The Bubble Gum Balloon

For a frustrating but worth it...
...School project we bought and decorated a balloon.  Mine had a basket weighted down with bubble gum, alas the name "The Bubble Gum Balloon".  This is actually a really good project idea so I will  have to give you instructs on how to do it.
In the mean time, let me show you some pictures on how it turned out.  Here they are.  I found a photo editing app on Mom's laptop that is totally cool so I was messing with that for the photos.

Total Update

I am really sorry.
There have been a whole bunch of issues getting on the internet and actually using it so I haven't been able to post.  Just checking my email was hard enough.
Mom's computer had some glitch and so it didn't connect to the internet.  We didn't have internet in Texas for about a five weeks or so.  On top of all that, I sort kinda probably a little bit oopys daisy...broke my iPad!!!  I dropped it in Lowe's and now the screen is black.  I am the one who's going to pay to get it fixed and I'm going to have to wipe out ALL my savings and then some to pay.  Some body's going to be penny pinching for another two years again.
Anyway, for those of you who don't have a Facebook account let me catch you up with what's been going on.  After all, I have moved already.

1. The movers came.  They were actually a really good batch of movers, although they sorta kinda FORGOT a whole cabinet of dishes and all our silverware.
2. We drove cross country.  Fun.  Actually, it was more fun than I expected.  I got to go in a ride in a little airplane, eat dinner with old friends, hang out 360 ft in the air while in St. Louis (the arch is SO cool and a really fun trip) plus play Minion Rush um...a lot.  It was NOT very fun for Mom because
1. She hates driving
2. She doesn't like benign solely in charge
3. They (United Communities, the people in charge of housing) called us and said that we had been assigned house #30.  #30 turned out to a one-story HANDICAPPED house.  Of course she (Mom) totally panicked because we had planned for the two-story REGULAR house.  It turned out that they (UC) didn't even know that it was a handicapped house and gave them another house, which made Mom annoyed because there are only three handicapped houses of that kind on base and how hard can it be to keep track of them all?
4. She didn't get a lot of sleep one night because there was a foul-languaged argument RIGHT outside our door (I was asleep which I am glad for now because apparently it was REALLY foul-languaged) and then at like 2 a.m. there was a sort of party, and so she called the motel owners and they sorted it out and CALLED HER BACK to tell her that it was sorted out.  Seriously.  I mean, c'mon!
3. We got a house!  This is exciting.  We've never gotten a house this fast before.  Plus, it's the house we actually expected (yay) and it's in a really good location.  It has a fenced backyard (our only request) and it's in a REALLY good location.  You see it's a twenty minutes walk, ten minute bike ride to my bff Elena's house (I went to a sleep over with her last night) and to two minute walk to my long-lost girl scout friends (yes, I was a girl scout!  That goes to show how long-lost these friends are) who are awesome.  Plus five minute easy walk to the church (Saturday night mass here I come...!)

That it.  Anyway, enjoy what's left of your school year and your weekend!  Hope you are having the  same luck I am because is turning out to be the best move ever!!!

Cancelation

Ok, write for your life is officially canceled.
It was way too much work and I jus don't have the time right now.  And just in case you're wondering, I'm about to do one of those long posts that, if I was an adult, would be filled with bad words and blame everyone but myself for the things going wrong in mmy life right now.  However, I have this stupid headache that's been bothering me for a while now so I'm just going to say that right now, my life totally does NOT rock and I am not in the mood.  Good bye.

Searching for YOU

From my personal writing journal, pg 4, by my (der)

I looked for u behind the bench
But she was no where to be found.
I looked for o down a vase,
Bu the didn't want to be seen.
I looked for y with my dog where she likes to nap,
But she was as gone as gone can be.
Then I bumped into someone.
And it turned out,
I had found them all;
It was you.

On Turning Ten

From "Poetry Speaks to Children", pg 88-89, by Billy Collins.

The whole idea of it makes me fell
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light-
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell my it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit,
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was soldier, at nin a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window,
watching the late afternoon light.
Back the it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all of the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me open I would shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees.  I bleed.

Halfway Down

From "Poetry Speaks to Children", pg 68, by A. A. Milne.
Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair
Where isn't any
Other stair
Quite like
It.
I'm not at the bottom,
I'm not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up,
And isn't down.
It isn't in the nursery,
It isn't in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:
"It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!"

Write for your life af bratlife event

This isn't going to be the meatiest of posts because I'm writing on my moms mini iPad and the keyboard is really tiny.  so anyway, I'm starting an event called write for your life, here on af bratlife. It's more for my benefit than yours, because with the movers coming in two days this provides an excuse for pure making eighteen billion posts.

Basically, the idea is that I post a poem or short story every day.  Like a poem a day keeps the boredom  away.   And it starts today. Right now.

I have a list and this is the random pick for today:  from page 37, b, of, "poetry speaks to children", My Sister saw a Dinosaur (by Mary Ann Hoberman)

My sister saw a dinosaur.

At least she said she saw one,

I said that dinosaurs are dead.

She said she saw it in her head.

A dinosaur inside your head?

"Remarkable!" My mother said.