The Band

I'm currently writing this blog post in the car on the drive back to my family's house, suckling off of my sister's wifi connection like a day-old pig, praying tat it doesn't give out in the time it takes to write this post. 

The other night my sister and I were out late milking goats (I know, not the bad-girl stuff you expected me to be doing late at night. I'm lame like that), joking about this one time we wanted to perform in a band. 

It would be great, the best sister duo there ever was. I think I was about eight or so, and she was nine, so it wasn't as though we were all that musically talented. I had this little kid guitar that I was too busy to learn how to play, but thought I was pretty good at, and Hope had her voice. We wrote our first song on Christmas Eve, and practiced it in the living room most of the afternoon. 

The song was called Milk & Cookies for Santa, and though the sheet of paper that the original lyrics is on is long gone (who knows, maybe I'll find it some day), it went something like this:

Milk and Cookies for Santa

Oh, we're layin' out milk and cookies for Santaaaaa

You should too,

We're gonna get presennntttsss in the morrrninnnngggg

MILK AND COOKIES FOR SANTA, YEAH!

We were lyrical geniuses. 

Last year I read the blog that my mom used to keep and I discovered, among other things, that she had heard us performing our timeless song and deemed it important enough to blog about. To this day, it is one of my most embarrassing memories, aside from the time I climbed into another person' excursion at the post office while they were in the car.

... Anyway.

Hope and I sat around for forever one afternoon in the summertime trying to come up with a good band name. Sweat poured off of our foreheads as we tanned in the grass, giggling like maniacs as we tried to come up with a name to title ourselves. 

I asked Hope about it, and she said we never settled on anything, but that one of our top choices was The Purple Dolphins.

There's probably a reason why our band didn't kickstart, but I'm just not sure where we went wrong.

 

 I read this book a while ago called The Disenchantments, which is about the world's worst girl band going on a road trip. These girls suck--but what got me was that no one cares after a while, because they're hot and are really into the music they make. 

What got me the most about the book was that it brought up memories of being a brief member of The Purple Dolphins. It reminded me so much of how much fun I had strumming an out-of-tune guitar and singing a few songs which lyrics needed working on. 

The book also made me want to start a band. Not to get famous or anything--I know just how impossible that is. Just to have a good time. Though I know I probably never will start another, band, perhaps I'll look more fondly at the days I was a musician.

Easter at my Grandparent's

This is the first time I have ever blogged away from home. Usually, when there's something interesting going on worth blogging about and I'm away, there almost always isn't any wifi. I'm at my grandparent's house, tucked under the layers and layers of sheets that my Grandma insists there be on every single bed, and now that I'm winding down I figured now is a perfect time to post what I've been up to.

Today I woke up very early for a Saturday, went and milked the goats, and when I came back I lazed around and read some of The Host again (Hope and I went and saw the movie last night). At around two I finally started packing, and then after I stalled them for a bit over whether or not we should take the dogs with us, we were off on the road.

While driving the two-and-a-half hours to get to my grandparent's house, I got on my laptop and made my little sisters outline a story with me. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Ainsley, what should my girl main character's name be?

Ainsley: Um... [pause] Janet.

Me: I'm not naming my main character Janet.

Ainsley: Okay, um... Margaret?

Me: [types it into the outline] Good! Where does she live?

Elizabeth [joining in]: She should live in a shoe.

Ainsley: Yeah, a shoe! [giggles profusely]

Me: She's not living in a shoe. Do you know how predictable that is?

Elizabeth: Fine. A Victorian. But it has to be green.

Me: [types in information] That's gold. 

 Eventually we came up with this story about a girl who works at a fruit stand, with eyes that can stare into your soul, who falls in love with this boy whose father was killed in a freak tiger accident at the zoo, and who is ultimately afraid of animals because he believes they're going to change into bloodthirsty killers and eat hit also.

I started speaking like Lumpy Space Princess off of Adventure Time after a while while outlining, which was hugely successful and got my sisters and giggly and full of energy. Then I got bored with outlining and decided to take a nap. 

When I woke up we were at our grandparent's house. It's a quaint house, with white siding and more irises than you can count growing in various spots around the yard. My grandparents are getting frail in their old age, and so they have this wheelchair ramp-thing that takes up half the sidewalk, but is fun to walk up. 

My parents decided to take us to a movie at the local theater; the movie was The Croods. So we ate some sandwiches and went to the theater, which was packed with little kids all chattering about this cartoon show that I love called Gravity Falls. I wanted to join in so badly, but I refrained and talked to my sisters about other things while Hope and my brother Noah got popcorn. 

The movie was really good, and if you have the chance to see it you definitely should.

 I helped Grandma make up beds when we got back, and then I changed into my pajamas and brought out my computer to write this blog post. Tomorrow is Easter Sunday, so I will be at church in the morning in a brand new dress with a color scheme that matches the rest of my family's--this year the color scheme is purple and green. It's good to be spending Easter here with my family, and I'm sure tomorrow will be fun. 

Happy Easter!

My Day in Adventure Time Gifs

How I feel looking in the mirror every morning:

When I get to breakfast at the public school:

When I get out of band class:

While I'm milking the goats:

When I go on my computer/read:

LUNCH TIME!

While I do my homework:

When I complete it:

While doing my horse chores:

When I get home:

SUPPER?

How I feel at the end of the day:

The Warehouse of Broken Things

My sister, Hope, has a boyfriend. His family helped start the town we live in: his great-grandfather farmed and I think bought most of the land around the town, and his grandfather used to work in Hollywood (he collected a bunch of neat stuff, like an outfit worn by Harrison Ford, and the gorilla hand of King Kong. This garners its own post, though, so I won't get into it). After he came back he donated money and made a name for himself. Many of the streets in town are named after them. 

Anyway, Hope's boyfriend is this goofy, nice guy who today showed us inside a few of his family's decrepit buildings and shared with us some ancient knowledge about the history of his family and their relics. 

Sitting in the back of one of their shops, three in all, is a row of antique cars. They are very, very cool. One is a '67 Chevy Impala, the other one is a banana-yellow VW bug convertible, and the last is an old beach cruiser jeep, like the ones you see in the movies where buff, well-oiled gentlemen are leaning against them with surfboards in their hands. 

The Christmas star makes its appearance.

While the cars sit in an old, padlocked garage, the roof of said garage is in disrepair and so birds and dust got to the cars before we did. The air smelled heavily of dust, and it sat in my nostrils, but Hope and I were as excited as little kids on Christmas. Make no mistake, we are not automobile experts. I barely just starting driving a month ago, and before that I knew next to nothing about them. 

I do know that my dream car is a dark silver VW Bug, and Hope's is a jet-black '67 Chevy Impala, which--hey looky there--both suitable counterparts happened to be sitting side-by-side under the same roof. It was insane, the amount of excitement we felt looking at these cars. 

The boyfriend had explained that his dad used to drive the Impala, but had dented it, left it sitting for years on end, and had let his eldest son work on it--a dire mistake to any car.

The Bug was rolled while under the ownership of another person, and they towed it in next to the Jeep, where it has sat for thirty years. I was sad to hear the news; it was a beautiful car, but now it's nearly ruined, the seats cracking, the exterior dented and broken.

After we finished ogling at the cars, we went and looked at his mother's surplus collection of ceramic creations. His mother is very into pottery. She owns two kilns that I have seen so far, and has a whole building stacked with shelves of ceramic molds. Their entire house is filled with these figurines, which range from basic bowls and miniature pots, to inappropriate, anatomically correct frog figurines. One room has these huge painted butterflies and Dumbo molds stuck in it. 

His mother keeps boxes of her surplus stuff out in the garage with the cars. It was so cool. There were a few Kansas ashtrays, a statue of Jiminy Cricket, some little cowboys boots, about twenty gravy bats/flower vases, all seven dwarves, a few unpainted nativity sets, and this huge pig-thing which I was informed took four gallons of clay to produce. 

I ended up taking home a few of her gravy boats/flower vases, with the firm intention to keep spare jewelry and other stuff in them. They don't actually look much like gravy boats, just really low vases, which is good.

There was a lot of other stuff in that shed, nearly everything broken, and I titled it 'The Warehouse of Broken Things'; my sister agreed. Today was a good experience, one that I hopefully will relive. The warehouse was like a gateway to the past, showing me fleeting images of happy people doing what they love and traveling places, of keeping their dreams locked up inside a building so that hopefully they can return to them later on in their lives.

Bits and Pieces: March

Picture/Photo Find:

Something I Did:

My dog got ran over by a car the other night. After searching for him for a half hour, he came running up to me from the end of the block acting like he hadn't just encountered death. Luckily for him, he got hit by a little white car; if it had been much bigger he would have been a goner. 

This made me wonder how many times by dog has been hit by a car before. He gets out of the house more than I'd like to admit, slipping between people's legs as they traverse in and out through the front door. 

I really don't know what he does when he's out. I assume he just runs around and does his business until he gets bored/cold and then returns home, but what if he darts in front of cars?

I've been more careful not to try to let him out, and to take him on more walks so that he doesn't *hopefully* get hit again.

A Writer Thing:

I wish I could say that I have been writing a lot recently, but the truth is that I'm as lackadaisical as ever. Usually I don't mind that on off-months (or, to say, when I'm not pressured by a contest to write 50,000 words) I write considerably less, choosing instead to relax, enjoy my free time, and mess around on the computer... or sleep, which I've become quite good at over my lifetime.

I'm a little worried, though, that I might be getting into the habit of only writing when NaNo comes around, and being lazy any other time. My past history with word count, if put on a month-to-month chart, would certainly tell me that my assumption is correct. In November and August, say, it would plummet into the sky, but in May/June, you'd find miniscule numbers.

I don't know what to do, except hopefully write more and finish projects; one of my main problems could be that I haven't finished a full-length novel since December of 2011. That means that in 2012 I barely accomplished anything. I'm always starting new projects because I get these new ideas in my head and I can't say no to them, or I get bored with old ideas, put them on the full-to-bursting back burner to simmer, and feverishly work on something new--then repeat.

Hopefully I can correct this; I plan to be writing a bit more, and cover some ground this time on Mermaidens, or another book that's been sitting unfinished in my hard-drive for a while.

A Song:

'Avalanches' by A Fine Frenzy

With winter on the brink of being over with, I have several other songs lined up right now that I'd like to post, but sadly won't until later blog posts. A few other writer friends got me into this specific genre of music, particularly A Fine Frenzy. Her music sounds ethereal and folksy at the same time, which is something I like about her. It's very inspiring to listen to while writing.

Perhaps I'll make a post soon detailing a few of the bands I listen to (of course, these are the sort of posts that no one--even your mom--reads, so I don't know if I should bother trying. It's like writing a book review when your blog isn't specifically for books reviews. When these types of things pop up on my dashboard I always try to read them and give the author a little bit of viewership, but my point is that no one reads them usually, and I've already got a problem with viewership right now because my blog sucks).

Horsely Horse:

Nothing. Has. Happened.

Every winter I always tell myself that I'm going to ride a lot more than I did in the previous year, and every year I always blow that goal big time. I haven't ridden my horses in a month, something I'm very guilty about. I promise that as the weather gets nicer I *will* ride more, as warmer seasons tend to make me do. Anybody want to go trail riding with me?