Karen the Panda and a Splendiferous Locker

~ Today was my birthday! ~

I had an amazing day because of all of my awesome friends! Amelia, Helena, Loey, Audrey, Tracy, Bowie, Ky and Luke decorated my locker for me. It was exploding with awesome decorations and little gifts! There were pictures and little notecards with inside jokes, drawings, balloons, sweets, and lots of bubbles!! I was so happy! But I was almost late to class because I couldn’t fit my stuff in…

For my birthday present, David got me a panda stuffed animal! I decided the panda needed a name, so I asked David about it. His suggestion was Pandy.

I’m sorry but that was an utter lack of creativity.

I suggested Lilly, because that’s what Nicholas called me once on accident. When I brought up Nicholas, David suggested I name the panda Karen. (I’m not really sure what the story behind it is, but David calls Nicholas Karen sometimes.)

Even though David changed his mind and went back to liking Pandy better, I ignored him and named the bear Karen! :)

This is the closest picture of Karen I could find :)

Mikaela's Birthday Card

I'm finally posting Mikaela's birthday card! Hope you like it! This was one of my favorites. :)

The Twinkle of Christmas Lights

Today was a fun day!
I got woken up at about 10:30 by a text from David. We were both excited to go see The Muppets movie! I pretty much knew this was going to be a good day.
I went to David's house for an hour and basically all we did was talk and throw around a big purple tennis ball. We kept hitting things in the room and laughing. That entertained us for a while!
When we saw The Muppets, we loved the movie and we were both laughing our heads off through most of it! I think we were the only youngish people in the theater. It was kind of weird how many old people were there though...
When the movie was over, we saw the holiday parade with David's family. We saw people we knew and walked around town a little. The town all counted down and the buildings and trees lit up with twinkling Christmas lights all at the same time! I smiled a lot today and I have a feeling more smiles are to come this week! :)

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

I had a splendiferous day today! I got to see old family friends and play board games and talk to them. The meal was delicious after hours of cooking, and I really felt thankful. We played lots of games and we were all laughing through them. In apples to apples, we had the strangest array of cards and judging was a lot harder. In jungle speed, we were flinging cards around and hit people in the face with the plastic totem a fair amount of times. After all that fun, I'm pretty tired which means that it was all worth it. :)

Jungle Speed cards ^
I love that game :)

The Green-Eyed Monster

Today I felt jealous...
Envious...
Resentful...
Whatever you like to call it.
It's hard not to feel jealous sometimes.
There's a girl, I'll call her Shay, I'm almost constantly jealous of. She is nice to me and I suppose we are friends, but it difficult to not want her out of my life. She is pretty, popular, sporty, nice and everybody likes her. I was reminded by a guy friend of mine that she was all those things.
I felt so discouraged and self-conscience...

I felt like I needed to talk to somebody about it. I told a person how sad and jealous I felt. They told me not to worry and that I was nice, pretty, funny, and amazing.

If someone tells you your not good enough, get a second opinion. In the end, it won't matter what you looked like, how smart you were, or how many friends you had. I hope that we can encourage people instead of bringing them down. I will try harder to compliment more and be the one to help someone when they need that other opinion. :)

Happiness

My happiness comes from having jokes with friends. From singing karaoke on Saturday nights. From the unforgettable times I laugh about with my buddies.

My joy comes from smelling flowers and laying out in the spring grass. From From my dogs when they're happy to see me home. From sweet music that fills my ears.

My gladness comes from seeing the happy faces of my friends when I give them something like a gift or a compliment. From making new friends and better friends. From a warm and loving hug.

My smiles come from my little happy attack seizures. From compliments that I get every so often. From feeling loved like I mean the world to someone. 

But my true happiness comes from Jesus.

Leaf Book

I DISLIKE THE LEAF BOOK PROJECT

But doing the project with David and Nicholas was fun :)

Today was Nick Vujicic's last day visiting. He preached at the high school for the last time before he left. It was an amazing experience for him to come to this town and I think he changed a lot of peoples lives! He says he's coming back next year so I can't wait to see him again!

In the afternoon, I went over to David's house to do math homework and work on our leaf book for science. Nicholas was also at David's house working on the leaf book. The project was so frustrating for them but they were way ahead of me so they helped me a lot! I don't really know Nicholas very well, but he was nice and entertaining with his funny voices and faces! David's little brother talked to me like an old friend and told me a story. We met a couple of years ago and I didn't think he remembered me but I guess that proves me wrong! David was as fun as ever, joking around and smiling lots! His mom says I can come over anytime. 

This was the best week ever by far! I'm one of the lucky ones! ;)

Elliot and More Nick

Today we saw Nick Vuijcic again!

There was a big event that he spoke at. Thousands of people came to the high school gym and heard Nick and the band Elliot! Helena and I were dancing and freaking out hearing the band. We held up our phones, clapped, and made hearts out of our hands! (I ended up buying their cd!) Nick did another speech that brought people to tears. He was so inspirational. At the end, he asked people to come forward if they wanted to have a relationship with God. I was stunned at how many people came up, including people my age who I never would've thought of as Christians! God bless them that they came up and wanted Jesus. :)

Elliot's web page: http://www.elliotband.com/v2/index.php?c=home&section=24~press_kit 

Plays, Snow, and Nick Vuijcic

~Today was the best day EVER!~

It all started with me FINALLY making the bus. I saw Cedar and his adorable little sister Emma. Emma smiled at me and said, “Hi Zoey!” when I got on. I’m not really sure how she knew my name, but it made me smile!
In the morning, we missed classes to preform the play. Today we got filmed. My friend David was one of the people filming, so I was kind of nervous. But in the end the show turned out great. But I was having so much fun talking to friends backstage I missed a scene! ;)
In orchestra, we were just playing music as normal until everyone realized it was snowing! People dropped their things and ran outside. Soon the whole class was dancing in the snow and smiling! The first snow day this year!
Then, what I had been waiting for for months finally happened! Nick Vuijcic came and spoke to our school! We had to sit boy-girl on the bleachers, so I sat by Cedar. I was so excited I had some sort of happy-attack-seizure thing that made me need to shake Cedar's arm from excitement! I was freaking out and he was laughing. A lot of my friends cried at the sad parts, so I gave them hugs and they smiled through tears. Cedar recorded the last part of Nick's speech on his iPod, realizing he could've done it half an hour ago. Nick was inspirational and almost everybody in the school went to give him a hug. Cedar whipped out his camera and got a picture of me hugging him! Luke, Loey and me all went to get a group picture with him after most people left. 
Spreading the love and hugs was so much fun to do after everyone had heard Nick! I hugged loads of people and smiled a bunch on the bus ride home!
Then at night, we preformed our last play and had the cast party! We danced, ate sugar, laughed and had a great time! 

I can't remember a day better than this :)

Check out Nick on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc4HGQHgeFE

The Child Thrower

One day after school, I went to our school football game with my friend Claire.

When we were sitting down on the grass, some people our age and some younger kids came over to play their own little game of football. They were kind of getting in our way, so we started paying more attention to not accidentally tripping someone. It got annoying, so of course Claire wanted to make a game out of it and lay down in the middle of the field. I went with her but the kids just avoided us. Kids started kicking Claire though so we moved.

After a few minutes, we decided to join the football game. Claire, me, and the little kids against the older boys. We didn’t really do much, but we had some fun anyway.

BUT…

This one boy my age got on my nerves that day. I was running toward him on the field, and he was after the football in the possession of a little kid. He got a hold of the kid, but the kid wouldn’t let go of the ball. I was still over toward them, and when I looked over, WHAM! The boy swung the kids head into my face and I almost fell over. Neither of them seemed to notice me in pain. I couldn’t feel my nose so I picked up a hand to touch it instinctively.  Of course it was bleeding like crazy.

Claire took me to the bathroom to clean up. I had the bloody nose for about 10 minutes and a big bruise smack in the center. After I got over the pain, we joked about the boy throwing the child at my face. ~From then on, we called him the child thrower~

Yes the school pictures were the next day, the most convenient time to get a big purple bruise on my nose. Thank God for retouch! ;)

Middle School

Middle school is a place with lots of homework

A place to find your true friends :)

A place for awkward silences...

A place you have to take a 50 pound backpack to

A place with drama and fights with friends

A place where you don't want to forget your locker combination

A place where you can laugh until your crying and you can't breath XD

A place where bullies can taunt you :(

A place where people can love you <3

A place that some people hate and others love

A place with frustrating teachers who strongly resemble rats 

A place with strong emotion

A place full of CRAZY PEOPLE and the handful of sane ones

A place where some people are conceited and others are just the opposite

A place with a lot of pressure

A place to get smarter!

A place that makes you miss being a kid

A place with the most RanDoM jokes about giraffes, rainbows, countries, paper, and faces
~A place that I will never ever forget~

Love

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
-1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Everybody needs love.

Family, friends, enemies, and people who you don't even know.

And we can give everyone love.

I once heard someone say that they didn't believe in love. It was heart breaking.

Love isn't a middle school crush. It can be, but it's bigger than just that. Love is caring about someone. Love is a warm smile. Love is the real magic.

Sometimes It's hard to love someone. That one annoying kid that steals your stuff or calls you names, why should you love them? Because they need it.

I'm not perfect at this and I know you aren't either. But I try to love everyone.

Love is always the answer.

Getting Yelled at for Decorating Lockers While Babies are Born

~Congrats Michaela and Happy Birthday Luke!~

This morning, I was determined to get up early to decorate my friend Luke’s locker for his birthday. I usually take the early bus with all the little kids and Cedar, so I figured I could get there early enough to set up. I walked to the bus stop with my mom and my little sister. We weren’t worried about being late, so we just walked. While I was walking on the sidewalk, I looked down to see a little dead bird laying on the ground. It was so sad I stopped and just stood there. When I looked back up, I saw my sister sprinting toward the bus stop. I ran after her, and saw her just in time to see the bus stop for her at the end of the road. The bus drove off like it didn’t feel like picking me up today.

I ended up getting a ride from my mom.

When I got to school, I went in through the orchestra room and snuck into the locker area. I felt like some sort of burglar or spy, being paranoid that Luke was going to show up or I was going to get caught when we weren’t supposed to be at lockers. Right in the middle of my decorating, my phone buzzed and startled me. Apparently my friends’ baby brother was born! I talked to her for a couple minutes and then realized I was still decorating.

When I finished decorating and people started arriving, I showed Mack the locker and we started walking away. But this scary lady stopped us, gave us the evil eye, and yelled at us for being at a locker.

Then a couple minutes later, my friends were decorating a different persons locker for their birthday. They beckoned me over and asked me which one was the persons locker, then the lady came over again. I thought we were all caught, until she looked directly at me and said,

“You can’t be over here! These girls are decorating a friends locker for her birthday, but YOU have to leave!!” 

Don’t you just love it when that happens?

Oh well… Luke liked the surprise anyway, but I think he would’ve appreciated it more if he knew the whole story. ;)

Rinya in Wonderland

My friend Rinya has taught me that I don't need to be so stressed out all the time. She almost never gets worried about little things like I do. She has an answer to all of my problems. She will zone out sometimes and say she went to her own little wonderland. I guess it's like her own little world and her happy place. Rinya's down to earth when she wants to be, but other times she has the unlimited imagination of a little kid! She's always happy and crazy! I wish I was like her. I'm lucky to have her as a friend!

I guess we all need our own little wonderland to visit every once and a while, no matter how old or mature we get. I'm going to start on my wonderland today! ;)

Good Friends

Tonight I'm going over to Rinya's house for a sleepover. Despite the upbeat posts on my blog, I've had a stressful week. It's nice to sit back and relax with a good friend on the weekend. Rinya is the best at being happy, relaxed and making me laugh! Laughs are the best kind of therapy. :)

Thank You

~I want to thank these people for helping me with this blog, my life, and much more~

Jesus, my savior.
Every single one of my friends. (Amelia, Helena, Audrey, Claire, Tracy, Bowie, Rinya, Willa, Karen, Jade, Luke, David and anyone else I didn't mention)
My loving family.
My fans. (I hope I have fans)
The veterans who fought for my freedom.
Everyone who reads or comments on my posts.
And everyone else who puts up with me, even when I'm not fun to be around. :)

Dog Ferret

~Why do I call myself a dog ferret? Here’s the story~

Some time in late September, I went out to dinner with my friend Claire. Her brother had a football game, so her family and friends went out to dinner and she invited me too. On the way out of the restaurant, Claire tripped over a bush. Instead of cursing, she yelled, “DOG FERRET!” We joked about that for a while.

Then one day at school, a guy ran up to me with a piece of string and yelled "STRING!" He wrapped it around my neck and hair and ran away. I was just standing at my locker, puzzled. Then Claire came over and said to me jokingly, "Hey it’s a dog ferret!" She dragged me gently by the string over to her locker area. She yelled into the hallway "Dog ferret up for auction!!!" then two guys (Luke and some weird guy) came over. Then they actually started bidding on me. Luke won with 57 dollars. (He says he’s giving Claire monopoly money.) So now I'm Luke's dog ferret.

~The End~

A dog and a ferret :)

Autumn

The breeze is cold
Every breath a spiraling cloud of warmth
A red rubber nose
Cold little toes
And ears that hear the frozen air
One little leaf
On one little tree
Waiting it's turn to change colors and fly away
The air is crisp and sweet
But hits you like a drum
Makes your heart skip a beat
A scarf
A hat 
A warm bed to crawl into
And dream of reds, oranges, and yellows scattered everywhere
The clouds
The colors
The sunsets
I love Autumn

Sara's Birthday Card

Sara's birthday was a very long time ago, but I'm still catching up on cards I made! I hope you like this one. :)

The Skipping Tree That Takes My Bus

So the other day, I told my little sister about an earlier blog post (Hobos and a Tape-Eating Sheep). When she heard the name “Cedar” she piped up and said,

“Cedar? He takes my bus!”

I have been taking the bus with a bunch of annoying people who talk about questionable things. But apparently, my little sister has been taking the bus with my friends Claire and Cedar, and a bunch of nice little kids who like to share candy.

~ I decided to see if the other bus was any better, and it was! ~

When I got on the bus, all I could see was a bunch of smiling little kids (I even knew some of them)! For a while, I talked to my friend’s little sister who I have known for years. A few little kids smiled at me and said hi, and one even offered me potato chips. I said no, though. I wasn’t really hungry and he had a creepy look on his face.

After the bus stopped at the elementary schools, Cedar and me were the only ones left. I talked to him and he was ten times more fun to talk to than anyone on my old bus!

Then in science today, we were collecting leaves for our leaf-press books. My group was Cedar, Ky and me. We walked out in the field area where our tree was supposed to be. Along the way, we found a way to entertain each other. We made balloons out of our plastic bags and talked trough and echo tube. Collecting leaves was easy. Then on the way back, we all started skipping. It was hilarious to see two guys skip! And just before we got back to class, Cedar picked up a handful of the little seeds that his little sister and I call helicopters, and threw them in the air. 

Everyone smiled as they saw the seeds flutter down onto the sidewalk. :)

Throwing Apples at Guinea Pigs

Good friends on Skype plus boredom equal a whole lot of random conversation and laughing. :)

~They started talking about babies~

 Bowie: When a mommy and a daddy love each other VERY MUCH...

 Tracy: THEY DECIDE THAT THEY SHOULD...

GET A KID

FROM THE POUND

 Rinya: then the crane comes and takes it away?

 Bowie: NOPE. 
THEN ZOMBIES COME AND EAT THE PARENTS.
AND THE CRANE SITS ON 
A BABY.

AND THE BABY

Hatches.

And inside the baby

is another zombie.

 Rinya: And out pops a lizard!

 Tracy: I understand my life now.

~Then we told some of our weird dreams~

Rinya’s dream: “Wendy was dragging me to Neverland. The whole way I was passed out. Then an over-grown version of my guinea pig Diego ate Wendy. I ended up throwing Apples at Diego, trying to get him to puke out Wendy. Then I had to get a pill to get Tracy there. Then I had to go back to my room and drag Tracy all the way back to Neverland and had to battle vampire-mermaids like the ones in  Harry Potter. They were teamed up with captain hook. Then I robbed the crocodile of his clock to wake the real Tracy and me up.”

 My dream: “I was locked in Rapunzel’s tower. Then Captain Hook came up so I hid under the bed. I ran down the stairs and the town was on fire. Then my mom started playing the ukulele and said she was going to die. Then she kind of evaporated.”

 Tracy's dream: “I had a dream about Snape. :) “

And check out out my friends blog that she mentioned me in! :)
http://livingninja.com/

Hobos and a Tape-Eating Sheep

~ Just a random little story of a fun day :) ~

This school year so far, I’ve met a lot of interesting new people. Especially people who are younger than me.  One day in class, I ended up talking to a handful of these new friends.

We were doing our own independent work, so we were allowed to talk. My best friends in the class were all in their group talking on the other side of the room. They’re all near each other in the seating chart, where I can’t have a conversation with them without yelling. So I talked to the people near me, who are all younger than me. I don't know them all that well, but I thought they were alright. Basically, all these things happened at once:

Finnick was behind my desk trying to talk to Cedar.

Eva was crawling around and chewing on things like Jason’s paper and Finnick’s shoulder and foot. She said her nickname was Sheep.

Sophia told us a story about three hobos that mysteriously disappeared one day.

Eva chewed on some tape and spat it at Cedar. I took the tape roll away. Eva buried her face in my jacket hood.

We all started saying Finnick liked Eva. Eva ran away.

Somebody’s butt was in Sophia’s face, so she went on a rant and started yelling at him that he was disgusting.

Sophia told us about this thing called a chicken wing that you can make with your back.

Everyone tried and failed except for Finnick. He actually had a chicken wing.

Sophia dared Eva to bite Finnick's chicken wing. She did.

Cedar and me were cracking up the whole time.

That ended up being a good class! Although I got next to nothing done and I have a lot of homework. But it was worth the laughs with my insane new friends. :)

A Couple of My Better Drawings

These are a couple of my best drawings so I wanted to post them on here. I hope you like them. They took a lot of effort and a good charcoal pencil! :)

I got the pictures/instructions/help from Mark Crilley on youtube. Check out his videos:

http://www.youtube.com/user/markcrilley?blend=1&ob=4

The Rat

~ I don't know how the heck this happened, but it makes a good story! ~

~Once upon a time~, my friend Claire gave me a funny, squeaky toy rat. Her explanation was that it was the true form of a mean old man I was mad at. It sure did cheer me up! I kept the rat toy in my locker and my friends laughed and enjoyed it. One day, I closed my locker and realized I forgot to put the rat back in. My friend Luke got excited and said "I'll keep it in my locker!" So I let him.

  A few days later, I remembered Luke still had the rat. I asked him where it was and he said he couldn't find it. It turned up later from some odd place it was left. I shrugged it off thinking it was no big deal.

  Today at play practice, the guy who was playing the main character whispered to me from backstage,

"Hey, Zoey! Where's the rat?" I looked back at him puzzled. He tried to explain,

"I need it for the next scene!" Just then, something clicked together and everything fit.

  Someone told me that my rat was left on the stage one day when I wasn't at practice. Apparently, some of the people were playing with it and thought it was cool. So, the director put it in the play as a prop in one of the scenes. The rat is now an essential part of our school play. It even has a more important role than me! 

Well at least the mean old man is good at something :)

My Favorite Quotes

I guess some people would say their favorite quotes are funny quotes from the Internet, or something a celebrity said. I'm not one of those people. I have a collection of my favorite quotes about nice things that people have said to me over the years. Every person who has said something like this to me has really been a blessing. Every once and a while I'll look at this list and smile. :)


"Your just getting more and more beautiful."


"I love your hair!"


"You have the most beautiful eyes."


"Look at you all bright eyed and beautiful!"


"Well you are pretty."


"Impossible. No one is better off without you." 


"Your not a dork, your cool."


"Zoey, you're so cute!"


"Zoey, your my best friend and that's what best friends do."


"Well I missed you."


"My admiration for you just got stronger!"

Amelia's Birthday Card

Amelia's birthday was a long time ago... but I wanted to post the card I made her. I love making birthday cards for people and I love to see them happy when they get one! People say my cards are pretty cool, what do you think?

Check out Amelia's blog and tell her happy late birthday! :P

http://ameliaseverythingblog.blogspot.com/