blogging runs in the family

all things swell
as some of you may know, i have a 9 year old sister named ella. i've even blogged about her a few times, which she loves. anyway, she just recently started her own blog called all things swell! she was really excited about the idea of her own blog, and wanted me to help her with the design right away. as ella puts it, her blog is all about "ella's thoughts on the world." ella is completely hilarious and equally clever, so make sure to check it out!

click the link below
all things swell
click the link above

second winter break!
2009-2010 school year: the year we got two winter breaks! the 55.6 inches of snow got us to miss school from the middle of friday, february 5 to the late morning of tuesday, february 16! i guess this makes up for the horrid power loss.

you know, without school, it is really hard to know what day it is. monday? thursday? who knows. honestly, it was getting quite boring at home. and, from the looks of facebook updates, my friends agreed. but, now that i'm back at school, i wish school was still canceled. why must my mind work like this?

surviving the snowpocalypse

February 6, 2010

2:36 pm

imagine being trapped in the house with 2 feet of snow outside. not too bad: got the food in the fridge, got the heater, got the internet and got the time-consuming mario kart wii. but, imagine being trapped in the house with 2 feet of snow outside... with no electricity or heat. really bad. i am currently writing this in my journal, but when i actually post this on my blog, the electricity would have finally taken mercy on us. i might freeze to death, making this my last blog, ever. in our own house i am wrapped in 2 jackets, a blanket, my xmas booties, and my oh-so warm PJs, and still suffering majorly (overwhelming boredom also contributes to this). my mom says it's like the refrigerated section of the grocery store. i dread the refrigerated section of the grocery store.


what's even worse is the fact that my dad is currently basking in the hot thai sun as we huddle together like eskimos in alaska. i envy him. mom says she envies anyone with electricity. why go to thailand now, dad?? leaving mom to dig us out of one of the top 5 snowstorms in D.C. (ever).

my mom suggested that i write this contest essay now, with the topic: my special day. i would think that impossible right now. my imagination is not that good.

on the bright side, this is the best part of the day (and that's saying a lot because this is a pretty bad part of the day). why? because in 2 hours, the sun is going to set, leaving us in, not just a hiemal igloo, but a dark hiemal igloo. off to put on a scarf, a hat, and gloves and huddle in my bed under an extensive number of blankets. feel fortuitous that you aren't us.

from the eskimos of cabin john, md

ps. you can thank flocabulary for my newfound interest in big words.

15 or so minutes later

mom just called baltimore gas and electric (which ended up to not be our company). the automatic message that came up said it could be like this for several days. yes, you heard right: several days. they said 80,000 people are having "problems" and 47,000 people have been helped. oh joy! way to bring our hopes down into the gutters, baltimore gas and electric

3 or so hours later

while outside shoveling snow with mom (hoping desperately to distract myself), ella knocked on the window with an urgent expression. she came to the door and told us the power came on! yippee! a swell of joy and relief overcame us. i couldn't wait to crank up the thermostat, eat something warm, and play some mario kart! but that small flicker of hope quickly vanished one minute later when our home was once again a deep hole of darkness and sadness (and to remain so for who knows how long). mom said that they probably fixed the electricity in some places (including ours) but can't turn it on until is completely fixed. *frowns* my mom then proceeded to raise my hopes even more by telling us the horrors of post-hurricane isabel where they lost power for a week. me and ella were lucky though, and got to stay with our babysitter in chevy chase where there was power. not the case here. *sighs heavily*

1 or so hours later

so here i am, sitting at the dining room table, holding a flashlight overhead. mom is down in the basement getting more batteries for the flashlights. i feel like we are back in the dark ages, living in a hut in the woods with only candles for light and books for entertainment. that is not a good image. luckily we have a stove fireplace!! but mom's too afraid of fire to make one with dad away. a sad tale. a very sad tale. now with nothing to do... off to dinner and then then the crazily cold bed.

from an eskimo, depressed in the dark.

February 7, 2010

7:00 am

morning: reporting from the igloo formally known as our house. i was so depressed last night that i was asleep by 7:30 pm. to say i slept badly last night would be a major understatement. ella compared last night to camping. under a sheet, 2 down comforters, and 4 blankets, the bed was still ice cold.

i think that our house is now literally like fridge. if you move your head on the pillow, you will most positively wake up from the chilly shock of the ice cold pillow. if you leave a glass of water on the bedside table, in the morning, it is ice water. yesterday when shoveling, a bunch of snow got into my jacket pockets. this morning, when i put my jacket on, the snow was still fully intact in the pockets. on the bright side (note that it is very hard to be positive right now) our vast storage of refrigerated food will be okay in our refrigerator-like house.

now, we are contemplating whether or not we should get a nearby hotel room. our grandparents are coming tonight and staying for more than a week, and we would never wish this pain and suffering on anyone. i must now sit on my almost immobile hand to avoid frostbite.

we, who are on the verge of death, barely holding on, salute you.

4 or so hours later

within the last 4 or so hours i have found out many things. 1. my dad booked us a hotel that's right in rockville (with free wi-fi, i'm hoping) even though he's in thailand. 2. our grandparents' flight is delayed for the 2nd time, until tuesday. all is good. i spent the last hour outside sitting on the front of the car diligently scraping the tiny pieces of ice off the windshield as i talked to my mom who was working hard shoveling. now, i'm sitting in bed, with ella leeched to my side like she usually is, waiting for my toes to defrost. the suitcase is open, on the floor, calling to me. i'm off to pack for our "trip" to rockville.

from a somewhat satisfied eskimo.

5:09 pm

why is there now a specific time, you ask? WE ARE IN PANERA! not only is it light and warm, there is also wi-fi! after 2 days stuck in a cold and dark house, it's amazingly comforting to be here. it's really warm; strangely warm actually. is it that we are used to the cold or that it is overly heated? who knows. all i know is that i feel warm-hearted and smiley.

from a completely satisfied eskimo.

7:47 pm

the hotel room is awesome! being here is a trillion times better than being at home. it is warm inside while it is cold outside, it is light inside while it is dark outside. i don't know what i would do without my good ol' pal, electricity. at the moment, ella is calling me to watch a movie, so bye for now! :)

February 8, 2010

10:27 am

ahh... warm bed, warm clothes, warm water... life is good. mom just went out and got us deliciously warm doughnuts (i love mom). now we are comfortably eating doughnuts on the bed while watching cash cab on the discovery channel. we have called the house 3 times, and every single time, it rang more than once!! could we possibly have power after 4 days? i hope so! we are going to check out soon.

from an overly happy girl (not eskimo)

1:00 pm

we checked out of the hotel this morning, and now we are at home! the home temperature was only 51 degrees (even after being warmed up for a few hours). right away, i turned on all of the space heaters. then, with one of the space heaters on high next to us, we played mario kart wii! happy, happy, happy! off to the mall for some shopping, and then to dinner!

from people with power!

8:33 pm

both you and i thought that this long journey was finally over. sadly, we were wrong. as driving home from our night out, we were slightly suspicious... some houses were pitch dark and the street lights were out. we thought, "arg! our power can't be out." but, after the long and dark trek down our icy driveway, we found that it was, indeed, out (again). we were all in tears, packing our things, thinking about how we thought it was all over and solved. back to the hotel we went. i suppose it's better than freezing to death at home.

from the very disappointed family

9:39 pm

this really is a series of unfortunate events. you will not believe me when i tell you this: mom just called home, and supposedly, the phone rang more than once. i guess the power is on, once again *clenches teeth and pulls out hair.* wonderful timing, mr. electricity. mom thinks that we should just stay put, though. we probably won't get our $205 back for the night at the hotel, and going back and forth is making us completely lethargic.

i would say i'm a generally positive person, but it is impossible to be positive right now. this has to be one of the worst times of my life, and i'm not being overly dramatic. within the last four days, i have cried 5 times more than i have smiled. every time i think something has gone right, it goes wrong again. i can't feel motivated to do, no matter how hard i try. i must say, i'm proud of myself for having the dedication to blog in this time of horror and depression. really.

from a depressed blogger on the verge of another breakdown

February 9, 2010

3:14 am

hopefully what happened yesterday does not repeat itself today. the power should be on for good. not is. should. they really should stop turning it on and off. mom, me and ella all feel depressed and we all have some sort of headache or migraine. mom is outside trying to shovel out the 2/3 of the driveway still left to shovel. ella is playing time trials on mario kart wii. i am blogging. it seems that we are all relatively satisfied. i ask the dumb people at pepco to leave the power on! thank you.

from a blogger feeling cynical

4:51 pm

ok. i'm convinced that the power is on for good! now we are off to go shopping (again). by now, i'm sure you have caught onto our theory about depression. when depressed, shop. it's a true and tested fact. ella wants new shoes.

from a proud survivor of the snowpocalypse

go with the snow

i just got back from our skiing/tubing day trip (our 2nd time ever!), and went straight to my laptop to start blogging. we started our drive to whitetail, only 1 and 1/2 hours away, at 9:00 am. as always for road trips, me and ella were nice and comfy in the back seat with our pillows, blankets, and food.

totally tubular you won't believe me when i tell you that tubing is pretty terrifying, probably more than skiing. imagine this: you are sliding down a super big hill at full speed with snow crystals flailing in your face, spinning around -->randomly, an inch away from banging into a ginormous ice wall. yup, it's that freaky... or maybe i'm just a wuss.

last time, ella and mom went tubing while dad and i went skiing. this time, we all went tubing together and i got some tips from the expert tubers in the family. we went tubing for 2 hours in the morning from 11 am to 1 pm. we went down the hill 8 times.

the snow was really lumpy, probably since it was artificial snow, and the bottom of the tube was really thin. so, the first time i went down the hill, my butt was completely hurting from the rock hard snow bumps. i taught myself to lift my butt up while sliding down the hill. it helped.

we had fun playing around with different combinations going down the hill. first, we all went down solo. then ella and i tied our tubes together. we then decided that we would rather get a double tube. for the grand finale, mom and dad tied their tubes to our double tube and... voila! our foursome was sliding down the hill in no time.

with more people, it went a lot faster (because of the momentum). that basically means: four people is four times more terrifying than usual. mom, being a scientist, went down the hill to experiment different positions with speed. sit up, and you go slower; lie flat, and you go faster. makes sense. :)

most people sit in the tube, right? but some people lie belly-down on the tube. to me, that's like asking to have your head slammed into the wall of ice! dad was the first of the family to try it out. i was begging him not to kill himself, but, of course, he didn't listen and went right ahead. he held the tube by the handles, took a running start toward the hill, and just flopped himself onto it! i was watching him with wide eyes the whole way down to make sure nothing bad happened or anything... later, while i was skiing, mom and ella even tried it! but don't think that i tried it or anything; i'm not the daring type.

see bee ski this is only my second time skiing, but i really love it. i love it so much that after my first time skiing, when i was creating a new email account, i made my username "beatriz.skiing." everyone always asks me why that's my username, but i'm thinking it's sort of obvious. the last time i went skiing, i got pretty lucky. when i went to meet for a group lesson, i was the only one there! private lesson for a group lesson's cost. this time, with winter break and all, it was more crowded, so there were 9 people instead.

i don't know if you can call the class i took "intermediate." we spent the first half of class skiing in a line, jumping one by one while saying "pop," with the last person saying "corn." then we practiced turning, even though they said the intermediate class was for people who could turn.

what i enjoyed about the lesson was that for the ski lift, instead of waiting in the unbearably long line, we got to go in the special express line for only lessons and patrols. after the lesson, i had to wait in the line as i looked hopelessly and enviously at the people in the special express line. sigh.

the worst part about skiing? the level ground. well, even worse than that is an incline. you should see me lug myself across the snow. it is so lame that you would laugh. first i try pulling myself with the polls, then i try stepping, then i try gliding, then i give up. after moving about a foot, i have to stop and take a break. it's tough, i'm telling you!

once the lesson was over, i went skiing by myself. apparently, last time we were skiing, i scarred dad for life when i forced him down the intermediate slope. but, luckily, he's coming skiing with me next time!

winter wonderland

winter wonderland
thank you oh mighty snow gods! not only is there no school today, but there is also no school tomorrow! this thursday to the monday after next we have off because of christmas and winter break, so we will only have one day of school for 2 weeks! that is, if they don't cancel wednesday as well...

maryland is awesome
i have been thinking, and i believe that maryland has one of the best case scenerios regarding snow days. it's not like california, where there are no snow days... and it's not like minnesota, where they clear the roads so professionally fast that school never gets cancelled.
 
the longest driveway around
in the morning, i thought the best we were going to get was a 2-hour delay. i was hoping that being trapped at home would give us a good reason to miss school. so, when dad said he would dig us out by my orthodontist appointment (3:15 pm), i was practically begging him not to. he went outside and said that he wouldn't come back in until he was done.

he wasn't kidding around! when i think about how sore my arms are after shoveling only 1/10 of the driveway, i can't even begin to imagine how much pain dad must be in (p.s. sorry dad...). when dad finally came in, my mom asked him, "don't you feel a sense of accomplishment?" and dad says "i feel a sense of pain!" dad vows that the our next house will have a much shorter driveway.

my first painless torture session 
i had my orthodontist appointment today, and i was expecting a great load of pain. since my last appointment, my spring had fallen off twice. luckily, they didn't threaten me with painful orthodontic devices this time.

i also no longer have the dreaded "power band": the rubber bands on each tooth are connected to make the teeth move even faster, and make it even more painful for the victim (aka me). let me tell you, it isn't fun.

this is the first time that i haven't been screaming in pain after my orthodontist appointment. i'm happy.

cookies anyone? tomorrow, my mom is planning on bringing me and ella to her workplace. i'm just swelling with joy at the fact that i get to help ella sell her girl scout cookies. why do i say "swelling with joy" so sarcastically? well, the main reason that ella and mom drag me along with them to sell cookies is because i'm the "social one." therefore, i get to do all the talking. wish me good luck.

enjoying the blizzard of '09

buried treasure
the 18 inches of snow are so much fun. first, me and ella were just playing with the snow on the roof outside the window. we made a ginormous snowball and brought it downstairs to show dad. he wasn't so pleased. we decided to throw it back onto the roof, where it came from.


then, ella started to bury a small plastic horse deep into the snow on the roof and told me, "we'll get him back when it's spring!" when i asked her, "why are you burying that?" she said, "do you really want this piece of junk?" a while later, she was digging frantically for it. i don't really think she minded losing it, though, considering that she was the one who buried it in the first place... it'll be interesting to see where and how we find it again.

weakling
as we were looking out the window, we saw our neighbor out with his shovel-truck. a few years ago, he actually shoveled our whole driveway for us. so, my dad got really excited when i told him he was starting to shovel our driveway. but then... he stopped and left. major disappointment.
then, after loading on many layers of clothes, we went out to play in the snow. i must have fallen into the snow about 6 times due to the combination of my klutziness and the enormous amount of snow. plus, me and ella had fun jumping into the snow (both back first and front first).


my dad did most of the shoveling around the cars. i don't know why, but after everyone else went in, i kept shoveling the snow behind the cars. maybe, subconsciously, i was hoping for some money (which i did get, by the way). after 20 minutes of grueling hard work, my arms and hands were burning. when i stopped to look around me, i realized that i'd only shoveled about 2 feet in every direction. i'm thinking that's pretty lame.

notice in this picture of our driveway, one, the top of the driveway that our neighbor started to shovel, and two, the small area that i shoveled :(

finally!
i guess snow on the weekends isn't as bad as i thought! check out the status of montgomery county public schools on www.schoolsout.com...

Posted at Sun Dec 20 14:16:35 -0500 2009
Montgomery County Public Schools and all administrative offices, as well as day cares, are closed Monday (12/21) due to emergency weather conditions. All school and community activities in school buildings are canceled.

finally, the snow isn't going to melt before monday! i don't know what i would have done if there was school though, because we're barely done shoveling 1/3 of our driveway! well, plus, i haven't finished my homework yet... let me say, i love "emergency weather conditions."

dress it up

the weather guy doesn't lie
just like the weather report said, it is snowing like crazy! every time it snows, i look at this small round table on the porch. it's a nice reference to show how much it snowed. this has to be a record! it only started snowing last night, and that's least a foot!

12:52 pm:
10:25 pm (update):

and look at our driveway! can you even tell it's our driveway?? well, i guess the cars give it away. dad's going to have loads of fun shoveling this thing...


thingamajigs on the christmas tree
this morning, ella kept nagging us to get the christmas decorations from the basement. "you guys are so selfish!" so eventually, mom got tired of listening to ella complain, went down into the basement, and took up 2 dusty boxes of christmas decorations. here's our tree's before and after shot. :)

before:
after:
ta-da! here's a secret: our christmas tree is only decorated on the front! shh... no one has to know... do you see those crochet decorations? our old babysitter, guo ying, made them! aren't they awesome? don't ask where we got all of those thingamajigs, because i have no clue.

a cat's joy
it's not only us humans who like christmas... violet loves it too! her favorite part: the ornaments. she loves to bat at the ornaments on the trees, and something she loves even more is to unravel those thread ornaments.

violet is taking a peek at my gift...


happy tree decorating!

all wrapped up for christmas

let it snow!... but, on a school day
this weekend, it is supposed to snow 12 inches! 1/3 of me is happy; 2/3 of me is annoyed. this is because every time it snows, it is on a weekend. it snowed the saturday before last, it is going to snow this saturday, and it is going to snow next saturday. you know, i would really appreciate some snow on a school day. i would even be happy with a two-hour delay. there's nothing better than waking up to my mom telling me there's no school.

we are prepared to be trapped inside for the whole weekend. we have groceries and (most excitingly) the christmas tree! i can think of a few good things that come by being snowed in:

1. i have time to blog, which i usually don't.
2. i don't have as many excuses to put off doing my homework.

the magic of saran wrap
i realized today that places can get a lot of money for christmas trees. today, we got one for $30. one year, we got one for only $6! well... that's probably since it was a few days before christmas... now, my mom's always looking for a cheaper tree.

we couldn't get the christmas tree for the last few weekends since it has been snowing (hmph). today, we stopped by home depot and picked out a cute little tree. then, they came out with a giant roll and saran wrapped it to our car. yes, saran wrapped. who knew the powers of saran wrap were so amazing?


once we started driving, the tree kept making this loud flapping sound. the faster we drove, the louder it was. i never thought that a 10 minute drive on the freeway could be so unbelievably annoying. my mom's solution was to turn the radio up even louder.

the snow is starting to stick to the ground right this second. ella just looked out the window and said, "that's a fair amount of snow."

hobo snowman

let it snow!
today was the first snow of the season! on chat and email, everyone is really excited. for the last few weeks, this group of guys in spanish class kept randomly screaming "IT'S SNOWING!" and everyone would snap their heads toward the windows (after the first time, i didn't). it started snowing this morning when i was at richard montgomery high school taking the high school magnet test. it even started to stick, but then it just started to melt slowly and sadly. it was almost all melted when ella, my mom and i went out to play in the snow. we just came in, since it is almost dark (even though it is only 4:45 pm!) right now, the snow is turning into rain. sigh.


hoboman?
when we went outside, ella and i started rolling up balls of snow for our snowman. it was originally supposed to be a regular snowman, but we got some dirt and leaves from the lawn into the snow, so decided to make it a hobo snowman. there he is, panhandling on our front lawn. what for? maybe some clean snow to wear.

how do you like him? what should we name him?