On Vacation!

Dear Reader!

I am on vacation! I am visiting the famous Hills of Tennessee, as mentioned in the song, "Proud to be an American." My great-aunt and uncle live here and I am visiting them along with my Mom, Grannee, and Brother. Today I am at home while Brother and my aunt go zip-lining, and my Mom watches.

It is really nice and relaxing here. I took pictures of the place and tried to upload them here, but I messed it up. So, I'll probably try that again some other time.

Today something exciting happened!

A wild animal escaped into the house! The monster came from the vast unknown through the garage (supposedly) and darted at top speed into the house. My uncle shouted and I said, "Are you serious?" He assured me he was and told me the creature had taken cover in Grannee's room.

I entered the room following my uncle, and there was no creature to be found. Then all of the sudden, a rustling in the curtain, and I saw it. It came at me, and I stood perfectly still until it passed me in the hallway. Then, me and my uncle chased it down fearlessly. He had a net to assist him, while I was left to fight the savage beast with my bare hands. Grannee just watched it from the sidelines, probably paralyzed with fear.

I got it corned in the laundry room and my uncle came. "Where is it?" he said in his deep voice, "Its over there." I said gesturing to the corner. I had already opened the garage door so the thing could get out. My uncle went over it, talking to it (calling it "stupid"), using his net to herd it out into the garage. Then, it was out. We were saved!

So, my uncle opened up both garage doors so the cute sweet darling little wren could go back outside.

Quick Update: Saver to Spender

Dear Reader,

As usual, a whole lot has happened since I wrote last. I will conveniently list the latest events below, as this seems to be a very efficient way to quickly update...


Note: Events are in order of memory at the time of writing.

1.  I made great chicken and dumplings last night! I am very hungry right now, sorry.

2. I bought two new pairs of flip-flops! My cutest pair you can see below (picture and link curtesy of Amazon.com). I got an all black pair, but it is the same as that one rhinestone wise. My other pair is a pair of squishy Under Armour brand ones. 

3. I'm getting pretty good on the violin. The Baby dog doesn't cry so much when I play anymore.

4. Grannee is coming! She should arrive next Tuesday! So excited!

5. I finished Biology! I call my teacher for my final grade stuff tomorrow and I will be officially done. He said that if I ever need a letter of recommendation for anything to give him a call and he would write me a good one.

6. I bought a pink acoustic guitar! Kind of. I actually was playing with it today while waiting for my violin teacher to get to the store for my lesson. It is pink. It burst into tears when I left without it. So, I called up the store on the way home and told them to put a "SOLD" sign on it and I would be back tomorrow to pick it up.

7. I am sooo not liking parting with my money. I am what you call "frugal".

8. I am going on vacation soon! Mom, Brother, Grannee, and I are going to Tennessee to visit my great-aunt and uncle who live there. We are all (minus brother who lacks the ability to be enthused) extremely excited about going!!!!! (I put !!!!! because we are that excited)

9. My T-Cells (main part of immune system) are not growing :( However, I'm still not getting sick :D

10. Because my T-Cells are really very low, I will not be going to school on August 9th like every other average-Joe public schooler in my county. This also means, that Brother is going to go to high school before me... That stinker!

11. It also means that I probably won't have to do all my IB homework :D

I have more stories to tell you, but I don't have more time to tell them. So, good-bye for now, and I will write again later.

~Miss E.

Good News!

Dear Reader,

I know I'm not supposed to be posting (I still have to finish virtual school) but I have 2 things to tell you, okay 4, but I've really got to do homework right now so I'm going to make this very brief.

Thing #1 (medical)
I went to clinic 9 days ago, and I didn't tell you about it. It was great! My BK Virus number (BK Virus is the virus that is trying to kill my kidney) went down to the lowest it has ever been since we started to really worry about it! It is in the 50,000s!!! For me, this is big YAY! news.

Thing #2 (medical)
I went to clinic 9 days ago, and it was great further! My kidney function number went down too! Yay! This is great news, it was down to 2.48!!! For me this is very good, as my doctors were thinking it would never be able to go down past 2.6 due to the excessive damage caused by the BK virus.

Thing #3 (kind of medical but not really)
I went to Wal*Mart 2 days ago!!! I haven't been there since before transplant and it was a big deal for me. They had totally re-done the place since the last time I had been in. There wasn't many people there either so I didn't even wear a mask! Soooo exciting!!! I didn't touch anything really, except the cart which Mom wiped with a clorox clean-up. I was cart-pusher for Mom. It was AWESOME!

Thing #4 (school/ education)
I made a video for my biology class. I wasn't going to post it on here, but my biology teacher thought it was awesome! He even gave me extra credit!!! He says it is the best assignment he has ever gotten for that lesson and he asked me if he could put it on the announcement page for the class! What an honor! So, I told him that he may. I thought you might like to see this amazing video, so here you are:

Miss E.

P.S. Do you like my new blog look? Leave a comment and tell me please.

Also, thing #5: I am finished with all my assignments in Geometry now!

Telethon Weekend 2010

Dear Reader,

My time on the telethon is now over. It was very fun. There is so much energy in that atmosphere and it is bounced around and recycled. Going to the telethon actually seemed to give me more energy.

I was disappointed Saturday because I was going to go on live, and my bone marrow donor was going to try and watch me via the All Children's Hosptial Telethon website. I kept thinking to myself all day long before I went on, "Talk slowly, say each word, and give a shout out." My donor isn't very fluent in American English yet. As soon as I went up there and got on stage with the lights and cameras in my face, I just forgot everything! Poof!

Maybe, if I get invited back to the telethon next year, I can have a pre-recorded segment too so I can say what I want. I wanted to encourage people to consider donating more than money.

Anyway, I have lots of pictures from then that I stole off of flicker. Here is one of me, Brother, and Resi when I appeared live at 8:42pm on Saturday.

Thank you Resi and Helen for my Willow Tree Angels!!!

This picture is of my friends the Hawks. From left to right we have, the Big Hawkuna, Hawk-let, Steve Jerve (The news guy), HawkMan, and HawkMom/Lady Hawk Liver/Lady Hawk (many code names this ones has). Everyone agrees that their family looks made for TV.

These are people who help make it all happen! The coordinator (I think?) and the tech/picture/Internet guy who is also on the Family Advisory Council and whom everyone likes. Everyone likes the lady too, but she isn't on the Family Advisory Council, yet. That's Peter Pan in the background, by the way.

The following are pictures of the Family Advisory Council (which I am on) when we answered phones. Answering phones at the All Children's Hospital Telethon was such a rush! The Big Hawkuna had to visit the lavatory shortly after our shift started it was so exciting. My phone rang twice with a real person on the other end.

The next picture is one of my favorite from the night, taken by on Father Goose's cell phone. It is rather good, don't you think? Going from left to right we have Hawk Lady, the Big Hawkuna, and Father Goose.

This one has me in it!

I hope you enjoyed my pictures and had a great weekend! If you didn't get the chance to call in during the telethon, you can still go to All Children's Hospital's website and donate there. You can help save lives. If you can't donate money, that is okay, you can donate your vital organs instead! Or your other organs! Or your blood, or your hair, or your unopened toys, its your choice really...

The final amount raised from the telethon is $3,343,930! Thank you so much to everyone who donated!

Love, Miss E.