I Don't Have Any, But

I am thankful for fur.

Tennis and All

I am thankful our family played tennis this morning. I love playing tennis. It gives me energy when I know exactly how I'm hitting the ball. If I'm hitting well I get lots of energy. If I miss, I still get some energy and I know I need to focus for the next shot. Tennis makes me feel strong, tired, weak, happy and filled with energy, all at the same time. After tennis, my dad often takes us kids to get a drink at Jamba Juice. Then I feel renewed.

Today, when we got home I practiced my cursive writing and then I am here, posting on my blog. So, I am thankful for tennis and for all the things that happen afterward.

Flying fuzz

Green fuzz particles exploded in a puff, left behind the tennis ball that shot out at the imaginary "Svetlana." The flying fuzz swirled suspended in the air around Frankie's head. After 30 years at this game I could smell the fuzz. I knew the satisfaction Frankie must be feeling - solid, loaded-up, driven, victorious. That ball's not com'n back! The wiz-swang sound as the ball spun past my head. Warm sunshine. Vance & Rox crawling after baby SaviLucia on the side court. Magic sleeping in the shade. A basket-roller half filled with tennis balls at my side. It's great to know tennis. It's great to know it so that I can give it to Frankie, Vance, Rox and soon to SaviLucia. It's great because of moments like this. Flying fuzz off Frankie's topspin backhand. She's going to load-it-up!

A Moment With Roxy

I am so grateful to be here on earth this minute. Everything seems just right. The breeze blows and my little girl's hair flutters. She twirls around a green patio umbrella post and stops to tell me "I 'm a little mad to be here."

"Why?" I ask, not surprised really. She doesn't ever hide her feelings.

"Because," she doesn't finish. She wants to talk to me and thought I probably wouldn't. But I said "Why?" in just the right tone of voice. I left her speechless for a moment, in a good way.

"Well," I said, "That's O.K. Because I love you even if you're a little mad."

She smiles.

I'm so glad she loves me anyway, too.

A Funny UnderDog Story

I am thankful for wonderful stories that I can read. Like right now, I have been looking at the book "SuperDog: The Heart of a Hero". It will interest you a lot. It is about a dog who looks like a sausage on meatballs. He works really hard and turns into a superdog with big muscles. He helps people who are in trouble. I had never heard of superdog, I had only heard on "underdog." It's a funny story.

Catching And Releasing White Beauties

I am thankful for butterflies. They bring so much color to the world. As you may have noticed, I've written a lot about color on this blog.

One day, a Tuesday, my friend Hunter and my brother Vance and I went butterfly hunting (catching, really). We were looking for Monarch or Swallow-tail butterflies. We didn't catch any of those kinds. I got about a centimeter away from catching a swallow-tail butterfly but I missed it. Hunter also tried several times, but he couldn't catch any either and neither could my brother. We did catch other more common ones, white ones, which we see a lot here in Southern California. The butterflies kept us company while we worked on our studies. I worked on my Egypt studies and Hunter and Vance worked on their Dinosaur studies. We let the butterflies we caught go free, after a few hours, so they wouldn't die.

P.S.: I hope that whenever people catch butterflies, they let them go soon after. That goes for most other animals also.

I'll Love You Best If You Laugh At My Jokes

I am thankful for my dog Magic and for all the pets we've ever had: Our dogs and fishes and chickens.
Yesterday our family went to the beach, and I'm thankful for that.
And I'm thankful for Uncle Jesse and his family and that the kids come to play with us every day. I really like to play with them, when they are nice to me. My favorite kid in Uncle Jesses's family is Kinzie because she is very nice every single day. She pushes me on the swing and she laughs at my jokes. Last time they played with us we played a game called "Martin and Chris's ABC's". It was a game about pirates that were attacking us and were trying to make us slaves. Roman and Vance were the pirates who were after treasure; which in the game was a bag of popcorn.

Art

I am thankful for art to look at. This morning I looked at one of the paintings hanging in our dining room. It isn't famous but its vibrant colors do so much for my world. There are, of course, famous pictures in the world, they are a thought frozen in time. Like the Mona Lisa or Salvador Dali's Spain 1938.

I Write Faster in Chinese

I am thankful for our new dog.

And I am thankful I have a family.

And I am thankful for fake snoring, because it makes me laugh. Frankie and I were just taking turns fake snoring and we broke out into laughter each time. And it was so funny!

Frmqo Mokmammmy orwwowkrkkwpfffkwdfrtgfyhgvbnjmkiol,khtghbrechb hgfyfvbnmjjuyhgtfrdeswaewrtgfc (I am trying to write in Chinese).

grydghgnbvnmjiutsaqwedrftgyuofgrygffgfffetteeyvfgtbhngvfcdswerfgghhbvccccfedrtyghbyredfcxerr

gyftygy98ugtygfcdxsefgbhnjmkiuyhbgfrdeswgbnmhgfdxxdertyuijhbgfdrtyurdesxcvbnmjhgfdsapoiiuyttttttfd

Oh the Things I Will Do...

I am thankful for my new computer, because it is really cool and I've never had my own computer before and I don't have to have the same e-mail address as my parents. It's really small and it can fit into a very small suitcase, one as big as a folder. I want to use it to play games on and to type up clues for treasure hunts and maybe even go onto a dot.com bookstore and order kid's books.

Music Calms My Soul

I am thankful for music.

I have posted about music before. But to me it is worth posting again. Music helps me calm down. When I'm nervous about something and my stomach seems twisted, I turn to music. I have written a couple of pices for the piano. I love playing the piano; I spend about 7 hours a week on the bench playing everything from Fur Elise to simpler songs and anything else I am to practice. I also play throughout the day whenever I feel like it. I also love singing and enjoy my voice lessons. I like to listen to others play all sorts of other instruments too, like the cello, mandolin, violin, and just about any other instrument.

Chocolate is Oh So Good for Me!

I am thankful for chocolate. Sometimes my mom gives us "chocolate for the day." Did you know chocolate is good for you in small amounts? That is, if it is dark chocolate. It is also very poisonous for dogs.

Four or five years ago, my older sister and I went to the Museum of Natural History in San Diego. My sister was studying chocolate and the museum had an exhibit on chocolate. We got to taste so much chocolate that we almost exploted! You would think I'd be sick of it forever after, but I could never be sick of chocolate.

New Puppy

The day before yesterday we got a new, blacker-than-night, puppy and named him "Magic." He is a two month old Labradoodle. His fur is really curly and he's gentle and sweet. After we picked up our puppy on Sunday, we went to my cousin Gaby's house. Everyone there thought our new puppy was really cute. Then, we didn't know what his named would be yet. We were considering the names "Rush," "Darwin," "Blaise Pascal", "Percy," "Puck" and "Stormy." Everyone liked the name "Magic" so that is why we named him that. I am grateful for my new puppy.

Francesca and Her Hand-Tied Blankets

Three new blankets, colorful with soft tassles tied by Francesca's young hands, are keeping three children warm and feeling loved. Frankie picked the velvet fleece, each color a favorite for it's meaning.
Green stands for all things hoped for;
Red for vibrant life;
Royal blue for an imaginary sky and orange for the summer sunset;
Purple for royal dreams and yellow for springtime flowers.
She cut the cloth, and tied a hundred ends, then gave a blanket to each child who'd care. One for Vance, one to Roxie and one for herself. A blanket for each to remember love, warmth, heaven and earth, and the beautiful girl who made them. A blanket for each to think on the place where such ideas and realities live:
home.

Brain Stimulating Life

A small brown squirrel blends into the woodchip surrounding a tangerine tree. I notice it outside my window when it flits nervously, acorn in hand, searching, seeming to know her little moment counts for much. She is like me, a mammal with brown hair and a family to grow. I may never see her again, but she's now inside my head; a bundle of stimuli from the world I inhabit. Millions of stimuli push through my cornea and stay, every minute of every day. How my brain sorts them all, I am only beginning to learn. I am so grateful for how my brain does this conciousness thing.

This New Year I am grateful for my brain and all its machinations and I am thankful for the world in which I move that provides so much richness, beauty and possibilities.