Cora gives Ruby 200 dollars to go shopping for some new clothes. On Saturday, her and Cora were supposed to go shopping, but they didn’t because Cora had an appointment. So Ruby went shopping on her own. Before she actually went to the mall, she decided to take a detour and go see an old friend of hers, Marshall. She stays at his house for a while, they didn’t really talk to each other, but they have this thing where they like hug each other, or touch each other, and that is there way of talking. Before she left her old life, and started her new one, Marshall and Ruby had a thing going, although they weren’t quite dating. Ruby leaves there, and then sets out to the mall. She gets some new clothes, but on her way out of the mall she finds more than clothes. She finds a now hiring sign. She really wants to get that job, so she applies. Ruby is applying to work at a jewelry store, and the manager is very, very opinionated, and she is a control freak. She does not want to force herself to admit that she needs help, but there is something about Ruby that she can’t resist hiring her. Nate then shows up there, because he delivers her boxes and stuff. His exact words were “good luck, your going to need it.” When Ruby returns to Cora’s house, there is a huge line of cars there. Ruby didn’t know what was going on, but come to find out it was a party. Ruby learned many new things there, one of them being Cora was not what Ruby thought she was, she is better. I think that Ruby is going to get very adjusted to her new, cushy lifestyle. I also strongly think that Ruby will stay long after her 18^th birthday. I think Cora and Ruby will develop a strong relationship.

Ruby’s “waking up late” continued to happen, and just got used to doing the car-pooling. She also gets to know the school a little bit better. As I said in my last post, everyone looked at her while she walked in with the hot and popular guy. Considering that Nate had just broke up with his girlfriend, they all thought Ruby was the next chapter of his life. I would have thought the same thing if I was one of those other students. She also gets to know the people better too. There were cliques at that school, but they were different than the ones at Jackson’s. She didn’t really hang out with anyone at lunch, or in classes. I think that she decides not to go and hang out with a certain clique because she thinks this is a new opportunity for her. She could go in two different directions; one: to hang out with the same type of people she did at Jackson’s, which apparently was not working for her. Or she could start to hang out with all the popular kids, which was a very seeable option at the moment. She also gets to know a girl, Olivia, who also went to Jackson’s. Turns out, she is not the greatest person to hang out with, she is ALWAYS on the phone. I think that Ruby is going to be a popular girl now, and she is going to start to like, maybe even love her life, and stay with Cora and Jaime for a while.

Lock and Key

I know I said that I was going to stop reading for just this week, but I read this one part that I felt like I needed to blog about. I had told you about how Ruby decided that she was going to take the city buses to get to school. Her plan is to get to school, go throughout the day, and get out without anyone notices her. Her plan totally goes wrong when she over sleeps, and does not make it in time for the bus. She ended up getting a ride from Nate, something he totally did not want to do. She thinks that it is just one day, and the next day she would go back to her original plan. That thought goes wrong the next day when she wakes up late, again. Great, she thinks, everything is going just as I planned (sarcastically). When she gets in the car, another person that he picks up asks her so many questions; you can tell that she gets annoyed. When she gets to school, all of the people look at her, and stare. Most of the girls were jealous of her because Nate is one of the coolest boys in the school.

I can connect to this, because I always over sleep, and then my plans do not go the way I want it to. I always hit the snooze button, at least two or three times, just like Ruby does. Often times it aggravates me, but just like Ruby, I know it is my own fault.

Short story

For this post, I am going to write about a short story that i read. It is called Return to Paradise. It is about this girl, named Lisa. She is on vacation trying to set aside her hurt feelings of the divorce she is going through. She decided to go to the place where she and her husband exchanged vows, and got married. They planned everything, their children, their lives, their vacations. Everything that could possibly be thought of, was talked about by these two. She thought that would somehow make her feel better. She is standing on the beach, alone, when she notices this guy coming looking at her. She suddenly feels this instant click, like a long lost friend, not a stranger. They go to a local bar, and start to talk. It is not until the alcohol starts to click in, that there conversation starts to deepen. She lets everything out, the one thing that was super important, that she had never told anyone about, had come out while she was talking to this man. She lost a baby. She was six months into her pregnancy, when something really unexpected happened, she had complications with the pregnancy. Her husband was out on a business trip, and was not there to see the baby die, or even get to hold it that one and only time she did. When he got back from the business trip, she wanted nothing to do with him. She resented him so much, that he was not there to feel her pain. At the baby's funeral, she would not even stand next to him. The next day she left him, and didn't talk to her family ever again. After they are done talk, I found out that it was her husband that she was talking to. It is like they started over a whole new life, and she cancelled the divorce papers.

If this book were to continue on, I think that Lisa and James would have kids, 3 of them, just like they planned, and have everything else the way they had planned it the first time they were in the Dominican. I know it sounds too good to be true, but I think they would have a fairy tale ending lifestyle.

Article

I held off on reading my book this week, and decided to focus on current event, just so I could know what is going on around the world this spring. This article that I read was called Fargo floods turn farm fields into sprawling lakes. If you couldn't guess what this was about, it was about a farm town being flooded. They had an enormous flood, after having one last year. It was 19.5 feet above the flood stage. For one farmer, Thomas, he had to take a truck down to the main road, and then once he got there, switch into a motor boat. Once he got to the point where it was too shallow to ride the boat in, he would transfer to the truck that was awaiting there. Think of how much work this has to be, just switching the transportation must take a while longer than it would normally take you to get to town, and then you have the boat that makes you go slower. The boat does not go as fast as a truck, and you have to be cautious, just incase there is something that might cause an accident. The farmers were worried that they were not going to be able to plant their crops in time, and that it would destroy the crops. Some of them were worrying about their cattle, or livestock drowning. The previous year's flood had already destroyed some of the farmable land, and now another flood comes, and could potentially destroy more. Although this will cause many problems, it is also a blessing, it boosts the productivity of the rich, loamy soil.

I hope, and think that everything is going to be alright for those farmers. I predict that some of them are going to loose some of there livestock, as did they in the 2009 flood. I think that their crops will be fine, and rich too. I can only imagine how much stress the farmers have right now. For the farmers, I think that they are going to make a good income this season, and everything will turn out the way it was planned, at least almost the way it was planned.

Article written by: Steve Karnowski

So after Ruby went home with Nate, she gets home and puts the lasagna in the oven, and the dog, Roscoe runs over to her, shaking, and hides between her legs. ruby thought he was sick, and was going to die. So she called Jaime and told him what was happening. He asked her if she had the oven on and then told her that he was scared of the oven because of an incident that had happened before with the oven. Ruby was not a very animal- friendly person, so she did not want to comfort the dog as Jaime had told her to do. "Just calm down" she said. She went up stairs, and Roscoe waited at the bottom of the stairs. By the time she started doing something in her room, Roscoe had run up the stairs and was now right in between her legs, again. This time she did not try to get him away, but petted him. She goes to sleep that night, and in the morning she is awoken by this very loud noise, Jaime in the back, having the pond dug out. Cora yells at him, but he continues to do it. Later on that day, they discuss how she will be getting to school. Ruby says she will just take the city transportation, but Jaime thinks that she should go with Nate, because he is already going to Perkin's day. They argued about it, and finally Jaime gave into her. She was late the next morning though, and didn't have time to get to the bus so Nate picked her up.

I think that Ruby and Nate will eventually get together, but i think they will continue to ride together. I think Ruby will take the bus once or twice and then realize she does not like it.

So after that night that Ruby had attempted to run away, it was time for her to go to school. She got up, and went down stairs to breakfast. Jaime talked to her, and while he was talking to her he kept getting messages from people on Ume. Cora comes downstairs, and tells Ruby that she should wear something of hers, and she does. Then, she goes to school, and meets the principal, and gets told a few things about the school, and come to find out Jaime had donated an entirely new soccer complex. To her surprise, Jaime is an owner of UMe along with a few other guys. Ruby is really surprised when she heard this. She met a girl that went to Jackson's (her previous school) too. She was supposed to take the bus home, but instead she walked to the Quick Zip or whatever the store is, sorry I forgot and do not have my book with me. She ended up getting a ride home from Nate, because she was going to walk home. Nate brought her to her old house, but he did not know that it was hers to get the stuff the she left there.

I feel really bad for Ruby, because I hear things all the time about how children get taken away from there home, or are abandoned. It is really unfortunate that parents have children, and then can't even take care of them. In a way, I think it was good for Ruby.

In the first part of my prediction- that Ruby would try to run away, but not succeed- I predicted correctly. Ruby waited in her new room, for a very long time pretending to be asleep. Her thought was that she would wait until Cora and Jaime went to bed, and then make a break for it. Cora went to bed and Ruby thought, one down, one to go. But Jaime (Cora's husband) would not go to bed. So Ruby waited and waited and waited. Finally she heard the light switch go off and the door close, the bright red light from the clock saying 12:46 PM. It was dark and the only light that she had was the glowing, shimmering blue light coming from the neighbors yard. She got her bag out of the dresser that had all of her stuff that she had gathered earlier that day. It was just enough light that she would be able to navigate around. She tiptoed passed Cora and Jaime's room, down the hall, and down the stairs without making a peep. She opened the door, thankful that the alarm did not go off, and who does she see walking the dog? Jaime. Ruby panicked, but only in her head, thinking of the choices she had. She could just bolt out in front of him, hoping he would not notice her, or just turn around and go back up to her room. She decided to bolt to into the back yard and climb over the fence, to the neighbors yard that had the light. She runs as fast as she can, but gets to the fence and looks up. The fence was very high, too high for her to climb. She throws her bag over and attempts to climb over. Roscoe, the dog, was now outside because Jaime let him out. Ruby was hoping the dog did not see anything, but sure enough he came running towards her, barking loudly. Why all of this was happening, the blue light turned out to be a pool, and coming out of the pool was a boy, about Ruby's age, and a cute boy too. He said hello, and introduced himself. He knew what she was trying to do, but he was cool with it. Ruby had a big problem, Jaime was coming outside now! He asked her what she was doing out there. Ruby was speechless. Nate, the boy, covered for her and told Jaime that she was just coming out here to ask him to turn down his music. Jaime went along with it, thankfully. Jaime went back in and Ruby thanked Nate as he gave her the bag back. Ruby thought it was too risky to bring her bag inside, and the balcony was too high for her to throw it up there. So she left it by the grill. She went in the house and when she got to her room, the bag was on her balcony.

When i was reading this, I could just see when Roscoe was running towards Ruby barking. His little body sprinting all the way over to the fence in just seconds. He is one of those little dogs, and I can just hear him yapping at Ruby. Ruby stuck there not knowing what to do, her face just speechless. It kind of made me laugh because in movies, that is normally what happens when they are trying to escape. I had a really good idea of what was going on.

Lock and Key

I started reading a new book. It is called Lock& Key. It is by the same author from the book that i previously read, This Lullaby, Sarah Dessen. I am not too far into the book yet, but just far enough to get a back ground on the main character, Ruby. Ruby is 17 1/2 years old. She has a sister and her mom, at least for a little while. She had not seen her sister in about 10 or so years, until something bad occurred. Her mother left her at the house they were renting. She was alone, but she was almost old enough. She had been living there for 2 months until the landlords found out. She had avoided them every time they came out to check on them. She was 2 months behind on the payments. She loved that house, but it had a few imperfections. The dryer did not work, so she had to hang her clothes on a clothes line that ran into the kitchen, and just hung there. There was no running water in the kitchen, so she had to get all of the water for the dishes from the toilet in the bathroom. She could have gone living alone in that house until she was 18, and was free and able to do mostly everything. When they finally did find out, it was not good. The landlords came to check up on them, and get their payments. When they walked in, the place was just like a pigsty. It had cockroaches(it always had, but they got worse) alcohol and drug residue, and dishes pilled up very high. Ruby worked a lot, so she did not have the energy to get a bucket of water from the bathroom to do the dishes every night. The child services place sent her to live with her sister, in a upscale neighborhood, with very big house, and gated and stoned walls. Ruby did not like the idea of living with her at all. She plans to run away, like the night she gets there. She her sister and her husband a note, telling them not to worry. She did not tell them where she was going though.

I think that Ruby is going to get caught when she goes to go out the door, and then she is going to try to escape again. I think she will succeed getting away later on, but then something gets her n trouble and she is reported to the cops, and is brought back to her sister's house. I think her sister will be very mad at her, and make sure that she does not leave again. I think Ruby will end up liking her new lifestyle, and when she is 18, I don't think she will want to leave.

My Blog Posts for This Lullaby

This Lullaby is about a girl named Remy. At the beginning of the book, Remy was planning yet another wedding for her mother. She was a senior, and the story mostly takes place during the summer. Her mother marry's men just because she feels like it, like she would want to change her hair color or something. Remy's mother is a writer. She is on her fifth marriage. Remy's father left her mother and her with only one thing to remember. A song. The one hit wonder song was "This Lullaby". Remy was dating this guy, who she wanted to end it with. One day when she was at the car dealer ship asking her soon to be step father some info about the wedding, this guy Dexter came up to her. He would not stop asking her out, and finally she said yes. She thought of him as her summer boyfriend. They had a good relationship, but once again, he was only a summer boyfriend. Remy is a very organized girl, and likes to have everything perfect. Dexter is not very organized, his room and house is a disaster. Remy never considered having a boyfriend like this, but she just couldn't let him go, she actually had feelings for him. Remy was a preppy, popular, pretty girl. All of the boys liked her. Dexter finds out that he is just a summer boyfriend, in a kind of tragic way. Remy accused something of him that he did not do. Remy's mother's marriage was ruined because of it. Remy forgets about Dexter, like it had never happened before. She meets a new guy by her manager at the salon she works at. His name is Paul. He is Remy's perfect idea of a boyfriend, and he wants Remy to be a summer girlfriend too. They date, and finally it is time for Remy to go off to college. I can connect to Remy because she is very organized, likes to have everything listed and planned out. She has standards for everything, i don't really have the same types of standards as her, but i do have standards. I also like to have my room neat, and have things in spots that they are supposed to be. Like Remy, once in a while i slip on organizing and planning, but then i get very stressed.