she said, "This is Seattle, and I'm not going to leave you in the car. Besides, this is a family outing and we are going to stick together. Why do you want to stay in the car?" she began to ask, but then it was her turn to walk through the condemning metal arch. I watched Giles and Ava go through. No one remained but Bracie and me. I smiled at her weakly and faced the inevitable; it was my turn. First, I carefully placed my bag on the moving counter so that it would feed through the scanner. Then, I removed my pocket knife from, guess where, my pocket, and placed in on the tray. Bravely, I stepped through the metal detector and came out without setting off the alarm.

Just after I came through, my bag was sent into the depths of one of those, uh, bag scanners. I knew that my knife in the tray would set off the alarm, but as I waited, I heard the machine omit not one beep, but four! My spirits sank even lower.

Once again, let me stop. I like to wear dresses on nice occasions, but the problem with a dress is that there isn't a place on them to conceal a knife. So, being the ingenious problem solver that I am, I usually stuff a knife in my bag. This would be fine, except that I am horrible of keeping track of things, so I don't always take the knives out.

Anyway, so I stood there, my confidence sinking to rock bottom, and me wishing that I would melt. I knew what would happen. The scanner operator looked at me like I was a raving tearing lunatic.

"Did you know, young lady, that you have four knives in this bag?"

What was I supposed to say? If I protested and claimed that I didn't, I would have sounded guilty. If I had said yes, I'd probably be written down as some serial killer. So, I responded with a weak, "Sort of. Not really," which probably made me sound like both at the same time.

Luckily, I was allowed to keep my precious knives. You do have to give me credit because one of the "knives" wasn't actually a knife; it was a switch-comb that merely resembled a knife. I did feel better about bringing four actually knives and one switch comb into a court house because Bracie brought one too.

Mom looked on at poor me and laughed, exclaiming enthusiastically that we should take pictures. However, Dad was not pleased, and so unfortunately we have no accompaining photos. Maybe next time.

Results!

So, the poll is up and now my new video camera finally has a name; the name of Audie! Audie, the video camera. Doesn't that have a wonderfully melodious ring to it? My video camera is named after the super-awesome Audie Murphy.

Thank you, everyone for spending some of your precious time voting on a blog poll. May you never regret it. I will now christen the camera by breaking a bottle of champagne over it.

On second thought, liquid has never been good for electronics, and I'm not entirely certain that my video camera could survive the blow.

This, so far, is a really boring post. You see, in celebration of the fact that my camera is named, I was going to post a video. However, my parents are still unsure whether or not I should post it because it might be too weird; not bad in any way, just too weird. Sounds just like me.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

The Annual Detangling of the Christmas Lights

Here we see an excellent example of the famed, "Duck Lips" as demonstrated by my dear Daddy.

Does anything more need to be said?

Typical Bracie

You, gentle readers, probably already know that my sister and I possess the lowly and slightly unfortunate vocation of Alpaca Pasture Maintenance. If you didn't know, now you know. So, since as of now, you all know and now I know that you know, I will proceed to describe an incident that happened a couple of weeks ago. I call it, "Death by Alpaca Poop." Keep in mind that this really happened and I only just barely embellished it.

It happens that my dear sister is a bit of a klutz. Don't look at me like that! She would be the one to tell you. And now, explorers of the world wide web, I will now venture to reveal to you a deep dark secret. You may have suspected this; Bracie is not her real name! Her real name is Grace. (Get it? Gracie, and Bracie? IT RHYMES! Bwahahaha! I think I'll kill myself laughing!) She has always deemed the name "Grace" an unfortunate choice for her on the part of her parents because she thinks it is so unsuited to her nature.

Anyway, it all began one rainy afternoon when Bracie and I were raking away at the seeming mountains of Alpaca poop. Every time we filled the big yellow wheelbarrow we would cart it back to the dump pile, taking turns rolling the unwieldy barrow along. At the particular moment in which this story took place, Bracie grasped the handlebars, and began to push the wheelbarrow up the wet, muddy slope. She shoved, but it was stuck! Then, she gave one great, mighty heave,

and slipped in the mud.

Bracie's feet wildly flailed and thrashed. You those cartoons, where a character runs off a cliff without knowing it, looks at the screen while his feet pound away at thin air, says, "Uh oh," and then falls? This was something like that. Anyway, she knelt in the mud, certain that the giant load of alpaca poop which now loomed over her head would fall and smother her at any second. The wheelbarrow slowly tipped back, creaking, groaning, about to crash 100 pounds of Alpaca poop on top of her! Bracie looked up helplessly at the wheelbarrow, towards her imminent death. I could see her eyes growing rounder, and rounder, wider and wider.

Just milliseconds before the load came tumbling down on her in all it's glory, Bracie displayed a superhuman feat of strength. With all that was within her, she whipped her head and torso up above the dastardly doodoo, narrowly missing being smothered by alpaca poop. If you can believe it, the monstrous load barely brushed her chin, neck and nose. She survived! You should of been there. That amazingly executed escape would have had you gazing in admiration at my dirty sister. She was so close to death. I could just see myself having to explain to friends and family, "Yes, poor Bracie came to a horrible end in the form of drowning... ina pile of poop."

You should have seen Bracie wipe the muck off her face with a soiled glove and exclaim, slightly hysterically, "Haha! Near death by alpaca poop! Typical me!"

Looking back on this incident makes me realize just how important family really is. Seeing Bracie dance with death puts life into perspective, and makes me realize that all the business and commotion that we put value on just doesn't matter. In that terrible moment when I saw Bracie kneeling helplessly under the wheelbarrow, I found out how much I love her.

Yeah right. Actually, I was dying laughing while it happened. I just thought that maybe I could squeeze a nice, cheesy inspirational paragraph in here somewhere to make up for the fact that I actually typed the words, "Alpaca Poop."

Note: About the photo: the wheelbarrow in the picture is only half as big as the one in real life.

O Christmas Tree!

We cut our Christmas tree! Hurrah! And it has personality, lots, really. Actually, that just means that it has a crooked top. We had a nice, jolly time hunting around in the mountains for an absolutely perfect tree.

But get ready for the tragedy:

There wasn't ANY snow! It was horrific; the first time in history that I can ever remember getting a mountain tree without any snow. We didn't get to eat any snow, or romp in any snow, or even throw any snow. The closest thing we found was a tiny patch of crusted ice that was probably from the last winter. It couldn't even make a half-decent snowball. The whole thing was terribly disappointing.

But being optimists of the finest sort, we pressed on and had fun anyway.

And I know you are just dying to see some family pictures, so here goes:

My family

Some of my family, and some of my extended family


The above is Milo, exploring the moon in his super spacesuit. Isn't he darling?
And here is our Christmas tree, patiently waiting for us to decorate it tomorrow.

Now, a weather report from western WA

Well, folks, today, in Western WA, we had our first frost. For crying out loud! It's the 20-somethingth of November! What's the matter with the weather? It was cold all summer, and now it's warm and muddy all fall. Frosts are supposed to come in October.
Sorry, I just had to bore you all out with my weather woes.
Anyway, for the next couple of days, I get to go over to Eastern WA, where hopefully there will be some SNOW! But that's hopefully.
Are you all feeling nice and thankful, and akin to strict villagers in white aprons, and shoes and hats with buckles? Once, when I was 7, I wrote a horrid play in which Squanto goes to visit the pilgrims. I just about died at how ridiculous it was when I read it lately. Mom thinks it's cute, so she insists on keeping a million copies of it. I suppose when I'm 30-something I'll go over it again and it will just touch my heart and I'll reminisce about my childhood. I guess I'll be thankful then. (Haha! get it? Thankful, and it's almost Thanksgiving! Bwa ha Ha! Pretty punny, huh? No, not really. As George MacDonald says in his book, the Light Princess, "The most objectional form duplicity can assume is that of punning.")
Well, have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Feel sentimental all weekend.

Feet.

I hate shoes. I never wear them if I can help it. Bracie and Libby are also staunch supporters of barefeet. I go barefoot until Welfare calls mom, (usually around Feb.) and then I figure it's time to put something on my feet. =D The natural state of barefeet is good for the soul, and besides, you toes look weird if you wear shoes all your life.
Everybody else who hates shoes and loves barefeet raise your hand (comment!). I think I'll start a club and call it, "The Barefeet Club." I would say, "The Barefoot Club," but "barefeet" has a more musical, harmonious ring to it. Applications for membership are now open. I think I'll make a little picture gadget for my side bar that you can copy or something if you'd like to join.

Barefeet Rule!

P.S. As a depressing side note, we might as well go barefoot, because 98.7% of America's shoes are imported.

The Serious post #2

Pro 21:2 Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the heart.

Aaaaah!

Okay, so the general consensus (according to the people who commented) was that my blog template was boring and BLAH. So I, caring deeply about my gentle readers opinions, changed it, even though I didn't want to. I'm such a martyr!

Now, I really, really don't like this new one. I think it's way to bright, but not original enough. The Reluctant Dragon blog layout ought to scream, "Quirky!" and "Unusual!" and "Super awesome!" Not like the last one did, but it was better! I guess I'm just rejecting any hint of change and throwing a fit. Sort of like Pat of Silver Bush, for the minority out there that has actually read that book.
So, I want YOU! (Picture me here pointing a strangely foreshortened arm and extended pointer finger at you while I'm wearing striped pants and a top hat that defies the laws of perspective.)
... To tell me whether I should go back to the old, safe background or stick with this ugly one or get a very scrapbookish looking one.
Please? Pleeease? It doesn't have to be an essay, hey, if you want to, just write "ew" in the comment section if you don't like this new template.
So, comment! (And thanks to all of you who commented last time.)

The Third Meeting of the Reluctant Dragon Fan Club

(Note: To read the first meeting click HERE. To read the second, click HERE)

Ophelia smiles confidently. She has overcome her fear of fan club meetings and is quite proud of her self. Considering what happened at the last meeting, she has a right to be. Not only that, but she has discovered the perfect place for the meeting; McDonald's.

Why McDonald's? Because of the instant popularity it will grant her. She has thought this over for months;by offering a free meal to each of her supporters she will become the best loved blogger on the world wide web, a must for her self-confidence.

Elsewhere, the CEO of McDonald's sits at his desk, frowning darkly. The stocks of McDonald's corporation have gone down, way down. The CEO is unsure what is causing the drop. At this rate, by 2017, McDonald's will go out of business unless something amazing happens. He decides to fly his private jet down to a nearby location to see if he can discover the problem.

Back to Ophelia, who is at her local McDonald's giving a speech to her fans: "Welcome to the third meeting of The Reluctant Dragon Fan Club!" Ophelia begins tremulously. "I'm fairly certain you all know my name. It's nice to um, er, be able to see the faces of the people who support my blog. To show all of you just how much I appreciate the support of my gentle readers, I am going to treat every one of you to a free meal! So, uh, order up!"

A cheer rises from the fans crowding into McDonald's. They clap, but then start shoving each other for a place in line. For a few minutes, McDonald's rings with shouts as people wrestle for spots in line to get their free meals. The manager begins to panic, shouting, "Order! Order!" Ophelia begins to be frantic also, afraid that this third meeting will turn out like the last one. Just then, to add to the pandemonium, the CEO chooses exactly that opportune moment to show up. "Manager!" he begins, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself. It is unqualified people like you who are ruining the reputation of McDonald's corporation. I'm going to see that you are repla-"

But before he can finish his sentence, the CEO is swept away by a wave of hungry Reluctant Dragon fans. Desperate to save himself from being trampled, the CEO grabs onto a post and shimmies up to a safe height.

Ah! Relief!A donut-munching, coffee-slurping policeman barges in to save the day, takes one look at the chaos and grabs the manager by the scruff of the neck. "What kindaofa business are you trying run here! Lookatthe mess you made for me to clean up!"he growls, "Everybody line up! You, stop! CUTTHATOUT!"

With a surprising speed, the policeman has everyone in place. Ophelia frowns, realizing that the line wraps around the inside of the building, and several people are standing just out the door. "There are a lot of people here, and this is going to take a toll on my pocketbook. Well, at least that's everybody."

The CEO, finally sliding down from his perch at the top of the post has noticed the large amount of people, and suddenly hits upon a brilliant market strategy to rescue McDonald's. He knows that if people receive a free meal, chances are that they will become addicted to McDonald's greasy, "delicious" food, and thus, become consistent customers. In the past, attempting this particular strategy has caused companies to go bankrupt if they lose too much money on the free meal, but the CEO plans on taking advantage of poor unsuspecting Ophelia, and her money. He quickly exits the building to spread the word to passersby that "for a limited time only, McDonald's is offering people a first free meal!"

For the next twenty minutes, Ophelia chats with her readers, signing autographs and enjoying herself. Then, looking up, she notices something very peculiar; the line has not gotten smaller, even though most of the fans have already been served. Now, the line wraps two times around the McDonald's building. Ophelia racks her brain to think where they could be coming from. She realizes that word must have gotten out that there were free meals at McDonald's! For a few moments, she stands, dumbfounded, but then she tries to spring into action, attempting to shove her way towards the front of the line to stop the purchases made on her account. But her fans stop her! They shove pieces of paper at her, crying, "I want your autograph!"

Ophelia's dream has come true; she is the most popular blogger ever, yet that dream no longer matters, she must get to that cashier! For the next half hour she persists in struggling, swimming upstream in the current of people. Then, finally, she makes it! Ophelia pants wearily to the cashier, "Don't give anybody anymore free food. I'll pay my tab now."

"Yes ma'am. Your total is $12,459.72. Thank you for shopping at McDonald's Have a nice day," The clerk rants in a monotone.

Ophelia gasps. "$12,459? No, that can't be true!"

"It isn't true, ma'am. You owe McDonald's $12,459.72."

Ophelia slumps down and lays her head on the counter. "Put... put, put it on my tab. Here's $459 right here." Slowly she walks out of the store, the noise and crowd seeming far away. "$12, 459.72. $12,459.72." She mutters over and over again. An employee announces on a megaphone, "McDonald's is now no longer giving away free food. Thank you for eating at McDonald's."

To settle her enormous debt to McDonald's, Ophelia drops out of high school and gets a job at the local McDonald's as a lowly fry cook. McDonald's stocks go up in value and the CEO lives happily ever after.

To be continued...

My Dad's Ice Cream Addiction

So, long story short: My dad loves ice cream. Watch this fascinating interview to catch a glimpse of his love for ice cream.

P.S. YES! I can now post videos! I believe I can safely say that I'll post more often.

White

Okay, so what does everybody think of white? That is, white backgrounds on blogs, like mine. Is it incredibly boring, or artsy and simplistic? Should I get an ultra frilly layout?

I kinda like the white, but this, gentle readers is your chance to speak up and tell me things like, "I can't read the text, it should be bigger!" or "Don't be boring, get a new background!" Maybe something on my blog irks you every time you look at it. So comment! Remember, you don't have to have a blogger identity to comment on my blog.

P.S. Bracie says I ought to get a new profile picture, but I'm enjoying the purple wig. What do you think?

The Second Episode in the Chronicles of Miss Penelope Faullty

(Note: To read the first episode, click HERE)

Penelope: (delightedly) “Charity died? Who killed the nasty, spiteful little thing? If I knew him I should like to give him a kiss.”
Inspector Winderby: (grimly) “Don’t put on an act when you’ve already let too much slip. And don’t say “him” to me after you told me it was a woman, you most likely, who murdered the girl.”
Penelope: (wonderingly) Me? Me? How could you even suspect me of killing a person? What a low, dirty thing to do. I would never dream of it!”
Inspector Winderby: (dazedly) “But you said- You confessed to have murdered Charity Ellison!” Penelope: (indignantly) “There you go, putting words in my mouth. You ought to be ashamed. Besides, I said I did it, not that I murdered somebody.”
Inspector Winderby: (still dazedly) “But how could you do it without murdering Miss Ellison?”
Penelope: (superiorly) “My dear fellow, are you so ignorant that you have never heard of a class of people called evil hench-people? I’m quite disappointed in you.”

Inspector Winderby: (triumphantly) "Ah! So you hired a man to kill her for you!"

Penelope: (severely) "There you go again, assuming that only men can kill people. Remember, assuming makes-"

Inspector Winderby: (quickly) "Yes, yes. So, did you or did you not kill Miss Ellison?"

The TRUTH!

For those of you who haven't realized already...
Asher and Trey aren't really my second cousins. Asher and Trey aren't really Asher and Trey. Asher and Trey don't really exist.

And now the terrible truth comes out:

Asher and Trey are really Ophelia and Bracie.



Yes, folks, it's true. These strapping young gentlemen are actually the talented, clever, beautiful and humble Ophelia and Bracie.



Er, um, wait a minute. Wrong Ophelia and Bracie. These are the ugly stupid Bracie and Ophelia.


That's better. Anyway, aren't you shocked? Actually, probably most of you guessed and thought it was quite hilarious.

THE END

I apologize for how untimely this post is, but I just couldn't wait until next year to do a post on Pumpkins. Here's Ava's: Bracie's:


Gile's:

And finally mine. Isn't it super awesome? Huh? Huh?


For all you who couldn't guess, it's MASTER CHIEF! The one, the only. Isn't that awesome?

WHAT! You don't know who Master Chief is? How could you? He has his own wikipedia article.
Ah, well, I guess nobody shares my enthusiasm. It is after all just a video game that I never actually play.

Blank.

Today, I opened up my blogging account and clicked on "create post." Then... I, I, I sat there and I didn't know what to write! My mind was blanker than a sea monkey. I frantically racked my brain for suggestions, "Uh, How sorry I am that I haven't posted? No, I'm not that sorry. How annoyed I am that I can't load a video? No, if I write about that I'll bore my readers."

So now, I'm writing about how I can't think of anything to blog about. Which is, if I really think about it, momentous. I can almost always think of something. Perhaps I have run dry. Horrors! Or maybe I just too tired from staying up until midnight for the last three nights.

I apologize for not posting lately. You see, I really have been busy because we have had out of town guests with daughters my age, which means late nights.

Every time I try to post, I try to post a video. I wait for a long time for the video to load, and then a little window pops up that says "We're sorry, contact us and include the following information blah, blah, blah." Somehow, since this has been happeing for the last month, I highly doubt that they are actually sorry.

I just posted about everything that I decided I wouldn't. However, I'm not very sorry. I wonder what this says about my character?

-Ophelia

Dadism, #2

Today's dadism is...

"It had to be one of us."

Seriously, it's true. Every time something is broken, you can count on the fact that one of us broke it. If you don't believe me, read these stories, which happened on different days

Our church has a bell, and consequently a bell rope. The sturdy rope had been ringing the bell for many, many years without any problems. Finally, it was our family's turn to ring the bell because it was our week to do worship. Giles, my little brother grabbed the bell rope and gave it a nice, not too hard tug. Plop! The rope broke off and fell on the floor in a heap. All he did was touch it and it was ruined.

And then there's my story: I play the piano for worship at church. At the church we have a piano and consequently a piano bench. The sturdy piano bench had been sat on for many, many years without any problems. Finally, it was our family's turn to do worship, so I sat on the piano bench. Boom! The leg of the bench collapsed. All I did was sit! And yeesh, I'm not that heavy!

These are just two examples. Any time you hear a CRASH! a BOOM! or a THUD! You can almost guarantee that someone in my family is behind it.

The First episode in the Chronicles of Miss Penelope Faullty

Inspector Winderby: (wearily) “Suspect number fourteen, please come forward. Name, please?”
Penelope: (brightly)“Miss Penelope Alexandria Juliana Faullty. With two l’s if you please.”
Inspector Winderby: (automatically) “Miss Faullty, can you supply any information regarding this recent unpleasant business?”
Penelope: (uncertainly) “Must I tell the truth?”
Inspector Winderby: (incredulously) “That, Miss, is why you were sworn in!”
Penelope: (doubtfully) “I raised my left hand instead of my right. Doesn’t that make a difference?”
Inspector Winderby: (sternly) “Not in the least!”
Penelope: (reluctantly) “Well, (sniff) it was… (sniff) me.”
Inspector Winderby: (loudly) “You! What did you say your name was?”
Penelope: (slowly) “Miss Penelope Alexandria Juliana Faullty. With two L’s.”
Inspector Winderby proceeds to attempt to put handcuffs on Penelope.
Penelope: (tearfully) “Handcuffs! The idea of putting handcuffs on a lady. You will make me cry!” Penelope begins to sniffle profusely.
Inspector Winderby: (unsympathetically) “Fancy calling a confessed murderer a lady. A lady spends her time doing much more charitable things than committing murder.”
Penelope: (indignantly) “You are taking an unstable position on the conduct of ladies. In not so many words: you are quite wrong. They kill people all the time; it is merely that they are excellent at putting the blame on somebody else.”
Inspector Winderby: (severely) “Er… never mind all that. Why did you kill Miss Charity Ellison?”

(What should I title this really random post?)

I apologize for not posting consistently. Actually, I don't, because it's MY blog, and I get to do whatever I want! Bwahahahaha! *Evil laughter*

Okay, I've calmed down now. Anyway, you all should be proud of me for being such a good girl and doing my schoolwork instead of blogging. Except right now I should be doing school. And I'm blogging. Ah, well. Actually, I'm putting my little sister Ava to bed, which reminds me; I don't think that she has made her appearance on my blog yet. If I can get the video thingamabob to work, expect the official introduction any day now.

Looking back at these last couple paragraphs, I realize that they are incredibly random. Ah, well. Like blogger like blog. Or like blog like blogger? Nevermind.

Public Apology.

My dear, gentle and maybe slightly aggravated readers, I, known only to you as Ophelia, deeply apologize.
I sincerely hope that you are asking, "Why, since she's so perfect, is she apologizing?" but I highly doubt it.
I've been a bad, bad girl. Last night, my mother took me aside and showed me the errors of my ways.*Gasping followed by sobbing pierces the air* Punctuation errors. And Grammar errors. Lots of them. What you see now is the corrected version.
My main problem is that I am addicted to commas. I tend to throw rules to the wind and follow my heart when it comes to punctuation because it's so much more expressive that way. Actually, I'm rather proud of myself for not placing a comma before that "because" because that is one of my most frequent errors. In conclusion, I will try to do better, but until then, let's just say those little so-called, "mistakes" are me taking advantage of poetic license.
P.S. As a side note, my mother claims that poetic license is just an excuse for being lazy.

Ugh; I hate posers!

I positively cannot stand dramatic picture poses. Cameras are supposed to show what you look like! I find it excessively annoying when a friend, or in this case second cousins on my mother's side puts on a face that looks nothing like them in real life. Does anyone else share this annoyance? These are my second cousins:

Trey,

And Asher.

See? they both have these pasted on, horribly morbid fakey faces. It absolutely drives me batty! People are supposed to smile, and look nice in pictures. Try telling that to my sec. cousins though; it's swimming upstream.

Bus Ride

Well, I woke up this morning and decided that I was reasonably sound of mind, so now I will finish telling you the story of our bus ride:
I'll start out by telling you why we were going on the bus ride in the first place; our church was visiting our sister congregations down in Oregon, as every quarter all of the HOFCC churches gather together for a giant service.
I got on the bus and plopped down on to a plush seat, attempting not to think about who had sat there before. It was a nice clean bus, however, so I ceased thinking about it. I exchanged hellos with Bear and Libby, and we compared how early we had woken up. As the morning progressed, we kids grew rowdier and more restless, and we took to playing telephone, which was the only game we could imagine playing in a bus. Nearly everybody started a line, some two, and mine were, "Milly Mallard marches to the Moo goo gai pan (sp?) market," and "Elegant element alamonde (sp?) around avacadoes." I can't even remember how they ended up, but I am positive they were ridiculous. After that, we all talked and joked for long time. Unfortunately, as with most of the kids, I was sitting in the back. And in the back, there was a bathroom. Now, let me explain my point of view: I am completely averse to the idea of a bathroom on a bus. It probably saved us a lot of time at rest stops, but after sitting in the back, I'm not entirely certain it was worth it.
We finally drove into the parking lot, then eagerly jumped out. The service started soon after, so we headed into the auditorium to sing some beautiful songs and listen to a powerful message on discipleship. I am afraid I did not gather its full worth because I was so tired, and I had to pinch myself to stay awake. However, I really enjoyed what I did hear!
After service, we ate lunch and set to work making Italian sodas. As I made them for hours, (it seemed) I got into a rhythm: dash of flavor, splash of half & half, pour soda, stir. Dash, Splash, Pour, Stir . DashSplashPourStir. I finally stopped because I had made so many sodas that my shoulder began to ache. I really must commend Libby for her endurance because she continued slaving away until we ran out of club soda.
I, lazy lump, skipped off to play speed volleyball. I had a blast because it was a "click" sports day for me. Let me explain... normally, I am not, er, um, very good at sports. At. All. However, that day, I felt like I was actually contributing to the team. (At least a little.) I felt so, so, so athletic!
Anyway, after that, we piled into the bus for the long, long drive back. Once home, I crashed, realizing that though tiring, it had been a wonderful, full day.

Four long days

Hi. It is 8:58 PM, but it feels like 11:00. I haven't posted in four days. I think that might be a first, but I'm too tired to calculate it out. You, my hopefully faithful readers, can if you want to. Somehow I have a sneaking suspicion that you won't though.
This morning we got up at 5:00, and loaded stuff in the car, drove to church, then unloaded stuff from the car, then loaded stuff on the bus, then loaded ourselves on the bus for a 3 hour drive down to OR. It was a blast, but if I ever see another food item wrapped in plastic, I think I'll barf.
O.K. I believe I'm too tired to blog. I'm already grossing you out, and I will finish talking about our bus ride when I'm a little more sane.

The poll is up!

Ha! I have the poll up and running like kids on a Chef Boyardee commercial. Sorry, that was really random, but hasn't anyone seen those commercials where the tin man has a label that says "Chef Boyardee soup" or something like that on it, and all the kids run after him?
Nevermind. Well, anyway, please do me a favor and vote on this poll. Hmmm, maybe I should try a different approach... Vote on this poll or else! I know where you live. *Laughs evilly*

My mother, the Egg Princess

Here's a lovely little report that I wrote about my mom.

When my mother was 18, she and some friends flew to Nushygak, Alaska, to work in a Salmon cannery. The nearest phone was 40 minutes away by boat, or 20 minutes away by plane. At first, she worked not many hours, and she would scrounge for the old job. Cleaning the shower stalls was one such job. Mom tells us it was the most disgusting job that she had ever done, and she cleaned them by mixing ammonia and bleach together, (which can kill you,) and dumping them all over the bathroom. Fortunately, she survived the experience. However, mom was not stuck scrubbing toilets for long, because the harder you worked, the better the job you got, and mom was a hard worker. Soon, she was promoted to being an egg princess. An egg princess’ job is to slit open the fish and take out all the eggs. This job was called egg “princess” because it was considered one of the better jobs. Even so, mom worked 16 hours a day on average. At the peak of the season, everybody worked 23 hours a day. The entire work force wore yellow slickers to protect their clothes from being coated in salmon guts. Mom remembers once, a man was showing some new comers how to chop fish heads off on a machine that had a vertical blade that chomped up and down. While the machine was running, he told the workers, “One thing you must never do is stick your hand in the machine, like this:” He stuck his hand in the machine and chopped his hand off. Many of the workers were Japanese and often they would invite mom and her friends over to dinner. Mom describes it as a pleasant experience, always with delicious authentic Japanese food, except once, when it was not so delicious. “One time,” she recalls, “we stayed over there to have special meso soup. Now, meso soup is quite good, but this was special meso soup. I wanted to see what special meso soup looked like, so I peered into the pot- Do you know what chum eggs are? They are huge marble sized salmon eggs. Well, I looked into the pot, and floating around in it were huge, slimy chum eggs, and FINS! Smelly, underbelly fins.” But mom tells me that they had a baker who made absolutely divine pastries. The particular cannery mom worked at could not sell fish to the US because the quality was too poor. Mom told me that one time, the fisherman left huge bins of fish on the docks for four days. If you touched the fish, they were so incredibly old that your thumb would easily go through them. But they processed and packaged it anyway. Mom worked at the cannery for 5 weeks and she earned $4000 dollars. She tells me that when she received her pay check, she was thinking, “This is it?” Now, my mother, the former egg princess has resolved never to eat canned fish again.

P.S. Mom is not nearly old enough to have these pictures be her personal ones. I simply googled Nushagak Alaska cannery.

Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh! Website Malfunction

For the last 4 days, I have been trying to load a super awesome movie, so YOU, gentle readers, could enjoy it, but, alas, I cannot because for some reason the website won't allow me to upload the video. And this on top of my being unable to post a poll. I am deeply offended. I think I'll go complain to the authorities.
But on the other hand, I suppose I should be very nice to the people who run the website because they probably work like a lake full of busy beavers. So I can have a blog. For free.
Besides, it would probably be a case of the oldies song, "I fight authority/authority alway wins/" But I'm not really fighting; I'm complaining, so I guess I just typed that out so that I could have an excuse to sing that song, even though those are the only two lines of that song that I know. (Wait, are there any other lines in that song?) That song is so much fun to sing merely because I have absolutely no desire to fight authority.
Well, bye for now. I think all go dance around my bedroom singing, "I fight authority/authority always wins/I fight authority/authority always wins.../

Polls

Alrighty, the results are up for the watermelon poll:

5o% love watermelon!

25% could eat just watermelon for the rest of their lives!

Traitors! Only one person hates watermelon. (Not including me.) That's terrible.

And only 13 people voted on this poll! Can you believe that? I know more people have looked at my blog than 13. 13 stinking votes! Come on! That is totally lame!

So, now the new and improved post is up. You, my gentle readers, get to help choose the name my new Flip video camera shall bear. I expect more of you this time! Everybody vote, or I will throw a big fit. You don't have to be a blogger or have a blogger identity, you just select your option of choice and press the big button that says, "Vote."

P.S. I afraid I have spoken too soon. Yes, I eat my words. The poll widget isn't working. *sigh* maybe in a couple of days.

And now is time for... The Serious Post

Today I am going to try my hand at a more serious post, as it is Sunday. My featured verse is a very familiar one;

Proverbs 15
1 A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

I have discovered that it is only familiar because it is very, very true. Try it, it works!

THE END