This Year (a recap)

Hi...

........
.........
*hangs head in shame*
I apologize for being such a dispondant blogger lately.  To say I've been busy is the understatement of the century.
Anyway, it's new years eve. Tomorrow starts 2013, a new start.
Everyone's doing recap posts...Savanna did a great one, my mom did one, and my last minute buddies are here stressing with me thinking "WHAT it's already New Years I HAVE TO WRITE A BLOG POST AHHH" ;)
Am I right?

So here I am. Blogging.
I'm currently at the lovely vacation home in the Keys...watched the sunset, took a nap, watched movies, it's great. I love coming down here. Definitely having fun in paradise.

Let's recap shall we?  2012 was very good to me. I was blessed with an amazing year, full of growth and change, in a good way for the most part. ;) I'm gonna try to write this in the style that my favorite person (Savanna) did...month by month. Let's see how far my memory reaches. XD

Janurary:  I honestly don't remember much about Janurary of last year...I know we celebrated New Years at le vacation home, and that it was a fun new year. I tried doing Project 365, but seeing my camera broke, that fell off the face of the earth. XD I started using Instagram to post pictures about my life during Janurary.  My family also joined our gym, 9Round this month! :)

February:  Best weekend of my life in Febrary...while celebrating my dad's birthday, I got to meet my best friend "in real life". :) I went out to dinner with Savanna and spent all day at her house a day later. It was great.

March:  I spent time in March out in nature. We took a trip to a lighthouse, visiting things that are literally in our backyard, but we never get to see!! I became more serious about my viola, started writing more (editing novels) and fangirled with my mother over Star Wars. We read a lot of the EU together! :)

April:  April brought more fun. We celebrated Easter as a family and took a trip to our vacation home. It brought a lot of fun and excitement. Funny memories, I had my eyes terribly dilated while on that trip, so I was pretty blind.  I got glasses in April. 8)  Our Springtime trip to the Keys is one of our favorite memories of going. It was a great time. :)

too much fun resulted in serious sunburns XD

May:  May was one of the best months for me.  In May, I got to meet my best friend/sissie Ashley-Tara,  attended the yearly Homeschool Convention, went to Disney's Star Wars Weekends with Savanna and her family, and got to meet up with my bestie Autumn, and a few other friends at Disney.  Too much fun to handle...never thought it was possible to love people so much until I got to be with my friends IRL! :)

Me and Ashley got to see Avengers together!!!!

dreams DO come true!! Disney wtih my BFF!

me and mah audy 

all of us!!

June:  Another epic month!!! Savanna came over to my house for four whole days, we had a sleepover. One of the first ever sleepovers I've had where a friend comes to MY house. It was SO much fun. I loved it. We're planning another sleepover soon. :D Also, we redesigned my bedroom. I got new paint and a new desk! 

July:  In July I went to the Keys on vacation again, for the 4th of July. Probably my favorite trip this year. It was a blast. Tons of great pictures and tonnnsss of fun.  I wrote a novel in July, and finished up the ninth grade.

August:  All I care about and remember from August is one thing. Celebration VI. Easily the best four days of my life. I'm still waiting for something to top CVI....not sure if anything ever will. ;)  I spent four whole days surrounded by my greatest passion in life. Star Wars. Even better than that, I got to spend four whole days with my best friends in the whole galaxy.  I shopped, ate, partied and celebrated with my Lakehouse Sisters. All 15 of us got together a few times for loads of fun. I can't really think about CVI for too long without crying. :') I love those people so much.

Yeah can't handle all these feels. :'( I miss my friends. *hugs*

September:  I moped through September. XD I started Galactic Geek Girls with Savanna I think...well, we started before CVI but continued during September. It was fun, we'll be getting more of that going soon!! :D  School started up, I began the 10th Grade. I started Orchestra, the Symphony orchestra where I play 3rd Chair viola (out of like 8 violists!).  I watched Doctor Who Season 7 as it started, and threw weekly parties for the new episodes with Embie, Glory and my parents. :) Explored more of Doctor Who, grew more and more obsessed, and overall had fun.  I also had toe surgery. XD

school

me fangirling about romans...invasion of the HOT Italians ;D

decorations in my room, curtesy of CVI 

aftermath of fangirling

toe surgery = feels

October:  I turned 16 in October!! I had a 1940's Captain America birthday. :) It was great fun. I celebrated Halloween by dressing up as the TARDIS with Embie. It was a lot of fun!!  October brought great excitement and controversy with the merger of Disney and Lucasfilm. xD

November:  November was filled with ups and downs.  We had to give away our pets and finish with a way of life...and our pup Fritz passed away. :( Though all that was sad, November was very successful for me. I wrote a novel.  Didn't think I'd finish, but I conquered NaNoWriMo. :D Yay!

December:  Christmas and Holiday busy-ness. I went to the movies twice and spent lots of time with family. I had a beautiful Christmas, and moved past sad things that happened this year. I've written more, edited more, and I'm growing up.  This year was beautiful and amazing, and I'm incredibly blessed.

So it'll be January in just a few hours. What great hope the new year brings!! Hopes for new adventures and new discoveries.
Here are some of my top hopes and dreams for the New Year....since the whole "resolutions" thing is too mainstream. ;)
-Get a puppy. New addition to our family...or rather, two new additions. Can't wait for our new furry friends to join the family.
-Move to Principal Orchestra. Lots of work involved, but it'll be worth it.
-Write an ORIGINAL novel. I've done it before, but this time I want to do a very serious one. That I would look at possibly publishing someday. o.o Can I do it?! I think so.
-Visit more friends. Sleepover with Savanna and Autumn. Visit more friends? PLEASE.  Grow closer with my friends, be a better one to them. :)
-Elimitate my time management issues. Finish school on TIME darnit.
-Stop being so darn lazy. This goes for everything, how I dress, how I eat/speak/live, how I do my school work, practice my viola, etc. I'm getting far too lazy!!

So let's do this!!!!!! Let's make 2013 even better than 2012. :) God bless!!!

Lots of love,
Your affectionate and hopeful blogger,
Grace xXx

An Explanation

Okay.  I've been majorly M.I.A for quite a while now...since /before/ Thanksgiving?! (geeezzz guys!! So sorry!!!)
But to be honest, I have total legit reasons for being so gone. :P

Just so you know though, I do not want this to be a really depressing post (which it probably would be should my mindset not be so positive XD) and after I talk about things I'll make it happy. :D

So the past few weeks have been pretty tough on me, and my entire family.  In less than three weeks, we went from having a total of 14 pets to having 1.  It was really heartbreaking.  We had pet birds (some of you know this) and we had to give them away under very immediate and heartbreaking circumstances.  I still don't like to think about it...because those girls were my babies.  :(
Shortly after that, while still suffering the loss of 12 very important parts of our lives, our dog Fritz (our mini Schnauzer) passed away.  He was living with Cancer for a very long time and finally couldn't breathe anymore. He had to be put down.  It was very sad, but it was his time.  He held on for a long time for us.

Glory and Fritz. RIP little guy. 

After recovering from the loss of our pets, our family has been really getting into the Christmas spirit.  Presents, shopping, wrapping, buying, making, baking, shipping, mailing, parties, visits with friends, music, ETC. ETC. ETC.
Things haven't just been busy, they've been HECTIC.  Between all of that, and tons of school work, I've had barely enough time for talking to my friends, which I try to make time for everyday.
I haven't logged into Lakehouse in probably a week (maybe more! D: ) and I haven't made time for blogging, on this blog or any of my others. :(  I haven't even been making Tumblr time!!! XD

So now things are slowing down (LOL not really) but I'm getting caught up on school, I'm getting my schedules together and I'm making more time for everything. I'm finally getting to Skype with friends this weekend, and log into TLF to get stuff put together. :D  So excited to be getting back into that groove! ;)

Now I want to make this more of an appreciation post.  With all the sadness that's been hanging in the air around me and my family lately, I've been really really really grateful for my friends for being there for me through all this.  Autumn, Savanna, Ashley, Stephanie, etc...you guys have listened to so many pointless rants about my life and listened to me whine and even cry.  Thank you so much guys...you mean the world to me. xoxo

So even though I've been sad, this whole experience has given me a lot of time to think.  God and I have had some serious conversations lately, about everything going on, life in general, and even my future and where my life is going from here.  I have a new drive about myself, one of more independence and self-confidence. I've been doing that whole "praising Him through the storm" thing, since 'stormy' is quite a good adjective to describe the past month.  Finally the light at the end of the tunnel is showing itself...I'm looking forward to Christmas, to Doctor Who, to seeing friends soon (hopefully! :DDD) and presents and get togethers.  I've visited with a friend today I hadn't seen in a very long while, and was really excited by how much this old friend and I have in common.  I'm starting to make some IRL friends (not that my e-friends aren't good enough, ;D) and it's really nice.  ;)

I finished NaNoWriMo.  This is gonna sound crazy, but quite honestly, writing a 50k novel really did get me through November, which wasn't a very fun month on our family.  I would lock myself in my room and write for hours instead of crying and carrying on, putting my emotion and feelings into my writing.  It worked wonders, and I finished the wordcount (the story is NO WHERE near done).  I'm very happy and proud that i finished this year, seeing I was only expecting to get to 30k in total.  :D

So that's about it...I'll be doing more actual quality posts soon. :) I think I'm constantly saying that, aren't I?!  Well, since Christmas is coming up on us and I KNOW I'm gonna be really crazy busy...I love you all!! Thanks for being there for me, and thanks to all of you for being so amazing and awesome. :D 

Lots of love,

Your Busy Blogger,

Grace :)