It's Not Happy People Who Are Thankful, It's Thankful People Who Are Happy

I'm sitting on a blue blanket, watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade with my family, and I realize how grateful I am for such a wonderful life.

Thanksgiving is coming up, and especially around this time of year, I think about all that I'm grateful for. There are a lot of people in this world who don't have as much as I do, which motivates me for all of my favorite things/people/places in life.
 This gratitude list is not complete. There is not enough time in the world to list every single thing I'm grateful for, or even everything I can think of. I will try to be as general as I can.

1. My Wonderful Family  From my parents who support me, to my sister who hangs out with me, to my cousins who I look up to, or who look up to me, to everybody else who I love. I would not have such a long list if it wasn't for you. (I know this list isn't that long, but the list in my head that I can't put into words is. 😊)
2. Eden  I am thankful for my best friend in the whole entire world, who has helped and supported my since I was six years old. She's the type of person who I can be laughing until my stomach hurts with one minute, and having a deep conversation with the next. Love you tin can!
3. My School Friends Although small but mighty, my school friends have been standing (or sitting, I mean our legs get tired sometimes) by me through everything I have gone through, as you might know, I can't keep my mouth shut, so I talk to them about every tiny thing that happens to me (from "I got a solo!" to "Melissa jumped out the window!" (by the way, here's a link to Melissa's blog.) ) but that's not the only reason they now are experts on my life. They are so supportive and easy to talk to that I know I can tell them everything. 
4. My Camp Friends I love my camp friends more than I could possibly say. They know me better than I know myself. There's something about living together for eight weeks that creates this special bond that you can't get anywhere else. At camp, there is no judgment. Another thing about living together, you can put on a smile for a few hours a day, but you can't fake it all summer. So, there are times when all those negative emotions kick in, and everybody id right there next to you...LITERALLY! One night, I was really stressed out about our play, and my entire cabin got out of bed to stay with me until I felt better.
5. My Dance Friends At the beginning of last year, I joined Starbound Dance Company. I was very excited to be a part of the group that I had been watching since I was 4. But, I felt very out of place. I had never really had friends at dance before. Everybody was just kind of there. It felt weird to be a part of a group that had such a strong bond and I felt out of place being "the new girl". But that didn't last long, because all of the people at dance helped me feel like part of the team, and now I talk to some dancers up to four years older than me like I have known them all my life.
6. My Teachers As I frequently say to my friends, "I like school, but not all the stuff that comes with it." This basically means that I love to learn new things (if that makes me a nerd then I'm proud of it!) and I love art class, and chorus. But, I don't like all of the other things that come with school. (The judgy people, the fads, the tests) Without my teachers, the bad parts of school would take over, and I'm very thankful for the people that teach me new things every day.
7. Food, Water, Shelter, And All That Stuff  These are usually the only thing on people's gratitude lists because "you can't survive without them", but I like to think more deeply than that. Don't get me wrong, I'm very thankful for these essential resources. I wouldn't be here without them, but I'm saying I like to focus on the less obvious things.
8. The Ability To Help Others I don't think I need to explain this, but I will. This is really hard to put into words, but helping other people is very important to me. One time, my sister asked me what the goal of life is. It may have been worded differently, but that's beside the point. I responded with, "to help others". Not just random acts of kindness, but also normal acts of kindness. I'm thankful for my ability to help my sister with her homework, open a door for my dog when he's trying to go somewhere, and all of the other everyday things that I do.
9. Words Speaking is very important. In our society words are used a communication, and as art. When I am feeling sad, I sing, when I'm extremely irate, I sing. Words are a way of life for me, and I'm very grateful for my ability to speak, sing, and write.

Coca Cola + Wisconsin Dells = A Really Funny Blog Post

  Hmmm. Where should I start? Well, I'll start by giving a shout out to my blog buddy Jessica for the awesome post about blogging tips. I tried to make my title more interesting this time. Also, before I begin I would like to apologize for the delay on my posts for my Wow! Really? page. It has said "Coming Soon" for a couple of months now....whoops. I'll get to it as soon as I can. Make sure you keep commenting on it!

Okay, okay, I'll start now. It was January 1, 2016 and I was in the Wisconsin Dells with my friend Eden, her sister Kayla, her parents, and my family.

Some important back round:

1.   When I was little, my parents wouldn't let me have pop because they wanted me to hate it when I finally did try it. (They didn't want me to like it because it is super unhealthy.)
2.   It worked.

      Kayla was drinking coke, which I hadn't had before because of my deep hatred of carbonation. (It feels like my tongue is being poked with a million needles!) I mentioned that I hadn't had it before, so she asked me if I wanted some. I said, "Sure."

     Well, I sipped the drink while standing on the floor of the water park. (Don't worry. I wasn't in the pool.) I was so disgusted by it that I didn't even think about my location or common sense or any of that. All I knew was that this brown, fizzy drink was causing great pain to my tongue. So, I followed my instinct. Well, no. I didn't follow it. My instincts took over me, and without thinking, I spit the liquid pain onto the wet floor next to the concession stand. 

     I don't exactly remember how we cleaned it up, but both of our families laughed hysterically, and I have been offered many cans of cokes since then as a joke.