My lost and found life Top Ten List

The Top Ten Things to know about My Lost and Found Life are listed below:
1.Main Character
Ashley is the main character in My Lost and Found Life Ashley is the main character because the whole story revolves around her, and what also happened to her. Ashley is an only child who is put into an horrible situation by her mother and what she was “doing” to help her. Ashley had led a normal life until her world turned upside down from her mother embezzling millions of dollars from the company she worked for.

2.The Plot
The plot of this book revolves around Ashley and what she is doing to get her life back in order. Soon after Ashley had found out about what her mother had done she couldn’t believe it. Ashley soon realized that with her moms best fiend Gloria that she had to get moving forward with her life. Ashley had to get out of her mother’s house and find her own place where she could live. Ashley also had to get a job so that she could survive. Ashley did this by working at a coffee shop. When Ashley was working at the coffee she made a lot of new friends that could help her when she was stuck in the mud. Ashley also had to stay in her mom’s x-boyfriend’s camper while she was looking for a real place to call home.

3. Earl
Earl was one of the friendly people that Ashley met while she was living in Phil’s (her mom’s x-boyfriend) camper. If Ashley couldn’t get to sleep at night she could go out and talk to Earl. When Ashley first started staying in Phil’s camper she would often run out and tell Earl what had happened to her before she moved into Phil’s camper. Earl had been there every single time that Ashley had needed to talk to him, which Ashley had always been so thankful for that she needed to repay the favor to Earl. This time came when the gas station was completely empty and Ashley was in the camper getting ready to fall asleep when she heard someone bang on the door, Ashley knew that it wasn’t Earl because he wouldn’t bang like this person was doing. Ashley was so scared that she cut herself on a knife that she had hid in case anything like this would ever happen to her while she was staying in the camper. Ashley stayed right where she was and waited tell the person had left. Ashley then rushed inside to see Earl, and he was laying on the floor. Ashley ran to the phone and called 9-1-1 and told the operator that someone had hurt this man. Earl made it to the hospital and made it out alive, Ashley felt so proud of her self that she helped Earl just like he had always helped her.

4. Major conflict
The major conflict in My Lost and Found Life is that Ashley’s mother has embezzled a million a dollars and has left Ashley with no clue of where she is and if she is ok. Ashley is faced with a problem when she runs out of money. This problem is finding a low rent apartment in a nice area and finding a ggod paying job. Ashley can’t find any news about where her mother is and if her mother is ok, which Ashley gets really mad and sad about.

5.Mad Malcolm’s coffee shop
Malcolm’s coffee shop had an influnence on Ashley. Ashley ttok this job partly because she needed a way to have a cash flow and also partly because she needed to talk to people which she can surely do at the coffee shop. Ashley met many new people which she later considered to be her friends. Ashley met many new people that she could talk to and relate to them. There was one man that always came in to the coffee shop ranting and trying to steal from the cash register that finally set the coffee shop up into flames. Ashley had the role of getting everybody out of the building and that helped her because she knew that she could actually help people when they were in need of help.

6.Tattie
All of Ashley’s highschool friends had moved away to their dorm rooms at their new colleges which Ashley did not get to do. Ashley had to meet new friends Ashley met people at the coffee shop and Ashley met Tattie. Ashley and Tattie would do a lot of stuff together, they would go shopping, hang out with some of Tattie’s friends and Tattie also brought Ashley to a club where Ashley had to get a fake I.D. to get into it. Ashley learned many new things from Tattie that she would not have learned from her best friend Nicole before she moved away or from any of the other preppie girls from her school. Ashley could always count on Tattie to be there for her when she was down. This is why Tattie is one of the people that you should know after reading this book.

7. Nicole
Nicole was Ashley's best friend all through High School. Nicole had a mother who didn't like Ashley at all. She thought that she was a bad influence on her daughter. Her mother felt like this because Ashley was always the star in the school plays and did really well in school, which her daughter did not like to participate in. Nicole and Ashley had a plan to go to college out East, so they could get away from their mother's and do what they actually what they wanted to do. Nicole had heard the news about Ashley's mother but she felt that it was best for her if she still went to college out East, Ashley also thought that this plan was a good idea. Nicole promised that she would come back and visit Ashley and see how her new life was coming along.

8. Patrick
Patrick was a man that Ashley met once she started to work at Mad Malcolm's coffee shop. Patrick was a young man from Ireland who loved Ashley. Patrick actually met Ashley outside of the coffee shop. Patrick saw her at a book reading at a near by book store. Ashley had to get out of the camper so on night's that there were reading's at the book store she would go down and listen. Patrick took Ashley out a couple of times and made her feel good about herself. Patrick was always there for Ashley when she needed a shoulder and this is why Patrick is part of my top ten list.

9. The overview of My Lost and Found Life
This book revolves around a character who had a mother who embezzled a million dollars. Ashley feels like after her other did this to her that she needs, or has to start a new life for herself. To do this Ashley has to move out of her home that her mother has lived and her grandmother have lived in. Ashley also has to find a job to keep up the way that she wants to live. Ashley moves into a camper and starts a new job at a coffee shop. At the coffee shop she meets many new people who have many different views on life that Ashley would never have thought.

10. The reader, Betsy's Opinion on My Lost and Found Life
I thought that this book was very well written. I thought that there were many really good parts in this book. I also thought that in some parts the writer went to much into depth. One of these parts was when Ashley would go into work at the coffee shop, and there would a whole chapter on it. While in some parts, one including when the police found her mother I thought that the author should have gone more in depth. I thought that overall was a very well written book.

Outside reading post 6

Part A:
Vocab
Congenial pg.242-agreeable, suitable, or pleasing in nature or character

Part B:Ashley went on a date with Patrick.
The next morning at the coffee shop Patrick and Ashley were both taking it cool and acting like nothing had happened the night before. Patrick talked to Ashley and told her that he was going to go back to Ireland to visit his family. Ashley had no idea what to say to him when he told her this. Patrick asked her to come with him to his friend's cabin in Lake Tahoe, and that his friend wouldn't be their. Ashley said that she would love to go so she picked him up at the train station. They went up to the cabin, and they celebrated Ashley's birthday their. When Patrick got up in the morning he made a cake for her and he could only find ten candles and he knew that she wasn't turning ten, and asked how old she was really turning. Ashley said that she was turning nineteen. "He almost dropped the cake." And said "You're only nineteen!"
When Ashley and Patrick returned to their normal lives after spending the weekend at Lake Tahoe the two of them couldn't stop smiling at each other. Malcolm was the only person who noticed and he sat down and told Ashley that she didn't know what she was getting herself into with Patrick and that she should stay away from him.
Ashley was having a normal day at the coffee shop except for when the crazy book came in splashing what Ashley thought was holy water around the coffee shop. Then the crazy man lit a match and started the place on fire. Ashley was trying to get the crazy man to stop it, but when she couldn't get him to stop she rushed everybody out the back kitchen door. Ashley grabbed Sophie a little girl that Bella is nannying. Once Ashley got everybody out of the burning coffee house she sat down in the side of the road coughing really heavily.
Ashley went home to the camper and went to bed because she was feeling really drowsy. Ashley would sleep, dream and cough during the period she was at home because the coffee house was closed. One morning after sleeping for many hours she ran outside to use the gas station's restroom. When she was coming back from the restroom she saw saw Nicole's mom filling up her BMW. Nicole's mom said that she was dating Phil who use to be dating Ashley's mom. Ashley didn't know what to say to her si she just ran back to the camper.
Ashley kept coughing during the night and couldn't catch her breath. Earl was walking by and her wild coughing, he knew she wasn't doing good so he called officer Strobel. They both rushed her to the near by hospital where they pronounced that she had a collapsed lung and Bronchitis. Ashley had many visitors while she stayed at the hospital.

Debate

Where I have seen and participated in debate:
At home
In the car
Listening to the radio
With cousins
With parents
With siblings
When I am babysitting and the kids want to stay up a little longer
On vacation
With friends

outside reading blog post 5

Part A:
Vocab-
pg. 225 Tapas- Any of various small, savory Spanish dishes, often served as a snack or with other tapas as a meal.
pg. 178 Insomnia-inability to obtain sufficient sleep, esp. when chronic; difficulty in falling or staying asleep; sleeplessness.
pg. 188 Infatuation-extravagant passion or attraction.
"Earl?" "I called, struggling to keep my terror under control.""Oh God Earl!" "Can you hear me?" pg.197 This quote is important because it shows that Ashley treats and acts like Earl is her friend. Earl was hardly ever there for his daughter and now he thinks that he is helping and listening to Ashley because he was never their for his daughter and he is doing it for karma. Ashley felt like she helped someone by "saving" Earl's life and that she has a friend that she can help.
Part B:
In section four of My Lost and Found Life Ashley goes through motions at the coffee shop. She talks with the regular customers and she is even starting to flirt with Patrick, who reads and writes with Malcolm.
Ashley meets a man named Earl who works the night shift at Phil's gas station. Earl is very nice to Ashley he talked to a man who could give Ashley four tires for $300. Ashley also goes and talks to Earl about her problems and what has happened to her and her mother. Earl listens really well to Ashleyand what she has to say.
At the coffee shop the phone rang, Ashley picked it up and the woman on the phone asked for Patrick but Patrick told Ashley to tell the woman to leave a message. After Ashley hung up the phone Patrick told Malcolm that once a woman meets him she starts to make wedding plans (which he doesn't want) and Malcolm said to Patrick that he leads the woman on, and that it is his own fault.
After being in the camper for a few weeks Ashley laid down and found the knife under her pillow that she keeps there in case of an intruder. This was a smart idea in Ashley's case because a ma came and tried to get in the camper but couldn't luckily because the door was bolted shut. Instead of just leaving the man went inside the gas station and tried to get the money out of the cash register, Earl let him have it. The man wouldn't leave after getting the money he had to try and lock Earl up in the bathroom but instead of doing that he crushed a few of Earl's ribs and cut his head open. Ashley rushed in the gas station to make sure that Earl didn't gt hurt as she was walking in she saw the bathroom door open and she walked in and saw Earl laying in the middle of the floor soaked in his own blood. Ashley called 911 and an ambulance came and took him away.
Officer Strobel (who knows Ashley because they have talked about her mother Diane and her embezzling millions of dollars), started to question Ashley and what she was doing at the gas station at this hour, and how she knows Earl?
Ashley goes to free book readings, she went to one and she saw Patrick (who is a regular at the coffee shop) their and they talked for hours about different movies, and books. Patrick and Ashley were talking about movies they had seen and which ones were their favorites. Patrick said that he would have to take Ashley to see one of his favorite films (which was in black and white.) Ashley met him outside the theater at 6:00pm. After the movie which Ashley really liked they went to go eat dinner at a Mexican restaurant near the movie theater.

outside reading blog post 4

Part A:
Vocab-
pg. 143 uproariously-making an uproar; confused and noisy,characterized by or in a state of uproar; tumultuous.
pg. 159 armoire-a large wardrobe or movable cupboard, with doors and shelves.
"Your mother wouldn't want you to be living in a camper behind my station." pg. 137 This quote is a really good place that the author put in the book because it shows that Ashley is in a really tight spot in her life and that she is willing to live anywhere, including Phil's camper behind his gas station. Ashley is not thinking about what her mother would like be to be doing or living.

Part B:
Ashley has found herself with very little money. Her home is slowly being taken away from her. Ashley has to find a place to live before it too late and she is living on the streets. Ashley thinks about the people she could go live with, and she comes up with one person Phil. Phil use to date Ashley's mom. Ashley persuades him to let her sleep in his camper outside the gas station he owns.
Ashley started to work at Malcolm's Mad House Coffee Shop. Ashley realizes that she only gets paid $8.50 an hour, which is very little. The plus side is that she can eat and drink there for free. Soon after working their Ashley realizes that there are many goofy, and strange people that come in to the coffee shop everyday. One encounter that Ashley had on her first day was mistaking a little boy who was dressed up like a princess for a girl and his mother said "playful cross-dressing is a normal stage of any child's development."
Ashley's friend Tattie is working at a strip club. Ashley doesn't think that Tattie should be doing that in front of all of those men, and Ashley says this right to Tattie's face.
In conclusion of this section Ashley has started to work at Mad Malcolm's coffee shop, Ashley is starting to live in Phil's camper and Tattie is working at a strip club.

outside reading blog post 3

Vocab:
Instigated pg. 119-to cause by incitement;
Befuddlement pg. 121-to confuse, as with glib statements or arguments


All of Ashley's friends have continued on with their life. Nicole, her best friend is going to Boston where she is going to be attending college and wishing that Ashley would come with her too.
Instead of going off to college which is what Ashley really wants to be doing she is going in for a job interview at a really expensive and Tres chic furniture store. Ashley thought this is just the kind of place I like. Ashley was having an interview with the store manager and he asked how much retailing experience Ashley has had and she had to sadly answer none and she knew from that point that she wasn't going to get the job.
After the interview was over she left the building to go to the end of town where they would have fruit smoothie’s and they would be cheap. As Ashley was leaving she saw a little coffee store called Mad Malcolm's Cyber café. As Ashley drove by she saw "Help Wanted" sign so she walked in and saw a Asian man with a shaved head and a tattoo of a dragon on his arm. Ashley said "Hi I'd like to apply for the job!" The Asian looking man reached under the counter and pulled out a raceme and handed it to Ashley. Ashley filled it out and even drank a latte to show that she was really into coffee. She handed it back to the Asian man. The next day Ashley woke up to a phone call and it was Malcolm Merriman from Mad Malcolm's Cyber café and that he was looking for Ashley that she has got the job and that she should come in around Nine O’clock. Ashley asked Malcom what she should wear and he said “wear clothes because this ain’t Starbucks darlin’.” “Wear whatever you want. But I wouldn’t recommend anything too short unless you want customers looking up your skirt every time you bend over.”pg.134 Ashley said great I will see you tomorrow at nine.

Angela’s Ashes Summary Post 5

In chapter eight of Angela’s Ashes Frank is getting ready to get Confirmed. The night before the boys get Confirmed they go over to Peter Dooley, whom they call him Quasimodo because he has a hunch back. The boys go over there to look at his naked sisters while they take their weekly bath. Frank and the boys get caught and their mothers come. Frank’s mom says that she doesn’t want the priest to tell her that Frank is going to have to get confirmed next year. She makes Frank go home and kneel before the pope and swear that he doesn’t look at anotherg irl naked.
Frank gets confirmed and his nose starts to bleed. Angela takes Frank home and all the boys are wondering why he won’t make his collection. Frank goes home and goes to bed. When Franks father comes home he sees Frank and says that he is having growing pains and his grandmother says the same thing. The McCourts neighbor Ms. Hannon comes over and tells Angela that Frank should see a doctor right away. Angela says that the Dispensary is closed, but they find a doctor and he says that it is just a bad cold. Days later Frank is still in bed sleeping and bleeding. They finally find their doctor and he comes over and rushes Frank to the hospital right away and he tells Angela that he has Typhoid Fever. Frank meets a girl, Patricia in the hospital who has Diphtheria. Patricia gives books to the janitor, Seamus to give to Frank. Frank reads about wars, England’s history, and poetry. Patricia died in he night while trying to use the lavatory when suppose to be using a bed pan. Frank got out of the hospital and is goig home.
Frank’s father doesn’t have a job and the family is out of money again. When frank goes back to school he has to be in the fifth class because he has missed so much school. Frank doesn’t want to be in the fifth class because that is the class that Malachy, his younger brother is in.

Chapter nine
Frank’s father is going off to England to find work. Angela is so happy she can finally pay back Kathleen O’Connell for her loan of milk, tea eggs and bread. Frank’s father Malachy doesn’t send any money home for the family. Frank has two bad eyes and goes to see a doctor. Frank also has to stay at the hospital and have eye drops put in his eyes every morning.
A friend of the family comes home from England and says that Malachy has gone pure mad with the drink which he loses all the money he makes from his job. Angela has to bring the kids to the Dispensary to get relief from the public to feed her family since Malachy keeps spending all of his wages at the pub.

Chapter ten
Angela is sick in bed and Frank has to help her but he knows that he can’t get anything else from the shop or his grandmothers house. Frank goes outside to the icy February weather and spots a lemonade truck leaving from South’s pub and a bread truck pulling away from Kathleen’s shop. Frank takes two bottles of lemonade and one loaf of bread. Frank brings his goodies home to his brothers and his sick mother. Angela doesn’t get better and goes to the hospital and the kids go to Aunt Aggie’s house. The kids have to do everything Ant Aggie says or they will get yelled at and hit. Malachy comes home from England. Malachy is there for a few days while Angela is sick and then he goes back to England, he sends three pounds back to the family one week and then nothing else weeks after. There is no money or food left in the house Angela and many other poor went go to the Priests house to get left overs from their dinner to feed their families.
Favorite Quote:
1. “There in the middle of the crowd in her dirty gray coat is my mother. This is my own mother, begging. This is worse than the dole, St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Dispensary. It’s the worst kind of shame, almost as bad as begging on the streets where the tinkers hold up their scabby children, Give us a penny for the poor child, mister, the poor child is hungry, missus.”Frank McCourt 250 Angela’s Ashes I think that this quote is so important because Frank is telling the about his miserable Irish Catholic Childhood and al the trouble that his mother had to go through to feed her four boys.