Meet the Teenager

It started out as my mom's idea.  I am always scribbling on pieces of paper, buying notebooks to write in, and filling my shelves with journals and diaries.  Instead of continually buying more books and journals, why not save money and blog?  I turned the idea over in my head awhile; I'd never done the blogging thing, I didn't even know what that entailed!  The prospect was a daunting one.

When I began to blog, it wasn't necessarily voluntary.  My sister and I went on a three-week trip to India this summer, without our parents.  My mother was desperate to have us record every detail of every day so that we shouldn't forget anything.  She had me set up a blog to record all our India adventures and bought my sister and I each a journal.

A couple days before we were about to leave, she called us out of our rooms.  She stood before us solemnly, a journal in each hand.  "Lay a hand on the journals," she directed.

Puzzled, we did so.  

"Do you solemnly swear to write faithfully in these journals every day?" Mom intoned.  There was surreptitious eye-rolling between me and my sister as we swallowed our giggles.

My sister is two years younger than me, and my twin.  People get us confused all the time---sometimes our parents even do, though they deny it---and I love it.  We are like two peas in a pod looks-wise, but we have completely different personalities.  Olivia has her little list in the morning that has everything she needs to do for that day, which she will check off.  I'm more laid back; I get it done when I get it done.  She also abhors clutter---there's a place for everything and everything has it's place.  I, however, am not opposed to a bit of a mess.  Since we share a room... this causes some arguments.  She loves her math and science, I love my reading and writing.  She loves being outside working, I love staying indoors.  We are complete opposites, but we love each other to death.

Then there's my mom and dad.  They are completely outgoing, fun-loving parents.  They will, on occasion, mortify us... but they're the parents of teenagers, that's their job.  

Last, but certainly not least, is the dog.  Hwin.  She is a Golden Retriever, but don't tell mom that.  She refers to Hwin as her "dogter".  It is a tradition in our family to name our dogs after characters in a favorite book.  (In our family, not only do we love our traditions but we love reading.)  Our favorite family series is the "Chronicles of Narnia" by C.S. Lewis.  Out of those books, our favorite has got to be "The Horse And His Boy".  In that story there is a horse named Hwin in it, who shows a steadfast faithfulness and trust to her friends and t

he great lion, Aslan.  So that is what we named our dog.

That is my family.  We're a fun, crazy bunch of people who love each other and love to laugh.  

I think I'll enjoy this blogging business.