Everyone is wrong.

Here's an interesting sentiment; over the last year or so, one thing I learned is that almost everything society tells us is wrong. Anyone who knows me knows what I mean, but if you've never met me in person, let me put that in perspective:

1. I eat primal. No grains, high fats, (animal fats mostly, and also things like olives and avocado) lots of veggies, limited starches. This is the exact opposite as everyone in society tells us to eat. Yet, my dad eats this way, and he was cured of his diabetes. My mom started this way of eating, and amazes her doctor with her blood tests. I don't actually feel any different. But maybe I'd feel worse if I started eating SAD (standard american diet) again.

2. Shoes are bad. This is the best way I can explain without telling you to go read "Born To Run".
(Even though you should read it.)
   When you support an area of the body, it gets weaker. This is why people coming out of casts have trouble walking or using their arms. So why, then, are we marketing running shoes to athletes and casual joggers that are, as the advertisements claim, supportive and padded and cushy? I used to hate running. I would get winded after running ten feet, and I just didn't bother after a while. Of course, maybe that's because I used to wear running shoes everywhere, feeling superior over those idiots who wore deck shoes or high heels because I wore shoes for my health, not for fashion. yeah; that didn't work out. The first time I tried barefoot running, I fell in love with it. That doesn't mean I'm a runner now; honestly, I'm kind of a couch potato. But now I go barefoot whenever I can. And when I have to put on shoes because it gets too cold, or I'm going into a public building, my feet just feel... sadder.

3. Dogs should not be eating dog food. Let's attack this one step at a time.
First of all, let's take a look at your average kibble; it's very dry, isn't it? Do you really think that's a natural thing? After all, all food in the wild has at least some level of moisture. Especially for dogs who, being carnivores, consume living things which have a lot of moisture in them. The day we got Max off kibble, the water bowl went virtually untouched.
   Second of all, have you ever noticed how dog food all seems to be advertised as containing "healthy, nutritous, real vegetables"? well, think on this; DOGS ARE CARNIVORES. Do I really have to explain that one?
   Third of all, multiple dog foods are advertised as having "healthy" whole grains in them. But can you imagine dogs in the wild jumping at the tops of wheat stalks, thinking, "If I can just eat some of this, I'll be healthy!"? I didn't think so! And if an animal doesn't have access to something in the wild, why would it be healthy for them in captivity?
   If you're still not convinced, look at Max; when we started feeding him raw meat and the occasional vegetable scrap, (since small amounts of veggies are found in the stomachs of dog's prey, and affordable meat nowadays is fed with grains) his dandruff went away, he stopped itching, and his gassiness went away. Even when he does fart, it doesn't smell half as bad as it used to.

4. And let's not forget the obvious lack of school. This isn't exactly something I've learned in the last year, though; more like something I've always known, and have been relearning for years. I have never gone to school. The closest I've ever gotten was music reading class, (since I was given homework) and I have to say I didn't get much out of that. But am I an idot? No, no I am not. I like to think my intelligence is at least a little bit above that of the average schoolkid. (As we homeschoolers always refer to them)
Having never taken an IQ test, I can't prove to you that I'm not undereducated. But I will tell you that I have taken a reading test, and at the age of eight I was reading at an eighth grade level. If I've progressed that fast in any of my other subjects, I think intelligence is a given.
   And another thing; homeschoolers are closer to their children, and to other homeschoolers. If you've ever been to, say, the craft fair, you'll notice this sort of tribal community going on, where everyone knows everyone else, everyone shares recipes, and so forth. When our friend S got pregnant, everyone (except me, admittedly.) got together to help make her a patchwork shawl. When our friend (whose name also begins with S) got sick, me and mom made her soup and brought it over. Places like the craft fair are where you see the moms breastfeeding out in the open, the babies being carried around on backs african-style, the whole "tribe" joining in to playfight with their duct-tape swords, (a trend started years ago which, so far is as much a trend as TV or the internet.) and it's amazing. It's like, wherever our little tribe ends up, a community automatically forms.

As you can see, we seem to be slowly weaning ourselves off the societal nonsense we've been eating for years, and switched over to healthier fare; namely, decisions that were made by us, not by "scientists" we've never even met. I'm not done, either. Right now I plan on conquering two more "new" ideas;
Toothpaste isn't beneficial, and shampoo is bad for your hair.
   Wish me luck!

Pictures!!!!!!!

Sooo... due to my newfound ability to upload pictures, today will be picture-sharing day! Since I have so many, I'll be dividing them into helpful little categories.

Profile.
You guys all know my profile pic is totally out of date, right? Well, no more! I just updated it! Check out the new one;

Such a change from the old one, right? I mean, look at my hair! (long!) glasses! (round!) braces! (existent!) shirt! (not old and ratty!)

So now, if there's anyone who reads my blog who I don't know in real life, (which I doubt anyway.) they'll know what I look like! Here are some of my other favorites from the photo session;

The thoughtful pose...

If you look close, you can see John Lennon.

Musclewoman! (Even though a certain photographer
didn't actually get all of me in the shot.)

I was gonna make this one my profile pic, but I'm not really smiling here...

SUMO!!!!!!!!

Crazy kung-fu pose!

Crane pose!

 Imagine me doing this while yelling "ACTION SHOT!!"
And you'll have a pretty good idea of how the day went.

Aaaaaaand... peace out!!!!!!!!!

Christmas Popcorn.

So, the other day we were making christmas popcorn strings,
and I found a piece of popcorn that looked just like Zoidberg from futurama!
So, of course, I colored it in.

Here I am with the finished string. Can you spot Zoidberg?

BEST. PICTURE. EVER.

At the end of popcorn day, (as I'm now calling it.) Both me and Owen were pretty bored. So we resorted to taking pictures like this;

And this.

I love this one. He looks angry, but you can still kind of tell he's smiling.

Owen smile is really cute, unless he's actually trying to smile.

Of course, being myself, I had to pose like this;

The third time I tried that pose, though, I ended up like this:

I also did this:

Owen thinks I look like something out of halflife.
Although, when posing less menacingly, I look more like cousin It.

So marks the end of our photo tour! (That's what I'm calling it.)
Soon I'll have some more pictures ready, and some christmas tales to share!

6:30

Okay. Last night Sophie slept in my bed with me. So can you guess why I woke up at 6:30 in the morning?
   Yeah.
I woke up on my own around 6:15, and saw it was still pretty dark outside. So I tried to get back to sleep, but Sophie kept running around on top of the bed and eating my face and other such things, so I got up, picked her up out of the bed, and went downstairs and out to the backyard so she could pee. While she was going, I looked at the stars to pass the time. Yeah; the stars.
   She had a good piddle, and I took her back through the house and up to my room, where we both got under the covers and I shut my eyes and tried to go to sleep. And then she started whining and running around. After a while of her acting like this, I finally gave up and looked at the clock; it said 7:30, but I still haven't set mine after daylight savings time. (Spring forward, fall back; my clock's an hour fast.) So it was 6:30. Fine; it wasn't that ridiculously early. So I picked up Sophie and went back downstairs, where I put Sophie down and attempted to turn on the TV to pass the time until the others woke up. And as she nipped at my ankles while I groped for the cord, I realized that I couldn't watch TV; I had to watch her, to prevent such things as the peeing on floors and the eating of electrical cords. So basically I spent about two hours (mom & Owen woke up around 8) walking around the house trying to keep a bored puppy out of trouble. I woke up early enough to see the sunrise but I didn't even get to sneak a peek.

(Okay, to be fair she did nap with me through a whole episode of "Monk", and a good part of "Queen of the Sun". But still.)

So, in other news, (although not so much a non-sequitur) I have some pictures of Sophie!

Here she is with dad, on her first day;

I love this one; not exactly an accurate depiction, but so cute!

Here she is being held by Owen and petted by me. She's so calm when she's being held.

Here she is being held by me. (Notice how almost all these pictures are of her being held;
that's 'cause she has almost no chance of standing still otherwise!)

This is a picture of her lying down being all sweet; you don't see much of this.

Here's a picture of her chewing a stick while sitting on me.
Can you see where she got the nickname "Crocodile"?

Here's her and Max sharing a stick; he's really good with her, so stuff like this happens
more often than you might think. (Like, as I type this, for instance.)

Here she is chewing on my hand just this morning.

And the same.

And here she is napping today. :-)

Sooo... yeah. As you can see, we really love our puppy! :-)

SOPHIE!!!!!!

So, my computer hasn't been working right for a while. No internet, no E-mail. It was just a nuisance for a while until something AWESOME happened and there was no way to write about it on my blog. But I just realized; I can use my mom's computer! So; here we go.

WE GOT A PUPPY!
Yup! Her name is Sophie, and she is sooooo adorable! 
See, about a week ago, mom found this dog she liked on petfinder. His name was Scout, and she thought he was adorable, but I didn't think he was all that cute. So mom insisted we go to the shelter so I could meet him in person.
   See, we had been thinking about getting another dog for a while. A companion for Max, to get him some exercise and maybe calm him down when we left the house. Mom wanted an older dog; she said that she wanted someone easy to manage, who would be calm enough to have a good effect on Max.
   We got there, and Scout was nowhere to be found. Apparently, he hadn't even arrived at the shelter yet. There were, however, two adorable honey-colored puppies in a crate in the side room. We played with them for two seconds before I told mom that, of course, we had to adopt one. No, she said, we were going to get an older dog. That was when one of the volunteers came in and took one of the puppies away. "Is she getting adopted?" Mom asked. Yes, she was. Without her sister.
   I looked at mom with what I hoped were puppy-dog eyes. "Come on," I said, "We have to get her now!"
   Mom sighed and started explaining again why we couldn't get a puppy. And I started listing the reasons we should.
   First of all, I told her, puppies are a lot of work, but the training you do with puppies sticks. It works that way with people, too.
  Second, mom had been worried that we would get a dog who wasn't as cute as Max, and Max would end up being the favorite, with the second dog lonely. "But the reason why we love Max so much," I said, "Is probably because we got him as a puppy. We would bond with her if we got her now!"
   And the final, most important reason; "She's sad! She would be happy if we brought her home!"
Mom sighed. Again. "How about you hold the puppy while I think about it." She said. She walked out of the room, and I eagerly took the puppy (who I was calling "butterball) out of her crate. There was Christmas music playing on the radio, and I found myself rocking her gently back and forth while I sang along. She would occasionally interject to lick my face.
   I don't remember what exactly led up to the decision itself, but mom eventually caved and decided to adopt her! Not foster; adopt! Right then and there! Of course, now there was a ton of paperwork to do.
   As I held Sophie while mom filled out the paperwork, a group of kids who must have been on a school field trip or something filed in. I was told (by someone) that they wanted to see a puppy. But we had just taken the last puppy. No big deal, though; it was show and tell time!
   I walked over to the kids and introduced her to them. Everyone had a blast petting her and holding her and cooing over her while I found myself talking like I worked there;
"We don't know how old she is, but we're thinking ten weeks." "Not sure, but we're thinking Shar-Pei/ Lab." "Yeah, her sister just got adopted about fifteen minutes ago!"
When that was over, two girls who weren't with the group came in and started cooing over her too. They stayed the entire time we were filling out the paperwork, one girl holding her and taking pictures to send to her mom and say, "this is what I want for Christmas!"
In the time we were there, we learned that she had multiple siblings, and loved dogs, but wasn't allowed to have one. She was obviously persistent though; somehow I think she'll keep taking pictures of puppies until her parents relent.
   Eventually, the paperwork was done. We took her home and Owen marveled over the new puppy. She played well with Max, had a good pee outside; but we still had to name her.
I had come up with "Sophie" and "Noel" at the shelter. Mom and Owen liked "Rosie".
   I really loved the name Sophie though, so I asked mom, and she said that if Owen was okay with it, that could be her name. And so, we ended up with a puppy named Sophie.

So it turns out that that calm, sweet puppy we met at the shelter is actually not so much calm. Sweet, yeah, but not calm. I fell in love with her from the moment I met her, so I call her things like "Honeybooboo", "Honeybear", 'Honeybun" and a lot of other pet names with the word "Honey" in them. But the names she earned from the rest of the family?;
"Crocodile"
"Psycho puppy"
"Crazy puppy"
"Nippy puppy"
"Psycho"
Does that paint a clear picture?
She is such a lab. She does the "play snarl" that I've only seen labs do, when she's playing with Max and starts growling and snorting like crazy, and you look over to make sure they're okay, and both their tails are still wagging. She is also very chewy; I think she's in the teething stage, because she will chew on anything; including people.
   Not to say she actually bites, but she's not exactly too gentle, either. For the most part, though, it doesn't hurt, and I let her chew on my hand. It's funny; I was terrified of Max chewing me when he was that age, but now you could call me a human chew toy! Unfortunately, though, her favorite chew toy isn't hands; It's feet. And shoes, especially if someone's wearing them. Mom's moccasins are already slowly but surely being pulled apart.
   For all that she's a little psycho puppy, (even I call her that sometimes!) She's also very sweet. She's already slept in my bed with me twice, and although both times I was woken up around seven or six in the morning, she hasn't woken up once for purposes other than to lick my face, then fall back asleep.
   All and all, she is just a wonderful puppy. I am absolutely in love with her, and can't wait to introduce her to everyone! And sorry to everyone I haven't E-mailed with this big news; once again, my E-mail is down for the count. I'd keep writing, but there's yard work to be done. I wonder how that'll work out with a puppy around...

Ciao!

P.S;
I totally forgot! Yesterday was my blog's fifth birthday! Yaaay!

Fleas and Nostalgia

Okay, so Max recently got a very mild case of fleas. So we got him a flea collar, and we thought they had gone away, but we were wrong; because the night before the night before last, I found one in my bed. Two, actually. And then I itched the rest of the night. And then I found one on me the next day. So yesterday we vaccuumed everything, washed all my blankets, and flea-combed the rats (no fleas; thank goodness!) while Owen worried about whether the rats would give us the plague. That's my bro. :-P
There are no more fleas now. (thank goodness!)
   In other news, I was trying to get onto my blog earlier through my dad's computer, and I logged on with her username, so when I tried to log onto blogger it brought me her old blog instead. HUGE, CONCENTRATED BURST OF NOSTALGIA!!!!
   You see, mom started that blog in 2006 and stopped writing on it in 2010, so everything on there is from at least 2 years ago. It's fun to see our different perspectives on certain events. For instance, she wrote about the day we made duct taped swords 5 or 6 years ago, and I wrapped red duct tape down mine "Like a candy cane". Um... no. That was supposed to be blood dripping down the sword. Did you really think I was that cute and innocent?
   And some things happened a lot longer ago than I think they did. For instance, when mom opened up her old camera and said, "Hey, there's film in here!" And dad said, "You say that every time you open it."?
That feels like yesterday, it really does.
   Also, random bit of trivia: It's been six years (as of november 29th) since mom gave in and let me draw on the walls of my room. Since then, (sometime early this year) I actually washed all the graffiti off. After five years. End of an era, huh?
   Also, people who know me will know that I like to quote things out of the blue. Well this is my first (recorded) quote:

"The Philippines are a group of islands off the coast of south east Asia."

Betcha didn't see that one coming, did you?
   Anyway, if you know us and want to take a trip down memory lane, (or if you just want something to read) Read this; http://randomhomeschooler.blogspot.com
It's fun!