On Housekeeping

The family reunion is over for another year!

We traveled without event and vacationed very much with event. Which is good. I know that none of you thought about anything other than me for the last week, so I am happy to announce that you can rest easy that my vacation was a success.

Just a leetle housekeeping today. (It always used to confuse me when people would say "just a few housekeeping things" because I was like, "Wait. Are we cleaning stuff today?")

Meredith's annoying housekeeping items supplemented with Sherlock GIFs because they help the medicine go down:

1. For those of you who noticed that I changed the appearance of my blog yet again:

2. For those of you who like the changes:

3. For those of you who don't:

4. I'm finding it a little difficult to blog because my Pandora is going constantly and whenever I have a stroke of blogging genius, HERE COMES MY JAAAAAMMMMMM and I'm like

And then I forget whatever it was and I'm like

And naturally that makes blogging a little difficult.

That's all the housekeeping stuff.

Finally, I just want to communicate that I'm very proud of myself for not going like eight months without blogging. Keep in mind that this will be me every time I see this post, this post that I posted less than twenty-four hours after getting home from an exhausting vacation that normally would have hindered me from posting posty posts like this post.

And I'm really going to try to think deep, bloggy thoughts so I'll have stuff to talk to you about over the summer months without having to use Sherlock again.

And with that, I leave you with these summer wishes: May your tan never fade, may your ice cubes never melt, and may your shorts never ride up in the middle.

NOT BREAKING NEWS

I realized something a while ago.

To my understanding, you read my blog because, for some reason unbeknownst to me, you are interested in me/my life/my thoughts and opinions.

But while I've been very busy not keeping you all up to date on my life, things have been merrily chugging along in Meredithworld.

That should really be a theme park... Or maybe we can just go with this:

But I digress.

Anyway. Since you guys are interested in my life (and if you really aren't, please remember that ignorance is bliss and don't inform me otherwise) I decided to get you caught up on some of the majorer things that I've done or been up to, supplemented of course with tons of pictures and GIFs because hellurrrrr I just really like them and they suit my motives.

1. I finished school and passed another semester of college with my dignity mostly intact.

2. I turned in my final English assignment, a big research paper that pretty much killed my brain. When I turned it in I was all like

and when I got it back the teacher was all like "ONE HUNDRED AND THREE" so I was pretty happy.

3. I got a cute little coffeemaker and now I can make hot tea in my room whenever I want to.

4. I apparently signed up to work in our church nursery with Mom over the summer. I'll be a regular old Mary Poppins, I just know it.

 

5. I went to my first opera. And had a blast. And went to the second showing. And fangirled a leetle.

6. I wore heels to the aforementioned opera, unwillingly.

7. I signed up for music camp in the summer. And another music camp. And I found out that apparently my summer is going to busy. Yay.

8. I went to a lot of lectures and concerts and such and felt very classy and cosmopolitan and sophisticated.

9. Mom and I watched two seasons of Call the Midwife. It's a totally cute show, but I don't recommend it for...anyone, really.

10. I entered a few things in the homeschool art show and won a few prizes. And I also painted and did other various artsy things.

Like a boss.

11. I went to the beach with mi familia. The water is finally getting warm and swimmy.

12. I got rid of my textbooks from this past semester and emptied out my school bag for the last time.

13. I took the SAT again. And had a terrifying proctor. Again. I think they should just do this at the beginning of the test

because really. Let's talk real to each other like grown-ups, shall we?

14. After vegging out a little to reward myself for surviving a pretty brutal semester, I realized that I'm officially a high school senior now. Which means the next year is going to be full of college stuff, GPA's, transcripts, senior photos, graduation gowns, stress, and did I mention stress?

So yeah. There's a brief summary-ish of the past month or so. Now for the future, to sum up my feelings going into this summer...

Let's hope I get one.

Melancholy

I like melancholy things. 

Did someone say melon collie?

Yeah, no. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking black and white photos, staring longingly off into the distance, silhouettes, and poetry. I'm talking "a feeling of pensive sadness, typically with no obvious cause." 

Meredith being melancholy doesn't really mean Meredith is sad. Because I really like the pensive part of melancholy. And the "no obvious cause" part is pretty nice too. Because being sad with an obvious cause is really not fun.

People who are unfortunate enough to be familiar with me know that generally I'm a pretty happy person. I've chilled out a lot over the last year or so, but I'm definitely not a big fan of being bummed out. But sometimes I just like to sit in my room, play music, and be melancholy. Melancholy is a dependable sort of emotion. Happiness can be fleeting, obnoxious, and tiring. Anger is exhausting and unpleasant for all parties affected by it. 

But melancholy just stays with you, a sort of bittersweet comfort. It's nice to be melancholy sometimes because you get to just sit quietly and think about things. It's sort of like that feeling right before you hug someone.

I like to listen to music when I'm melancholy, like this...

Also frequently appearing on my "Melon Collie" playlist are Christina Perri ("Jar of Hearts" will always do it for me), Passenger ("Let Her Go"), Ed Sheeran ("This"), or my personal favorite (although it only works for me if I play it myself) - Chopin.

Or sometimes I just peruse photos, quotes, or poetry that bring out my melancholy tendencies.
Here are a few.

And after just a few minutes of pondering all the big things in my life like college and jobs and careers, I forget about little-big things like economics projects and algebra tests. And somehow, the bigger things seem easier to think about than those little things, because they're in the future, and at least while I'm being melancholy, I don't have to face any of my troubles.
There's a sort of refuge in sadness, you see. Sadly, I don't think that prose is entirely appropriate to really describe something so melancholy as melancholy (especially my prose). Consequently, I must turn you loose to learn about it for yourselves from the poetic masters.
Here's a tiny gem to get you started.

"And so, being young and dipt in folly

I fell in love with melancholy."

-Edgar Allen Poe

My Adventure

Today I realized a terrible realization to realize.

I forgot to post about my trip to Ohio.

*Dun dun dun duuunnnn* 

(It's funny because the opening line of Beethoven's 5th was like code for victory during World War II or something like that.)

But I have tons of pictures and all kinds of commentary that you guys don't want to see or hear, so naturally - I MUST POST!

 For every gorgeous family picture we have, I can guarantee that there are twelve just like this. At first we couldn't figure out how Geoffrey managed to look so serene while the rest of us were being blinded, but then we noticed that his eyes are completely closed. And yup. This is my family.

 This is the kitten that had adopted my Aunt Elaine. She slunk around outside, attacking various shrubs and waiting for food. (She was appropriately named Precious)

 I really missed the pink sunsets we've been having in Pensacola, but Ohio sunsets aren't so bad.

 The lake was maybe twenty feet from the house where we were staying, which was nice. Aunt Elaine had a huge window on one side of her house (it was almost the size of a whole wall) so we could sit in the living room and see this beautiful view.

 And of course, Cameron found a way to play video games...

 I honestly just got incredibly lucky with this shot. We were driving and I knew there was about a two percent chance that I would be able to get a decent photo coming around the corner in our van. So I stuck my camera out the window, crossed my fingers, and shot.
My camera loves me. x)

 Uh.

 One of the best things about playing photographer is when you get those shots that just really capture someone's personality.
This is definitely one of those shots.

 Yes, guys, it really was as picturesque as it looks. It was incredible.

 Another one of those personality shots. This is one of my favorite photos ever.

 This is pretty much what everything looked like along the roads in Ohio (unless it was a cornfield)

 Getting ready to head underground at Ohio Caverns! It was a cool trip, although it was somewhat monotonous looking at wet rocks the whole time...

 My beautimous little sister. <3

Ahahaha.... I'm picking on Dad and he doesn't know it....

 My pool buddy. I think we won...maybe?

 We employ extremely strict technique. This has been practiced for hours and is a complex art that takes years to perfect.

Now I could have posted tons and tons of photos from underground in the Ohio Caverns, but it really would have been pointless. Everything looked pretty much like this. It was interesting, but nothing particularly spectacular, and thusly not worthy of four thousand pictures when one will suffice.

So yeah! Those were a few of my favorites. Because I know that your interest in my life is somewhat limited as a general rule, I have mercifully stopped there. If you want to see them all and hear the long, boring narrative which accompanies, feel free to stop by (and bring a cantaloupe or something)

Summer Memories #3 - Special camp edition

I went to camp again. It was fun. It was educational. I miss it desperately.

I did a lot of things I didn't really expect to do, too. 

I freaked out and dove into the bushes (not my fault...)

I made record time getting to dinner after rehearsal.

I played pool and didn't kill anyone (although my dignity did kind of take a hit)

I taught a complete musical illiterate to play the opening of the Super Mario theme (a surprisingly fulfilling experience) 

Okay, enough talking, on to the pictures. ;)

 This is the choir, which was AMAZING this year. I think the addition of the voice department really helped us out; we had some really good singers this year. (I was not one of them) And of course, we have a wonderful director, Mr. Owens.

 This woman is spectacular, magnificent, one in a million, talented beyond belief, motivating, inspiring, etc... It was a huge privilege to have a short time to learn from her.

 Of course, I was bored and since I was totally overwhelmed with this piece at the time, I decided to go all artistic in the practice room instead of practicing (a genius idea, I know... "I can't play this piece so instead of practicing LET'S TAKE PICTURES!!!! HAHAHA!!")

 This is my wonderful roommate/camp mom/forever best friend from Virginia, Jessica. She was always there to encourage me, fix my hair, lend me her shorts so I could go play outside...she is amazing and I love her. <3

 Two of mah gurls all dressed up funny for tacky Tuesday!

 More tacky Tuesday people. It's hilarious to see people's reactions.

 Me and Bekah! I was so glad she came for drama camp! Since we were both there for one of the brooding artist type camps, we got to see each other a lot! I love her! <3

 Do you see this child right here? He is the reason that I got scared and dove in the bushes. He is a meanie head. But also cool.

 We were being bad and getting photographic documentation of what a wonderful job our counselors do. ;) Seriously though, the counselors are all amazing. I think they must be super-people, because they do all the things they do on little to no sleep, and they put up with our antics and don't generally bite our heads off. It's awesome.

 Because I had the wonderful opportunity to play with the orchestra, I got to sit backstage and misbehave during orchestra rehearsals (as opposed misbehaving in the audience) I had a little too much fun with that...

 Also had a little bit too much fun with this guy. (Connor/Timothy/Nerd Boy/who even knows what this guy's name is?)

The gorgeous roses I got after the concert. I loved them. x)

 Me and Mo, who, simply put, is the coolest counselor ever. So is AJ. So is KiKi. So is Dylan. So is Kayla. So is Suzanne. So is Dylan (who is the lion to AJ's puppy...)

Me and the Barbosas, who come from Brazil every year to work with the orchestra. They were so much fun to work with and I'm so glad I got that opportunity this year.

So yeah! That was camp! And of course there were other things that I didn't feel like writing (because I am a terrible, lazy blogger) but that is the gist of it! I suppose I'll have another random post up soon, probably, maybe. I don't really know.