September Highlights

  September is over already! Fall is on the way as well- I'm enjoying the cool weather. :) 

  I had thought I might do a summer highlights post... but I don't think I will. 

   Here are my September highlights. :)

\\SEPTEMBER EVENTS

I helped in my cousin's wedding... 

...And I turned 16 that same day! :)

I returned home after over a month on vacation(s). 

Had my 16th birthday party. :)

My home school group co-op started. I'm taking three classes: essay writing, a trivia class, and art. :) Guess which is my favorite? Art, of course. ;) I've been painting, charcoal drawing (for the first time in my life, I believe), and all that. :)

Went to hang out with youth from my home school group and played "gaga ball". It was actually fun. :D

 Oh, started school. :P Fun, right? I'm currently in 11th grade. Yikes, I'm "almost" graduated already! Only one more year after this. Do you ever feel like yourself is growing up extremely fast? :P One day you wake up and realize your childhood is over. *sniff*

Fall came! :) At least for now. It's been blessedly cool lately. And some rain. I love the nights where you're hanging out outside and it's cool... like enough to make your hands cold. :) Just from experience the other night.

I'm on my way to getting a driver's permit... sort of. I'm reading the driver's manual, which takes a long time because it just isn't very interesting. :P I JUST NEED TO FINISH IT SO I CAN START DRIVING!! Er- take the test and start driving IF I pass. Let it be so. ;P 

  I had a dream the other night that I was driving... probably in a parking lot. And then I think I pushed the gas pedal instead of the brake and lurched toward the parked cars! Maybe I woke up after that. :P But that actually happened to me- I pushed the gas instead of the brake! Eek, scary! :P At least I was only practice driving and not on the road.

\\BOUGHT IN SEPTEMBER

  I thought I was pretty rich this month, and bought a lot of stuff. ;P

On the far right is the one thing I colored

  First of all, I got this lovely Godey's Fashions coloring book! I found it on ebay for like, maybe around three dollars? With free shipping, too. :) Click here to to see one for $3.49 plus free shipping, if you're interested in something to do while you're curled up by the fireplace with a cup of hot cider during the nearing cold days. :D Doesn't it look great, though?

    My Walmart has had lots of sales lately. I found this lovely scarf there for $3. :) The color is like mint green- my love. ;D This picture dulled the color, for some reason.

                

  The other thing I bought there on sale is this skirt, for $5. Isn't it pretty? I think it's kind of country-style, which I like. :)

   Here are a bunch of little things I've bought (from top-left): red lipstick (I should dress up 1940's, right? :D), green eye-shadow, and pink nail polish. The rest of the things, besides the feather ring, were all together for $2. They were on sale. Extremely on sale, because I think they were originally $11 or something. :P Who would pay that much?   

   And I bought The Inheritance (plus it has three other movies on it) for $5 at K-Mart. K-Mart had so many movies for only five dollars, and they weren't all junk (like at Walmart :P).

   I found this awesome mini pan at Goodwill ($1.59). I've cooked eggs on it. :D

  These last things are things that I just got... I didn't buy them. 

                     

    A wonderful birthday present from my sister! :) They are The Messenger by Siri Mitchell (my review is on my Book Reviews page :) ), a pretty journal, and this lovely photo album! I need to order some pictures from all my summer "travels" to put in it. :D

  I'm taking an art class in my homeschool group co-op, and I got this AWESOME sketch book! :) That drawing is my still-life drawing (what I had to do for home work). :P

\\CAKES OF SEPTEMBER

                                   

  I decorated my birthday cake, which many of you probably already knew. :)

  I made a cake with only wheat flour (because I couldn't find any white :P). Then I made a glaze for it. It was good, but you could definitely taste the wheat flour.

                                   

Then I made this cake, and decorated it. :) Good practice.

(the inside ;) )

       

      I also helped my little sister put together\decorate this cake. ;) (she made it.)

     Yea, lots of cake stuff this month. Oh yea, I helped with cakes at my cousin's wedding, which was this month (on my birthday), as well. I got lots of practice. One thing I've learned is that my hands are going to get full of frosting while decorating cakes. :P Probably just my messy-ness. 

\\WATCHED IN SEPTEMBER

It's a Wonderful Life

  

  I may not have watched this in September, but it was probably pretty close. :) Good movie.

                            

                                  

   The Inheritance

I watched this by myself on my dad's laptop, and I enjoyed it. :D

  Re-watched one or two other movies. :)

 \\READ IN SEPTEMBER 

  The only book I read this month was King, by R. J. Larson! It was really good! Read my review here.

  And now, I am currently reading The Captive Maiden, by Melanie Dickerson. :)

\\SEPTEMBER PHOTOGRAPHY ACCOMPLISHMENT 

    Star photography! :) See this post for the "details".

\\SEPTEMBER POSTS

 Here are the posts I've done this month:

Last Days of Summer, Stars, Spiders, and Bubbles

Book Review: King

My Trip to the West Coast, part 4: Lava Canyon

My Trip to West Coast, part 3: Mountain Hike

Sweet Sixteen

My Trip to the West Coast, part 2: The Reunion

Photo Gallery: Last Days of Summer, Stars, Bubbles, and Spiders

  Yes, that's a big title. But I needed to sum this post of random recent pictures of somehow. :) I think these pictures are organized according to the day\night I took them. 

   How has fall been coming in for you guys? It's been pure summer here still. :P Today I went and played with my two youngest siblings on the trampoline... and brought a squirt bottle of water out to keep us cool. It was SO hot. BUT... tomorrow it's supposed to cool down, finally! :D

  Well, you can look at all my pictures now. Probably basically all the photography I've done since getting home. (not every picture, but, you know. ;) )

Little toes... :)

 FLYING! 8D In other words, jumping on the trampoline, and I just crop it so you can't see that. :P It'd look much better without those telephone wires, but OH WELL. 

Sometimes I really like black and white. :)

  Spicy... have you ever had a cat still living at eight\nine years? She's such a good "kitty". ;)

BUBBLES! ;D

   I've wanted to try taking star photography for awhile. (I had tried it before, and it didn't work, but I know more stuff now. ;D) So at last one night I went out in the dark with a tripod, and started trying to get good star pictures with a high shutter speed. 

    And I got a few fairly good ones. :D Yay! You have to sit very still while waiting for the camera to finish it's picture. Probably why the clouds streaked like that in the pic above- don't know if they were actually like that. ;)

     

   Isn't it just great when you make a new photography accomplishment?! =D

Here's a pretty sunset...

  ... and a scary big spider! It had a big web on our porch. I probably got a little closer photographing it than I'd usually get to a big spider. :P (I cropped this picture, so it looks closer than in the original pic)

  One of the cool old toy tractors my little siblings brought out of the woods. :)

I sharpened this picture on picmonkey- the bokeh is extra lovely! :)

   The other day my little sister wanted to take pictures with an old camera... the one I started my photography love with. :) It's charger had been lost for a long time, but then they found it... and the camera still works! I think it got left outside once! The thing is a little survivor! :D 

Here's our dog Daisy. She's around the same age as our cat- they're both survivors. :) 

  So these last ten picture on this post are from the day my and my little sister went out to take pictures. :)

There's that old surviving camera. :) I took a picture of her...

....while she took a picture of me. ;)

All the lovely bokeh! :)

We went into the corn field, too. It's now harvested...

 And I found this treasure! :) Nice spider webs like this are a good photography opportunity, if you ask me. 

Daisy getting a bell-rub. ;) Lucky dog.

  I hope you enjoyed those pictures! :) I hope to do a September Highlights post, and show you all the stuff I've bought this month. :P And other things. Me and my siblings have been doing our home school co-op, where we have three classes at some church every Friday. I have an essay class (fun, right? ;) ), a trivia class, and an art class. The art one is more advanced (for me, anyhow) so I can get better at drawing and all! :D

  I also want to finish getting all the posts about my summer vacations done sometime. Hopefully before mid-October! 


WHICH IS YOUR FAVORITE PICTURE?