Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

Okay, I'm aware that was sort of cheesy. Oh well. It did snow again last night, a couple of inches, which looks like it makes our snowfall total about three feet, but that's probably only because everybody's piled the snow off their driveways and sidewalks onto their lawns. I'm a horrible judge of depth, but looking out the window it appears as though the back yard has at least a foot all over it, if not more.

Anyway, the Eragon movie (December 15) has now been rated by the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), at PG. I have to say, I had kind of expected a PG-13, especially from Americans - if it's PG there, it might almost get a G here. Canadian ratings seem to be consistantly lower than American ones. This movie seems to be on a downward spiral...one would hope it's not a complete flop in the theatres. Personally, I think a lot of critics are going to call it a cross between Lord of the Rings and Star Wars - and for anyone who's read the books,

here (Star Wars)

and

here (Lord of the Rings)

are a couple of comparisons. Basically, in my mind Christopher Paolini (the author) used the basic plot of Star Wars and the basic setting and some names from Lord of the Rings. I mean, ERAGON? I ask you! Even looking at the title the most clueless moviegoer must think, "Hang on, haven't I heard that name before? That Aragorn guy in those rings movies?"
And yet...for all my griping...I know exactly how many days until it comes out. Sixteen.

But the day is progressing alarmingly fast and I have some serious quizzing that needs to happen, so leaving now...

~Sil

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...

Wow, I just looked at the temperature on the internet and apparently it is, at this point in time, -28 Celsius. Wow. I knew it was cold, but not that cold! And according to the newspaper, people in Toronto are enjoying +10 temperatures. I guess I can't complain, though - I wished for this for quite some time! And at least we've got at least a good foot of snow, if not more. Last Christmas we had a pitiful little dusting of snow, not even a centimeter.

Band performance coming up, at the Festival of Trees. It sounds cool, the Festival, but I'm nervous about the performance. There's one bit on bells that I don't know if I'm going to be able to do, even though most of my piano stuff is okay. You can hear bells better than piano, though. I really shouldn't stress, it's only one performance and it's my first one. We do have another practice, as well, and I'll have to see how it goes and decide what I'm comfortable with doing accordingly, I guess. Maybe step outside of my comfort zone a little, too.

To add to my earlier paragraph about weather - according to www.theweathernetwork.com, with the wind chill it feels like -40 degrees out. I'm staying inside today, thanks.

~Sil

Quiz meet

Well, I erred out. For the first time ever at a quiz meet. I guess it was due to happen sometime...especially in division A...but I still kinda wish it hadn't happened on my last quiz of the day in front of probably one hundred to two hundred quizzers/coaches/people watching. As my mom put it, though, most of the people in the audience probably went, "Ouch, I know how that feels" so I guess it wasn't so bad. I was pretty devastated at the time, though. Our team didn't win anything, but my brother was, I believe, third top rookie and second top B quizzer. So that was good. And Josh and Emily got some pretty serious awards as well. Congrats, guys. The meet was at Fort Saskatchewan Alliance, which means that all the quiz rooms were in portables and there was much running back and forth, which gets annoying. The next one is at Taylor University College in Edmonton, which will be better. I'm also going to know my stuff better for that one, and I really want to quiz out in A so I can be a bona fide A quizzer. I mean, I am already, but I would still like to quiz out.

Anyway, I didn't go to youth sunday school before church because I was pretty exhausted, but I did go to the service. Yesterday evening we went and made an advent wreath at the church for our family, and if they had let me do the flocking...well...I won't go there. There would be fewer clumps of dried white stuff on the wreath, I guess is what I'm trying to say. I keep having a strong urge to insert a happy smiley here but it's not going to happen - it's NOT.

Today I had to get up at seven in the FREEZING COLD to go babysitting, and when I got there nobody was awake to let me in, so I walked back home in the freezing cold to wait until they phoned, which they did. But it was rather annoying, because I wasn't early or anything. Oh well. I'm hoping to get my school done today before lunch so that I can watch Star Wars Episode IV.

~Sil

Pre-quiz-meet

I think we all have pre-quiz-meet jitters. But maybe it's just me. I feel like I can't settle down to do much, so I'm not even going to try and do piano right now - I'll do it on Sunday instead. I've been sort of studying on and off all afternoon but I can't really settle down to that either. I may practice my parts for orchestra bells later, as well.

How unsurprising....can't settle down to do this either! Ah well.

181 days until PotC: AWE

21 days until Eragon

~Sil

It's REALLY snowing

Wow, it's almost like a blizzard. Though I guess that's a pretty tame blizzard compared to what we've been known to have. I don't really want to go anywhere today, which is a pity, because I'm babysitting from 2:40 to 7:00 and then I have A team quiz practice at 7:30. Pooh. I'll have to try and get a lot of my school done this morning.

Piano yesterday was okay. One of my rare mediocre lessons, but at least we didn't do ear training, that would not have improved it. I need to practice harder this week. Band, however, was super fun, and I got to bring home the orchestra bells! I asked Bill (our director) about a part in one song that I didn't think I could do if I didn't practice it, so he said I could take them home with me. Our Festival of Trees performance is in a week, and we only have one more practice before then.

And me and Mom went shopping last night (I love shopping) and I finally bought some things I've been needing for a while, including a black shirt for our band performances and winter boots. I STILL haven't foung dress shoes, though, and it's driving me insane. I found this amazing, perfect pair of ballet flats in the clearance section at Sears, only they were too small in size 7, so I went to get them bigger, and guess what - they came in sizes 7 and 9. No 7 1/2, no 8, no 8 1/2. I was so mad. I would totally have bought them if they had fit. Grr. We're going to try and go out again before the youth Christmas banquet to get shoes and a dress. Because we both would like to get me a dress. So that'll be fun, especially when I have money!

~Sil

Missions trip

Last night at Bible study was really interesting, we talked about the missions trip this summer to Costa Rica. It sounds intriguing, I might like to go. Also, the price is going to be around $1200, but the church pays a third and the missions team pays a third and then you're responsible personally for the last third. I think I could get $400 between now and July, easy. The trip is July 8-16, give or take a day on either end for flights. According to Joanna it's about twelve hours of travel, but five hours of that (when she went) was sitting in an airport in Texas waiting for the connecting flight. I've never been on a plane, so that would be interesting. What else...oh yeah, I would have to get a passport, which I think is about another $100, and you have to be fifteen as of the dates of the trip, which is good, because I'm fifteen now. So lots of youth weren't eligible, and Loree was disappointed - she'll turn fifteen two months after the trip, and she wanted to go. Anyway, I was pretty interested.

Yesterday as a day kinda gave me a headache, though...I'm not naming names, but if a couple of my siblings could have made SLIGHTLY more of an effort to get along with each other it would have made my day a lot easier. ("Make him stop eating carrots like that, it's so annoying!" type-thing). I got supper on the table all right, but it's slightly nerve-racking when you're trying to get chicken out of the oven, clean up a whole bottle of ketchup that dropped on the floor and kind of exploded, and your quiz coach phones right in the middle of it. Boy.

Quizzing's going okay, though, I think I'm going to be at least semi-ready by Friday.

~Sil

Swimming

I know I haven't blogged in five days - apologies. I've been busy. So now for an insanely long post.

Trying to remember what happened on Friday...ah yes. Youth. We went swimming, which was fun, but only about fifteen people showed up compared to our regular group that's usually between 25-35 people. But we still had fun - I jumped off the diving board and got a bleeding nose, which was kinda embarassing, but it was okay. The guys thought it was pretty funny, but they're guys, and since we were swimming I could splash them. They splashed me back, of course. So that had me pretty tired for Saturday morning, which was quiz practice.

I don't think I've ever actually wanted quiz practice to end...but I did. My review was horrible, which was slightly mitigated by the fact that everyone else's was too, but it's still not fun to get more errors than correct questions. Especially when they're idiotic things like "Salvation is found where?" (in no one else) which is part of our theme verse for this year, and of course everybody remembers this besides me. Sigh.

Anyway, after that I went shopping with Juli (I don't think you read this...but hi anyway!) which made me feel slightly better, because Juli is very fun to shop with. Plus, the whole Pirates of the Caribbean display was 30% off at Claire's, so I got a notebook and a pin and a pen and a little keychain-thingy. I almost wish I'd gotten the little medallion replica, but when would I wear it? We also got pictures in those little picture-taking things, but neither of us knew where the camera was pointing so all four pictures had about half of each of us. It was fun, though.

Sunday morning quiz practice went WAY better, I felt good about it. Oh, we also discovered our teams for the quiz meet this Saturday - mine is Erin and Everett and I, which is funny, because that was my rookie team in my first-ever quiz meet, when we made it to the finals. So hopefully we can do that well again! There's a ton of review to be ton this week....ohhhh boy...anyway, I brought home a concordance, which is really helpful in making questions, and a box of pads. I don't know if I'll use them, but they're good to have.

And yesterday....*drum roll* we went swimming at West Ed!!! Dad's boss gave him the day off, and for some reason (unknown to me, though I'm sure there was one) gave him a giftcard for the Waterpark. So we spent about five hours there, and it was amazing, because hardly anyone came until about four o'clock, and there was almost no lineup for any of the slides. Very fun. And my sister went on the 'free fall' slide TWICE, which I found amazing, because I only had to go on that thing once to get completely terrified and swear to never do it again. I guess I'm not a daredevil type. I did, however, go on the blue toilet-bowl slide (it's properly called the Tropical Typhoon, but nobody knows what I'm talking about when I say that) and Dad came with me. It was fun.

So now I'm really tired, which isn't good cause I have quite a bit to get done today, including a few hours of quizzing. So I guess I should go now...

~Sil

Why can I never come up with something interesting to put here?

That's the question of the day. Right there. The other one is: Why do I always leave my piano theory until the last minute on Wednesday before my lesson? WHY? I can NOT do that this week, I have two sheets and a complete practice test to do. Not to mention I just realized my theory exam is December 2nd, which is slightly more than two weeks from now. Great. I need to work on those terms.

Yesterday was a good day...I got up early enough to get all the stuff done I needed to do, and even though I forgot my library card Mom still managed to get the book I had on hold at the library, which was a big relief. It's called The Lioness and Her Knight, by Gerald Morris, part of "The Squire's Tales" series. Very good books, written in the King-Arthur sort of era but not at ALL old or middle english - they're quite funny. Gawain and Kai are my favorites. I think they may have spoiled the old- and middle-english versions for me, however. I bet I'll find them incredibly dry now. Apparently there's a REALLY new one, too, which I must read. I think it's called The Quest for the Fair Unknown.

Band went really well, which made up for last week when it didn't go as well. We did one song that I actually have piano in and I thought it went really well, and then three or four others that I have tambourine/orchestra bells/general percussion in. For one of our Christmas medleys, I do sleigh bells, which sounds really cool, except I have to make the switch back to orchestra bells pretty fast. Anyway, I definetely think I'm improving.

Piano was good...but piano is ALWAYS good. We chose a List D song out of my repertoire, which basically meant that we flicked through all the slow waltzy/jazz-sounding songs until I found a fast one I actually liked. There was really only one - the other fast one had to be played in combination with a slow one for an exam. My teacher did say she's going to dig up another one for me to do, because she knows I like fast ones and there weren't enough of them.

~Sil

Last night was weird...

I had this really odd dream last night...actually, I had two of them. The first one was this weird dream where my mom and dad were both like ten years old and they and their parents were going on a plane somewhere, and my dad discovers this weird plan to do something or other with weird mutated animals. Very...weird. I woke up after that with a bleeding nose (SIGH) which I guess is going to be a theme this winter, again. Phooey. I got some on my pillowcase, which was annoying because it's only a year old and it's lovely and green and leafy but I think I got it in cold water soon enough to get the stain out, and at least it's my green one and not my grey one, because that would have shown up a lot more. But I really hate waking up at 6 in the morning and getting all woken up and then having to clean off the spots I got blood on before going back to bed. Ick. But I did it, and went back to sleep and had another weird dream, about how my grandparents had a summer camp at their house and I didn't know, and one of the counselours asked how old I was and I said "grade ten" and she said I looked way too old and maybe I would be able to fix it with makeup. Riiiiight then. So anyway, we had Christmas dinner at their house only they weren't there, and nobody would talk to me and I spilled gravy on this white shirt I was wearing. So, not a very fun dream. I did wake up kinda relieved that someone hadn't actually said I was 'way too old'.

We watched Corner Gas last night! It always makes Mondays better when we catch Corner Gas. This episode was about how the gas station was somehow not inside the town boundary line so Wanda goes into this whole thing about how Brent has to pay her way more, and every time he sees her she goes 'by the way...' and tell him he has to pay for new speakers in her car or something. So then this guy walks into the gas station and complains about how expensive the washer fluid is, because Brent had cheap red stuff but nobody would buy it, and they get talking, and it goes like this:

[Talking about paying people]
Brent: Well, I dunno, the gal who works for me just tells me what to pay her every now and then.
Guy: Tell me, did that last sentence sound stupid to you?
Brent: Yeah, just a little.

So that was funny. And Karin and Davis had this whole practical joke thing going that wasn't AS funny, but still funny. I always discover how the plot of that show has three or four different things going on at once, it's cool.

Uncle Darcy came to visit yesterday! (I do believe you read this, U.D...so hi) And we did stuff on the piano and talked about how some movie soundtracks don't translate well to piano, and then watched some of the old Shaggy Dog movie. The beginning was good but the end got sort of dark. By the way, to answer your question, orchestra bells look like this:



The ones I play in band are on a stand, a lot like a keyboard. You play them with mallets.

~Sil

Monday again

For lack of any other title, this post is...monday again. Mondays are always slightly depressing. I'm not really in the mood for a long post right nowm either.

Sooo....on Friday there was youth, which was "So You Want To Be On A Gameshow?" and it was quite fun - we all had alternate names (things like "Plays in Traffic" "Blonde Bob" "Shane O'Mac Daddy" "Bacon Bit" and "Pirate of the Rings" [me]) and played three rounds of game show - one was a play on "The Price is Right", the next one was a play on "Who wants to be a Millionaire" and the third one was sort of a mix of different things. We were on teams, boys against girls, and the girls won. Like they usually do. So then we had a draw at the end and I won this huge slab of Lindt chocolate, probably about a foot long. It's yummy. I think I have about half of it left.

Saturday we helped my aunt move into her apartment, which is a really nice one. I envy her, getting to arrange all her own furniture and decide how to organize her stuff. It was a bit annoying because the elevator was at one end of the building and the apartment was at the other, so there was a lot of carrying that had to happen.

And Sunday was quiz practice, which went well, particularly because I knew the chapter well this week, and we were there early and got mini pizzas. Haha! We did it! I felt very smug. At the beginning of the service there was a presentatino honoring all the Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2006. There were 42. One of them was named William Turner, which I got excited about for a minute. Lots of them were really young (well, in the grand scheme of things), which is sad.

And that brings us to today, and I hope nothing's happening of importance cause I want to stay home.

~Sil

Are we back to Thursday again?

That seemed fast. But we are, indeed, back to Thursday, and I almost think I need a day to recuperate from yesterday, when I left the house at 9:00 and didn't make it back until 6:15. So being the introvert I am that made me really tired and kinda emotional. Which might account for the fact that I don't feel that good about band practice, but I think I'll wait until my outlook is less depressing to figure out why that left me feeling so down. So moving on...

I babysat two little kids at the church for most of the morning, and got my quizzing done while one of them was down for his nap and the other one was completely absorbed in her Littlest Pets and didn't seem to need me in the least. So that was good, because I ALWAYS get behind on quizzing on Wednesdays. Then after lunch I walked over to my piano teacher's house for 1:30 and had my lesson, which went pretty well as usual, she lent me a Christmas book and bought me another one (it's called Mozart Meets Santa). I did get my theory done, which I was pretty relieved about because I was up until 11 on Tuesday night doing it. All you public school people, roll your eyes, I'm sure you stay up until 11 all the time. There you go. Got it out of your system. Anyway, I was up until 11 and I got very tired.

~Sil

Hadhod

I was just reading the Silmarillion at breakfast and I discovered the most interesting thing - anybody reading this who is totally not interested in the Third Age videogame, Elvish, or Dwarvish, bear with me. So anyway. I was on Chapter Ten (Of the Sindar) and reading about how the Dwarves came over the Blue Mountains of Ered Luin into Beleriand. So then there's a big explanation of what they called the Dwarves - they called themselves Khazad, but the Sindar called them Naugrim, 'the stunted people'; or Gonnhirrim, 'masters of stone'. So anyway, they built halls and mansions for themselves, mined them out of the rock, and there were three of them - and each of them has a different name in Dwarvish, Elvish and the Common Tongue, so get ready. First there was Gabilgathol (Dwarvish) a.k.a. Belegost (Elvish) a.k.a. Mickleburg; second there was Tumunzahar (D) a.k.a. Nogrod (E) a.k.a. Hollowbold; and third (and this is where it gets interesting) there was Khazad-Dum (D) which is Dwarrowdelf in the common tongue, and Hadhodrond in Elvish. So I was kinda interested, seeing as the dwarf in Third Age's name is Hadhod (and we never knew whether to pronounce it "Had-hod" or "Hath-od" - soft 'th' like in 'then'). I flipped to the back of the Sil, where there's a dictionary of components to Elvish names, and it says that "Hadhod" is just "Khazad" sort of altered to make it Elvish-sounding. Those Elves. Anyway, I sort of came to the conclusion that if the Dwarves called themselves "Khazad" and "Hadhod" is an Elvish rendering of "Khazad" then Hadhod must mean "Dwarf". And I am aware that this is not extremely creative, naming your dwarf "dwarf" but it was fun figuring it out.

I feel better today, which is good, because I'm actually going to be doing stuff, unlike yesterday, when I wasn't. Bible study tonight, which will be slightly less fun than usual because Bryan and Natalie (and Ellie) are out of town. I love everyone else too, of course. I had a perfect attendance until last week, because it was Hallowe'en, which kinda sucks, but I did get to stay home and watch Gilmore Girls and eat candy. So it wasn't all bad. Plus I got to use Dad's Blackberry all evening between trick-or-treaters.

Oh, and one more note about the Silmarillion - Feanor has now graduated, he's a COMPLETE idiot. Honestly. He takes this unbreakable oath (along with his seven sons) that...what was the wording...oh, "...vowing to pursue with vengeance and hatred to the ends of the world Vala, Demon, Elf or Man as yet unborn, or any creature, great or small, good or evil, whoso should hold or take or keep a Silmaril from their possession." Honestly, they're just big glowing diamonds. So they all depart Valinor along with some other Elves, where they were all living with the Valar, and end up KILLING some of the Teleri (sea-elves) because they refuse to give them ships to cross over. And even when they DO have ships, Feanor takes off with himself and his sons, and when his oldest (Maedhros) asks what ships they will send back for the others, Feanor basically goes "Oh, you thought they were coming too? [Snicker snicker] No, we're just going to abandon them over there to cross over the freezing-cold Helcaraxe and freeze their smaller appendages off and then arrive in Middle-Earth boiling mad at us." Well, he didn't really say the last part, but how thick can you get?

~Sil

Quote of the day: "Therefore Thingol took thought for arms, which before his people had not needed..."

Yup, things can be challenging when you don't have arms...

Blah

Mondays are always sort of 'blah' but today I actually feel kinda under the weather. Not anything serious, but I don't really want to do much more than lay on my bed reading or something. Which is good, because the majority of my schoolwork (minus piano) doesn't require much more than that. I don't really want to make my bed, either, but I'll end up doing that sooner or later if I want to lay on it all day.
I had the weirdest dream last night! It as about how my ring (The One Ring) came off and fell down the heat register and all the stuff it did, and when I woke up I was CONVINCED that my ring was gone forever because it wasn't on my finger. Also, for some reason, I was under the impression that there were a couple people in my room having a discussion until I looked around and there wasn't anyone. Dreams are weird. Anyway, I discovered my ring on the bathroom counter this morning. I must have taken it off last night to wash my face. Also, incidentally, I had a killer of a stomachache for about half an hour (it was 2:30 am, I know, I looked at the clock) eeeeearly in the morning, which was quite annoying, but I did eventually get back to sleep. Hence the reason I didn't get up until shortly after 9:30 this morning. Oops.

But on another note, I have discovered the many things I can do with my hair when it's straight. LIke pigtails, for example, which I can't do when it's curly because they look like little curly balls stuck to back on my head. I should really straighten it myself more often so I can do it properly, I like it so much.

Quiz practice on sunday was good, despite our head coach being out of town. She usually totally orchestrates the practice so we're a little lost when she's not here. Div A practice went quite well, I think my jumping is definetely improving. I jumped on an Interrogative question that was "It is necessary to what?" only I jumped right on "It is n -" and I still got it right, which made me pretty happy. I am really looking forward to the quiz meet...but don't I always?
After quiz practice I was helping in Soul School, which is the sunday school for kids ages kindergarten to grade two. They're always pretty funny in that class, so me and Matt (who was also helping) had a pretty good time.
And after that...I hung around talking for a leeeetle bit too long, it seems, because Dad went home in the van and Mom took the three younger kids in the car and me and my brother discovered we'd been abandoned. But it was okay, because we got a ride with my friend's mom.

And...I'm reading the Silmarillion for the first time in a while and actually understanding it. It's amazing. I just finished "Of the Silmarils" and now I'm on "The Darkening of Valinor". I've discovered that Elves are not perfect, as Lord of the Rings leads you to believe, because boy, Feanor is (to use an extremely modern term that doesn't really work for the type of medieval-mythology-style the Sil is written in - but oh well) a bit of an idiot. I'm still finding it a bit hard to understand, because there's only a map of Beleriand in the Sil and it's hard to know when they're talking about a place in Valinor and when they're talking about a place in Middle-Earth (because none of the Middle-Earth places have the same names, this is thousands of years before LOtR.)

~Sil

Sleeepy...

Youth sleepover. 'Nuff said. I got to sleep at 3:30 AM on a church pew, and woke up at 8:30. I'm too tired to do a long post, but I did do this quiz...

You Are Incredibly Logical

Move over Spock - you're the new master of logic You think rationally, clearly, and quickly. A seasoned problem solver, your mind is like a computer!

How Logical Are You?

Yay me!

~Sil

Winter

It's snowing again. Yesterday we went shopping for winter things, like hats and gloves and scarves and things, but we didn't have much luck. I did, however, get some more Winnie-the-Poohs, which was good. There's a new series that has other Pooh characters dressed up too - so now I have Eeyore in a Tigger costume, and Piglet and Tigger in Pooh costumes. I kinda rearranged them on my wallet, because I had, like, seventeen on there and they were getting to be annoying. So I took off all the ones that weren't undersea-themed or brand new (like my Pooh characters). I now have...eleven on there. My three and then the orca, starfish, jellyfish, octopus, seahorse and the three dolphins. But I'm probably boring whoever's reading this to death so I'll stop now.
Other than that, not much happened yesterday. Which was okay. Tonight is youth, it's an overnight-er. So likely, nobody will sleep, and those who do (like me) won't hit the sack until three or four in the morning. It's going to be awesome, I loved the last overnighter and this time our group is much bigger. The guys will likely spend all their time playing videogames and floor hockey (BOOOORING) so I'm not sure what the girls will be doing, but it'll be fun.

~Sil

Music-y Wednesday

Wednesday is my music day. I have piano lessons and then band practice. I had one of those piano lessons where I play a piece and I think it's kinda mediocre and then my teacher starts gushing over the dynamics and how 'controlled' it was and I'm going "ooo....kay....". Which is always nice, since my practice week last week was not the best and I always feel good when I come out of a good piano lesson.
Then, at band, I was there really early like I usually am (and I like it) so I helped the director carry stuff, because really what he's carrying is his music stand, my orchestra bells (well, they're his bells, but I use them) and my keyboard, so I feel like I should really help him out. We talked some while I was setting up chairs and he was setting up the keyboard and bells, and I got to brag about my grade seven exam (not much, just a bit), which was good. So then, as I'm almost finished setting up, one of the directors from the other bands comes in sorta half-playing his clarinet and half-singing. I think I met him once before. Anyway, he's past middle-aged, maybe in his fifties of sixties, and he's a sort of Santa-like character. So he walks in and our director (Bill) and him sort of chat, but what's funny is that when Bill says "What's new?" he totally doesn't answer the question, but goes off telling this long joke about an old lady who put a dead horse in her bathtub so she could tell her husband what was new. And the whole time he's twiddling little tunes on his clarinet between bits of the joke. I really liked him, even though he was eccentric, and when he strolled over to see if our old piano (I don't use it, because it's too heavy to move) was in tune he played this amazing jazzy-sounding bit of music. I loved it.
Anyway, moving on to band, we finished warm-up and tuning really quickly and then rehearsed the one song that actually has a proper piano part, Cold Snap, which went well - I have this back-and-forth harmony with the alto sax, which sounds cool. But I'm much better at my part than Jason is at his, if I do say so myself. Then we did the one where I really don't do much, I play the tambourine for the first twenty-five bars and then nothing. I may play the triangle and the crash cymbals later on, but we don't have either, so it's just tambourine for now. Then we did Winter Fantasy, a medley of Good King Wenceslas, O Christmas Tree and Deck the Halls, which I have bells for. I actually did pretty well. I mean, I didn't suck. So all in all it was a very good practice, maybe the best yet, and then I came home and played Rummoli until after nine o'clock. We used Rockets and Smarties for poker chips, seeing as we have so many, and then at the end you got to eat whatever you were left with. I am a little behind on quizzing, however, but I won't stress (I WILL NOT) because it's only four verses and it's not the end of the world.

~Sil

This house smells of candy.

There's always a lot, with four trick-or-treating kids, and when one of them has an exceptionally big haul (it was his last year so he went a little crazy) it's nuts. They've been tossing a very generous amount my way, so I'm not doing too badly, on the whole. Mom made her yearly Hallowe'en joke about sand-blasting our teeth, and we watched Jeopardy and Gilmore Girls, both of which we don't usually, while we ate candy. Oh, and Luke and Lorelai (and Rory, for that matter, though not as much) are idiots. They're idiots. Luke and Lorelai are PERFECT for each other, but they don't seem to realize it, and it's maddening! I mean, real-life people would NEVER be so stupid! I guess it does make for interesting TV, though.
I saw some hilarious costumes - one kid was a kissing booth (I kid you not) and one was a whoopie cushion; and this duo came to the door, and one of them was Spongebob. So I said "Hi, Spongebob" and the other kid says, "I'm Death!" So they get their candy and off they go, while I start giggling maniacally at the thought of "Spongebob and Death" trundling along with their pillowcases in search of sugar. He actually looked very like a Nazgul (Ringwraith, Black Rider for the uninitiated. Er, Death, that is, not Spongebob). I should have suggested he start speaking in a screechy, hoarse voice and then he could have said he was one. There were a couple Darth Vaders (one kid explained very earnestly that he was Anakin in a sort of semi-Darth-Vader state; at least that's what I got out of it) and the usual Canadian Halloween costumes which are mostly torso-centered, so you see a pair of ogre ears or a pirate hat and you just have to assume that the rest of it is there somewhere under the winter coat. Sadly, no hobbits or elves or orcs (or humans, for that matter) were readily apparent. I need to be a hobbit next Halloween, so people know all the LotR fans haven't melted off the face of the earth. One pirate came to the door and asked if he could come in and join the party, after seeing my "Pirates! Ye be warned" sign. I have to say though, my costume was better than his and I wasn't even trick-or-treating.
Oh, so as is probably apparent, I stayed home from Bible study. My pumpkin was nothing special, because I couldn't find a simple enough pirate design so I did a sort of generic pumpkin-y kind of thing. We got pictures, but no digital ones, so as soon as we get them developed I'll scan them on Mom's computer and people who wanted them can see.

~Sil