babysitting

okay, because of the sad shape the economy is in, i find that i have had no source of income for over 3 months now. quite sad. but last night a miracle happened: sister richman called me and asked for a babysitter. i almost cried i was so excited. miles is their oldest son and seeing how their younger son is barely a month old, they took him to a company dinner. during the 3 and a half hours i was at their home, miles had a bowl of cereal for dinner (you should have seen the look on his face when his mom said if he was hungry he could have a bowl), i read an hour and a half worth of books to him, and picked up the almost spotless home. miles is barely 4 and he is a sweetheart. he looks just like his daddy and because of his love for children's movies, his favorite thing to do right now is dance. more specifically, break dance. "happy feet" has been his latest find, and it was funny to see some of the moves he has created. such a talented young boy, but i must warn you. proceed with caution when he is dancing. it could be fatal. :)

another swim meet down

OK, let us start where we left off...

color guard is once a week, Thursday evenings. because our latest meet was yesterday (a Thursday, for those of us who don't keep track of the days), i missed the first part of the meet. i barely missed the 13-14 medley relay. i would have made it, had my dad picked me up on time. he was supposed to pick me up at 7:30, but i guess it spaced his mind, because i called him at 8 and asked him to kindly come pick me up. i swam in the breaststroke again, but unfortunately, i did not get first. i got second to a foreign exchange student from Thailand, very cool. I then proceeded to swim the butterfly. ugh... the worst stroke invented by far. although there are those who look amazing swimming that stroke, i am not one of those blessed few. i got third to fellow swimmer Hannah Becker and "Thailand", as she will be now be known as. I also got the chance to swim in the free relay. Our team was B again, but we improved our time tremendously. Kelsey Kah, Lauren Meek, Elisa Carrasco, and I swam an 2:23.81 . not quite as impressive as the 15-18 boys relay, but still well swam. I was first leg again, and got us in a pretty good spot, but unfortunately the other teams had some pretty fast swimmers. we placed 3rd, but that wasn't last! our team ended up winning the meet by 36 points: Beaver Brook Country Club: 338, View Harbour: 374. our coach was very impressed by our win, because apparently in the first half of the meet, there were careless DQ's made. all together though, i think we did quite well.



Just as an FYI: Farragut High School is marching in the Independence Day Parade on July 4th on Kingston Pike.

swim meets

swim meets are always fun. the screaming for your teammates. seeing friends swim their hearts out, and of course... the competition. we had a swim meet on the 9th: first one of the swimming season and we whooped the team's can. the final score was some 376 to 304. i swam the 200 medley relay with Lauren, Kelsey, and Elisa... i ended up swimming the butterfly not the breast :[ our relay placed 2nd to our "sisters" Relay A. then the 50 backstroke, 1st to my "sister" Kelsey... she's like almost 6 feet tall, so this was a major accomplishment! i swam the 50 breaststroke after back, and the amazing thing is, i didn't place last! i got 1st to someone else... i think it was Allie ??? then i swam in the free relay. 1st leg!! relay b, though. we placed 2nd though! yeah!! AJCC was such a small team and it was super easy to kick that can behind us.

now, last night we had a swim meet again against Northside YMCA. they are a little bit heavier in the older kid department, so they won by 71 points. i was supposed to swim the medley relay, back, breast, and the free relay. but one of our 13-14 girls (*cough* *Kelsey* *cough*) didn't show up, so we had to scratch our second 13-14 relay. so i only swam 2 events: back and breast. my breast i know was terrible and Allie's mom said it was hard to see who touched first... me or Allie? i guess we will see tomorrow. my backstroke wasn't the best, but i wasn't dead last!! more later about what ribbons i got!! :)

summer, summer, aah! summer!

summer is so amazing! no school, no homework, and you can do anything, anytime, anywhere all with a simple question: please? right?? well, my mother and father have taken the liberty this year of installing a chores list. and it is so laborious. i hate it! cleaning up a room until its spotless, vacuuming that room three times a week, playing the piano for 30 minutes a day, and then helping with meals. and if you don't do those chores, you get punishment jobs! ugh!! :( not really fair, but that is what my parents decided best for us to do this summer.

but i didn't write this post to complain. i wrote it to describe the relaxed life my summer is after i take care of my chores: swim team at a bright and early 9:45 am! then swim for an hour and 15 minutes. in that hour and 15 minutes, get yelled at to do a perfect stroke, then work at that stroke forever, trying to get to LOOK perfect. then climb the huge hill to our house and get dressed for the day. this is where i usually do my chores and have lunch. then i either veg in front of the TV, play on the computer, or go down to the pool and hangout with some friends from the neighborhood. then around 5, i help with dinner and get it in the oven. then i eat dinner, clean up the house, get the younger siblings ready for bed, send them to bed, then hangout with my parents until they kick me upstairs into my room. around this time, its like 8:45 at the earliest and i have recovered my sleepy self.