Smorz Are Back!!!

   Today, mom and I went shopping and the best thing happened. My favorite cereal, which had been discontinued, is back. Smorz are back! I am so ecstatic. I just finished a bowl. All-and-all, this is the best news I've had in a while to share. Have a great week!

7 Things I've Been Loving This Week!

1: Quinoa. I got some organic quinoa at Aldi's recently and I've been enjoying it. I eat it with avocado, eggs and feta cheese. Almost 20 grams of protein.

2: Merle Travis' Strictly Guitar. I have the vinyl record and it's become my favorite record I've played so far. As the title says, it's just guitar playing, but it's wonderful guitar playing.

3: Studying my Bible Quizzing material. I'm finally getting into the groove of studying and I'm getting better with my material, finally.

4: My new Christmas jeans. I received almost ten pairs of jeans for Christmas from various relatives. I haven't even been able to wear them all yet. I could have, but I found my favorite pairs and I prefer to wear those first. Then they get dirty, (or mom won't let me out of the house in the same pair of jeans again without them being washed, even if they are perfectly clean), I have others to chose from.

5: Slow-motion videos. I went over to my best friends house and we made a ton of slow motion videos. It was super fun. Something about watching things at a slower speed makes them more interesting.

6: We went over to visit some friends we hadn't visited with in many months. It was nice to talk and catch up.

7: New curriculum. Today the new Total Language Plus stuff we ordered to finish out the year came today. I've almost finished the book I'd been working with, so it came just in time.

Wednesday Hodgepodge

1. Are you ready for new? Is 2016 likely to be very different than 2015? Do you want it to be?

   I don't believe 2016 is going to be much different than 2015 nor do I want it to be. If anything would happen to change, I could accommodate it, but I'm not bringing about any.


 2. January 6th is National Technology Day. Currently, what is your single biggest struggle or frustration when it comes to technology?

   We live in a rural area and in the specific part of the world we call ours, we have terrible internet and cell phone service. We also can't afford more than ten gigabytes of internet data per month, which is quite a frustration.


 3. It's that time again...time for Lake Superior University to present a list of words (or phrases) they'd like to see banished (for over-use, mis-use, and general uselessness) in 2016. You can read more about the decision making process here, but this year's top vote getters are-

So (at the start of every single sentence), conversation (as in hotly debated topics where we're invited to 'join the conversation'), problematic, stakeholder, price point, secret sauce, break the Internet, walk it back, presser, manspreading (common in larger cities where some men take up the entire bus or train seat by sitting wide), vape, giving me life (refers to anything that may excite a person or make them laugh), and physicality

Which of these words/phrases would you most like to see banished from everyday speech and why? Is there a word not on the list you'd like to add?

   I think this, in my opinion, is such a petty list. Well-educated people are just irritated by the overuse of stupid and pointless words. While I agree with a lot of the words they dislike, the words will never be 'banished'. It's an arrogant collection of words they complied to make themselves feel superior. I think they forget most of these words are just a phase, and they're gradually going to fade to the background to make room for the next list of overused, dumb and pointless words.
   It's your choice on what words you use. I will not be saying selfie or bae. If someone else uses word I don't like, I'm just going to have to deal with it.

 4. Share one of your current health related goals. 

   If you didn't read the two posts before this one, you have yet to know I've become a vegetarian. That's the only health related goal I have or else I probably wouldn't be mentioning it again. It's not really a goal, it's more of a challenge to myself, incorporating a new way of viewing what I choose to think of as food, and what is not.


 5. Let's talk fifty shades of gray. As in the color. Gray is currently a popular color in home decor, paint, wardrobes, hair, wedding party attire, and more. Are you a fan? Do you have the color in some variation in your home or wardrobe?  Gray hair, the old gray mare, gray matter, gray area...which gray idiom can you most relate to right now?

   Let's not talk fifty shades of gray. Let's not ever refer to that ever again. As for the color, I love gray. I have several gray items in my wardrobe and I plan to paint my bedroom walls gray. I don't relate to any gray idiom right now. I'm having a very good day and nothing is gray.


 6. Certain foods are considered 'lucky' if eaten on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. Cooked greens to bring economic fortune, black-eyed peas or lentils also symbolize money, pork which symbolizes progress, fish for good luck, and if you're in Spain 12 grapes at the stroke of midnight. Did you eat any lucky foods on the first day of the year? Is that a tradition in your home? Of the foods listed, which most appeals to you?

   We don't eat any lucky foods. Up until this point, I've never even heard of specific foods eaten for good fortune. I think that's a little crazy, but there are worse traditions. I guess I would prefer lentils, out of all the foods listed.


 7. What's the single biggest time waster in your life and what, if anything, will you do about it this year?

   The biggest time waster in my life is probably my phone. It combines multiple time wasters in one, making it the easiest way to waste time. Even if it's my biggest time waster, it still doesn't take that much time out of my life.


 8.  Insert your own random thought here.

   While I love time off school, I enjoy the routines of daily life. Yesterday, my family went out to our friends for band practice. We had an enjoyable time and had pretty productive day as well. We wrote a new song and we have it down rather well. Overall, it was a good day. I'm hoping that today will be a good day too. Have a happy Wednesday!

   Also, I just wanted to let everyone know, yesterday I published my fiftieth post! Thank you all for reading and commenting! You all make blogging worth it.

My love,
Katarina Rose

7 Things I've Been Loving This Week!

1: Band practice with my friends today.

2: Refried beans.

3: Becoming a vegetarian. It's actually been a really fun process so far.

4: Math. I have a lot to catch up on and I'm trying to keep a positive attitude about it, even if I'm not good at it.

5: Peanut butter and marshmallow ice cream topping sandwiches. We had some left over marshmallow ice cream topping for the snack (make your own ice cream sundaes) we brought to Bible Quizzing practice and I put some on a peanut butter sandwich. They're a nice alterative to peanut butter and jelly.

6: Eating the candy I received for Christmas. I have a large variety of choices.

7: Guitar Hero. My grandma got me a new one for Christmas and I've been enjoying playing. My favorite Guitar Hero is Legends of Rock, but the other ones are good too. I just beat my first song on expert so finally I'm getting up there in skill. You know your playing old video games when the 'modern' songs were released 10 years ago.

Filling the Gap

   First off, I would like to apologize for not posting for over a month. I did write a post, but somehow it didn't save and was deleted before I could post it. In a flush of anger I closed the laptop and didn't think about until recently. Let me fill you in on the highlights of my life from the past month.
   Our homeschool group finished it's semester and we had our variety show to finish out the year. It went very well. For the first part, we had everyone who wanted to do something perform. It was a very interesting thing to see everyone express themselves. Of everything our homeschool group does, I think variety shows are one of the best things.
   Many kids performed. Some danced, several sang, two boys with their mother sang a song listing the names of all the presidents, my best friend played a fabulous piece on her violin, a skit was performed, my brother and I played guitar with the rest of our class while a group of little kids sang, a presentation was giving on the topic of sharks (complete with a power point) and many other interesting things were done. I sang with one of my friends. We sang a song we wrote ourselves and our own arrangement of Kumbaya.
   I sang harmony to Kumbaya. You should know singing harmony is not on my list of talents. I was taught to sing the harmony part a week before the show and I practiced it daily. Still, the day before the performance, I couldn't get the second 'kumbaya' in tone. I was very worried. The next day I sang it with my friend with assistance from the lady who taught me the harmony, I finally got it. We practiced it many times and when we performed, it sounded nice. I was glad when that whole part was over and I finally had it down.
   For the second part, we had our black light puppetry team perform five songs. (Are you familiar with black light puppetry? If not, YouTube it. There's tons of cool videos out there.) Some of the kids choose not to participate in puppetry. I am in puppetry and I enjoy it. After the show, we enjoyed refreshments we brought to share with the audience.
   Six days after our initial performance we returned to perform the puppetry part for the senior meal (a monthly gathering the church holds for the senior citizens). They have a meal and then entertainment. We were the entertainment. The food was good and the show was fun to do. After that, all our homeschool group activities was officially over for the year.
   The next big thing that happened was Christmas Eve dinner, which we hold at our house. We cleaned like crazy for 3 days in preparation. We had a lot of things to clean up. We were busy right up until the dinner started on Christmas Eve at five. I was so exhausted by the time the last person left that I didn't even want to take a shower.
   The dinner was enjoyable. We invited all of our immediate family including our adopted cousins (my best friend and her family). We played Twister, Pictionary, and some of the kids played outside on the trampoline with glow sticks. All and all, we had a great time and it was definitely worth the work.
   The next morning, all I wanted to do was sleep, but my brother insisted I wake up at 7:15 in the morning. That's way too early for me even if I didn't do anything strenuous the previous day and went to bed early. He told me that mom and dad were already downstairs waiting for me. I begrudgingly got out of bed and got dressed, only to find mom and dad still laying in bed. I walked into their room where my brother has apparently told them the same thing.
   Eventually, everyone got out of bed and we were opening gifts by 7:30. We had to be at my grandparents on my dad's side at 10 for breakfast. It was good and after we ate, we opened presents there. We had to be at my grandparents on my mom's side at 12 for lunch. It was good and after we ate, we opened presents there. If you can't tell, we had a repetitive Christmas morning/early afternoon. We stayed there until 3. After that we went home and rested until we had to go back to my grandparents on my dad's side at 5 for dinner. As you can probably imagine, it was good. Christmas was very busy day, but it was fun.
   Hmmm....the next interesting thing I did was the day after Christmas. Mom and I watched movies most of the day. We watched Thor: The Dark World, Iron Man and Hulk. The last movie was watched was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Then began my newest interest. I started watching the cartoons on TV. My mom's looking for the original cartoons on the internet. Oh, how I love the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
   Another mentionable thing that happened was going for wood. My brother got sick so I helped dad with the things that he usually did. I went with dad for wood and he let me run the chainsaw. That was fun. My arm was sore for a few days after. It was fun though. We went for wood several times through out that week. It wasn't that bad, even though I don't enjoy going for wood.
   Finally New Year's Eve came around. We had to host it, so instead of going to a grandparents house or just staying home, we were having people over. Also, that day marked the first practice of Bible Quizzing, a fun thing I do at our church. My brother's doing it too this year.
   We were asked if we could bring snack. We said we would and later decided to bring supplies to make ice cream sundaes. Early that morning mom and I went shopping to get the food for snack as well as stuff for later that night when everyone would come over.
   We came home around 1 o'clock and we had to leave for quiz practice at 2:30. We had many things to do, but I managed to get a few minutes of study time before we had to leave. Quiz practice went well and I managed to correctly answer three questions, which means I froze. I also got two answers wrong, but that's not what I prefer to advertise. :)
   We got home at 5:30 and everyone was coming at 6:30, so we had no time to clean, no time to prepare, no time to breathe. Even if I didn't want them to, everyone still came. There wasn't even anything good to eat. Everything was meat in a crockpot. I had some buffalo chicken dip, two cranberry meatballs and three pieces of cream puff cake. People left relatively quickly after eating. After a hour or two, only one grandma remained. That, I was okay with. Finally, the year ended and my grandma left. We went to bed and that was that. Overall, I had a partly good and partly bad New Year's Eve.
   Enter New Year's Day. I'm not a big fan of resolutions. It's really just a reason to sell gym memberships. So many people making shallow promises to themselves and others only to give up. It's kind of depressing. I've never made a lot of New Year's resolutions but this year, I made a few. I decided to become a vegetarian. So far, I've been enjoying it. I don't like meat so I wasn't a hard switch. If anything, it's surprised me how little my diet has changed. I think my family's had the hardest time adjusting.
   I also decided to take a photography challenge. It's a fifty-two week course that focuses on one thing every week. The first week was a self portrait. It was a bit of a challenge considering I'm very un-photogenic. Challenging or not, I managed to get a good one. Next week I'm supposed to shoot a simple landscape.
   Mom has also made some interesting resolutions. She's decided she's throwing away 500 things in 14 days. I think it's incredibly ridiculous, but it's her stuff she has to throw away. Unfortunately, she's making me throw some of my things away. I am perfectly comfortable with the amount of things I have right now.
   Finally, today was just another boring Monday, getting back to the daily routines of school and chores. I finally finished the summary of my life from post to post (I worked on this post for a day or two). Thank you for reading. Have a wonderful and indolence-free new year!