Adele

When I hear any Adele song I want to get up and sing along with her. When I grow up I want to be just like Adele. Adele is one of the very few artist that I know that can actually sing. My top five favorite songs of hers are Right and Rain, Chasing Pavements, Set Fire to Rain, I’ll Be Waiting and Do You Remember. One of my two top favorites is Do You Remember because when I hear this song I feel like I’ve lost someone or even something. It makes me feel like I need to get up and do something that will make and impact. When I hear this song I feel proud and scared. The Other song would probably be Set Fire to Rain because it makes me feel mad and hopeless. I think why I like all of Adele’s songs so much is because they make me feel so different but they are so enjoyable at the same time. I love Adele and I will continue to aspire to be like her even more.

Flower Garden

Tonight I read a short story called Flower Garden By Shirley Jackson. The story takes place in a small town in Vermont. I am not sure in the time period that the story takes place. The story starts off with introducing two of the many protagonists, Young Mrs. Winning and her mother-and-law Mrs. Winning. Shirley Jackson tells us about Young Mrs. Winning’s dream house, well cottage. She tells us everything from the color of the rooms to the plants in the garden. Young Mrs. Winning was excited when she heard that a young widow and her child where going to move in to “her house”. When they finally moved in the widow did everything that Young Mrs. Winning would have done, from the outside color to the gate in the front of the house. When she saw the house Young Mrs. Winning knew that she had to go meet this fine lady. When they did finally meet each other they became good friends and they shared more in common than just taste of style, they both had a 5 year old at the time. Her name was Mrs. MacLane and her sons name was Davy and Mrs. Winning’s boy was named Howard. Over the next few months they became even closer but things started to change when word got around that Mrs. MacLane had done the unthinkable, she hired Mr. Jones, a black man, to help with the garden. When she did that everyone came to conclusion and none were right. Mr. Jones had a 12 year old named Billy and he and Davy played a lot. The nice, young, and pretty Mrs. MacLane had noticed that she lost the smiles and the waves and the morning talks with Mrs. Burton who lived behind. They all became glares, laughing behind her back, and people not even saying a word to her. When she noticed a difference in the people she noticed a difference in the garden. The most significant thing to me about the story is the garden. The garden to me represents the attitude of the people. Mrs. MacLane was looking forward to a new beginning in her life. In the story she said, “It’s even better than I hoped… Things grow so much better here than almost anywhere else.” once Mrs. MacLane hired Mr. Jones the attitude of the people in the town changed dramatically. They felt that it was inappropriate for Mrs. MacLane to hire a black man. As the attitudes of the people changed so did Mr. MacLane’s garden. Young Mrs. Winning was embarrassed that people would judge her because of what Mrs. MacLane did. So to prevent her from being judged she took herself out of the equation and their friendship became a smile in the Market. When Mrs. Winning was confronted by Mrs. MacLane she said, “I don’t know what you mean, Mrs. Winning said to herself, I sound exactly like Mother Winning, and realized, I’m enjoying this, just as she would.” “When I first came, everyone was so nice… And the garden was going so well.” The problem was the town’s people weren’t ready to be as accepting as Mrs. MacLane. Their attitudes were frozen in time. Even young Mrs. Winning wanted to take her hand and ask Mrs. MacLean to come back to be one of the nice people again.

My Query!

How can I slow down to enjoy my family this week?
By: Meaghan Bollard
As I sat by my window and thought about simplicity, wondering how I could write my query, I realized that I had to be at dance in 5 minutes. Confucius, a Chinese philosopher, once said, “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.” We often miss the most important things in life. I never get the chance to really enjoy my family for who they are. I’m always getting caught up in extra activities. I think that Confucius is right. We have the simplest things and turn them into something so complex. The world we live in is filled with deadlines and time restraints and there is no time to really have family time. There are times when I rush to bed, or even rush to eat my dinner. When was the last time you sat down and ate dinner with your family and really talked? It’s the simplest thing that any family could do. A lot of our lives are going from place to place to place and we have activity after activity. Have you ever wanted to stop the world so that you could stop and relax? I know I have. Sometimes we forget to sit down and have a nice family dinner together. Here is a video that I made that illustrates this.


Video -

This weeks query is; How can I slow down to enjoy my family this week?