Hey, Guys!

Sorry about not posting. Steph's trying to post along with her book as she writes it, but Microsoft Word keeps crashing every time she opens it, and she writes really slow by hand...so this could take us a wee bit longer than we expected.
In the meantime, it would be worth your time to go see this post on her blog. It's all about her Mexico trip if you wanna go and read it. Pretty cool.
So, again, sorry about the holdup, guys. But, seriously, read the post.

Live today,
~Shep

Starting Over Yet Again

(NFS *note from steph*: Hi guys, I'm going to be gone from the 14th to the 23rd because I'm going to Oaxaca, so Seth will not be posting for a week and a half. Thanks for understanding! Pray that there will be no creepy, creepy bugs in my sleeping bag at night as I sleep on the dirt floor in the villiages in Tlaxiaco! If you want to email me and read my book you can reach me at slake.calder@gmail.com)

The Clarkes dropped me off at the funeral so I could meet Ezekiel there and pay my sister's respects, then we drove back to the HSF foster home, where I roomed with Felix again. The funeral was pretty simple, the HSF can't really pay for extraordinary funerals for every kid. We stood by the hole where her coffin was in the ground at the cemetery for a long time. I tried not to cry, with limited success. I broke down in the car on the way back to the group home, though. Cried my guts out.

The next morning, Blake Langly came to pick me up in his shiny black BMW Z4 Roadster (look them up, they're really nice) and took me back to his charming farmhouse on the countryside where he lives with his daughter Jenn, who's about my age, I think a few months younger, or something. Her mom had recently died, so Blake wanted to get a sibling for her to keep her company. I was the only one available that matched his preferences, so I was up to bat.

The inside of their house is really nice. Have any of you seen Marley and Me? Their house looks literally exactly like that one with a few exceptions. Like there's scrub oak out back instead of a forest. They've got, like, a hundred acres. Blake's a surgeon, or something, so they are rich.

Blake has short spiked up blonde hair and peircing gray eyes. He's really white, too. Jenn has brown hair and beautiful, intense green eyes. She has really cool Converse, too. And she refuses to call me Shep because she likes my name so much. So I guess I'm Seth from now on here.

So for now I need to focus on settling down and finding my bearings. Good thing it's summertime.

~Shep

Better Hands.

This is hard to say, I'll try to type and not choke up.

Yesterday I went to go visit my sister. I sat in the red patterned chair -- like I always do -- and we watched a Disney princess movie -- like we always do -- but Mariella was acting a bit odd. She just...looked so frail and white, you know? She wouldn't eat anything, or drink anything. Which, you know, to me seemed a bit odd. And then I thought about it.

This is it.

I don't really have much to say about it. You know what happened. It just reminds me of how I always would tell her it would be okay, knowing it wouldn't. I'd cross my fingers behind my back and tell her nothing was going to happen to her.

Farewell, my darling baby sister. You're in better hands now. I love you, and I always will.
-Big Brother

Suh-LAP!

(Boy with luekiemia, what my sister has)

Okay, so I have this really annoying foster sister named Riley. She makes jokes about my sister in the hospital, the one who's going to die any day, and plays pranks, and then just smiles. Her blonde curls just bounce around her face, and her white pearly teeth in a cute little smirk make her parents think, oh, it's okay.
But it's totally not okay.

She's put cling-wrap on my toilet, she's rubber banded the faucet nozzle so it would spray me, she's 'accidentally' dropped my plate on the floor, and then the dog ate my food, she has put dye in my shampoo, she has put a bucket of water on the top of my open door.

So today, I snapped. She actually threw me over the edge today. I was on the computer, but she wanted to get on on Neopets really bad, so she starts dissing me. And then she says something like, "You don't matter anyway, that's why you're in foster care. That's why your mom is in prison and that's why your dad left you. And I'm glad your sister's going to die. I really am. Because then you will be miserable, and go and cry. And I will have the computer all to myself because you are going to curl up in a little emo ball and cry."

So I lost it. I yelled at her, and I slapped her across the face. Then she starts crying and runs and tells Alicia that Seth was being mean to her and slapped her, showing her the red mark my hand made when I hit her.

So Alicia grabs my arm and gives me a talkin' to, and then when she's done with me, she gives me to Kenneth. And Kenneth yells at me because I'm not supposed to hit people, much less his daughter.

And I get to leave in three days. They'll get it all sorted out, and ship me on my way. It's going to be great. Wah-hoo!

I go to see my sister, Mariella, in the hospital tomorrow. I ride my bike to see her a lot. Nobody else goes to visit. Not even Kenneth, and he's the nicest of the bunch.

Mariella's getting really weak. The chemo is really eating at her, and the cancer is too strong. The doctor -- I hate the doctor -- says she's going to die in a few days.

Well, that's kind of a slap in the face!

I refuse to accept that. There has to be something that can be done, you know? Like, maybe someone up there has been watching how well I handle Riley (most of the time, cough, cough) and thinks I deserve something good.

Or at least I'm hoping that.

~Shep

Welcome to My Fog...I Guess

...And I'm your host, Seeeeth Shepherds! (Or Shep, whatever you want to call me. Everyone at foster care calls me Shep.)

Well, like the song by Gunnar Madsen, welcome to my fog. I guess.

Like, literally. I don't mean to sound all gloom and doom on you, I'm just saying, "Welcome to my confusion".

Hope you fit in nicely.

I'm just going to tell you right off the bat: I don't exist. I'm not a ghost, like, "ooooo!!!"

Yeah, heh heh, that's a ghost. But anyway! I'm a fictional book character. From the brain of the wonderful, amazing, stunning, Steph. (crowd cheers *now*)
Just hang on for the ride as you witness the events of her book by blog. This should be interesting. So, take two. Live today,

~Shep