A Quickish Sum Up of Me

This is a quickish sum up of my life. It started 13 years ago. Where or when I can’t recall off the top of my head. Rapid City is as close as you’ll get. I’ve lived in the same house my whole life. My mom home schools us and gives us skills in gardening, as she herself learns them. So, she learns one day, she tells us ten minutes later. If not we have a pretty good line, Mom mentions to someone on phone, Julie over hears, she tells us the half conversation with adjustments where she thinks they are needed, we all say something the next day and feel completely stupid when Mom corrects us. As I said, pretty good line but not perfect.

Where was I? Oh, yes. A quick sum up. Right, changing that, a longish sum up. Four years ago I started writing, most of which wasn’t good at all. More than a little proud I read it to my family. I’m extremely glad I can’t go back and listen in. At this early in life you don’t know you have such a thing as a passion. I just liked the idea of making up my own stories as I had in my head for so long, only on paper.

Before this, sorry, I’m skipping again, I had come up with plays. They were REALLY bad plays and so ridiculous if I could go back I’d probably die of embarrassment. I’m not going to mention any so as not to embarrass me or my accomplices.

Two years ago I was inspired by Brian Jacques, the author of the Redwall series and others. I just had go for it again. So taking a notebook and a few pencils, for the next two months I wrote by hand a rough draft. A REALLY rough draft. It turned out to be 250 pages, which for a eleven year old is really good.

Then I started typing it out. I have never been a fast typist but I was determined. So, I spent the next year typing, changing, going over it, fixing problems, changing whole sections, nearly giving up and starting over, getting encouraged by me Aunt Miriam and starting the process again. Before the end of September, the year marker, I had read through it 26 times and could practically quote it by heart.

Then I started the second one and the prequel. I didn’t tell anyone at first, well, besides Missy, because I was afraid they’d say I needed more time on the first one. I was so bored of that book I never wanted to read it again in my whole life, even though I was proud I’d done it.

I wrote these next two books without nearly so much trouble. I’d gotten my “feel”, as they say. Don’t ask me who “they” are because I don’t know. They just do. Missy and I, both liked the prequel the best so far and I made up my mind that besides punctuation and spelling errors I want nothing changed.

By now it was February and I had started once more going over my first book. Here was three more read-throughs. My mind was screaming at me, “You know this by heart!” Obviously it didn’t understand that this was my book and it had to be as close to perfect as I could get it so my Mom could read it.

Brief pause to collect my thoughts and ideas and I started the third and the fourth books. This is where I am still at. The third at 77 pages and the fourth at 11. I’m still coming up with scenes in my head even if not the whole thing. I can not take all the credit for these books because we have spent many nights while making dinner, me, Missy and Rose, making up sayings, scenes, characters and predicaments. We have laughed a great deal over these and come up with some of the best scenes. The plots for these books were mainly mine but the third is an exception where in Missy helped one evening.

Sorry about that, it isn’t a quick sum up, is it? Well, I had quite a bit to say. Anyway, there was a lot more. Such as trips with cousins, building tepees with double cousins, camping with cousins, ridiculous plays involving hillbillies with cousins…you get the point. We do a lot with our cousins that is worth telling but for now I’ll let you go.

We like to know what you think of these stories. So, please feel free to comment!

The Eggers

Our "Dragonfly"

This is for anyone who has ever been a kid and I’m sure most of you have. Anyone who might not have been, listen closely and you might learn something or you might not.

We all know a jungle gym is not just a jungle gym and if you didn’t you are most likely in the second group. It’s a roller coaster, a swing, a house, a boat, a life saving instrument or something that might squish you, under the right circumstances.

Us kids, no, not the rest of you, just us Nemo kids and certain relatives, loved our jungle gym but recently it was confiscated by the army! Ok, it wasn’t but the Blackhawk helicopters did eye it for awhile. Mother was the one who took it. Remember those hoop houses I mentioned? Well, our jungle gym is one of them. “Oh,” she says. “That’s perfect!” You can guess what happened next. No, it didn’t magically turning into a boat. It was turned into a strawberry covering tool. Sigh. No more grand adventures there. But, didn’t I say I we are stubborn? Oh, we weren’t finished! Who needs a boat when you can fly? So, we took the big black tube, which is something like fifteen feet long and stuck it through a tire in the front and a rope in the back and hung it from the swing set. Bang! We have a dragonfly.

We had big plans, paints, wings, harnesses. Did I say we were stubborn? Yes, but unfortunately - well, let's just say it wasn’t one of Mom’s projects and didn’t have priority. So, it is still a black tube but it is our black tube and we still think of it as a dragonfly.

Building A Greenhouse

There is one big difference between homeschoolers and public school kids. Alright, there are lots of differences. But I’m going to point out one. We don’t get grades. I’m not saying our teacher doesn’t check our work but if we got something wrong we do it again and if we still get it wrong then we do it AGAIN until we do get it right. So, we always get “A’s” as the public school kids would say.

This, despite my beginning isn’t what my story is about but it does have something to do with it.

Our beloved mother loves to garden. This doesn’t mean us kids like it but we do it anyway. So, about February the seed and gardening catalogues start coming in. For years mother has started at this time of year making up “Brilliant” plans. Her brilliant plans have included: Frames for the beds for hoop houses, wires so we don’t have to build more frames, ten feet tall posts with a board over top for sunflowers, which, by the way, are COLD weather plants and DIDN’T need covering after all.

Well, last year she needed something bigger so she decided we were going to build a green house. Yep, build one. You say, okay order the pieces put them together and BANG! you’re done. Nope. We weren’t going to order pieces we were going to do it from scratch. Twenty degrees, freezing wind and frozen ground and guess where we are. Sorry, but you guessed wrong. We weren’t inside drinking hot chocolate, watching something. We’re homeschoolers remember. We were outside, digging holes in the frozen ground and hoping not to freeze to death in what felt like Artic temperatures. Do you blame me for not concentrating and getting my hole a foot off? How was I supposed to know my hole was supposed to be on the inside of the orange rope and on the X? Well, maybe I should have but I didn’t.

After digging holes, putting poles in the ground. Making an entire frame, putting in a door and window, making beds, hauling manure and dragging plastic over a 10x25 foot green house who could help but feel proud? We were proud. Ever hear the saying, “Pride comes before a fall”? Yep, it’s true. The wind came up, grabbed it and shredded the plastic.

Now this is where the first part of this story comes into play. Us homeschoolers are stubborn and didn’t take the hint that this would be close to impossible. We tried again. We pulled plastic over that green house, nailed it down so tight it could not have moved if it was alive and then tied socks around the connecting pieces of the PVC pipes. You might be wondering by now why we use socks for such strange things and I’ll tell you. It’s because we don’t wear them. Mom and Dad do but us kids hate socks. So, we tied them to the connecters so they wouldn’t rub holes in the plastic. That didn’t work. It shredded again. We, no longer having plastic, taped it back together, using duck tape, of course. If you didn’t guess I’ll tell you, IT DIDN’T WORK. So, we spent the summer struggling with this greenhouse and somehow managed to get a good amount of peppers and tomatoes. We still haven’t solved the problem but I’m sure we’ll try again this year. The up side is, this means Mom won’t need a new “brilliant” idea this year.

God's Grace

It is easy not to be scared of something when it is on the other side of the fence. It’s easy to stand up to it when the gate is between you. It’s easy not to be scared of the dark when the sun is shinning. Yes, it’s easy not to be scared of a gun when that gun is unloaded and locked away in a cabinet. It’s easy not to be scared of the ocean coming in and washing away your home when you live in the middle of a continent.

So many people think they can be brave if something happened and find out when it does that they can’t. They think death wouldn’t effect them if they saw it for real and realize later that it does. They think they are untouchable but they aren’t and one day they will realize, they’re wrong.

It’s easy not to be scared of God when He is just someone somebody speaks of on the street or in a church but you will be scared. You will be scared when you stand in front of God’s seat of judgment and know, there is no fence between you and you refused the light. You only get one life to choose. So, start being afraid. Once you have He will show you the light and take the fear away.

Mandy

Prepositions and AY's

Prepositional phrases are evil and so are AY’s. You might be wondering, "why?" Well, ask any kid why about the prepositional phases, but some kids, all right every kid but I and my sister Missy, will be stumped on the issue of AY’s.

I suppose this story really starts back in third grade or so when I started learning about prepositions. For years I learned to cross them out. ALL of them, every time. So, when I started writing books (yes, I do write books at thirteen. That was NOT a typo), I always wrote them and wanted them, prepositions, to die as they had in my English. In case you didn’t know, you have to have prepositions to write a book. So, mates, why do they teach us this in the first place? I won’t tell you because I don’t know. This also means I don’t want a whole lecture on this subject. I don’t know because I don’t really care.

AY’s on the other hand are a whole new topic. It started when Missy and I were going over my book for things that needed changing. We both like to do this because it is fun to laugh over the funny parts and read the sword fights and so on and so forth. At some point in this process Missy gets up and walks off and in the middle of a page! Me, thinking this quite rude, asked, “What are you doing?”

“Asking mother something,” she replied. I was even more insulted than ever. Not because I don’t love mother and her advice is useful but the least she could have done was ask me first. “Mom, can OK’s be O-K or do they have to be O-K-A-Y.”

“It has to be O-K-A-Y,” she said.

Missy came back and I said, “Fine. Watch this.” I went to the top of the page and pushed the EDIT button. Then I went down to REPLACE and typed the two in. Confidently I pushed the REPLACE ALL. We resumed reading until, to my stunned surprise, we came to the word "looked", which now read, "lookayed". Since there is a O-K in the word the computer helpfully added a AY to it. It had done this through the entire book. I glared at Missy, who was laughing hysterically, and said, “This is your fault.” For the next hour or so we went through it and took out AY’s. By the end of this long, breathless process the two of us had laughed to the point of bursting. From now on, neither of us will ever look at a "looked" the same again and AY’s are never again going to regain their place as normal letters.

So, I conclude with, Prepositional phrases are evil and so are AY’s.

Beans Are Cool

There I was pouring the beans into the crock-pot…ok, Rose was but this is my story and I can write what I want. So, let’s start over… There I was reclined in the chair controlling my Robot Rose who poured the beans into the crock pot. Now, to you people there is a problem. How did I get the beans to my mouth? At this point I could say no one knows but I shalln’t. Instead I shall come up with a even greater fib. So, of course, it was a special bean pulley system shipped all the way from the North Pole via Santa Claus or some other mythological person with a beard and a sleigh but then these stories would no longer be true. So, we’ll start again. Take three.

For starters, third time starters that is, I shall say beans are cool. I will even go so far as to say they are awesome, wonderful, stupendous! I’m talking about kidney beans, just so you know. You can eat them from the can and they are crunch, sweet and salty all at once! I could write a whole page on beans alone but that, despite my extensive beginning, is not what this story is about. It is about my, all right our family’s, forty five minutes of fame. This forty five minutes was the most expensive time I’d ever bought but what can you expect when you are buying time that gets you to be seen by the public. March is Essential Tremor Awareness Month and since my mother is one of the worst cases, she is a great target to be shot at. No, she was not shot with a gun. She was shot with a camera. So, stop assuming and listen closely. As I was saying, it was expensive. We spent three days spotlessly cleaning the house. Yes, I said THREE days.

I know, I’m skipping about. I should go in one complete line but I’m WAY to random for that. That is why I’m going back to Tuesday, the day before Wednesday, the big day.

Mom had a doctor appointment and told us before she left that if the reporter called to tell him to come tomorrow. He called all right. He came right up to the front door and knocked. We told him to come back tomorrow, in the nicest way possible. Half an hours drive and we tell him to come back tomorrow, poor guy. That was what led us to that day. He came, took TONS of pictures and taste tested some home made stuff. Now we will be in the paper. I know this isn’t the greatest thing to lead up to. That is pretty much what us kids thought. Three days work for a few pictures. The up side is I got a new saying: Chocolate, good. Pineapple, cool. Cat… moan heartbrokenly as you realize it left.