I've been tagged

Ok, I've been tagged. That mean when someone fills out questions or something, they "tag" people and those people have to answer the same question and tag more people. So, here are the questions.
1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? Yes, my grandma Kathy. Her real name is Kathryn, just like mine

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? Yesterday watching a movie. I tell ya, American Girl Doll movies make you cry!

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? Sometimes

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? I really have no idea

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS? Not married, no kids

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? Yes.

7. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? Yes.

8. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? No idea, I don't like cereal that much anyway.

9. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Well, my tennis shows have these springy laces and you don't have to tie them and I don't have any other shoes that tie, so no, I don't untie/tie my shoes.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? Chocolate chip cookie dough.

11. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE? I don't know

12. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? I'd have to think about that one...

13. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Indiana .

14. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? aqua blue-ish color (pj).

15. FAVORITE SOUNDS: laughing children.

16. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? the cats moewing at Dad to get them some food, the heater blowing mildly warm air, and Dad doing things in the kitchen.

17. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Purple, just for the fun of it :D.

18. FAVORITE SMELLS? Good homemade food.

19. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? Gail

20. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? The Olypics are cool to watch every 2 years :)

21. HAIR COLOR? Brown with red and blond high lights .

22. EYE COLOR? Brown.

23. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? No

24. FAVORITE FOOD? I have lots.

25. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Both.

26.LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Felicity: An American Girl Adventure.

27. WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING? black and grey sweatshirt.

28. SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer.

29. HUGS OR KISSES? Hugs.

30. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? I don't know

31. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? No idea

32. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? The one I am writing, does that count?

33. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? Well, I am on a laptop and I don't have a mouse pad

34. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT? The movie that made me cry

35. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME? Colorado

36. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? Dancing, writing

37. WHO DO YOU WANT TO COMPLETE THIS LIST? Anyone who has a blog and read this! Ha!

38. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING? Every one's :-)

Gerbily Friends

I got gerbils last February. I wanted to get a hamster because I had always, always wanted one, but dad was allergic. Then they said that if it didn't live in Dad's room that is was OK. I did researching online and found that mice were nicer than hamsters. Hamster sleep all the time and don't like to be woke up. Mice don't mind as much. So then I decided on getting mice. I did more research and really liked them. Only problem was that no one in MI sells PET mice, just feeder mice, which don't make good pets because of inbreeding and the pet store can't guarantee them. I sent my dad mouse hunting in Lansing, which is were he working on some days, but all he found were gerbils. I said "No, I want mice, not some gerbil thing." But them I got looking online and they looked just like mice with fuzzy tails! I immediately fell in love with them. I did even more research about them and found that they were easy to care for and very nice. We went to the pet store in Lansing and I got to pick out my gerbils. I picked the two male ones. They weren't ready to leave the pet store, so I had to wait. Then we went down again and I picked them and took them home in a little box. Gerbils aren't expensive at all! It only cost my $40 to buy them, a cage lid and clips, a food dish, one bag of food, one bag of bedding, a little wooden house, and a wheel. After that all you have to buy is food and bedding. They did break their first wheel, but I got one like in the pictures and it has out lasted the other one by far.

That's how I got my gerbils. The tan colored one is Mocha and the black colored one is Fibonacci, but we just call him Fibbi for short. The very top picture is the one I plan on taking to the fair. It is VERY hard to get pictures of gerbils, THEY NEVER STOP MOVING! So I was pretty proud of myself for getting some really good ones.

Those are my gerbils!

The first chapter in my story.....

Here is the first chapter in my new story. PLEASE tell me what you think!

My parents kept a lot of secrets from me until I was nine, the age they deemed that I was old enough to know the truth. The truth was that they were spies and they work for NSO collecting information about other countries and what they were doing. It was a dangerous job, and they told me that one day they may not come home. Then, I didn’t know quite what they meant by it, but now I know its full meaning. The words “One day we may not come home” haunted me for the rest of my life, because one day those words came true – they never came home.

I was 11 when I lost my parents. That was three years ago. I mean “lost” as in I can’t find them, because I don’t know whether or not they are dead, and I don’t want to say they are until I know for sure. I still hang on to the hope that they are out there, waiting until they can come back to me. I feel that if I say that they are dead, they will be, but if I keep hope, someday they will come home.

I’m not the only one who has suffered from the loss of my parents. I have two sisters: Dawn and my twin, Sky. Dawn is 16 and she is in high school. She studies hard so she can go to college, but she had to work at the local McDonald’s so she can even earn money to go, and working cuts into her study time. Sky is 14 and she acts as though we are the most normal family in the world. She is always hanging out with friends and going to movies. It is almost like she doesn’t care that her parents aren’t home, and they may never be again.

One day I got really upset and started yelling at her. Really I was jealous that she could act happy and have fun, when I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“Don’t you even care?” I asked her when we were at the table doing math.

“About what?” she asked.

“About Mom and Dad. Don’t you even care that they may not come home? Sometimes you act like nothing’s happened; sometimes you act like you don’t care.”

“Oh,” she said in a quiet voice, “Yeah, I care, I just try not to think about it. My friends don’t even know about it.”

“Good,” I said, “they shouldn't. It just that sometimes you act as though nothing bad is going on, and that makes it seem like you don’t care at all.”

“But really, nothing bad is going on.”

“You think Mom and Dad being gone for 3 years isn’t bad?” I said.

“Well, they could still be alive.”

“They are alive,” I said defensively, “they just can’t come home or contact us.” Many times I had said those words in my head, making myself believe that they were true.

“But what if they aren’t alive? What if they aren’t coming home? You have to get it in your head that that might be true and that it is the most likely thing. I’m not going to sit around and wait for them to come home when there is a 99% chance that they won’t. I want to do something in my life. You can mope all you want, but I am going to have fun and be happy with my life, it’s the only one I’ve got.” She stood up quickly, the chair skidding behind her, almost falling over. She stared at me, then left, and I heard her slam the screen door shut, and I knew she had gone outside. Her math book and pencil were still sitting on the table.

What she said made me think. I had always made myself believe that they would come home. What if I was letting myself believe childish things? My twin sister, who happened to be two minutes and 17 seconds younger than me, was taking it better than I was. She was the one being strong. She was the one doing what she knew Mom and Dad would want her to: not letting their absence ruin her life. What if I was letting that happen to me? What if I was letting my own parents down -- the very people I wished would come home?

Everyone thinks that twins act the same and think the same. Maybe that’s true with some twins, but not Sky and me. We have very different personalities and interests, and most the time we take different sides of things. I closed my math book and left it there on the table, next to Sky’s.

We have a housemaid named Joan. Mom and Dad hired her to take care of us and clean the house and pay the bills and all those things, but three years ago Joan stopped receiving her monthly payment. Her contract said that once she stopped receiving money she was allowed to leave, but she grew to love us, and she stayed. She got a second job and sold her house, moving in with us. The money from her second job went into taking care of us since the money in the bank account my parents had was decreasing fast.

Joan's missing payment was the first of many signs that something was wrong with Mom and Dad. At first we didn’t make a big deal out of it, not until it lasted a year and no more money was going back into the bank account. Then came the day that they were suppose to come home; I remember sitting by the window all day waiting. You would have too if your parents had been gone for over a year. At the time I was 11 years old, and Dawn was 13. She thought it childish to sit next to the window all day long when, she thought, we should be cleaning the house to make them happy. I told he that our parents didn’t care if the house was sparkling, they just cared about us.

But they never came. That whole week I sat next to the window, doing my school on the sofa (we were homeschooled and Joan was a former teacher), looking out every time I heard a car go by. They’re just late, that’s all. Their plane was canceled or something, I thought to myself over and over again.

After a week Joan said that I should be doing something more constructive than sitting by the window watching cars drive by, but I didn’t want to do anything else. It was like if I stopped believing that they would come home, they would never come home. I looked out that window has much as I could, but they never came.

Christmas came and went without them. It was the worst Christmas ever. I tried to act happy, for Joan’s sake. She had gone out of her way to buy us presents and decorate the house. I was a little happier when I helped her hang the lights on the tree, thinking maybe we could be a normal family. Then we got the ornaments out, and the first ones I saw were Mom and Dad’s, and the ones they had given me. I started to cry as I hung them up, all the happy memories of Christmases past rushing to my head: Waking up on Christmas morning and running down stairs to find Dad drinking coffee in the recliner. Jumping in his arms and gazing at the presents under the tree, and falling asleep in his lap. I had the smallest hope that they would come home one Christmas day, but they never did.

Three long years had gone by and I couldn’t bring myself to believe that they may not be coming home. I’d only believe it when someone could prove it, and even then I wouldn’t want to.

Fire

Have you ever stared at a candle and been awed by its beauty? Sometimes I wonder, as I look at the lillt flame, how it could possible harm anyone. It is so small and peaceful, almost happy. It sways in the tiniest breeze, like it's dancing. The little flame doesn't look at all like the huge flame that it can become. The little flame looks soft, friendly -- almost like it has a little life of its own. But one wrong move, and that pretty little flame can turn against you, becoming a huge monster that eats everything in sight. It becomes a hungry villain, wanting to destroy everything it can reach, even lives. And it's sad to think that people are sometimes this way, too. Seeming like a peaceful candle on the outside, but inside they are holding back anger and rage that can't be kept in for long. One wrong move, and they explode, burst into flame. Then they aren't that sweet little flame that you thought they were. They're a huge flame that can destroy things that we hold dear, like friendships; it can even take lives when it gets out of control.

We did it!

Last night was our youth group's belated Christmas party. We had a blast playing games, eating tacos, and best of all, counting the money we raised! Everyone did a great job and we raised $160!!! We decided by voting that we would buy a pig, a flock of chickens and a flock of ducks! Great job everyone!!!

My Poem

The Floor
By Kate Troxell

When I was a baby,
My mother set me down
On a blanket, soft and blue,
Cushioning the ground:
Seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling,
Wishing, hoping, caring, loving,
Happy to the core.
Something, someone,
Sitting on the floor

Then, just four years later,
My mother set me down,
But I did not stay there,
I got up and ran around:
Seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling,
Wishing, hoping, caring, loving,
Running through the door.
Something, someone,
Running on the floor.

Then, many years later,
I was a very old man,
Hobbling across the floor,
With a cane in my hand:
Seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling,
Wishing, hoping, caring, loving,
Hobbling still more.
Something, someone,
Hobbling across the floor.

Then one day I fell,
Never to arise,
And there I lay,
Seeing nothing from my eyes:
Not seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling,
Not wishing, hoping, caring, loving,
Not being anymore.
Nothing—just nothing,
Lying on the floor.

Please tell me what you think!

Just think...

Have you ever thought about the poor, starving children around the world? Have you ever really thought about it?

Think now: your own child is starving. You'd feed them, right? Of course you would, it's your own child! Your niece is starving, you'd feed her too, correct? Along with your father and siblings? Yes, you would.

So what makes these people any different than the poor starving children in Africa? Nothing really, if you think about it. The children in Africa live and breath and talk and think just like the rest of us do. Their just starving. So why don't we help them like we would help our family? Maybe it is because it isn't something you think about everyday, it's not on your mind. Really it isn't something that you want to think about all day. It's depressing and horrid, but it's true. So maybe we should do something to help.

My youth group is doing just that. We are raising money to buy an animal from the Heifer Foundation (go to http://www.heifer.org/ to learn more). When you buy an animal the Heifer foundation gives it to a family in needs. Any offspring of that animal are shared with neighboring families, so it is a gift that keeps on giving. January 7th is our last day to raise money to the Heifer Foundation becuase that is when we are meeting and couting the money we earned and picking an animal that we can buy . So here is you chance to do something. Donating to the Heifer Foundation helps all the poor starving children. If you would like to help, some how get the donation to me, my mom, or my dad before January 7th. Any donation is appreciated.

So just think about it. Contact me if you have any questions.

-Kate