Meet the Roomies

Hi again, friends!

Well, since I start every entry with "hi, friends," I'm guessing you know that you're all my friends. But you're not my only friends! I like to think that I have a lot. I have my human friends (Katie and Tall Girl and Short Girl and Redhead Girl and Glasses Boy and Curly-Haired Boy and Blonde Boy and Bearded Boy), but I also have some pretty cool animal friends, too! They live in Katie's dorm room with me, and their personalities are as big as they are! I'd like to introduce all of you, my Blog Friends, to my roommates!

When you and your roomie are twinning! 

Susan: Susan's a unicorn. A giant unicorn. A giant pink, glittery unicorn. And, yes, that does make her as awesome as she sounds. But don't be fooled. Just because she's pink and glittery doesn't mean she wants to be a princess all the time. Susan's really cool because she likes getting dressed up and putting on makeup and running around outside and playing video games. She's not afraid to go on adventures with the rest of us, but she's also really good at keeping us organized--especially when it comes to group activities! As the only girl in the group, we tend to tease her a lot, but she can totally take it! And, trust me, she can give it back, too! Even though she's as spunky as her pink coat, Susan notices every little detail about you, and she remembers everything. If she ever wants to be sassy with you, she knows just the comeback to stop you in your tracks. She's a spitfire with a big heart for her friends and family, but don't cross her. That glittery horn isn't just for looks, you know.

Maxx doesn't usually take nice pictures!

Maxx: Maxx is the Monkey King of Shenanigans. He's 4ft of pure sock monkey silliness--and I wouldn't have it any other way! He always has a joke to tell or a game to play, and he's known for pranking the rest of the roommates. Sometimes it can get frustrating (like when he hides your wallet), but we know it's all in good fun. (And then the rest of us gang up to prank him back!) Maxx loves all things holidays, but his favorites are Halloween and April Fool's Day (which is coming up, so I'm actually pretty nervous!). He's a great friend to have, because he always knows how to cheer you up, and he's not afraid to make fun of himself to make you laugh. He doesn't mind laughing at himself, either, and he never takes life too seriously. (I think that's good for Katie, too, because you know how she gets sometimes!) He's a good balance for Phillip, who tends to be solemn about everything, and he's a great playmate for Susan, who likes fun about as much as anyone.

*looks dramatically off into the distance*

Phillip: Phillip is definitely the calmest of our friend group, and I'm pretty sure he's the reason we still have some of our sanity! He hasn't let his lack of thumbs stop him from doing what he loves! Phillip loves reading and can usually be found with his nose in a book. Sometimes he gets so absorbed in what he's reading that he doesn't realize things are happening around him! He's the perfect friend to talk to, though, especially at nighttime. Right before bed, you can find him sitting in the living room with a book, a cup of tea, and a notebook to write his thoughts in. Phillip doesn't talk much, but he has some of the deepest and most profound thoughts of anyone I've ever met! He loves thinking about things, and I'm pretty sure he's already figured out the meaning of life. (He just has to mull it over a little more before he tells us!) Phillip is by far the most responsible of us, and he sometimes has to rein us back in when our ideas get too wild (get it? Because he's a horse?). We all appreciate him so much, though; we wouldn't be where we are without him!


So, as you can see, my roommates are all pretty different. But they're my best animal friends in the whole world, and I'm pretty sure we could be friends through anything! Do you ever feel that way? That even though you've just met people that you're meant to be friends with them and they're meant to be in your life and you're meant to learn things from each other? Because that's how I feel when I'm with Susan and Maxx and Phillip. I'm starting to sound all mushy like Katie, but I really am glad to have met these guys. They make my good days great and my bad days better. All my friends do.

~Trash Bear and Katie~

A "Beary" "Hoppy" Easter to You!

Hey, everyone!

Sorry I'm a day late, but I ate sooooo much food yesterday that all I wanted to do was sleep! And we had to move Katie back into her dorm room, because classes started back today, and she has SO. MUCH. STUFF. Anyway, I hope you all had a fantastic Easter and that the rain didn't ruin it too much. (Katie's Mom wasn't very happy with the weather, because it messed up her Easter pictures. But don't worry. We made it work. You'll see.)

I actually kind of had two Easters. Katie's church had an egg hunt last weekend, and she let me go with her to help out. (She also let me where my "Leprechauns Made Me Do It" shirt that she got on sale the day after St. Patrick's Day!) It was fun. There wasn't a lot for me to do, because I don't have thumbs, and I can't walk by myself. But I did get to color a picture and eat some cookies and lemonade, so that was fun. Most of time was spent inside with Katie's Mom, because she was doing a lesson and craft with the kids before they hunted their eggs. The lesson was all about why Christians celebrate Easter. And apparently it doesn't have anything to do with bunnies or candy.

A long, long time ago, a man named Jesus died on the cross (ouch!) for our "sins" (those are all the bad things we do, like tell lies about doing our homework and hurting our friends' feelings and even big bad stuff like killing people and robbing banks). See, I guess if Jesus hadn't have died for us, we'd get in a lot of trouble after we died. But because He did die (even though He didn't have to), we get to live in Heaven. And then the story gets kind of confusing, because even though Jesus died, He didn't stay dead. He came back! When people came to check on His tomb, He wasn't there. And that's what Easter is about: Jesus died for everyone (and from what I understand that means everyone). That's kind of cool. Dying for someone means you love them a lot. Like, a lot a lot. So I understand why that's something worth celebrating.

So Katie's Mom told the kids that story. (It's called the Crucifixion and Resurrection story.) And then they made an Easter egg craft that was really cute. And then they got to go outside and search for their eggs! They didn't have to search very hard, though, because there were SO MANY EGGS!! 

SO MANY!

There were eggs everywhere! And the kids had so much fun gathering them all up. Their baskets were overflowing, and they were all smiling! I'm glad they had fun, and I did, too.







And then yesterday was Easter Sunday. The whole family got dressed up (because that's just a thing you do on Easter) and went to church. It was only raining a little when we got there, but by the end of the service it was POURING! And Katie's Mom wasn't happy about that, because that meant she couldn't take pictures in front of all the pretty flowers in their yard. It's a tradition, apparently. But that did not mean that we weren't taking pictures, much to Katie's Brother's disappointment. (He doesn't like taking pictures, I've learned.) We found a nice covered area (at Martin Hall, hahahaha!) where we wouldn't get too wet.










I actually like taking pictures. Which is good, because Katie and her mom take a lot of them. (I think I know where Katie gets it from now.) It was fun, though, and when we got home, we got to eat a scrum-diddly-umptious Easter lunch with ham and potatoes and eggs and pie (and green beans, but those are green, so I don't really like them too much.) Not long after that, it was time to take me and Katie back to the dorm. (My post-lunch nap got interrupted, and I wasn't too happy about that.)

It's nice being back. I get to see all my animal and human friends again. Spring Break was nice, and Easter was fun, but now I feel like I'm really back home.

~Trash Bear and Katie~

Historical Picnicking

Hey friends!

This week I learned a new term: "Spring Break." That's the time when Katie doesn't have to go to classes for a whooooole week. (It also means that my other friends went back to their homes, and that's kind of sad, but I know that they all deserve a break.) Some people go to the beach for Spring Break; some people go camping; one of Katie's Facebook friends went to Canada! But, for Katie, apparently Spring Break means sleeping a lot and reading books. (She reads books really fast by the way. And she cries a lot while she reads them. It's a little scary at 3 o'clock in the morning.)

But today, Katie took me on an adventure with her mom and dad to a place called Janney Furnace in a little town called Ohatchee. We made friends with a puppy that we named Eustace, played on some rocks by the old furnace, toured a little museum with lots of old artifacts, and ate a picnic lunch.

But the thing I learned most about was the whole reason Janney Furnace is important: The Civil War. Katie told me to be careful talking about the Civil War in a blog, because some people have really strong opinions about it, but I just wanted to say a few things from the perspective of a bear who had never heard about it before today

I learned that the Civil War was fought between the North (the Union) and the South (the Confederacy). The South didn't want to be part of the United States anymore, so they "seceded." (Which is very different from "succeeding.") Katie said there were a lot of different reasons for the Civil War, like slavery and states' rights. She also said that history books sometimes don't tell you the whole story, because, as Winston Churchill said, "History is written by the victors." And in this case, I guess the North won.

But did they really?

I don't see how anyone could "win" a war against themselves. Katie said it was a "Pyrrhic victory," which means that they technically won, but it hurt them so much that they didn't really get any pride from it, so it's almost like they didn't win at all.

War just seems so scary. And the United States was less that 100 years old when the Civil War happened. 100 years old seems really old to me, but for countries it's not really old at all. We were still a baby country, and we almost destroyed ourselves with this war. That's not something I'm very proud of, but Katie says that a lot of people--in the North and the South--take the Civil War pretty seriously even today. She says people get angry about the Union "winning" and that people have even hurt each other over it, and that makes me sad.

The Civil War happened a long, long time ago, but we're still letting it divide us like it was still 1863. The South only has monuments to the Confederates who died, and the North only has monuments to the Union soldiers. In reality, lots of really good people died on both sides, and they probably didn't want to. They probably didn't want to leave their mommies and daddies and brothers and sisters and boyfriends and girlfriends and best friends and Trash Bears to go fight in a war. They might not have even known what they were fighting about. And they were probably really, really scared.

But no one really remembers that now.

People only remember that they were "damn Yankees" (sorry for the dirty word, Katie!) and "traitors." It's been 151 years since the Civil War ended, and we can't move past all the bad things we did to each other. We're stuck in it. And that's going to hurt us for 151 more years if we don't do something about it.

I think the sooner we stop thinking of each other as "Southerners" and "Northerners" and start thinking of each other as people who share a long and scary and broken and confusing history, we'll be happier. Or at least less bitter.


Maybe we should just all say we're sorry. Not for what our ancestors did, but for still pretending there's a war going on.

~Trash Bear (and Katie)~