My earrings

I won Ireland's giveaway, and today my earrings came in the mail! They are sooo cute! I love them. Thanks, Ireland!

What I did for my 14th b-day

On September 13th, my 14th birthday, I had a great time! My grandparents came to see me, and they brought me some really nice gifts and then they played a lot of fun games with us....

My sparkly bracelet

Taylor swift's Wonderstruck perfume(Aunt Lisa got me this!)

Isn't the wrapping paper pretty?


Then my brothers and I got to go spend the weekend with Grandmama and Granddaddy!!While we were there, Mom called and told me to look at Anner's blog. Anners did a whole post just for me! (Thanks so much , Anners!) Then we went home, where I opened all my cards. I got a bunch of amazingly cute cards and a gift card to Bath and Bodyworks. (yay!) Mom and Dad got me a very pretty outfit, and a lot of American Girl History Mysteries! So I had a great birthday!

My job!!

My Badge!

  Yesterday I started work. Well, not really "work." I'm a teen volunteer at ETMC. (That's a hospital in our area.)I'll be working with the Ladies' Auxiliary. I had to take a really hard quiz on patient confidentiality and information on DHHS rules, but I passed, (yay me!:-) and so now I'm official. I got my picture taken  for  a professional badge that lets me go anywhere in the hospital. This way I can take lab samples and progress charts anywhere. I also get to help wheel patients to their cars. Soon, I'm going to buy some scrubs to go with my Candy Striper smock so I look official. I'm so excited! I want to be a pediatric nurse, so being able to volunteer in a hospital environment is really fun for me. I'll be working four hour shift once a week.

The Fantastic blog award!!

Look what I got!!

Anyway, here's what I have to do:
Rules:
1. Thank the person who gave you the award and tag them.
2. Ask the next person five questions and answer the five questions given to you.
   1) What's your favorite blog?
   2) Who's your best friend on blogger (who you don't know in real life)?
   3) What is your favorite award?
   4) What is an award that you wish you would get?
   5) What is your favorite thing about my blogs?
3. Award five people.
4. Always post the rules.

Thanks, Storyteller!

I have to answer these questions and think up 5 of my own!

1) What's your favorite blog? Ummmm-I don't know!
   2) Who's your best friend on blogger (who you don't know in real life)? Maybe Ireland, because we've been emailing a lot!
   3) What is your favorite award?The Beautiful Blogger award 'cause it's sooo pretty.
   4) What is an award that you wish you would get? The Glittery Blog award(yes, I made that up)
   5) What is your favorite thing about my blogs? Your Stories!

Now 5 of my own.....

1. What do you do when you're bored?
2. What's the last thing you wrote about ?
3. Tell me one random fact about you!
4. What do you want to see more of on my blog?
5. One left! Umm...What is your favorite historical character?(e.g. Ruby Bridges, George Washington,etc.)
6. Anyone who wants this award  can take it, you just have to post the rules on your blog and add the pic! Here's the photo url:
7. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/s3z6fGCseSc/UEdnsQOSr9I/AAAAAAAABQ4/KkNQQ0pfRR4/s320/blogawardfantastic.JPG

Shades of Gray Review

Will Page's life and family was ruined by the Yankees. The war has destroyed everything he knew and loved. So when he must stay with his Northern relatives, he's not happy.He loved his home in the Shenandoah Valley and doesn't want to live with relatives he has never met, people struggling to make a living on their farm in the war-torn Virginia Piedmont area. But, worst of all is that Will's uncle Jed had refused to fight for the Confederacy. How could his Uncle be a Union sympathizer?  Uncle Jed is cowardly, not fighting for either side and saying he's for the Union-or so Will thinks. Will refuses to call him "uncle". Aunt Ella, the peacemaker is kind, reminding Will of his mother, and she tries to help Will. And then there's Meg, his cousin, who could care less about the war and just wants to be Will's friend. Still, she's a bit silly and she doesn't seem to understand Will's pain-even when he tells her the Yanks are responsible for the death of his whole immediate family. Just as Will starts to understand Meg, she brings home an injured Yank! Will is furious! However, the Yankee, Jim, is interested in befriending Will. He tells Will he never wanted to obey Sherman's orders of destroying the Confederate countryside. Still, Will is suspicious. Besides, he has his own troubles with bullies. He doesn't need a Yankee friend! Just as Uncle Jed, Jim, Meg, and Will begin to get along, Will's friends from the South offer to take him in. How can he choose between the family he's grown to love and his good friends? 

   I gave this book 5 stars because I think it really explains the Civil war from the perspective of both sides in an unusual way, and it teaches you that someone you might think of as an enemy could be your friend. I also think the author did an amazing job of describing the characters so you felt like you knew all of them. Plus, the book is great for a Civil war study or a Virginia study, because it teaches about both.

Louisa May Alcott

Maybe you love Louisa May Alcott's books(Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boy's, Under the Lilacs, Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, just to name a few.), but you don't know much about her. If so, read on!

Orchard House

   Louisa was born  in 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania, where her father, Bronson Alcott taught school. Her father and mother, Abigail, were transcendentalists, which meant they had different view than most people of their time. They were vegetarians, abolitionists, believed in taking ice cold baths and sleeping on hard mattresses. Bronson believed boys and girls, black and white, should be educated together. His ideas were considered so radical that people took their children out of his school, and it had to close. So, the family(Louisa, her older sister Anna, younger sisters, May and Elizabeth) moved to Boston. Once, while in Boston, six-year-old Louisa became lost. Instead of becoming scared, she laid her head down on a big, kind dog and fell asleep. Another interesting thing that happened to her while living in Boston was that she fell into a frog pond in Boston and nearly drowned, except a young African-American boy came running, leaped in and saved her life. Louisa speculated perhaps this is what caused her abolitionist beliefs.

 After Bronson's job in Boston failed when he invited a black girl to his new school, the family moved to Orchard house in Concord, Massachusetts, where they would spend the rest of their lives. (You can tour  Orchard House.) He took odd jobs here and there. Louisa said that despite their extreme poverty, times at Orchard House were the happiest times of my life. It is these times she based Little Women on.

 The family had several notable neighbors- Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, to name a few. These were Louisa's mentors, and they inspired her writing.


As a teenager, she wrote"blood and thunder stories" under a  pen name, earning a little money. Louisa always wanted to earn money for her poor family, but just as her writing began to get noticed, the Civil War broke out and she became a nurse. However, she contacted typhoid fever. During her illness, she wrote Hospital Sketches, about her life as a nurse. When she was asked to write a girl's book, she hesitated, saying she "never much liked girls, except my sisters." She wrote Little Women, which is loosely autobiographical, and it was a roaring success. Louisa never married, but she raised May's child Lulu, after May's death. She wrote until her own death at the age of 55 , from mercury poisoning. She contacted this from the medicine she was given when she had fever.

 Louisa lives on in her many writings, which remain popular to this day.

Find out who you'd be in Little women with this quiz:
http://quizilla.teennick.com/quizzes/767819/which-little-women-character-are-you-girls-only

Who were the Harvey Girls?

Have you ever heard of a Harvey girl? Chances are, you probably haven't. So, I'm going to tell you about them.


  The Harvey girls were girls between the ages of 18-30(although some lied about their age- a few were only 14!) who worked in railroad dining places known as Harvey Houses during the late 1800-1920's.  they worked as waitresses and helped out in the kitchen or worked at the counters.The requirements for the jobs were very strict. No make up, gum, dating, smoking, drinking, or trading jobs. Fred Harvey wanted all his restaurants to serve good food and have good workers. "Service with a smile"= a Harvey girl was always supposed to be polite, even to the most irate customer. They went through months of training to learn how things like the 'cup code',(how to tell what drink someone wanted by the way the waitresses held the empty cup) how to memorize orders, and how to keep there uniform perfectly clean without wearing an apron. One angry manager was said to have tipped a table over as it was not set perfectly-one fork was out of place.

  Some compared Harvey girl training to being in the army, but it was a highly sought-after job. It paid well, and although the managers were very strict, there was a chance of becoming a boss of your own Harvey House someday. Harvey Houses offered young women a chance to see the world and "leave the farm", which is why many took the jobs.

 If you want to learn more about the Harvey girls, I suggest you read Harvey Girl, by Shelia Wood Foard. It's a fictional story, but all the historical details are accurate.