Do you ever have those days...?

Do you ever have those days where you're so happy you just want to dance and shout and literally leap with joy?

…Me either. But sometimes I experience brief moments like that. Lately, I've been having those moments more often. Whether that's because life is genuinely better or because I'm trying so hard to make it better, I can't tell. But it's all basically the same, right? I read somewhere that if you tell yourself something's true long enough, eventually you'll trick yourself into believing it. So I'm telling myself over and over again that life is great. I'm telling myself over and over again that I'm happy. I'm telling myself over and over and over again that change is a good thing. 

"People are always saying that change is a 

good thing. But all they're really saying is that

something you didn't want to happen at all… 

has happened." - Kathleen Kelly, You've Got Mail

I've never been one to embrace change. So when I found out last month that I'd be moving (again) I wasn't terribly excited. When my family moves, we buy a house that needs a lot (and I mean A LOT) of work and we'll live there for as long as it takes to fix it up. Once it's all nice and everyone's just started to get really settled, we sell it and move on. Having done this 4 times already, the novelty of the whole experience has worn off. When I was nine, living out of cardboard boxes and sleeping on a mattress on the floor seemed like a great big adventure. Now, living out of my big plastic tub and sleeping on my army cot (I've upgraded my moving equipment a bit over the years) isn't exactly my idea of fun. Especially not when I have to get up and go to work or Driver's Ed each morning and scramble around to find a toothbrush or a bowl and spoon for cereal (by the way mixing bowls and measuring spoons will get the job done and add a nice flair of desperation to your morning). 

All of this makes me seem a bit pessimistic, but I'm not. Okay, I am sometimes. But admit it, you are too. I'll blame my current pessimism on the fact that I'm tired. That seems to be the excuse my generation uses for everything.

Tomorrow's always a new day, it dawns completely fresh and when you wake up you can do anything. Go climb a mountain, finish your book, work on that school project that's due tomorrow- I know, it's summer. But that doesn't mean anything for some of us. Cherish your summer vacation, public schoolers. Some of us poor homeschoolers don't have summer vacation at all. So quit whining about how short yours is and go enjoy it! 

~Tom

Blogging.

It seems to be the thing kids are doing these days. So, like getting a Facebook and 'txting' my friends, I'm gonna jump on this bandwagon. 

"Oh great, another teenage girl with a life-blog," you're thinking. But I'm not like other girls and therefore my blog will not be like other blogs. Now that I've called myself unique, you're still thinking that I'm gonna be like every other teen girl in America, they're all so uniquely the same! But I assure you, it's not like that. I'm jumping on the bandwagon ironically. Because using the word 'ironically' is another teen fad. I'm just living it up with the teen fads over here. You might as well call me Joe Average for how typical American teenager I'm being. Actually, don't. If you call me Joe I won't know you're talking to me, and it won't be good. So let's just stick to Tom or Autom, okay? Okay. 

Anyway, welcome to my life. It's not really that interesting, or at least I don't think it is… maybe you'll think it's interesting, I dunno. 

Take today, for example. At 8:17am I wake up. My feet don't actually leave the warm, comfy haven of my blankets 'til 9:14. In the time between 8:00 and 9:00 I'm laying in bed and chatting with my older brother, Jacob, who's room I'm currently taking over sharing. We just moved into this old house and the room that'll eventually be mine needs a lot of work; multiple walls and a ceiling have to be pulled down, a new doorway built, all the wiring redone, and it all needs a good, hard scrub + a couple coats of paint, among other things. All the other rooms in the house need a lot of the same work, so everything we're working with right now is temporary. Temporary bathroom, temporary kitchen, temporary shared bedroom, temporary plastic bin to store my clothes in, and sleeping on an army cot - temporarily. You get the point. Until further notice I'm bunking in the bro's room, much to his (and my) displeasure. We've shared a room for 15 of the 16 years I've been alive. We're both kind of over it. At 9:12 I decide it's time to get up and go downstairs. It takes me two more minutes to actually begin executing that chain of actions. 

*  *  *

I'm downstairs now. While making my way to the tiny, temporary bathroom, I'm confronted by my mother. She's making blueberry muffins for breaky (I said 'breaky' just for you, bro. I know you love it when I say that) and wants to know if I'll partake in her oven baked fruity delights. 

MUM wants to offer you breakfast:

-accept to make MUM happy (+ 2 exp, +3 good person, -1 personal pleasure)

-decline and upset your MUM (+1 exp, +1 personal pleasure, -4 good person)

Now, I'm not a huge fan of blueberries. In fact, I'm not a fan at all. But I accept her offer so that she'll be happy. It's not often that I make this woman happy, and even less often that I'm happy to do it. But her offer of an easy breakfast (albeit, not one I particularly enjoy) is easier than the alternative of fighting for space in the tiny, temporary kitchen. So blueberry muffins it is. The six of us crowd around the temporary dining room table, sitting on an assortment of chairs and a stool, Mum, Dad, Jacob, me, my 22 year old autistic brother Daniel, and the woman who comes on weekdays to help take care of Dan. There's not a single inch of elbow room to be found anywhere around the table. Dad and I are both on our computers, he's working, I'm starting this blog post (And playing around with color schemes on the blog). 

After breaky (Love you, bro!), Dad and I go driving because I need the practice. I'd like to give you some humorous story about my driving escapade, but it was entirely uneventful. I promise, the moment I have a humorous story about a driving escapade, you'll be the first ones to hear about it. Until then, you'll have to content yourself with hearing about other stuff. For now, I've gotta go. So here's a quote to end the post: 

"Happiness can be found, even in 

the darkest of times, if one only 

remembers to turn on the light." 

- Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, 

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (movie)

TTFN, 

      ~Tom