birthday bouquet

My 14th birthday isn't actually until the 17th, but today was more convenient for the celebration. And so, for all intents and purposes, I am now 14 years old. Fourteen. Quite a number. As my mom said, part of the 14-15-16 range. And as I said in reply, I'm getting old.

Call me strange, but I really don't like big parties, especially when I'm the center of attention. The biggest birthday party I ever had was my Doctor Who themed one when I turned 12, and I invited two whole friends. Shocking, eh?

(My second biggest birthday was my 9th I think, when I had a Lord of the Rings themed party. My sisters put Lord of the Rings action figures all over the place, and made a cake in the shape of the ring and actually put the elvish-y writing on it. Wow, that was way back before I started getting confused between Denethor and Theoden and started calling Faramir, who was once my favorite character next to Smeagol, Feomer all the time.)

Most of the birthdays in my family are spent with a special supper, cake and ice cream, presents, and, in mine and Mary Margaret's case, Rose and Joan over from next door. The hight of excitement.

This year will be equally simple. We're having enchiladas for dinner and cheesecake (so my gluten-free sister can eat it) for dessert. Another tradition is that we always get coffeecake for breakfast, so that's what greeted me when (or about half an hour after) I got up this morning. And my sister Becca surprised me with some beautiful flowers, that I photographed the heck out of already. I love taking pictures of flowers; they're the only pictures that every seem to come out right.

They're so pretty and sweet. I could photograph them all day long. 

I'll be back tomorrow with more pictures and celebratory news, but for now, I've got some knitting to do. Happy Birthday, Anya! 

(why thank you. so kind of you to remember.) 

Be This Thanksgiving

As per request, here is the Thanksgiving post.

For me, the first half of Thanksgiving was miserable. For one thing, I thought I was going to bleed to death. Well, not really. Maybe a little bit. You would too, if your nose was bleeding enough to make you look like a vampire. I had also only gotten about five hours of sleep last night, so I was quite hysterical.

But then I took a long nap and felt better.

We had planned to have dinner at 4 like we did last year. But as my brother Ben got off work at 6:30, we decided to wait until he got here. But I was asleep when that decision was made, so when I woke up at 4:30 and we weren't eating, I was a little confused. I was also feeling very faint, as all I'd eaten that day was a little bit of sweet roll.

So we were all sitting around a bit, and finally it was time for dinner. And was it delicious. We were gifted a smoked turkey from a wonderful friend, and we had a wonderful assortment of bread, vegetables, and salads (one of which was made mostly of cool whip and was made pale green by pistachio pudding, I believe).

Our main decoration this year was our Give Thanks sign. A few days ago, we rolled this big piece of paper out on the floor and people have been writing what we're thankful for on it.

And a close up of my favorite, front and center:

After supper, David, Augustine, and Atheena came over for dessert. We sat around for a few hours, talking, laughing and eating. The Frizzowery's (no, that's not their actual name. It's a combination of Lowery and Frizzell. Frizzowery is just what we call them) left around eleven fifteen to see Breaking Dawn part 2. We were all exhausted, so we just went to bed.

All in all, not as good a Thanksgiving as last year, but still a day to remember. 

Also, I have a little FO to show off. In my post Merlin and Stuff I talked about knitting my big scrunchy scarf. As it turned out, it wasn't quite long enough to be a scarf, so I sewed the two ends together in a very visible seam and made it into a fabulous infinity scarf. 

Look how curly my hair is. I used a great technique that uses hair only. No heat, no products, not even any curlers or anything. The curls stayed in all day, too. 

Anyway, the cowl is fantastic and comfy and possibly the most wonderful thing I've ever knitted. (Well, for myself anyway) It's very warm and squishy and soft. The pattern is available for free here. As it's 21 stitches across, it's very wide, but since it's ribbing it sort of shrinks a bit so it's an excellent width. And I'm putting up a ling on Tami's Fo Friday.

Morgana and Morgause

Last night's costumes were certainly a success: 

Gosh... what awesome costumes. From the top left, Morgana, Morgana, Morgause, Morgause. The hours of hard work we had to go to were well rewarded. 

The halloween party was phenomenal. All of the costumes rocked- from Crazy Cat Lady to Black Widow, but I only got a couple of pictures. Well, I didn't get the pictures. Someone else did, though.

Look! It's a Druid boy! 

Morgana with the giant Domino that's my sister Rebbeca...

My sister in law dressed up as her husband. She looked just like him- freakishly so. 

What fun we had, all topped off with an episode of Merlin with my friends Rose (Morgause) and Atheena while the big people watched a horror movie. 

Happy Birthday, Tom!

No, I'm not wishing a happy birthday to one of those celebrities whose names are Tom like Tom Hardy, Tom Hiddleston, or Lord Voldemort. (Though for all I know it is one of their birthdays, in which case, happy birthday) It's actually my brother's birthday. He isn't quite so famous, and he actually goes by Thomas mostly. But he is known as Tom to some people.

Anyway, Happy birthday, Thomas. Even though we celebrated your birthday yesterday and I wished you a happy birthday then. And if you ever read this, it will probably be in about six months when you can barely even remember this birthday for anticipation of the next. The big 21- just one more year to go!

Joke of the Month- August

This is my Dad's favorite joke to tell:

There was a village that was well known across the world for its fantastic flower shops. The flowers were bright and cheery, and sold quite well.

But there was suddenly a drop in sales. The townspeople were shocked and did not know why people had stopped buying their flowers. But one person discovered an abbey of monks who had begun their own flower business on top of a high hill.

The villagers were furious, and they sent one of the strongest men there up the hill to put a stop to the monks' popular shop.

The man was called Gregory, and he climbed the hill and chopped off the hands of every single monk. His mission accomplished, he went down the hill, greeted by the cheers of the villagers.

But despite their hands being cut off, the monks' business seemed still to be blooming, no pun intended. And so George, who was even stronger than Gregory, found the monks and cut off their legs. Unfortunately, the persistent monks somehow continued to sell their flowers at an incredible rate.

And so the villagers, now desperate, sent yet another man up to the abbey. This man, Hugh, was stronger and more vicious than both Gregory and George combined. And so Hugh climbed the hill with his sword in his hand and he chopped off the heads of the monks. Needless to say, their business promptly fell.

And the moral of the story is, Only Hugh can prevent florist friars.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Wedding Teaser

My wonderful sister Elizabeth got married yesterday! The week has been very hectic which is why I haven't been able to make time amid all of the parties for writing.

I will be writing all about the celebrations tomorrow (or the next day)! I warn you all, it will be a lengthy blog post! Ah well, it will balance out this one.

Congratulations, Mrs Joseph!