Getting My Artist On

     I am a right-brained person.  I am artistic, I am wild, I am free.  I love dancing, singing, acting, all that jazz.  When I was younger, I was an artist.  When I say artist, I mean drew all of the time, I was the art teacher's "pet," I got into a middle school of the arts {not an easy thing to do!}.  But once I was about halfway through sixth grade, I decided that I did NOT like drawing or art anymore.  I had no interest whatsoever.  I didn't want a thing to do with it.  I know it sounds ridiculous, but I hated it.  Mostly because there were some people in my art class that were... {gasp!} better than me.  I hated that.

     I remained this way for several years.  The only time I would touch a pencil was to write something down, you could forget about me trying to draw something.  If you would have asked me to draw you a picture, I would say, "That ain't happenin'."  While my disinterest in visual arts grew, so did my love of dance, music, and drama.  I found a home school drama class that I went to every week {still doing a drama class, but now a high school one}, I sang all of the time, and if you come over to my house odds are I'll be dancing.  I love the arts to death.  I am an artsy person {though I've never had lessons... :[[ }.

     So I still hadn't started drawing again until December of 2010.  I have a "Bird Identification" project for Biology lab that I have to do. I don't have to draw pictures of the birds, but I am making it kind of like a Lewis and Clark expedition journal.  Do you get what I mean by that?  I want it to look sort of scrapbook-y.  Anyhow, so in December I decided to draw my first drawing in years... a Canada Goose.   

Do you like it?  It took me probably three hours to do this, but it seemed only like 30 minutes.  I enjoyed myself so much, I didn't know why I hadn't started drawing again!

     So then a few days ago I decided to start drawing birds for the project again.  I drew a Yellow-Rumped Warbler, and this is how it turned out:

 

I think they turned out rather nicely, do you agree?  I am also currently working on a Great Egret and Mourning Dove.  They are looking great so far!

     Drawing and taking pictures of all these birds have really given me a new love for our feathery friends.  I think they're pretty, gorgeous, adorable, really cool!  As you can see my my {new} header and signature, I love them now!  I think they have a very classic look as well as being cute and humorous.  You'll probably be seeing a lot more birds on my blog, so be prepared.  I've warned you!  They are my new favorite animal... :]]

Goodbye 2010, Hello New Diets!

2010, to sum it up was a year full of events.  The giant earthquake in Haiti, the BP oil spill, Chilean mine rescue, the year pie reigned supreme over cupcakes, just to name a few.  It wasn't a great year for everyone, but we fought through it like us, as Americans, should.  But this isn't a blog post saying "so long" to 2010.  It's about saying "hello" the new year!  A year of new beginnings, new advances, and our new diets!  But before I go on, I'd like to bid adieu to 2010.  It was great living through you!

2011, 2011... 2011!  Color of the year?  Honeysuckle.  The Chinese Year of the Rabbit.  The year before "the end of the world."  Isn't it all exciting?  Today is January 1st, the start of 2o11 and my birthday.  Yes, I am now officially old.  But we're not talking about how old I am.  We're going to be talking about last night:  my sleepover with my dear friends, Emily and Jenna.  :]

It was a whole lot of fun!  For dinner we had chicken fried rice and veggie sushi and we had a chocolate fountain going with pound cake, strawberries, pretzels, and apples.  It was delish!  Jenna got me some mini Ritz crackers with peanut butter in them dipped in white chocolate, which was delicious.  We played Clue, Spoons, and watched the ball drop.  We were very surprised to hear that the ball is only 12' in diameter.   We always thought it was bigger.  So anyways, we had sparkling grape juice and we decided that while counting down the new year (5... 4... 3... 2... 1.... Happy New Year!) we would toast.  So we did, and then the first thing that I did was spill grape juice all over myself and the carpet.  Jenna's comment?  "Well this is going to be a great year!"  Yes, I had to take a shower at midnight.  But it was really short, so it's all good.  :]]

 There were only two headbands... all of us girls!  Jenna, me, Emily

 Jenna and Emily (can you see me in the mirror?)

 A picture of Jenna in my mirror looking awesome!  This photo is unedited.  Comment if you agree with me!

 Jenna and Emily again.  :]]

 Me... well, being me.

Around 10:30, 11 o'clock-ish we decided to give each other makeovers.  We dragged out my mom's makeup bag and Jenna got her straightener out.  Now this was weird for me, as I have never ever straightened my hair before.  It seemed so fine and soft!  Hahaha!

 No, Jenna is not yanking Emily's hair out.  She is just straightening it.  But that face that Jenna's making in the corner?  I have not a clue.

 Jenna with her hair straight and after having her makeup done (by moi).  She's so pretty (even without the makeup)!  :]

Emily did her own makeup.  There were a lot of "oops" and "I can fix that"s from all of us, but especially her.  She looks so gorgeous... kind of smoky?  Hehe!  :]

 My makeup.  Yes, I did it myself.  Everyone was so happy with the outcome, but it's definitely not something that we'll be doing on a daily basis.

 Here is one of all of us.  Everyone agrees that in this picture Jenna and my eyes look almost exactly the same.  Everyone always thinks we're cousins or something.  No relation!

Here's my favorite.  We all look so old!  Ahh!  But I guess we all are... ugh.  What ever happened to being careless and 9? 

Happy New Year, everyone!  I hope it's a good one!

~Alyssa

Shuffleboard Queen, I am

Grandma Barb and I went to Walmart yesterday morning in search of shoes (they're the only store I can find that carries size 11 shoes.) and came home shoeless.  I found some brown ones that I liked that went up to size 10 and some hot pink ones that only went up to size 6.  All of the cute shoes that I would want don't come in my size.  It seems that all of the ugly (to put it kindly) shoes come in size 11, though. 

Every Sunday evening my grandparents and Aunt Sherri come over to our house for dinner.  Last night my mom wasn't feeling so great, so we went to their house instead.  Let, me tell you... It was so much fun!!  (Don't worry, I took pictures!)  Elle and Sherri were playing shuffleboard on the Wii, and I decided to challenge my dad.  Neither of us had every played shuffleboard in real life or on the Wii before, so I thought that we would both stink.  But I was WRONG!  There were 16 rounds and I won 14 of those 16.  Most of the time it would just be freak chance... like, I would get 1 centimeter ahead of his or just knock his off of the board.  The first time he did well he did the "L" for loser thing in my face... until I knocked him off.  Don't worry, I "loser-ed" him back.  After we ate dinner (delicious, by the way, chicken, beans, potatoes, bread, yum!) Sherri challenged me to a game of chess.  Not realizing that I, being homeschooled, have a lot of time on my hands to play chess against the computer.  Let's just say that we played two games in 30 minutes and I won both.  Chinese Checkers is a different story... she had all of hers safe before I had two.  Sad, I know.

My outfit yesterday... Black sweater, jeans, blue tank top

 Sherri and Elle playing darts

 Sister against brother... The older sister reigned supreme.

 I'm the cute Power Ranger on the left... Dad is the dude with the afro.  Yo.

 Dad and me playing shuffleboard against each other... picture taken by Aunt Sherri.

 Yes, Elle is drinking out of a wine glass.  No, she is not drinking wine.  Cranberry juice.  I promise.

 Blurry selfie!

 I was the only one prepared for the picture.  I'm a real ham, I know.

 A good one of the entire family!  Well, minus Elle, Mom, and Grandpa.

Daddy's getting some Lyssa sugar!  Doesn't he look happy? 

~Alyssa

New Camera... Lots 'o' Pictures!

I've got a new camera!!  Well, I've never had an "old" camera... I've just been using my grandma's.  :]  My dad sent it to me as a Christmas present, but I'm impatient.  Didn't wait 'til December 25th.  It's the Canon PowerShot SC1300 IS. 

 

(Don't mind the girl in the bathrobe) 

Ain't she a 'beaut?  I've been taking pictures like crazy.  So this blog is going to have a heck of a lot more pictures.  Here are some that I've taken:

 

I very rarely take photos of myself because I have vampire teeth, but I decided to the day I got my camera.  I was experimenting with the "take 10 photos at once" feature.

 

Considering the fact that I had just gotten done exercising, I think they turned out pretty well.

In this one I was just acting goofy... you'll probably never see me strike that pose again (well, maybe in another post [: )  

I think that this is such a good picture of my cat, Barnie.  He looks like he's outside... "I'm a wild kitty!"  

 Or not... stuck inside.

 He does the weirdest thing at night, he kneads all over me in bed and does this weird "butt dance."  I made a video of it last night, but it's just too weird to post.  LOL!!

So you'll be seeing a lot more pictures of me and my friends and family... doing whatever strikes our fancy.  :]]  Thank you, Daddy!

~Alyssa

The Best Christmas Gift

On December 7th my "Do Hard Things" group drove up to Charlotte, NC to the Operation Christmas Child distribution center.  ( http://www.samaritanspurse.org/index.php/OCC/index/ )  We left at 8:30a.m. and arrived around noon.  We inspected, filled, and shipped off hundreds of boxes that day and let me tell ya, it was amazing.  While standing on your feet working for six hours may not sound like a lot of fun, thinking of all those kids in third world countries who get to have new things especially for them is amazing.  I can't even fathom what it would be like to live in those places.  It really warms my heart to know that they will be truly happy receiving these shoe boxes full of toys and hygiene products.  

Here are some pictures that were taken of the packing party we had a few weeks earlier, and the day we actually went to OCC:

 Caleb and Harley

 Us girls: Me, Jenna, Emily, Megan

 Kendrick, Harley, Megan

 All of us at the entrance-- freezing cold!!!

 The packing party (left to right): Parker, Kendrick, Christian, Harley, 

Me, Jenna, Katie, Meredith, Nick

 At the packing party, Meredith and Katie

The whole group at OCC:  Mrs. Pam, Kendrick, Ryan, Caleb, me, 

Jenna, Emily, Megan, Harley, Mrs. Kris

Once again, really awesome.  Come with us next time, alright?  :]]

~Alyssa