My LifeBy: Amanda Cook

DedicationThis story is dedicated to my family which a lot of the stories are about

Table of Contents

..........................................................................................................................My Name! 1

.................................................................................................A Special Family Member! 2

.............................................................................................................My Neighborhood! 3

........................................................................................................A Happy Time for Me! 4

...........................................................................................My Favorite Game as A Child! 5

..............................................................................................................A Special Holiday! 6

............................................................................................................A Special Birthday! 7

...........................................................................................A Positive Story From School! 8

...............................................................................................................................A Birth! 9

.............................................................................................................Life in Wisconsin! 10

My Name

! My name is Amanda. I was named after my great-grandmother who was very close to all of my family. I’ve always liked the name, but I have always been bothered by the nick names that are made up for it. I’ve never liked nicknames anyway. When I was little I always thought that it was funny that I met so many people that have my mane too, but I got over it after but I still giggle a little when I do. Some times I think that i should change my name because it is so common but I still like it.! The History of the name Amanda is very old. The name Amanda is based of the latin feminine gerundive verb “amo” which is translated to “I love”, ”Lovable”, or, “Love” and the rest of the name makes it “She who must be loved”. The name “Amanda” was created by the play wright Colley Cibbler, in the 17th century, who based it on latin as said above. Also the name was used by by poets in the 17th century. The name Amanda was the most popular during the 1980’s. ! People with the name Amanda usually have an appreciation for many beautiful and refined aspects of life--music and art, literature, drama--and the outdoors, it is where Amanda’s find much peace and relaxation, but it creates a far too sensitive nature. Also Amanda's sense and feel much that they do not understand, and sometimes they are alarmed at their thoughts and wonder about their origin.

A Special Family Member

A Special Member in My family is my Mom. She is special because she can stand all as the rest of my family who, when all together are insane. The amazing things is that she is always calm no matter how bad the situation is. On a lot of occasions when Mom went to the bathroom or somewhere Dad, my Sister, and me look at each other and say that she ran from the building screaming. We all giggle. Then Mom shows up and asks why we are giggling. Every time we go out as a family one of us does, or says, something that we all laugh at and then Mom does her “crazy” giggle. The “crazy” giggle. Mom’s crazy giggle is when she randomly starts giggling very quietly and gradually gets louder. That is Mom’s “crazy” giggle. Whenever we mention it to Mom she denies giggling like that but we all insist that she does it. Mom also whispers a lot. my Sister and I always say that when Mom whispers one or both of us are in trouble. But that is not the case. Whenever she whispers it is usually about something that can be said out loud. Like for example she told me to come over to her once and she whispered to me “What do you want for supper.” I don’t know why but she does. Whenever she does do that we always ask why and she just say “because”.

My Neighborhood

! My neighborhood is chaotic. There is almost a dog in every other house. Almost every family has at least one child. In the morning you can hear a few dogs barking every morning and a few cars, or vans, leaving early. To get to school almost all of the kids from three different blocks come to our bus stop. The bus stop has somewhere around 30 kids on our stop alone. Almost all of the kids are Elementary, there are three or four Middle schoolers, and three or four High schoolers. While we are waiting at the bus stop the Elementary kids are playing on the huge snow banks, and a few of the really annoying ones go behind the houses playing tag, I think, none of us really know. During the summer they set up a pool in the backyards at push the other kids in to the pool. And also they bike around in the middle of the street and being really annoying just all the time. Once we had to car pool the the pool and there were two people in each of the back seat, it was a van, and there was a kid in the back and a kid in the trunk, i think i can’t remember. And it was the same situation back from the pool. Also during the summer some of the neighbor kids take our flour buds and the tomatoes, but not the peppers for some reason.

A Happy Time For Me

! A happy time for me is when my family and I go to Door County every year. Door County is amazing because it is so peaceful there. There isn’t any fast food restaurant, big chain stores, well except for one shopko. Everything is family run. they also have really good food there, you can tell that it was just made because each proportion is different every time you order and it isn’t the little proportions. For example the burgers at Mc Donald's the patties are all the same size but at Door County all of the patty size are not the same every time.Also you can hear the people making the food in the kitchen. Also they have some very good cafés there too where they make everything there fresh. Also most of the hotels that we stay at are in the middle of nowhere and there are woods for miles around and some type of body of water in front of the hotel. Once we stayed at a place called the shallows and you could barrow a boat, canoe, or kayak to take out on the shallows of Green bay for free. Also they have some cool shops. One of my favorite shops there is a store in a tiny lodge no bigger then a cubical that sells jewelry and minerals for a cheap price. Another favorite of the family and my friend and her family is the fudge. My friend, Jen, loves the fudge there she gives me twenty dollars and tells me to by her as mush fudge for her as I can and sometimes her family also sends money along for some to.

A Game from Childhood

When I was Little I loved the Video game Sponge Bob. I stall like to play this game every once and a while. The game has a controller like an arcade game and it has five or six games. My Dad, Sister, and My favorite game is the bubble pop game. In the game you would have to save Sandy the Squirrel from Plankton and his metal machine. There was at least 50 levels. I remember one New Year’s Eve we spent the whole time in the basement playing the game. We didn’t even finish it. We only completed that game at most three times. It was so hard. It was so hard because if you died somewhere around three times you had to restart the whole game over again. In the game when ever you beat a level Plankton would go off in a type of flying metal machine so you would have to get the level. And the thing is, is that he would take off right when you were about to touch him. Then you would either float up to the top of the screen on bubbles or Sponge Bob would jump around and then you were teleported to the next level. My Dad, Sister, and I would pas the controller around between the three of us so we would all have a chance to play. But once we got to the harder levels I would let them have the controller.

A Special Holiday

A special holiday in my family is Christmas. The special holiday is christmas because the whole family can be at my Grandma and Grandpa’s House for Christmas. My Uncle and Aunt come from Minneapolis, my other Uncle and Aunt come from Woodstock Illinois with my three cousins, and obviously my family and I go to my Granda and Grandpa’s farm to be together, some times my other Grandma comes and a couple of distant relatives come if they want. Sometimes One of the families can only stay for only on day sometimes we can only be together for one day before one leaves. My Uncle from Minneapolis make a big dinner for all of us. Then my cousins and I go to Decorah to do some shopping either the same day or the next day with our Christmas money. The next day we eat the left over of Christmas dinner, and some other things if there isn’t enough, but it usually is enough because there is usually a lot left over. Sooner or later on of our families have to leave it is goodbye which none of us want to do. All of us want to stay there at the farm forever. But sadly we can’t. So we wait until the next time we are all there, at the farm, to see each other again next holiday or just a random day during the Summer where we are all there together, all packed in the house trying to find room for us “kids”.

A Special Birthday

The only Birthday that I think is memorable is this birthday when I turned 15. It is memorable because it was a really funny. For a gift my sister gave me A T.A.R.D.I.S necklace. A T.A.R.D.I.S is from Doctor Who. It stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. It is the Box that the Doctor travels around in space and time(sorry, Just giving you some background information). The funny thing is that she didn’t know how to make one so she just gave me a half, very poorly made, blue box looking shape. As she gave it to me she said “Here, I did the best I could you can try if you want”. I then took it apart and then tried to put it together three different times. The first where each side was a different strip of wire, but I couldn’t the pieces of wire to stay together. The second time I did the box as one whole wire but when I finished it looked way too gaudy so I took it apart. The third time I fixed it i make the box out of one wire, but I made it smaller. It looked beautiful. But it was just a frame of a box and the T.A.R.D.I.S is much more, it has windows, trim and a light on the top. So I set out try and make look as close as the real T.A.R.D.I.S as I could so I used white beads as windows and wire and more blue beads to make the trim. When I was done I showed it to my Sister and she said, “I gave you the gift of pride for your birthday”. We stared at each other and laughed.

A Positive Story from School

A positive story from school is when I help Mrs.Hansen with the making or designing or creating of costumes for plays. I think that the making, designing, or the creating of costumes is a positive story from school because I absolutely love working with the fabrics and creating really cool costumes. While helping Mrs.Hanson I get some practical experience on different techniques of sewing and about different fabrics. While making the Sand Man costume for “There’s A Monster in My Closet” Mrs.Hanson told me to fetch peach, baby blues, light pinks, and purples, that were thiner and I grabbed a ton of different ones. One really cool fabric was one that was a mix of pink and a shinny silver. But I soon learned when it stretched the silver stuff was totally destroyed. Which I didn’t know earlier. So far all I’ve really done in costuming is making body suits and helping with bigger projects like the Sand Man, the Dream Queen, and making the smaller details on the monster costumes like hand sewing on the bellies, eyes, and spots. That was all in “There’s A Monster in My Closet”. And for our Introduction to Theater call I helped make the body suits for the frogs and helped fit the costumes for the Princesses’s, and the witch’s costumes. Now that I have been looking at movies like the “Hunger Games” totally different. I think about the costumes and how long it must have been to make them.

A Birth

Birthbornchildbabycrib

sleepdreams

nightmaresparentshelpfulguiders

pathcollege

marriagefamilychild

A Birth

Birthpain

pre-matureincubator

tubefeed

sadnesshelplessness

hopewaiting

diagnosissobbing

heartbad

dyingdeadbirth

Life in Wisconsin

Life in WisconsinBoring, tired, sleepy, calm

Dreary Wisconsin

Life in WisconsinFun, cheese, crazy, swimming, dells

Fun in Wisconsin

Life in WisconsinCold, warm, sunny, cloudy, wind

Wisconsin’s weather