Excerpt from a new book I'm working on!

There is the Leviathan
(Title not definite)

Daniella hurried away from the group of Mark-adorers.   Although she liked Mark, she had always despised the giggling possy of fans always around him.  She wanted Mark to like her for her, not as just another adoring fan.

  As she arrived at the bus stop, she realized that she was just a minute too late.  She had her driver’s license but no car and so always took the bus.  Mark and his friends all had their own cars. She looked back toward the school building, wondering if maybe someone would offer her a ride.  No one was in sight.  She would have to walk home.  She started off, but suddenly saw Dustin.  He had always picked on her and was probably mad that Mark had told him to stop, and so she automatically ducked behind a nearby car.  He was walking right towards her though, and Danny looked around for somewhere to hide.  She saw a door to the school music hall she had never noticed before.  It was close enough that she could make it to the door and stay behind cars.  She quickly began to run towards the door, stooped over so Dustin wouldn’t see her.  Reaching it, she quickly opened and ducked inside, pulling the door shut behind her.

  Instantly Danny knew something was wrong.  She had no idea where she was.

   She was standing in the middle of a large field.  She could see a huge city in the distance, several in fact.  She turned back to the door to let herself out, but the door was no longer there.

What do you think?  I'd love to hear your comments!

Pictures from Savannah

So here are the pictures from my trip!  These are pictures from the drive down.  The sky was really pretty, and along the side of the road there were wildflowers in big patches.  You can see the red in the picture above.

I had my class all day Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  It was in a huge vacation home!

Here is the huge bridge I had to drive over to get to the house!  The class was on Hutchinson Island and this bridge is the only way on or off!

It doesn't look bad in the picture because it is so far away and you can only see about a tenth of it.  But when you are on the middle of it, you can see tiny specks of houses in South Carolina!

When I got home at 9:00 p.m, having been there since 8:30 on Friday, I had homework to do! Besides that, we were taking "midnight" walks...

And then we would come home and eat ice cream!!!

The neighborhood I was staying in took about half an hour to drive through, it was so huge.  And take a look at some of these houses!

This last one is my favorite.  Keep in mind that this is half of the house.  The other half is connected to the right and also contains a three car garage!

My friend who drove down with me and I got to ride around in the golf cart belonging to the family we were staying with.  Yeah, this was in all my free time.  The last day of class, I got to leave at 6:00 p.m instead of 9:00, so this picture is probably from that day since it is still pretty light out.

We stayed an extra day to rest up for the ride back and explore a little.  We took a quick walk around historic Savannah, and then went to our friend's relative's house and jumped off the railing of the high dock you see in the background.  I only did it once, as I was shorter than the other girls and couldn't get up on the railing on my own. :(

And the ride back!  I had so much fun there I really didn't want to come home.  But I got my certificate from the class and so now I am a DONA trained doula! I just have a few little things to do, besides documenting some births, to become a DONA certified doula!

The trip was very profitable!

Graduation Pictures

Please feel free to leave comments!

Some more Graduation Pictures!

More Graduation Pictures!

My family and I

My friends and I!  Sadly not all my friends were able to attend, and we had a hard time finding everyone who did come for the picture, but these are most of my friends!

Still more pictures to come!  Many thanks to everyone who took pictures and emailed them to me!

My Graduation Speech!

Today was my highschool graduation! It went very well! I have posted my speech and some pictures. My speech went very well. I am usually nervous, but thanks to the prayers of my friends and family, I wasn't nervous hardly at all and I spoke clearly and slowly without looking petrified!

A picture of my lovely dress...

My table decorations...

And the food!

I didn't take any of the pictures, being busy graduating...

so I owe the photo credits to my Mom and my guests. 

More pictures coming later!

Here is my graduation speech!

Thank you all for coming, I am so glad you could all be here.

When I was learning the alphabet and learning to write the letters, I had a few select letters that I believed were completely unnecessary. I think they were w, x, y, and z. I didn't use those particular letters for anything important and so I thought they were unnecessary and didn't want to learn them. Of course now I know they are very important. In the last few sentences I used them fifteen times.
When I reached around fifth grade, I granted that those letters were necessary. But by then I had learned how to diagram complex sentences and I did not enjoy it. I didn't see any use in diagramming sentences and I did not want to do it. But I had to do it and I managed to get through diagramming.
When I got to algebra it was even worse. I held firmly to the belief that Math was entirely unnecessary. My Mom told me many times that Math was very important in life and she would remind me that I used math to sew and bake. So I granted that Math was not entirely unnecessary. Whatever Math I had learned in the past was useful, but whatever I hadn't learned yet was unnecessary and I had no use for it. The culmination point was one day when I opened my Algebra book and turned to my lesson for the day. I could not believe my eyes when I read the title. It said, "Imaginary Numbers". I had evidence right before me that Math was not useful. How can something imaginary be of any use whatsoever?
But through all that I learned to persevere through difficult situations. I did like my school. I always loved reading, history, and the sections of my English books that were about poetry and creative writing. Science was always fun as well, as some of you may remember was evidenced by the museum in our back yard. Although I had to persevere, and school was challenging, I am so thankful for God's provision and the way He worked things out along the way.
I will never stop learning. All of life is school. Not all of life is quadratic equations and imaginary numbers, but there will always be parts of life that we don't like. We just have to trust in God and persevere and He will grant us success. 

Success is relative. When you are standing on the sidewalk watching a car drive by, it looks like the car is moving, but if you're the one in the car, it appears as if the sidewalk is moving. It is the same thing with success. Success is measured by the goal. To some people, success would be having a big house and lots of money. To other people success would be earning a scholarship to medical school or being accepted to NASA. It all depends on who you are trying to please and who you are measuring yourself by.
When I was little, I was going to be a scientist when I grew up. To me a scientist was like being a doctor. It was a highly respected position that only really intelligent people could get into. I meant everyone to talk about how smart I was and to see for themselves how great homeschooling is.
Since then I have come to see what success truly is. I wanted to succeed in the world's eyes. I know now for certain that I would not have enjoyed being a scientist. One reason is that science is closely intertwined with math.
My main goal in life should not be to succeed in the eyes of other people. If I know that I have done what is right before God, then I will have succeeded in life. As long as I am obeying God and walking in His ways, I don't need to be a doctor or a scientist or an engineer. True success is only attained by doing well in God's eyes. I have come to see that it doesn't matter if I succeed in the world's eyes, but in God's eyes, and that is my vision for the future.

Bureaucracy

While reading my civics textbook the other day I came across a quote from President Ronald Reagan on Bureaucracy. I thought this part was very funny:
"To give you an illustration of how bureaucracy works in another country, England in 1803 created a new civil service position. It called for a man to stand on the cliffs of Dover with a spy glass and ring a bell if he saw Napoleon coming. They didn't eliminate that job until 1945. In our own country, there are only two government programs that have been abolished. The government stopped making rum on the Virgin Islands, and we've stopped breeding horses for the cavalry."

Even the clothing of medieval Europe was better.

Certified!

I completed and passed the class and now I am certified in CPR and First Aid by the National Safety Council!
I took the class at Delaware Technical and Community College and it was a very good class. There were a few sections that made me personally grimace a little (like burns, compound fractures, and impaled objects) but the rest was really fine. We had a workbook to complete and a DVD to watch in class.
It was not a difficult class; and contained some information that it might be helpful for everyone to know. I got to take home a copy of the DVD, my workbook, and a Quick Guide to emergencies. Also my Certificates! They gave me two certificates for in my portfolio, one for CPR and one for First Aid, two business card sized certificates for in my wallet to prove I'm certified on the go.
So I am very excited to be certified!