A gluten-free me

Lately I've been getting stomach aches, and the worst one was after I went on a little baking spree. I made (and ate) crackers, breadsticks, bread, blueberry cobbler and cookies. So, I have decided to go gluten free for one week, ending on Monday.

I've already tried going dairy-free; not only was it hard (craving-wise and why-on-earth-is there-dairy-in-spaghetti-sauce-wise), but it was also ineffective.

In my quest to feel stronger and healthier, I've started to do some zumba (no spell check, I didn't mean zombie) via youtube. It's really fun. I sort of feel silly doing it, but it's exercise, I already look silly. Zumba, core training and figure skating is how I exercise nowadays.

Last week I had a test in figure skating. At the beginning of the session, the coach said candidly (and characteristically), "Now, this is one of the hardest levels. Don't think you're gonna pass."
Nobody really likes him. I do though, he knows what he's talking about.

Anyway, I wasn't nervous about the test because I knew I wasn't going to pass. I didn't feel strong on my elements, and I still don't. After my test though, Coach comes up and says, "You were really close to passing, you just need to work on your change-foot spin."

I was surprised. Usually I have to ask about what I need to work on. I was even more surprised that I almost passed first try. Go figure.

~Sophia

What next?!?

Seriously!

Today I had a lovely day at Fort Nisqually, volunteering at the middle school camp. It was "Gentleman's Day" so I dressed in my fancy summer dress, and I had a great time. The highlight of the day was the afternoon tea. The young gentleman campers were instructed to escort the young lady campers in to the table. I overhead one young man say, "Ah man! We aren't s'posed to do this kind of stuff 'til the eighth grade!"

When I got back home, I heard that one sister was sick, another hurt her neck, and another accidentally ripped her whole toenail out. In addition, my youngest brother is sick, and the tire blew out on the van.

I gave out hugs and went to my skating lesson. After the next class, I stepped back onto the ice and five minutes later, I fell out of a salchow and completely bent my leg backwards and twisted my ankle. I didn't know my body could twist like that, actually. Luckily nothing's broken, but it hurts like crazy and I'm stuck in bed.

*Sigh*

I got a feeling that I'm gonna be here for awhile. . .

~Sophia

Please help me out!

My dear few blog readers, I'm in need of your help.
The Piece County Council is closing down my skating rink. The ice rink is located in Sprinker Recreation Center in Pierce County, which hosts a variety of different activities, including Zumba, Yoga, Ballet, Karate, dog obedience classes, Church meets, Tennis, Hockey and Figure Skating, as well as many others.
I know skaters who have skated as long as ten years at Sprinker. I've only skated for two; I love it. What about these people who've dedicated their lives to this artful sport? The families that come to skate instead of sitting in front of the T.V., the seinior citizens who stay fit by playing tennis,and the kids who stay out of the streets because of hockey. If they take away Sprinker, then there's no other place to skate. People will be put out of jobs, into the streets, and children who've been skating all of their lives will have their dreams shattered.

The skating rink is the main problem, with the rusty, unstable, dangerous roof, as well as other problems. The whole center is in disrepair, and it's gotten so bad that it's being closed in October. The council just wants to shut it down instead of fixing it, even though plans for rennovation have been in place for years. They have the funds, but don't want to use them on Sprinker.
The most common argument I've heard against remodeling Sprinker, is that "people don't want to spend extra tax dollars on a select group of elitists" and that "if you want to skate, move somewhere that has a rink". I'm not taking that. They should come see the "elite" little four year-olds having a blast in their beginning group lessons. People drive a long way to get to Sprinker, and the closest rink besides that is Kent.

What we (people who want Sprinker remodeled) want is for the Council to get moving and give us a place to do our activities while they fix our rec center! We hope that if we make enough noise then the Council will reconsider! I attended a rally yesterday and we got media attention, which is great. The next move is to attend the council meeting. It would be earlier, but one of the council members is on vacation.

Help save Sprinker! Show support by emailing, phoning or writing to a council member, let them know that this is not okay! I know that most of y'all are on Facebook. Just join this group and add to the numbers. Check out Friends Of Sprinker. For more information about the problems with the center and the Council, see here, here, here and here.

~Sophia

How I met Evan Lysacek

Hello there. It’s been quite a while since I posted, so forgive me if I make such an exciting event sound boring.

Last weekend I went up to Seattle with some friends to see the Smuckers Stars On Ice tour. It was completely amazing! We saw Todd Eldredge, Jeremy Abbott, Meryl Davis & Charlie White, Alissa Czisny, Yuka Sato, Tanith Belbin & Ben Agosto, Sasha Cohen (my skating idol), Evan Lysacek, Shen Xue & Zhao Hongbo, Michael Weiss and Miki Ando.

We met up at the skating center and then drove to Seattle. The bruises on my upper left arm testify to the high percentage of PT Cruisers and VW Bugs that are on the highway from Tacoma to Seattle. Luckily I was sitting in the front, so I was able to duck to the side when I heard, “No take backs!”. We ate at the Old Spaghetti Factory, then hung out at the sculpture park nearby. It was overcast, chilly and windy, but it was fun.

In front of the Key Arena was a sign that said, “No outside food or drink. No camera flash or video cameras.” My friend’s mom (for the sake of the story, we’ll call her Patty) said that we should just shove our water bottles down our shirts. We did, much to the hilarity of my companions, and Patty put the bag of cookies I brought up her shirt so it looked like she was pregnant. I wasn’t able to stop laughing about that for a while, so when we were done we passed the checkpoint without incident.

We found our seats; Patty got front row seats on a discount through something, so the view was wonderful, and perfect for pictures. While we watched, we ate cookies, said, “I can do that!” occasionally, and in my case, frantically took pictures.

Todd Eldredge

Shen Xue & Zhao Hongbo

Alissa Czisny

Ben Agosto (He played a Van Halen song on the ice! One of my favorite parts of the show)

Meryl Davis & Charlie White ( they did their Olympic routine, apparently. I wouldn’t know, I don’t have television. Olympic routine or not, it was the best I’ve seen ever)

Michael Weiss

Sasha Cohen (I got some amazing, crystal clear pictures of her. I also got some videos)

Evan Lysacek

After the show, we took some pictures. Touching the ice, sitting in our seats, etc. Another girl from our rink was there, and she found a fan-club pass on her seat. We went with her and sat down, but the guard said that only the person with the pass could meet Evan, but we could watch. When the line thinned down, Patty told us to get in line surreptitiously. In horror at the act and in abject terror of being caught, we snuck into line. We weren't thrown out, but the guard said, "Okay, group picture, not individually, since only one of you has a pass." Tee-hee. Thank you, Ms. Guard. We all got our things signed. If we had known, we would’ve brought our skates! I think that one of my friends almost passed out, until she saw Evan. I was standing behind her, so I heard her say, "Thank you. Bye, I love you." I was laughing too hard to say anything but thank you to Mr. Lysacek, but he was laughing too, so I can say that I shared a joke with a famous, gold-winning skater.

Seattle at night is beautiful. As we walked back to the car, we all gushed about how fabulous the evening was, and Patty apologized for encouraging us to perform questionable and possibly illegal acts. We forgave her.

Such an unbelievable event! It’s so cool that I know how to do some things that the pros do. I think that we counted seven or eight maneuvers that we could do, excluding getting onto and off of the ice : ) It was a completely amazing experience and I am grateful to have attended!

~Sophia

What’s been up lately. . .

I passed up to the next level in figure skating: Freestyle 2! I’m so excited, I’m just dancing on clouds.

Also, I’ve just finished reading “The Mysteries of Udolpho” by Ann Radcliffe, written in 1794. It was a good book with several passages worth committing to my commonplace book, but the heroine kept fainting into the convenient arms of a beautiful guy, which I found irritating. It’s sort of like the “Twilight” of it’s time, but back then it was considered to be just a reading novel and not improving of the mind. It affected *my* mind though, and manner of talking that has not quite worn off yet!

In other news, I found the Curly Girl technique, and it looks like this on my head:

I sort of like it. I made my sisters do it too, and it looks fabulous on them too. Here’s a link to a website of a group that loves this method: Here.

I shall soon post a new recipe, I’ll find a good one!

~Sophia

Amazing Skater!

I sometimes wish that I had T.V.
About every 4 years for the Winter Olympics. I'd just love to see the skating, and I hope that my Aunt remembered to tape it! My skating teachers keep referencing it, and one even said, "Wait, you don't have T.V., do you?" Anyway, I like looking at YouTube skaters, like this little girl:



She's only seven and she's amazing! I'd be upset, but she's so cute : )

Oh yeah, it would totally make my day be cool if I got comments more often. Just say hi : )

~Sophia

My 16th Birthday Weekend!

This is going to be a long entry, it seems like I had a whole birthday week! In my family we have several birthday traditions, I don't know if I've mentioned them before, but I'll recap. For girls, on the 9th birthday, you can get your ears pierced. 10th, for boys and girls, you get a pocketknife. For girls on 13th, it's lipstick. Anyway, we've made up another one for girls, on their 16th. On Valentines Day, I was told the surprise. I got to go down to Portland to get my own signature scent at The Perfume House, which is like, the biggest perfume place in the U.S.

So first off, Mama and I left on Friday afternoon. We rented a car and I got a bit wooshy after a while. I was sewing lace onto the neck of my new dress, but I stopped to take pictures. Here are some highlights.

We stopped close to Portland to go to the Pendleton Mill Store to look for fabric trim for my 1850s wool dress. We didn't get anything, but it was fun to look!


After that we went to my Aunt's apartment to drop off our stuff, then we went out to dinner at Justa Pasta. It was a crowded little bistro setting, and the food was great. We then went to an English Country Dance and learned a bunch of really complicated, fun, Austen-type dances. We then went to Powell's City of Books, and I was so tired and overwhelmed that we went back to the apartment.


The next day, we went to The Perfume House.
All those opened perfume bottles on the counter are the ones we smelled.

My Aunt fell head-over-heels in love with this one perfume, Daim Blond. She wouldn't stop sniffing her arm all day! It was even funnier because she has always sworn not to do perfume!

My perfume scent is called Fluers De Oranger by Serge Lutens. I completely adore it.

After that, we had lunch,

And wandered all up and down Hawthorne street, browsing the clothing stores and such.


My Aunt and Uncle bought me a beautiful wrap skirt made from recycled saris. It's reversible too!
After shopping, I went ice skating with my cousin at Lloyd's Center, then we all got Indian food at a little streetcart downtown. I took a few pictures on my camera, but they're too small to be visible on the computer. We went back to the apartment to do henna tattoos. It was so fun! It's supposed to last for 3 weeks, so we'll see.

We went home the next day after breakfast and a little more shopping. On Tuesday, I had my actual birthday. I chose Kahlua Torte instead of cake; it was delicious! My little sister's birthday was a few days later, and she had a chocolate cake. She has food allergies, but the cake turned out great. She turned 10, so that meant she got a pocketknife!

Needless to say, I'm just still so thrilled at my perfume and I'm so grateful for everything.

I'm off to do homework! Have a great day :)

~Sophia

Woot!

I just passed my ice skating test and moved up to the advanced levels!!!
Yay! Next level: Freestyle 1!

My test went horribly, but my teacher knew what I could do, so she passed me. I think I pulled a muscle on my lunges, but I'll be okay :P

Anyway, other news, Brigade is this weekend and I'm almost finished with my dress, I'm so excited!

So, bye for now!

I am SO sore and tired it makes me sore and tired to think about how sore and tired I am...

...To borrow a phrase.

Yesterday was figure skating lessons. I need to make some videos of the moves I'm learning, because I can't find them on YouTube. Anyway, I have finally mastered my lunge, which is one of the skills I need to pass to Freestyle 1. The other skills are inside and outside edges, bunny hops and inside 3-turns, all of which I'm pretty good at.

Lunging is basically thrusting (lunging) your body into an uncomfortable position for an extended period of time while moving forward. I help my classmates learn after the teacher leaves and
they all wanted to lunge so I went all out. This way, that way, lunge lunge lunge. I even sat on the ice in a half-split position. And I fell from that position several times. I landed on my cell phone once, but it's okay. It was SO FUN, I got my clothes totally wet!

Anyway, I just got back from the Fort today, where I helped out at the camp again. It was pretty fun, I cut my finger on the porch, sat around a lot, got doused with water and I helped with making lanterns.

I cut my finger on the porch while looking at rocks underneath it. I was bored and I said, "Hey these rocks look really weird." and another A/I (apprentice interpreter) said, "Maybe they're mice." And it made me laugh really hard and I grabbed onto the wood and ripped off some skin that way. It was way funnier in person.

I hadn't done lanterns before, so I helped another volunteer and soon got the hang of it. There were some visitors that came up to us when we were making them; they were an older couple. The lady came up and said, "Won't the wood catch on fire?"
"No, we'll put glass around the candle."
"Ohh! I didn't know that they had glass in the olden days!"
Yup. We had fun telling that story to everybody. Someone else said to me:
"So, are you a staff member?"
"No, I volunteer here."
"...Why in the world would you want to do THAT?"
"(blink, blink) Because it's ridiculously fun."
"Ah."

Now I'm thinking of all of these great things I should have said instead, but I guess that I was so confused why she'd say that. I guess SHE was confused...Anyway, I'm confusing myself now, moving on.

I ran around the fort a lot, so that's part of why I'm sore...It was also hot, but it gave me an opportunity to thank the Lord for our soldiers in Iraq, and to bless them for their courage and strength in this heat.

This was kind of a long post (for me), but I was just sitting here doing nothing.

Signing out.