I really need some prayer for me and my school work, right now. I have a deadline of November 2nd to get done every overdue lesson I have. Before that day, have 4 papers to write. Getting them done is one thing, but doing them well --which I'm a stickler about, I hate not doing something to the best of my abilities-- is quite another.

Besides the never ending amount of school, life is good. Dance and Swimming keep me active and busy, and nice days keep me driving in the drivers seat into town. I'm still waiting for the day when God's gonna be like, "Okay, Ellie, I'm going to drop a load of snow, so get off the road."

I hope all is well with everyone, and may your Halloween be bright and cheery. ;) What's everybody doing for Halloween?

Yours until the snow drops,

Ellie May

Eye games

I've always thought Eye Games were quite fun, so I found a few for you.

Try to count the number of black dots on the image below...





Look at the image below for a while. Look's like it's moving, doesn't it?

You are likely to see that the top row of circles appear as "bumps" followed by "holes" and so on in an alternating pattern.

Can you try and see the opposite? Have a good hard look and try to see the first row as holes and the second as bumps. Difficult?

Try to read the color of the word, NOT the word, as fast as you can.

Look at this for a while, and then glance at the wall or your hand. Trippy, eh?

What do you see, an old women, or a young women?

My Weekend

Stress: the physical pressure, pull, or other force exerted on one thing by another; strain.

Stress literally controls my life at times. I do things that I normally wouldn't if I wasn't under an amount of stress. It's not that I'm blaming my bad choices, moods, or problems on stress, but I'm certain it adds a bit of it's own tasteless opinions to my life a little to often. I find that most often school work brings on the best (or the worst) of stress. It's like you can't get your mind off it. Even the weekends don't prove to be very enjoyable, because if you're behind constantly, (like me) then you're always telling yourself to "go finish this", or "oh wait, I forgot about that". It's an ongoing struggle. Thankfully, this weekend proved that statement wrong.

Earlier in the week, Tyler had asked me to come sing at his church with him and his selected worship team on Sunday. I've never sang with so many people on stage before. There was Me, Ty, Andy, Jake and his wife Wendy, Jonathan, Jared,a mom of one of the girls who I danced with one year and a girl who played Bass, named Jamie. So overall there were 8 people up there. Wendy, Andy, Tyler and I sang, and everybody including Ty and Andy played an instrument. So anyways, we practiced on Friday, smoothed out the few glitches in the sound system and our voices, and around 8:15 PM we started packing up and heading for home. I ended up spending the night in Tyler and Kelsey's living room.

On Saturday, Ty and Kelse and I headed out for Grandma and Grandpas house (although Grandpa wasn't there, unfortunately, because he was at a show) to do yet another annual labeling. Mom, Papa, Audrey, Will, Carrie, Jeremy and Andy (Carrie, Jeremy and Andy had come from Portland the night before) all arrived a bit after us, and while Jeremy and I kept a heated "who's gone through the most brochure boxes" race, Ty and Andy dinked around on their instruments and recording equipment in the bedroom. I won by the way. Ha Jeremy, take that! :D Our evening was spent between watching the Colorado Rockie's lose a World Series game, nursing our raw label-dried fingers, and eating the fabulous snacks Grandma so generously provided. Good food always makes life easier. :)

Sunday dawned bright and early. A little to early, actually. Andy and I headed into town around 8:45 AM (or around there) from the house and reached our destination (the church) in time for another run through of the songs. The real thing went much better then our initial practices and we were pretty happy about the finishing product. After sitting down, Steve, gave a mediocre sermon while Ty and I played an exciting game of hangman which led to a man with a top-hat and the finishing word, "hello". I stumped 'em. ;) We wandered around the lobby, visiting with random people and enjoying the content buzzing of people's conversations. Soon we found our appetites were becoming overpowering and we must give into them. Unfortunately, as Ty, Andy, Kelse and I lay sprawled across their (Ty and Kelsey's) living room, we found we couldn't decide on which restaurant to go to. We ambled, actually no, Andy's driving would not be called ambling; we shuddered and jolted our way across town and ended up a the "Lucky Panda". It's a modernized version of a Chinese restaurant with an almost full-to-the-bursting-point atmosphere. Every ones, but Kelsey's, lunch was practically dripping with MSG. Full, "in a weird kind of way" Kelse and I agreed, we headed to the Brain's (my) house. Evening dawned an orange and purple sky and brought a foot ball game and a one-card away-from-winning Speed card game. Ty and Kelsey soon left for Kelsey's parents anniversary, and that left us "little" brain kids, Mom and Papa and Andy to enjoy the evening.

Sometimes you have to make yourself forget about things and make yourself have fun, but it's sure nice when you don't have to and it just comes naturally. For instance, like this weekend.

With highest regards, and frustratingly good Speed skills,
Your,
Ellie May

P.S. For any who don't know, "Speed" is a card game.

Choke Cherries: Looks Can Be Decieveing

I wrote a poem for my school today. The object, or lesson the poem was trying to portray was that, looks can be decieveing.

Chokecherry

Glossy and blushing,
Alluring and delectable at sight,
Frothed in bottle green foliage,
Sighs of seductive resonance entice a passerby,

Beneath the placid scarlet,
Lay embedded in a bitter sap,
Hard as a rock,
A heart of stilted stone,

Betrayed and swindled,
Appearance the attention focused,
Tricked by beauty,
Looks can be deceiving.

Rain, rain go away...

I suppose you'll be hearing quite a bit about my new driving "skills", since I just got my permit so... please, just bare with me. :)

I went to town today (I drove, of course). Mom was leery about letting me drive since it was raining and this is my... third day to drive, but I did rather well, if I may say so. I drove a little slowly. Alright REALLY slowly, 50-55, but I didn't feel confidant driving 60 on a rainy highway. Yeah, I had some major car build-ups. :) Hee hee!

I love rain. I love it when the clouds form brows of grey, that parted only for periwinkle strips of sky.

Sorry, I'm rather tired and I need to get some sleep.

Regards,
Ellie May

I got...

...My PERMIT! I'm so excited about it! Mom and I went in on Friday, after I jam packed the last half of the manual into my head, (I also took TONs of practice tests) and we settled our selves down into the carpeted DMV seats, and people watched until #84 was called. After filling in a sheet of information for them, a lady sat me down at computer 2, and I started the test. Thankfully, all those practice tests were very helpful, so it made the test fairly easy. I went in while a girl was still doing her test, finished all the questions, (I only missed 2 which made for a 93% score (you had to have at least 80%) and came out before she did. I was impressed with myself (if I may say so). Again, I'm so impeccably modest.:) Heh heh. Anyway, I’ve been pushing my driving privileges to the limit, with Mom. Heh, and if you know Mom (she FREAKS out about people driving), you know exactly how much she wants you to drive (which would be nothing if she had the choice) and how badly she scares you when she freaks out. :)

MISC NOTE:
It's interesting; a writer said if you make yourself write everyday, soon the good days writing will be just as good as the bad. I sure hope that's true. :)

Hunting for "the" Deer

The other week, Tyler and Papa, went out hunting, to shoot a deer. (No?! Ya don't say?!) They started off early in the morning around four. Taking a long drive up in the Cascades, around Dead Indian road, they stopped and hiked into the woods, only to come out with two deer strewn between them, on a wheelbarrow/cot. (I actually don't know what it looked like, they just described it to me. Heh.) We went through the process of skinning, salvaging the meat, cutting off the heads and all the necessary miscellanious operations. It was, as some of you might take note of, a very messy operation, NOT for the light-hearted. :) Although, if I may say so, I proudly skinned half of Tyler's deer (which papa actually shot, not Ty's fault) and papa approved that it was "nicely done" after I proudly announced that it was "beautifully and artfully" skinned. (I know, I'm impeccably modest.)

Here, are some amusing, gross, and well... (you'll see. :)) pictures.

Capture the Flag

Future tales of a vigorous Capture the Flag game await you. :)

A Question

Tyler and Audrey and I were in Goodwill today browsing for nothing, but enjoying it. Ty came across a Robert Frost book filled with his various poems. While we were waiting in the car for Kelsey, (who had been watching kids for 6 hours, while their (the kids') parents attended the Parenting Seminar, Current Life hosted) I flipped through the book, and mused at his various works. I really like his work. It's thought provoking, comes easy off the tongue, and leaves a good lasting impression. I was flipping through the book when I came to a page with about 5 short poems scattered on it. One of them, was the poem, "A Question ". This is how it read:

A voice said, Look me in the stars
And tell me truly, men of earth,
If all the soul-and-body scars
Were not too much to pay for birth.

I thought about it for a while. First musing over the choice of words, then over the meaning. I won't try to explain how I heard the poem, because it does that itself quite well. It amazed me though, how thought provoking and profound even a small four stanza poem as this could be. I've questioned what a real writer is. What makes a writer a classic? How come Shakespeare is such a legendary play write? Somehow, I got my answer within A Question.