My crazy life and why I might be absconding...

Soooooo....

I actually have legitimate excuse this week (or two) but it's still my fault for not posting. 

My iPod was confiscated by my mom. 

It was because I was loitering around texting people instead of cleaning my room, and when (after a week) I asked her what I could do to earn it back, she said, "Stop asking me."

Apparently the only way I could get it back was to live without it for two weeks. 

And then I went to camp. 

So, long story short, I was exhausted from that South Texas camp I told y'all about, and I slept for 11 hours last night.  

I'll probably go to bed early tonight if its possible, because I need to catch up on some Z's after staying up to 2 or 3 for seven days. 

^Was written Friday afternoon^

Honestly, nobody probably reads this anyway, so apologizing to the Internet doesn't even really matter. 

I think I might end up dropping Adalyn's Endeavors for a while. This month and next month are going to be crazy, because I started my first day of high school today, and I already feel a little stumped in geometry. 

I'm going to do this acting program in my city through fall, and we meet twice a week on Fridays and Sundays, which are my default posting times. And I honestly think I want to save Saturdays for some r&r and friends and stuff. 

So on top of school and writing and acting and choir and friends and reunions, I don't think I'll really have time to dedicate strictly to a post only a few people will read. 

It's not that I don't love you or anything, my dear readers, but there are certain aspects of my life that need attending to. I've been neglecting a real prayer life, concentrating solely on lazing around without doing much with my summer. I've been entirely self-absorbed with my free time, wanting to go shopping for clothes for my camp, or buy ingredients for the dessert I want to make, or spend my time however I see fit to use it. You see what I mean? 

I need to be a little more thoughtful, a little more helpful, a little more self-sacrificing. I'm working on virtue and a good spiritual life this month, and I'm going to stick to it. 

In the past, I've been very flippant with my goals and how and when to achieve them. But this month, I want to change myself. It's almost my fourteenth birthday, and that's too old to be acting totally self-centered and naïve. I need to become a better person. And this is how I want to do it. 

Denying myself a little Internet and spending fifteen minutes in prayer rather than ranting about myself in a blog post will probably do me a lot of good. At least, I think so. 

I hope you're having an amazing summer, or if you're starting school, I hope you had a fantastic first day. A lot of girls I know started high school today, (including me ;D) and it's not nearly as daunting as some people think, so yay!

Have an absurdly wonderfultastic day, and I'll see you on Friday when I've decided whether to drop this blog for a while or not. :/

See you in four days! ~<3

  

Please enjoy this pig-cloud while you wait. ;) 🐷

Fun fact!: I took a picture of this on the way back from seeing a movie. And then I wanted bacon. 

Keep Calm and ((Eat Bacon)) Endeavor On,

~Adalyn

My Summer is So Separated.

Hey y'all. 

Ummm....I didn't post. 

I suppose I could blame the movie/sleepover party I went to on Friday, but Saturday I had no excuse. 

I feel like a sucky person now. 

I just...totally, honest-to-goodness cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-fly straight-out forgot. 

So this week, my older brother Timothy went with a dozen others from our parish to World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro. They were one of four groups from the US to go, and they've been gone for a week tomorrow. 

They went on a mission trip to build a school, I think, and Tim managed to make it onto the Brazilian news. He has to go out of the country to make it onto the news. Go figure. 

But anyway, he loves it there, and even though my mom had a dream he got bitten by a giant tarantula smack-dab in the middle of his forehead, that actually DIDN'T really happen, and he's totally fine and loving every minute of Brazil. 

And the week before Tim left, my brother Josh ALSO left for Boy Scout camp (hiking in the Rockies. 8O), and he's been gone for two weeks. Only three days left until he's back, though, so yay! I've missed him a lot. :3

After Tim gets back the first week of August, I leave the next week for a camp in South Texas. It's a leadership camp my friends have gone to and it's supposed to be really amazing. ^-^

Our family is so split up this summer, though. Like you guys know, my parents left for two weeks on vacation, and my oldest brother, Paul moved into an apartment last month, plus now Josh and Tim are gone too. And soon...so will I. 

Plus, a lot of my friends are going off to camps lately too. Two of my friends left this morning, and two of my friends were gone a couple weeks ago, and one of my friends is gone for two weeks starting just after my brother Tim gets back. 

All in all, it's been kind of a separated summer.  

So I guess you could say I have a lot on my mind. That could be my excuse for why I didn't post. 

I guess it's still pretty lame, as most excuses are, but it's all I got. 

Anyways, this is basically just an update on my life, but I really enjoyed writing about laughter and happiness and optimism last week. That was pretty sweet. 

If you like that as well as (or better than) just talking about myself and being all vain and arrogant (sort of) give me a holler in the comments. I'd love to hear from you! ^-^

I hope you guys are a having a FUNtastic summer, and I wish you an amazing day, night, afternoon, dusk, dawn or whatsoever it happens to be where and when you are in time and space, and I'll see you next week! 

Love and peace and ALL the zen! ✌

Keep Calm and Endeavor On, 

~Adalyn

NaNoWriMo, and Why I Am Late...Again.

I feel like I'm beginning to fall into a habit of this. 

Before i explain to you why I'm late this week, I also have an announcement to make. 

So, this month, I'm doing Camp NaNoWriMo, which is a program exactly like the regular NaNoWriMo, except for the fact that it's in the summer. I'm writing a book and I'm really liking it, and it's been taking up a lot of my time. 

I wanted to do it in April or whenever the first one was, but I couldn't manage it because I was still in school and I had a bunch of other stuff to do to get ready for the hot summer months. 

But I'm doing it this month. It's super exciting and fun and if any of you are writers, I suggest you check it out. There's a children's/teen's website called The Young Writers' Program at ywp.nanowrimo.org , and there's another program for 13-113 that's just plain-ol' National Novel Writing Month at www.nanowrimo.org . And for summer there's www.campnanowrimo.org .

It's super fun and free and you can participate in it at any age. In YWP and Camp NaNo, you set your word count goal, which is the number of words you aim to write in 30 days, though in the "real" NaNoWriMo, the set goal is 50,000 words. 

It's not nearly as hard or daunting as you think, because if you write a certain amount of words a day, you reach your WCG in no time at all! 

Anyway, if you want to try it out, you can do novels, biographies, screenplays, scripts, poems, songs, or even sentences if you want! All that matters is that you write and have fun. Check it out. It's amazing. 

NOW! To the excuses for why I didn't post and my updates on the 4th! ^-^

In my defense, I did have a very impromptu-ly crazy Thursday/Friday. 

So, as you who live in the Land of the Free, also known as that fat lazy country with those unrefined savages, or The United States of America, know, Thursday just so happened to be Independence Day! It's been that way for, oh, about over two hundred years. 

The Fourth of July is kind of an important day for us rebellious, independent US of A citizens, and hence we do stupid things, like throw big parties with lots of meat and potato chips and yummy drinks. And set off big, explosive, colorful and sometimes terrifying tendrils of flame to show our excitement and joy over our freedom and liberty from other countries. 

The only drawback from these parties and fireworks is when you're sitting there watching the show, and your neighbor, who's joined you for the big, delicious celebratory party, accidentally puts the firework in upside-down. 

And so it explodes about 20 feet away from you, shocking and scaring everyone there, making you scream as you feel the shockwave and see the brilliant burst of color that has exploded all too close to you and your friends and family, and setting off the car alarm of your best friend's brand-spankin'-new bright white Toyota Tundra. 

It was an awesome and exciting experience, and since my boyfriend decided I needed to be comforted, and wrapped his arms around me, it was also sort of cute, too. 

After the party, two of my friends slept over, totally ruined half of my makeup doing blind makeovers, and stayed half of the next day, when I had to clean the house and help prepare food for a get-together we were having with some of our closest friends. 

They stayed until ten, and after a long argument between my friend Brianna and her mother, she was allowed to spend the night. And we watched Les Mis. And we wrote, since we're both aspiring authors. And then fell asleep. 

Yesterday was Saturday, and I don't really have an excuse for not posting, and I was even going to post, but in the morning I had to return canopies and chairs to my neighbors that they had let us borrow for the party, and then I was reading all afternoon. 

I finished my book at 1:30 am this morning, finally went to bed around 2am, and then woke up at 11:28 to discover my family gone to 10 o'clock mass.

So here I am, two days late after a crazy weekend, happy that I broke my record for how late I've slept in ever because I'm not nearly as tired as I have been for the past week. 

I guess a good night's sleep solved all my problems. Anyway, my mom and dad are taking my siblings and I on a surprise outing, so I guess I'll see you all next week. Though I probably won't post until Saturday, since I have a birthday party to attend. 

At least I let you know this week, right?

....Right? 

;)

Keep Calm and Endeavor On,

~Adalyn

Today Was The Craziest Day...

I sing in the choir at my church. I think I've told you that before. 

Today was the beginning of a Catholic homeschooling conference here in my state, and there was going to be a graduation mass for the class of 2013. 

It was my mom's idea and so she had to set it up, which meant finding a pair of priests, altar servers, a Eucharistic minister, and a choir, as well as transporting an altar, crucifix, vestments, and various other things necessary for a Mass. 

So, I had to sing for this mass with my choir, and since our choir director is sick, we had to draft someone from another parish to accompany us. 

Which meant that I had to copy, print, staple, and deliver a dozen copies of the songs we were going to sing, AND help my mom set up the altar, crucifix, hymn books and pamphlets. 

It was a total hassle, but the mass was celebrated by the bishop that confirmed my brothers and I, and it was an absolutely beautiful mass. 

Afterword, we had cake and lemonade at a reception for the graduates. 

My brother is severely allergic to nuts. And you'll never guess what. 

There was almond extract in the cake icing. 

So on the way home, he started swelling up, and he was having trouble breathing, and he had hives all over his body. 

Needless to say, my dad took him to the emergency room. 

So I had to babysit my little siblings until my parents got home. 

(That would have been my Friday post, but I fell asleep while putting my youngest sibling to bed, so I didn't post. This would have been the post from Saturday.) 

My dad woke me up at 12:30am and told me to head up to my own bed, where I promptly collapsed. 

And, because my body likes to torture me, I woke up a little before 6am. For some stupid reason, whenever I wake up in the middle of the night, my body decides I need less than eight hours of sleep to function. Genius, right?

My brother was fine. He'd had an IV in and they'd pumped Benadryl into his bloodstream, so he was out of there relatively quickly. I found him sleeping on the couch in the Living Room that morning. 

So I got my chores out of the way and got dressed, and then waited around for a couple hours until we left for the second day of the conference. 

It was actually pretty good. They had a speaker talk about what to expect in and about college, and then after a half-hour break, they had several religious of varying stages come in and talk about vocations. 

Then we had pizza for lunch and after that, I had a gig watching the elementary school-age kids for three hours. 

So I basically calmed down a few rowdy kids, watched Veggie Tales, helped a few kids tracing and coloring their hands, watched more Veggie Tales, and got paid $15 for it! :D

And then...after the day was done I bought some jewelry and headed home to freshen up a bit for my very first high school dance! 

It was held at a dance hall a little ways out of my city, and I went with my older brothers and a few friends. 

We were taught a bunch of line dances, and then we basically just did whatever to a specific playlist until the last song. 

It was really fun, and I can't wait for next month when there will be another one! 

I went swimming at a friend's house today, and we spent an hour and a half in the pool before drying off and getting dressed for mass. 

And that was basically my day. 

Oh, and I had three chocolate-chip cookies. 

Now that you've caught up...yay! 

I'm sorry if it's ridiculously long. And I'm sorry I posted two days late. But, you know, my brother was kind of in the hospital, so...

I promise next Friday, you'll have a post. As long as nobody I know is mauled by a monkey or run over by a trigonometry book, I swear on my favorite hat, I'll post on Friday. 

Keep Calm and Endeaovr On, 

~Adalyn

Hey Dudes.

Again, I was going to post yesterday, and I even reminded myself on Thursday. You know, the whole, "Oh, Ads, you've gotta remember to post tomorrow or no one will read your lonely blog!" type deal. 

But, alas, my morning quickly spiraled into afternoon and then early evening, and before I knew it, I was in the car driving to Marian group, and about to stay there for a sleepover with my friend Marie. 

And so, having just gotten back from said sleepover, I shall endeavor (Ohhh, reference to the name of my blog! Ohhh...) to explain my complicated life once again. 

Starting with Marian Group. 

We've started a new session, 'The Importance of Knowing Yourself' in order to know who you are and what you were made for. 

I was expecting something totally different from what I got. Basically what we did is talk about what we think is the biggest thing about ourselves that we keep hidden.

And you know that when seven females get together to talk about their innermost beings, six of them being teenagers, dang is it gonna be deep! 

So we talked about that and ate scones and apple pie and I'll tell you, there was lots of smeared mascara and runny noses. 

It was really good. And the. I slept over. 

Also, one of my close friends, Hannah, who I've known for a few years, is moving to Nevada with her Air Force family. My dad was in the Air Force for 25 years, so I know what it's like moving around a lot. 

She's leaving on Monday. Bye, Hannah, we love you! <3

Of course,we'll still keep in contact, so it'll all be good. ^__^

She was at the sleepover, too. It was sort of her last sha-bang before she left. Their bags and boxes are all packed. 

In other news, my fiends are jerks sometimes.  

So my friend Xavier? I've mentioned him a couple times. We're sort of...semi-in a...you know a...relationship.

Not officially or anything, but I like him and he likes me and everything is hilarious and amazing and the best ever whenever I'm with him, and everyone introduces us as boyfriend and girlfriend and stuff like that. 

And today? My friends made him angry. 

My friend Lizzie, Marie's older sister, was teasing me about him and telling me what I should respond over text because "I'm a matchmaker! I help everyone with stuff like this! Just listen to me!"

And I wasn't listening. I like to be myself in a conversation, I don't like to be Lizzie.

And so, as she said she was looking up a poem to write on a bookmark for her mom for Mother's Day? She was actually texting him and telling him a bunch of embarrassing stuff about stuff about me.  

I was ready to kill her. 

And then, when I finally got it away from her? My friend Marie did exactly the same thing! Except she was a little nicer. 

A little. 

Anyway, they won't get angry with me when they read this because we already worked it out between ourselves and Xavier, so it's all good!

And now I'm safe at home and ready for some lunch. Because I'm starving and my stomach is protesting its emptiness. 

I've been talking with Xavier and he's okay now. He just got angry because I was angry. Which is good, I guess. Because we're all Zen, all connected and crap. 

But anyway, I changed my password and now they can't get in! MWAHAHA!

I'll post on Friday next week if it kills me, okay, dudes?

Ima go have some lunch and then play piano for an hour. 

Keep Calm and Endeavor On!

~Adalyn  

So I Was Totally Gonna Post on Friday...

But, unfortunately, my beloved blogger app decided to crash and burn and die.

And then on Saturday I went to my good friend Marie's house for a sleepover and stayed there all day the next day too.

So now it's Monday and I'm finally posting.

And guess what.

.....I have a COLD!

I've been sneezing and coughing all day, and it's been absolutely horrible.

I NEVER get colds. I have an immune system made of iron.

And steel.

And stuff like that.

Yet, I still have managed to contract the virus my family has had for TWO WEEKS!

I hate being sick. It makes me feel all helpless and weak and want to listen to Catching Fire all day while I crochet a big blanket for myself and don't worry about math because my mom said not to.

Which is exactly what I did. Although now I wish I'd had the sense to take a nap.

On top of all that, I'm losing my voice from coughing so much, so singing for church yesterday nearly killed me.

And I have voice lessons on Wednesday, and somehow I don't think I'll be feeling much better.

I did have a brilliant book idea today, so yay for that, but I'm still feeling a little down. The fact that my brothers have been ribbing me all day hasn't helped either.

But anyway, I think I'll stop complaining about my life now and text people who've actually seen my face in person, not just over the Internet.

Like my best friends Xavier and Brianna and Christine. They'll hopefully have some sympathy for me, and maybe I can even sleep in a little before the crazy hassle that is every Tuesday decides to shake its frenzied head and say, "Oh, Adalyn, you're sick, sleep deprived, and lonely today? I think I'll abuse you even MORE than usual. MWAHAHAHAHAAAA!!"

So anyway, wish me luck! And good health. And sleep.

Lots of sleep.

Keep Calm and Endeavor On,
~Adalyn

Excuses, Easter, and Everything in Between!

Well here I am again. For the third time. Trying to write this post. Safari has decided to make like Sebastian and crash all the time. I will explain.

Excuse #1 for why I haven't posted in weeks and weeks: My ancient and beloved laptop Sebastian committed suicide and murder all at the same time because he took all of my novels, ideas, lists, bookmarked websites, and passwords to the technological graveyard with him.

And I don't like using Safari for Internet because its slower and harder to type by a million and because of reasons stated above.

The first time it crashed, I was trying to insert a picture. And then it crashed and I lost everything. The second time, I had given up on the picture and was trying to insert a link. So I went to go copy it from YouTube and when I came back, there was this little error code and it said something about looking for a group of bloggers with similar problems.

For moral support, I guess?

But now I'm using my brand-spankin'-new blogger app! And if you're seeing this, then it worked!

So that's one excuse. Excuse #2: Holy Week and piano and school and friends and really just life in general have been moving so slowly and so quickly at once.

Lent seemed to fly by, and it's already Easter Thursday! I sort of miss Holy Week. It's the most eye-opening time of the year, I think. The beginning of a new life, a life open to God and life eternal.

I seem to be moving pretty quickly. Usually I'm slower than this. Maybe it's just the fact that I'm text-typing instead if real-typing.

It's harder to punctuate and spellcheck this way. And I can see much less of my post, so it seems like my sentences are really long, even when they're not.

Oh, well, it's better than leaving my beloved blog to die in that cybernetic graveyard we talked about earlier. At least I can salvage it.

But anyway, on to Holy Week! It really started for me on the Tuesday before Easter. My church had an absolutely gorgeous service called Tenebrae (pronounced TEN-eh-brey), which involved singing, readings, and the symbolic putting out of candles. We sang my favorite Lenten song, maybe my favorite choir song, period.

It's called Miserere Mei Deus by Allegri. It translates to "Have mercy on me, God." It's a beautiful piece with five parts, and it's got the sort of bittersweet sound to it that sends shivers down your spine when it's sung a certain way. That's how we sang it.

You can look it up if you want. I won't put in a link because the ones on YouTube just don't sound the way ours did. Standing in the middle of the action, in media res, so to speak, you hear things differently. We took it slower, softer than all the ones on the Internet. It was more sorrowful, somehow. More...repentant.

Tenebrae was probably the best way to start Holy Week, the Easter Tridium.

Then, on Holy Thursday, I sang with our choir again at the evening mass, and it was also beautiful, although in more of a serious way. The Eucharist was removed from the tabernacle and we all processed in to the Hall, the fellowship area, where our priest led a short benediction and then left. The Hall was a place of 24 hour Eucharistic adoration after that. You could come at any hour of the day or night and pray there, in front of the Blessed Sacrament.

What the priest does at that point of the liturgy is reposition the Blessed Sacrament in a different tabernacle and place a veil over it. When he positions the veil over the door of the tabernacle, it is a sign that Jesus has left the earth. It always stabs at my heart when I see the veil over Him. It really makes you feel that he was gone, dead.

Can you imagine? After seeing who you believed to be the savior of the world, the Christ of prophecy die suffering and pitiful...can you imagine still trusting that he would rise again in three days time? What faith you would have to have! It's nearly unbelievable!

I don't know what I would have believed. After following Jesus the Nazarene for three years, maybe knowing him for longer...can you imagine watching him tortured, scourged and beaten, forced to carry his murderers' tool, the wretched and blessed beam of wood he would give his life on. For us! Us, the poor, pitiful, frivolous sinners!

Watching him nailed to a splintered and bloody piece of wood, raised on the future symbol of his power, and bleed and bleed.

I've never seen The Passion, but whenever I think of Our Lord's passion and death, that's how I picture it.

I don't mean to be gruesome, but that's how it really happened. I won't apologize for the truth.

Back to the point, that stab in my heart made Good Friday all the more real. We got to sing the Miserere Mei Deus again, but it was more intense this time, a desperate plea for mercy rather than a humble sorrowing for sin.

Both times it was beautiful, though. What we do on Good Friday is at one point in the service (not a mass because there is no consecration of the Eucharist), everyone walks up to a large crucifix the priest is holding and takes a turn kissing it. The feet or the hands or the head of our crucified savior.

I always touch my lips to his feet. It reminds me of Mary Magdelene, washing Jesus' feet with her tears and drying then with her hair. Anointing them with oil and kissing them because of her deep regret for her sin. It makes me feel even more deeply the hallow emptiness in my soul on that day, knowing that it was me and my sins that put him on the cross. But it's a good emptiness, repentant.

I cried.

But the sorrow of Good Friday just made the Easter joy all the more wonderful.

I woke up at 6:15, still a child at heart, I guess. I'm the one in my family who wakes up my silly and sleepy older brothers on holidays. They never seem to want to get into the spirit of things.
It's annoying sometimes.

Anyway, that's why I wanted to insert a picture before. I got a new hat! Here it is!

I hope that works, anyway. If it doesn't, I will never post a picture again. :P

So I got a whole new summer wardrobe (sort of), and lots of my favorite candy. Then I spent the rest of the day chilling with friends and family. Our cascarone fight will never be forgotten.

So...you've basically caught up. I'm in the fourth quarter of eighth grade and looking forward to summer. Also, my braces are supposed to come off soon, hopefully by the end of June. I have VBS and summer camp to look forward to, and I'd rather so it with a straight smile.

It's really only my front teeth that are messed up, because they closed a space and one of them isn't perfectly aligned with my other teeth. But soon, the orthodontist says. Soon.

So anyway, now that you've read my über-long post, can go and live your perfectly different life.

Have fun, God bless, and happy Easter.

Keep Calm and Endeavor On,
~Adalyn