Words From Madeleine

Dear blog readers, this letter is from an imaginary person to another imaginary person. If you see someone you know in it, then you are hallucinating or something (lol). I had to write it for my weekly communication class and had to add certain adverbs, adjectives, sentence openers, etc.. So if anything sounds forced, it was not my choice but the will of another (my teacher). Without further ado, let the letter be read!

Dearest Victoria,
I hope that this letter, written in haste, finds you well and that you are enjoying your time abroad. Although I am enjoying my classes at the Academy, I miss you and wish for your return. For your sake, I am extremely glad that you are not here to witness my energetic, rowdy brothers, who have been getting into shocking mischief lately. Thankfully, I will be able to show you my precious kitten since you will be back soon. I anticipate your return!
Harold and Nicholas have been getting in the most shocking and improper mischief these days. For some reason, they are absurdly fond of practical jokes which others do not find at all amusing. Happily, they will replace sugar with salt, balance buckets of water on doors, and place frogs on pillows if they can only get a laugh. Although their tutor, very young and quite handsome, discourages their activities, they continue to behave like wild Indians. It is dreadful. Armed with extra servants, we will be traveling to the seaside next week, with the hope that the fresh air and open space will quickly tire and keep them out of their shocking mischief.
I have been enjoying my classes at Miss Primply's Academy for Young Ladies of Gentility. Currently, my courses are art with Madame Fussebugette, back from holiday in France, music and drawing with Lady Spinster, composition and embroidery with Miss Primpy, and deportment with Duchess Winters. For our annual Academy outing, we traveled to Highest Hill Park, which has many excellent picnic grounds. Since the carriage ride was simply dreadful, it was and enormous relief to arrive. During the luncheon, we conversed on subjects such as balls and new dresses . I wish you had been present. You would have loved it. I will be happy when you are once again taking classes at Miss Primpy's Academy with me.
Mama has finally allowed me to purchase a kitten! Can you believe it? Since we do not have a cat, I bought it from Lady Thompson's daughter's best friend's aunt's cousin, who has twelve Persian cats. Scheherazade, my kitten, is a dear. Thankfully, my maid Annabelle, keeps her well-groomed and clean. For all Scheherazade's merits, she has an unfortunate but not unusual tendency to not use her litter box, although it is from Paris and very expensive. Comforted by my care, Scheherazade has quickly adjusted, and I thank Mama daily for my precious pet.
I hope you enjoy the remainder of your tour. At the Academy, currently very boring due to your absence, my classes will be much less dull and dreary upon your return. Hopefully, Harold and Nicholas, whose behavior has not yet improved, will have finished their malevolent mischief by that time, and we will be able to admire and enjoy my darling Scheherazade in peace. When you return, we shall have a garden party to celebrate if the weather is suitable. Please bring me a souvenir.
With Much Love,
Nora Augusta Ferncliff

The Great Squirrel War by Elise

I have had many problems keeping squirrels out of my bird feeder. Since I have always liked birds I experimented many times. When I had to buy a new and expensive feeder, which did not work very well, I got pretty mad at those squirrels. Luckily, it all turned out okay as you will see. Reading this report will hopefully be very interesting.
I have always liked birds. When I finally got a bird feeder, an old used one, I was very excited. Finding the bird feeder in the woods, I got some seed and set it up right outside my window, waiting for the birds to come. For one great and wonderful week, everything went fine. Then the squirrels came! Unfortunately, the wide variety of birds, which I had been enjoying, quickly disappeared. This was very frustrating now, there were almost no birds, and even less birdseed! What should I do? I was sad, I had liked watching the birds very much.
I decided that I would have to buy a squirrel proof feeder. So I did. What was annoying was the fact that the $30, “squirrel proof” feeder wasn't squirrel proof. Frustrated, I wondered how to make the squirrels leave. Despite my everlasting efforts at scaring them, the squirrels, smarter than I thought, continued to sneak up on the full feeder whenever my back was turned. I experimented, knocking and yanking open the window surprised them the first few times and then they got used to it. When I took down the suet, which the birds and squirrels loved, even less birds came, especially the woodpeckers. The thing that was really annoying was that I had bought a new feeder for nothing.
I was really mad at those squirrels. Literally driving me up the wall the squirrels stubbornly continued foiling all my attempts to keep them away! Although I tried putting duck tape over the crack in the feeder, which they were eating out of, it was too cold for the duck tape to stick well and the squirrels simply ripped it off. On the pole, which was how they got to the bird feeder, I smeared petroleum jelly. That stopped them for two days. Finally my dad suggested that I shoot lemon juice in their eyes with a squirt gun. As a kid he had done this when biking through a mean dog's yard. An improvement on my silly plan of borrowing a Beebe gun! As you can seeI was getting a bit obsessive about the whole squirrel thing. Hooray! The lemon juice worked. The problem, it was about 42 degrees outside. When I opened the window everyone else complained. When I stuffed the half-opened window with towels, everyone still complained and I would wake up at six thirty A.M. to a squirrelly noise outside.
At last, I found a good feeder. I was no longer mad at the squirrels. Revenge is sweet and long lasting as I watch them attempting to infiltrate my feeder. Ha ha ha! I finally bought a feeder that actually worked! As the birds are cautious about the new bird feeder, an unusual looking one, I still have a bit of a wait before victory is complete, but I am happy. Watching birds is still one of my favorite things to do and I am enjoying it in a squirrel free environment. No more squirrels! They can be very annoying. Now they're gone! Sadly, there is no such thing as a squirrel proof suet feeder, but that is the only thing which mars my joy. Who knows, maybe I'll invent one someday!

Driving Lessons and Babysitting by Madeleine

In this year's batch of Christmas cards, we received more than one request to update our blog. Elise has done her part, but I think a real person should also write something. It was a great Christmas, stuffed with Chinese food and presents. I got a camera, so I will try to put some of my lovely pictures on for ya'll to see. I have a video of me playing at a recital that I will hopefully get around to posting. One of our donors gave us a printer/scanner, a home computer, and a Mac laptop for Christmas so that we would not all be sharing one laptop. It has opened up new opportunities and we spend more time on the computer now than before (but that's really not saying much).
I turned fourteen in the beginning of December, so Daddy decided to take me and my across-the-hall friend Claire driving in empty parking lots more often. I backed out of a parking space yesterday for the first time in my life. I don't know how many of you over sixteen remember what your first time driving was like, but to those youngsters who have never driven, I will say that it is pretty terrifying (it's even worse when your friend who is even less experienced than you, if that's possible, is driving). We both hit the curb fairly often, frequently confused the gas and brake pedals, and sometimes turned on the windshield wipers instead of changing gears. To add to the stress, my dad enjoyed remarking about the imaginary Mercedes-Benz that I just totaled or the little old lady with a walker that I just ran over. But we still enjoyed it a lot (that is, Claire and I did-- I'm not sure about my dad).
Elise and I are babysitting a lot these days, and if we are any good at all, it is because all our former babysitters were so amazing. I sure hope my babysittees remember me the same way that all four of us remember our babysitters. I have realized that it is very easy to please small children--they are amazingly excited when I bring picture books from my house and love it when I play with them (that takes more skill than reading books, but it can be more fun--and tiring). That's all from me, I'll blog again next week.

Elise's Holiday

Hellooooooooo everyone!
Hope you had a good Christmas! I definitely did. I got lots of really fun stuff. Right now I'm trying out scratchboarding and sand art (all Christmas presents) and some paint-by-number. Also, I went to a four day running camp which started the day after Christmas. It was really fun, except for the fact that there was only one other seventh grader and he was a boy. Thankfully, even though everyone else in the camp were teenagers, I could keep up most of the time. After our daily run we would play Family Feud! Sort of a random game, I thought. (I had actually never heard of it until then.) Anyways, our team had to guess five types of facial hair, and by the time it was my turn, our team had two strikes and only one answer left! I couldn't think of anything (all the obvious ones like beard, sideburns, goatee, and mustache had already been said) and I was running out of time, so I said "fu man chu," just as a joke. It was the real answer!! :o That was my name for the rest of the camp. I guess it's my Chinese blood or something! The camp was lots of fun and they had really yummy lunches. I didn't get to know anyone really well, but it was still a neat experience!
Tinkertytonk:),
A lizard breath
(if you say it quickly, it sounds like Elizabeth)

Going Batty--by Madeleine

Paul, Thomas, and two other boys found a bat yesterday afternoon! Since it was out during the day, which was unusual, and it was acting sort of wierd, we called animal control. They didn't reach us till it was dark, so we couldn't join in the Great Bat Hunt, but they didn't find it anyway. Thomas and the other two boys still have to get shots, though, because there have been several reports of rabid bats throughout the country this year and they actually touched it (the bat). The boys seem to be really excited at the prospect of really having rabies, which is strange to me. I know that if it was me, I would definitely not be excited. The minds of small boys are often difficult to comprehend. Thomas likes to walk around the house trying to touch people with his finger, while screeching loudly, "This is the finger that touched the bat! This is the finger that has rabies!" Gage, one of the other boys, the one who actually caught the bat, thinks that it is really exciting. He takes it for granted that he has rabies even though we don't know for sure until the bat is caught and tested, but that might never happen.

Greetings from Madeleine--October 1, 2008

Hi, y'all. Our life has resumed an appearance of order after a wild, exciting summer. I guess it's a little late to be writing about summer since it is now October and fall officially started, like, almost half a month ago. I'm already eager for another vacation though.
I am still playing the piano and I will have a recital in November, so maybe we can take a video and put it on the blog.
We are really enjoying St. Louis. It has a lot of neato activities and places for free. If you come to visit us, we could take you to the Art Museum, the City Museum, Forest Park, the Shaw Nature Reserve, or to the downtown restaurants and shops.
Elise and I are going to the Homeschool Network again this year. It's lots of fun to be with other kids our ages, and doing homework is (possibly) good for us.
The other day (while i was[happily{I assume} and cheerfully]thinking [a dangerous pastime{I know}]) I played some tennis. Tennis is (lots of) fun. Since there is a tennis court nearby our house, we decided that we should start using it. I really enjoy it and I find it a lot more enjoyable and interesting than running.
ta ta and cheerio!!!:)

Elise's Thoughts

:)Elise(:
This year we have been very busy. There are so many cool things to do here in St. Louis!
1. Races. I first got into running when our whole family decided to start training for a family 5k run, because you got a discount if the whole family ran. I liked running a lot so I kept on running with Mommy. Track, I am not very good at; I like crosscountry a lot better. So far I have ran in about 15 races. My best time for one mile is 7 minutes!
2. I really like the zoo. It has so many animals and buildings, like the Insect, Monkey, and Penguin(brrrrrr!)House. It is lots of fun, & it is all free.
3. St. Louis has different weather & wildlife than Norfolk. I was very excited when I found some deer tracks in the woods. None of the other kids were interested--they saw those every day. (I had never seen them before) There is a lot more snow here. I have really enjoyed that. Also, lots of cool birds live on or around campus: a hawk(we see him a lot), an owl, a woodpecker, & lots of other birds which I don't know the names of. Cottonwood trees grow here. When there is a breeze tons of little seeds with fluffy parachutes like dandelion seeds come floating down. It looks just like it's snowing. That looks weird, especially when it's summer!

Paul, unedited

This is Paul I don't know were to start so I will start with my surgery. One day I when I when't to the Orthodontist, he took an exray of my mouth and when the exry came out it showd an extra tooth in my uper gums that was pushing my two front teeth away from eachother. Meanwill the tooth that was inbeatween my canine tooth and my left front tooth got loos and fell out. [That all happend before the xrey] as soon as that tooth fell out my left front tooth moved over in that space so the new tooth came in pritty far back in my mouth. So that orthodontist sent me to an oral surgeon. In obout 1 week we whent to that surgeon and he said that I wood need surgery to take my super numerater tooth out. So on April 10th 2008 I sat in the wating room for what seemed like half an our. aftar the half our I herd someone say "Paul Gibson please come up". So I put down my book and follode the nurse into a meudium sise room with a chair in the midle of it. Obviosly this was THE SURGERY ROOM! The nurse sat me down in the chair and terned on the TV and started fliping thrue the channels ascing me wich channel I wanted to see. Then she hooced up a big toob with a hole the midle of it. She conecded it to my nose so that my nose was in the hole. And then she took a couple of wirs that had discse that were sticky on one side and stuck them in odd places on my body.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................the surgery was over I felt dizzy and tired. My mom and my littil brother walked in I tride to sit up but I couldent

THE END


Editor's note: Charlie asked me to post this without changes. While I find it highly amusing, it did solidify my commitment to change spelling curriculum next year!