Not Really The Louis We Were Looking For

My class just finished reading A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, by E.L. Konisburg. It's about Eleanor of Aquitaine and her two husbands.  If you don't know anything about her, she

• married King Louis VII of France, and had 2 kids.  When they got divorced, she
• married King Henry II of England, and had 8 kids.  He put her in prison.
• her great-grandson was Louis IX, Saint Louis.  

Today we were on Google in class, searching the Internet for pictures of her and other people and things mentioned in the book.  The boy next to me searched "Louis VII" into Google images.  He found portraits of the king, as well as a picture of a purse.  He looked at the purse, and exclaimed, "Cool! Someone named a purse after him!"

When the girl on his other side and I looked at his screen, this is the 

picture he was pointing at:

We laughingly explained to him that the purse was Louis Vuitton, and that Louis Vuitton is a designer.

I'm still laughing.

Penny For My Thoughts

It's this new concept I've thought of.  When people say, "A penny for your thoughts?" apparently it means "I'll give you a penny if you tell me what's on your mind."

So I figured something out: You can eliminate the asking part, and just tell someone, "Penny for my thoughts."

I've even worked out a scene that uses it, to show you how it goes.

Person A: Penny for my thoughts.
Person B: Okay.
Person A: I really hate Justin Bieber. There's nothing to eat at home, and I haven't been bowling in eight years.  I need new shoes, and my toenails are too short. I have an essay on Mark Twain due yesterday. Who's Mark Twain? I threw up on a roller coaster when I was five.  I'm a faster typist than you. My TV is broken, and my socks are hurting my phalanges.  And yesterday I lost my voice. But I got it back.  I met a fairy yesterday.
Person B: ...
Person A: You owe me a penny.

Great, isn't it?

Let me tell you about my Thursday.

My class went on a field trip... skiing.  Super cool.

We don't live in a great area for skiing, but there's a place that makes their snow and has skiing about 45 minutes away from our school.  So we brought gear to school, and we went on a bus ride to the place.

Skiing is awesome. It was a real workout, which is something I didn't know.  I'd never been skiing before, so it was all really new to me.  But it was the FUNNEST THING EVER.

We did ski school in the morning, even the people who had been skiing a ton.  It took me a while to get everything down, but I finally got it and made my way over to where everyone else was skiing.

So much fun.

And now, you owe me a penny.

It's brilliant, isn't it?

Very American Stir Fry

My family likes barbecuing. What family doesn't? We also like making stir fry. Who doesn't?

Have you ever tried combining them?

It's really fun. First we barbecue the meat, chicken, on the grill.  When that's done we put it in a big pot and put vegetables on the grill.  Today my brother chose to caramelize them, and it was good, but just a little too sweet. You don't want to use too much sugar, I learned.  We used broccoli, carrots, celery, pineapple, peapods, and onions for the vegetables.  When we were done, we put it in the pot too and put the pot in the oven.  It baked a bit more and stayed warm until we were ready for dinner.  Then we ate it with rice.

It's fun because I like barbecuing, and it's a teamwork thing.  My mom prepares the food and sauces, and I helped her with that. Then Big Pain and I grilled it together, and it was a lot of teamwork.

Plus, it tastes great.

I'm A Klutz

You've met my mother, the chief klutz at her blog, http://klutzcapacitor.com/.

People tell me I'm like her. She tells me I'm like her.

I am definitely as klutzy as her. I fell down three, count 'em, THREE times Friday.

Fall number 1:  I was leaning against a pole. My feet slid a bit in the snow, but i kept my balance. Until I didn't. And then my feet slid straight forward, and I plummeted straight down. I admit, it probably looked really funny.

Fall number 2:  (Only about 15 minutes later.) We were walking back to class, and I stepped up onto a rock, and I slid straight off.  It really hurt, but two girls in my class helped me walk injured-football-player style to the nurse.  There was a rip in the side of my pants.My leg really hurt and I had some really bad scratches.

My friends were REALLY nice, and they even helped me fix up my pants.  We didn't sew it, but we took a few safety pins and used them to help pin together the hole.  It looked really cool, especially because my pants were black jeans.

The third fall was really minor, just me slipping down a stair.  No big deal.

I'm totally milking this "I INJURED MY LEG" thing.

Bet you're proud of me, huh mom?

All Bee'd Out

The spelling bee was yesterday. I did okay, but I didn't do as well as I had hoped to.  I got out in the ninth round, misspelling miscible.  But seriously, what kind of a word is that? I think that they made up words in that round to get us all out.

A boy in the fourth grade won, and the runner up was the same fifth grader that got second place in the Geo Bee. I hope that this boy can win first place in a bee next year; I think he deserves it.

I'm sad that I didn't do as well as I wanted to in my last spelling bee, but I think it's really cool that fourth graders won both of the bees this year. It's really an amazing accomplishment.

At least I'll never misspell miscible again.

Spellin' Stuff

The spelling bee is tomorrow and I'm not as nervous as I usually am.  I haven't studied like crazy like I have in the past, and so I'm last-minute cramming words. I'm going to study on the way to school, too.  Actually, we're studying right now at this very moment.  I just spelled convalescence right. And harebrained, and guillotine. Potpourri, too. And now facsimile. Go me!

My mom got an email from my former teacher, who was assigning the order in which we would receive our words.

I'm going first. Three years IN A ROW.

Booyah.