I was right to be afraid.

All week I have been terrified about coming to my dad's house this weekend. All four one reason. It had been over eight weeks since I'd seen my step mom, and because of past experiences I have been wondering what could possibly go wrong now. I wonder now if me thinking about that could have in any way cause what happened tonight?

Probably not, but who knows.

My step mom is not a good person. She's bipolar, and yet she refuses to take medication. She's an alcoholic and even though my dad told her if she was ever drunk in front of one of us he'd leave her she was drunk in front of my older half sister this summer, and he left her for about a week before he went back.

I think I know why he did that now.

My mom told me fairly recently that my dad didn't have any money because he put it all in an account with Smelli's (my step mom) name on it when he was trying to hide his money from the government when he went to court to try to get rid of the alamony he was paying my mom about a year ago or so.

Smelli refuses to give the money back, and so my dad is having financial problems right now because he is having a hard time getting some programming done for a company he is working for, and they won't pay him until it's completely done and running. So the only way my dad has money is if he either borrows it from his parents, or stays with Smelli.

This is all just what I think is going on, but I've been analyzing the things my mom and dad have told me along with their actions since I was about five or six years old.

Izzi and I, mostly Izzi, but I could've figured it out too if I heard as much as she did, figured out my parents were getting divorced when we were about eight. It was a long time before they found out we knew.

This brings me to an interesting thought. Have you ever noticed that older children get the most responsiblility of all the children in a family? They are trusted with knowing things that they can't yet handle, and by the time their parents figure this out it's already too late for them.

I remember one fourth of July my mom was upset about something. We were at home and my step dad was doing fireworks with my three younger sisters in our front yard. I think my mom was upset because of something my dad did. I can't remember what it was now, because that is not even close to the most important thing that happened to me that night. A lot of things happened that night, but the things my mom told me that she thought I was finally old enough to know are the things I remember more than anything else.

I don't know if Izzi even remembers that night, but I know I could never forget it. I found out some incredibly terrible things, and I don't know if I could handle them even now if I were to hear them for the first time. There's just some things a girl should never learn about her father.

If you're wondering what these things are... Too bad. There is no way I am posting them on the internet.

Back to what happened though.

This weekend it was just me and my two littlest sister (identical twins), Bird and Bear. I was so afraid that something was going to happen that I was crying when I left my house. My mom told me there was nothing to worry about, and so I didn't worry. I didn't worry at all.

That's something I did wrong. I knew there was reason to worry. Reason to be cautious, and yet I threw all that out of the window because I knew that mom was always right. My mama bear. I just wish I could have one of her hugs right now.

My dad took my sisters and I up to my grandmas to see if we could put up a tent as practice for when we're going to Lake Powell in a couple of weeks. That was fun. I spent the entire time taking pictures trying out new angles and working with the camera I borrowed from Mrs. Barney for the weekend. It was awesome, and as we drove home (to my dad's) I was sure the rest of the evening would be just as great. We were going to watch a movie and eat ice cream and hang out. It was going to be "just like the good old days".

Then we got home.

As usual dinner was on the table, and Smellie was sitting in her chair in the living room watching tv, her evil cat sitting on her lap. We all washed our hands and went in to sit at the table to eat our spaghetti. Smelli didn't eat with us. She never does.

We talked while we ate. We looked through movies trying to decide which one to watch. After we were all done eating me and my sisters went into the kitchen (which barely fits three people), and we put all our dishes where they needed to go. We stayed in the kitchen as we began to hear Smelli and my dad fighting. This wasn't unusual to us. It's a constant. They always fight, and that's why I was scared to go.

When they started yelling I told the girls to come upstairs with me so we could get out of the room. We went upstairs and were trying to get settled. We sat on "my bed" which is really the guest bed, and were about to turn on the tv.

"Girls, get your stuff. We're going back to Grandma's." my dad yelled at us, and we only payed attention to the yelling because we heard him say girls.

We were used to this rutine. We all quickly grabbed our bags and hurried down to the car. We got in, and my dad went back towards the house to get something. This was normal too. He almost always remembered something else he needed right before we left. But this time was different. When he got to the door it was locked. "Nice." he yelled at her, and I could tell she was on the other side of the door. Something slammed against the glass, and I winced.

"GET OUT OF MY SPACE!!! GET OUT OF MY SPACE!!!" She screamed at him as we all sat in the car. He shook his head angrily and went to open the garage door to get inside. It was locked too.

Then we left.

The car we had to take was broken. The old minivan always overheats, and I was sure we weren't going to make it there. We were ok though. We made it here, and I called my mom, and I cried as I talked to her.

I really wish my Mama Bear could hug me right now. I know that sounds stupid, but you don't understand how hard this is on me. I hate when this happens.

My mom promised me it won't ever happen again.

But I'm still scared.

I've learned now never to stop being cautious. At least when it comes to situations like this. My little sisters don't seem to have any problems with what is going on. It hurts me to think that they must be as hurt as I am. They are just as good as I am at hiding my feelings about these kind of things.

I've got to make it look like this isn't as bad as it is. I can't believe they have to deal with this stuff. It's sad. They're only ten. They don't deserve this.

Well I've got to go make sure my little Bird, and my baby Bear are alright. I guess I'll just have to live with it for now.

She won't ruin my life.

I won't let that happen.

I can't.

Things, or rather thing, that makes me want to scream.

I hate it, coming home and you're in a perfectly good mood, and then all of the sudden someone in your family says something, and you say something back, and then maybe you do something that you weren't aware you were doing, and then all of the sudden they're mad at you. It's freakin' retarded, and I have to tell you right now that it happens to me all the time.

This makes me wonder, is it normal? Do all kids have this happen? Or am I so horribly different from everyone in my family that one little thing I say sets them off? I don't know. It makes me angry just thinking about it. What is it about me that makes my family turn on me so easily? Really. I'd just love to understand. But I don't, and I don't think I ever will.

The only thing that seems to makes sense when it come to my relationship with my family is that they all fight with me. It's seems to be the only reason they keep me around. So they can blame things on me, take their anger out on me, and accuse me of saying/doing things I never said/did. What is it about me that makes it so easy for them to do this?

Then I think about each of them individually and I wonder why I fight with them specifically. With my twin it's easy to figure out. When we were little we just spent way to much time together, and when she didn't want to spend time with me anymore I was hurt, and I guess that even though I was sick of the way she treated me I never forgot how it felt to be her best friend. But with ER it's a little bit harder to figure out. I don't know why we get on each others nerves like we do. I guess it's because we both have habits that have been really hard to get rid of, and we don't really know how to stop doing them. Then there's baby bear. I know why I fight with her. I fight with her because she is just like my twin. She uses everything I say against me, and even when she's the one who should be getting in trouble she twists it so I do. Last of my biological sisters is the J Bird. She is the most like me. Same temper, same humor, same interests. I guess that's why we don't get along.

Then there's my parents. I don't get along with my mom because of things she and I have said to each other that we just can't let go of. Things that I don't know if I ever will let go of. Plus there's the fact that she doesn't seem to trust me. She would trust all the others before she trusts me, and that hurts me more than anything in the world. It's been a lot worse lately, and I guess that's why I am glad school has started again, because I don't have to be at home so much anymore.

BJ, my step dad is surprisingly the one I get along with the best of all the people living at my house. I didn't really like him at first, but after a while we got to know each other better, and now I don't know. Maybe I don't get along with him the best, but lately I've been getting along with him better than my mom.

My dad lives in Salt Lake. He's the one I call when one of my sisters, my mom, or BJ make me feel sad, or angry, and this is one of the reasons my mom and I don't get along. My mom thinks that my dad shouldn't have anything to do with what goes on around here, and that I shouldn't tell him when I'm not getting along with her, but the thing is that I always feel better after talking to him. Even though a lot of the time I know what he's saying isn't true. Because when I talk to him I think of how he used to be. How he used to hang out with us every weekend, and he'd give us "princess kisses" before bed. Talking to my dad when I'm upset makes me remember how he was before he got remarried. At least the things that I liked about him from back then, and it makes me realize that my dad isn't completely lost. Not yet anyway. There's still part of him there that can make me as happy as that little girl he'd tuck into bed at night.

I think my mom doesn't like me thinking of my dad this way. I think that it's because she knows he was never really like this. But even though he wasn't like that he made it seem like he was. He'd always be like that around me, and even though I know some of the horrible things he did I don't want to see it. I can't think about him that way. It just hurts way too much, but I think my mom wants me to see the truth so that during those moments when I'm not hiding in my false memories, and I can actually remember how my dad was like, has always been like, it won't hurt as much.

Or I could be reading into it too deep and she just doesn't want me talking to him and listening to what he is wrongly saying to me when I'm upset. I bet that's it. My mom doesn't think like I do, and so I seriously doubt it was my first idea.

Sigh.

How did this blog get to be on the topic of my dad? I hate thinking about these things.

I guess Izzi is right. I really do blog too much.

Rah Rah Recruit! Hugs from Fairfield!!!! :P

One word can describe the Rah Rah Recruit. Indescribable. That's all I can tell you really. A whole day with nothing but playing my viola and hanging with some of my closest, and some of my newest, friends. How much better can one day get?

It didn't start all that amazingly though. It actually started slowly, dully, and I had a headache before reading was even over. This would be because there was a fire drill during first period. It was kind of fun though, because I have my AL period first, and we were right there next to my little sister's first period.

Then it was time for the Rah Rah! I am so sad that this is my last one. It's tragic really. I'm going to miss playing The Pink Panther and Rosin Eating Zombies From Outer Space.

But you know what? Playing wasn't even close to the best part of the day. It was the times in between schools. When we were on the bus. Panduck, DF, Panda, Slaughter and I had a blast talking about the most random things. I don't even remember half of it, but it was all freakin' amazing.

Then there was Yearbook. It was pretty fun today, but I can't wait until we're done with training and we actually get our jobs and our pages and get to work. It'll be awesome. I'm just hoping I'm not on Layout. I suck at Layout.....

Anyway, I've officially lost my train of thought.

Off to read the tons of books I need to get finished by the end of term! Wahoo!!!

P.S. Testing starts tomorrow. What a bore.

Tutoring, Words, and Rah Rah!

Wow. I don't even really need to have five hundred words up until this weekend, and I already have at least twice that amount. Ha. I win. Except Izzi already has at least that much too. So maybe we tie. Or I could count and see which one of us has more words. Then I could decide if I win or not. But I'm amazing, and so I win by default. Haha. I'm awesome. Today was painful. My neck was sore almost all day because of what happened yesterday, and those stupid school desks made my back hurt more than it already did, and it didn't help that the excedrin I took before school wore off before lunch. It was not fun, but I managed to distract myself for a big part of the day. My friends, excluding a certain boy who laughs at me whenever I'm hurt or whenever I do something stupid, were all very sympathetic and helped me tease my little sister a little.

After school I stayed with my favorite science teacher who I am ALing for and helped to tutor the ittle bitty eighth graders who needed help with a worksheet they were doing in class today. It was fun mostly because no one showed up besides the other ALs so all we did was correct papers and talk and goof off like we usually do. It was pretty cool. ML, Grr, and I were racing around the classroom on our spinny chairs. We looked very immature, and all I could think about was how I thought of L and B when I first met them in seventh grade. They were definitely weird, but now I'm realizing that I'm just as weird as they were.

RAH RAH RECRUIT is TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!! Yes! I love the Rah Rah Recruit. It's when the orchestra goes around to the elementary schools Mrs. T teaches at and we play some really fun songs to get the sixth graders introduced to the orchestra. This year we're going to my little sisters' elementary school. They're only fifth graders though, and so they won't get to see me play, but if we're loud enough they might get to hear, and that's pretty cool, but what I'm most excited about is that next year when they decide what they want to play in the orchestra they are going to have Mrs. T instead of the weird old guy I had in sixth grade.

Well I guess that's it for now.....

This blog is turning into more of a journal than I thought it would......

Oh well.

Invigorating..... Terrifying.... Thrilling.... Painful.....

All these words describe my day today. My family and I went to the Little Sahara desert yesterday and camped overnight. We found this one area with a really steep dune while me and my little, insanely un-frightened sister were on one of our four wheelers today. She and I decided we should try going up it because we had managed to the day before. We thought we'd be able to get going fast enough, and so we decided to go for it. We got almost to the top and then we realized we weren't going to be going any further up, and so we didn the only thing we could. We started rolling backwards, but my little sister, who was driving, got frightened for the first time since she first got on a four wheeler, and she put her foot down on the back brake. So now the back wheels were locked and the front wheels were trying to keep rolling down the dune.

I don't even remember much of what happened next. Suddenly I was on the sand and my little sister went over my head. I knew the four wheeler was going to roll on top of me, but I didn't really understand how freakin' frightening that should have been. Before I knew it the four wheeler had hit me, and then before I could realize what I was doing I had pushed the four wheeler off of me with strength I didn't know I had. Then I just lay there. I didn't notice the pain, I couldn't quite hear my littlest sister and my mom screaming, and I didn't quite know where I was. It's scary now that I think about it.

What pulled me out of the crazy haze I was in was when I felt myself being spun. My step dad had grabbed my ankle and had spun me so my head was up instead of down the dune. I don't think any of my family knew at the point whether I was conscious or not. I was now aware that my mom had jumped off her four wheeler and was running the distance toward me. Apparently my sister had managed to get up on her own and was perfectly fine. She was sobbing of course, mostly because she was afraid she had hurt me, and that our parents were disappointed in her. I managed to sit up and saw my mom by me. She was furiously asking me if I was ok, and I believe she yelled at my sister for trying to get us up the dune. I told her, and everyone else, that I was just fine. I didn't feel any pain.

The next thing I knew I was back on the four wheeler behind my sister and we were headed back to camp. The flag on our four wheeler had busted and my step dad had to fix it before we could do anymore riding. I realized as we rode back to camp that the side of my leg was bruised. It hurt every time I bumped it.

We went the rest of the day without much of an incident. My leg hurts, my back hurts, my wrist hurts, my neck hurts, and I know it's just going to be so much worse tomorrow, but I think I'll be ok.

Everyone be aware though, I'm going to be in an awfully grumpy mood tomorrow.

Depressing Thoughtfulness

Ok, so I know I already have enough words, and that I don't need to have another blog post for this week, let alone another one today, but I just went with my mom to pick up my 9 year old cousin because she's going camping with us this weekend, and on our way there we were talking. It gave me a lot to think about.

My cousin is only 9, and yet she has had to deal with more in her life than I might ever have to. When she was three years old she had some kind of brain tumor. I don't remember a whole lot about it, but I do remember that it hurt our entire family to see that precious little girl we all loved so much in so much pain. She survived it though, and for that alone she is my hero, but there are so many reasons why I look up to my adorable cousin. Her little sister is only three now herself, and we found out a little over six months ago that she has Lukemia. Since we found out about the cancer my 9 year old cousin, the Koala Bear as I call her, has been so neglected, and it makes me so sad. She puts up with so much, and yet she doesn't get enough love for all that she deals with. My mom and my sisters would let her live with us in a second, but her little sister needs her, and my Koala Bear needs her little sister as much as I need mine if not more.

It hurts me to hear what happens to her. The things she puts up with, and then to see her smiling face and hear her giggling as she comes to the door when we came to get her tonight... It makes me want to cry. I know I wouldn't be able to handle everything she does. That little girl is so amazing.

We were in the car tonight, the windows rolled down, our hair going all over the place, and then my mom told us to turn on our song. "This One's For the Girls" by Martina McBride. Oh my gosh, I think my heart broke when I heard her trying to sing that song. It was the first time she had ever heard it, and by the end of the song she said she remembered all of the words. My cousin Ella.

My hero.

God, I love that little girl.

Jr. High-----

Wow. I didn't think it would be this hard to think of something to say in my first blog post, but I am finding it very difficult to find a topic that I can write about for a little while.

So I guess I'll write about what I think about 9th grade so far. Just because I have nothing else to write about, and I'm sure that topic will keep me going for a little while, if not for a really long time.....

This year isn't what I thought it would be, so far. I thought that it would feel like both seventh and eighth grade, but instead I'm finding that it's completely different. Every time I see one of my friends that were in seventh grade last year I want to call them "sevies" like I did all of last year. It's also weird that I don't get to see last years ninth graders around the school anymore. I mean, sure I dealt with that same thing last year when suddenly the ninth graders I had looked up to as a "sevie" were in high school. I couldn't talk to them between classes anymore, and I practically never saw them, but that seemed different somehow. I guess it would have to be because I got to know last year's ninth graders really well over the past two years and I became friends with a few of them. It's just so weird to know that there aren't any kids that are a year or more older than me at the school now.

Then there are my friends. I've suddenly stopped hanging around the friends I thought were my closest friends in the world, and instead I'm hanging out with my friends that were, I don't really know how to word this.... I guess you could say they were just my background friends. The friends I had for different reasons. They were the friends that had more of the same interests as me, but I thought that I didn't get along with them as well as my other friends. Now it's like everything has switched around. The friends I thought were my best friends in the world are now the ones that I hardly ever talk to, and I find myself spending all of my time with those friends that I didn't think I got along with very well, and I'm actually noticing that I get along with those friends better than I've ever gotten along with anyone.

Its all so weird to me. The other day I was looking through some old pictures for a yearbook assignment and I found myself thinking about how different things were say five or so years ago. I didn't have any friends back then, and I didn't even do very well in school (other than the EOL's). I was learning what I needed to learn, and I had people I would talk to and play with, but I just simply didn't care.

So I got to wondering why I've began to care so much about how I do in school, and whether or not I have any good friends, and I can honestly say that I have no idea. It was just that suddenly I did. I wanted to be able to go to things on weekends like my sisters did, and I wanted to do even better than all of them in school (That didn't happen. My little sister who is in the fifth grade has always gotten better grades than I did when I was her age.). So I started paying more attention in class, I read more, and I was just a bit more friendly towards people. By the end of seventh grade I had tons of friends, and the JV Science Olympiad team I was on had gotten fourth place at state. That was the most amazing thing that had ever happened to me at the time, but things just kept getting better.

For the first time ever I had things to do during the summer. I went to my best friends house every other day at least, and I couldn't wait for eighth grade to start. Sometime during that summer I changed, matured if you will. I found that my best friend wasn't has funny as I had thought she was. She was still awesome, but I guess I just became a little bit less of a dork than I had been. I found that she got on my nerves more than she had in the past, but I held strong to our friendship, because it was the best I had ever had, and I was scared to lose even a bit of that.

Summer came and went and I found that I was in some of the same classes with my friends, but I had some without any of them, and now I realize that was such a good thing for me. It forced me to get to know new people just like I had been forced to get new friends when I started Jr. High the year before. I found myself with even more friends than I could remember sometimes, and that made me the happiest I had been in a long time.

I wasn't focusing in school as much as I had in seventh grade because I had so many people to talk to during class. I found it hard to resist talking to people during school when that was the only real time I had to do so. I still did better than a majority of the kids in my classes, and I was really happy (Especially when I made it onto the Varsity Science Olympiad team.).

Then we went to state for Science Olympiad, and I realized that I hadn't been paying very much attention at practices. I had been sliding through practices letting my partners do a lot of the work (Of course I did a lot myself, but I didn't even understand a lot of what was going on.), and so when it came to State competition I was surprised to find that I knew what to do, and that I did amazingly well. I got three medals, a gold, a silver, and a bronze. I was so surprised that the weeks coming before we went to nationals went by in a blur. Suddenly I was in Kansas with my friends and we were ready to compete again.

The days during Nationals went by so much quicker than the days before, and I found that it was over before I knew it. The glory of getting a medal at a national competition had not yet worn off, but it was almost depressing to think that it was over, and that I might not even get a chance to be on the team again. Then summer came. I had a party for my Science Olympiad friends (these would be the background friends I mentioned earlier) because we had done pretty well at Nationals, and I found that I had a much better time hanging out with them than I had ever had with my closer friends.

I didn't do over the summer. Unlike the year before I didn't have a parent who could give me rides whenever I needed them. My mom had gone back to work, and I found that I just didn't want to hang out with my friends. I didn't know why, but I spent a lot of my summer alone. I guess I just needed to think about things. I did do a lot of thinking over the summer, and I realized... well I realized a lot of things. One was that I've always underestimated my intelligence. The other was that I needed to rethink who I was hanging out with, and I did.

That brings us pretty much up to the present. I have started hanging out with my "Science Olympiad friends" more, and I've (so far) been staying really organized with school. Sure I did really well in the past, but now I want to be excellent. After all, one of the first things you're told about ninth grade is that this is when it starts to count. So I really need to do my best from now on.

That is why I'm trying to get honors in Science, Math, and English. I'm also hoping to get a 4.0, but I'm not so sure about that as of now.

Wow. This really ended up being way longer than I thought it would be..... It's not even very interesting. Oh well....

Anyway.... This is the end of my first official blog post....


Really, the end now.

Blog Post #1

Hello world!