Beep! Beep! Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!

Today, I decided to use our dying bananas and make banana bread.
Yum, right?
Thus begins the problems.
[Using a quick way of writing because my arms hurt to type]

The Tale of the Bread, from my point of view:

All right. Need two eggs. *look in fridge* No eggs.
*drive to store, buy carton of eggs, drive back*
All right. eggs. *crack, dump, toss shells*
Need margarine. *look in fridge...half a stick of margarine when I need a whole one*
*sigh*
*use half a stick of margarine, half a stick of butter*
Need bananas. *peel bananas...one inch-long segment of peel at a time as the peel disintegrates on me*
Mix. *turn on mixer...bananas try to go flying*
*sigh*
*mix together dry ingredients, add to wet, pour into greased pans, put in oven*
Good. Second batch.
*mix, mix, mix, using butter instead of margarine*
*pour batter into last pan, then scoop into mini-muffin pan*
*put in oven*
[Later]
*go to take bread out, phone rings...continue trying to take finished bread out, newer pan of bread tips over and spills*
*sigh*
*scoot out as much spilled batter as possible, but some sneaks down sides of oven where it is unreachable*
*sigh*
*leave as is...stinky burnt bread smell*
*pull out muffins, let cool*
[Later]
*make dinner (a stir together in pan and let cook from a box meal)...turn on oven to preheat...just as soon as I start putting pan in oven, smoke alarm goes off (from burnt bread smell), I jerk and spill water out of the pan all over the door, sending up more smoke which sets the smoke alarm off half a dozen more times*
*frantically try to clean up/fix meal/air out room/keep smoke alarm from going off*
*open all doors and windows, turn on stove fan, add water to pan and put in stinky oven...finally get alarm to stop beeping every half a minute*


*SIGH*

A New Blog...

I recently got a digital camera for an early birthday present and have been taking a bunch of pictures with it.
Rather than fill up this blog, which is mostly writing-oriented, with a whole bunch of photos, I decided to create a new blog which would be photo oriented.
http://lithenbourne.blogspot.com/
There is a minimum amount of text accompanying each photo. I choose whatever photo I like and put it when I feel like it.

That doesn't mean I won't put photos up here. I'm more likely now to put up photos to go with my posts now. *grins*
I just wanted someplace to put some of the random stuff I'm going to be taking. ^^

YouTube Tuesday Strikes Again!...but not on Tuesday...

[Some lyrics may not be appropriate for work or little ears to hear.]
So, went to a local version of the play The Producers the other night. Then watched the dvd version that same night. Very funny, very enjoyable.
Well, tonight when I was waiting for a phone call, I was surfing the net to stay awake. I remembered that there was a scene where there was a change from play to movie - one of the main characters, named Max Bialystock, has been betrayed by his partner Leo Bloom (vagueness to avoid giving away details, sorry. ^^"). He's in jail and sings, appropriately enough, a song called "Betrayed." Now, in the play that we saw, the character sings a brief version of everything that has happened so far in 5 minutes, including intermission break. The movie didn't, obviously, not having an intermission. I wanted to see how the original actor performed it (a much better way, I think.)

However, as I was looking for videos of the OBC (Original Broadway Cast) performance, I came across something...a little different.



The entertaining part of this is that the original Broadway actor, Nathan Lane, is also the voice of the meerkat Timon in The Lion King.
And this was not all...





This last one seemed particularly well-matched. ^^

Maybe it's just my lack of sleep, but they seemed oddly hilarious. *grins*
Night all...gotta go finish up some schoolwork.

Stupid Drivers and Silly Chickens

Last Friday was my sister's birthday, so we went to Waco.

Well, first we gave her two presents early: her camera, and the chicken I made for her.
For a week and a half I had teased her about the colour this chicken was going to be...and she chose not to wait until that night to get it, but to get it before we left.
I kept telling her while I was making it that it was all sorts of horrible colours - lime green with rust orange feet, for example.
Then I remembered that when I went through my yarn, I had had a skein of a horrible colour that looked just like dried vomit.
So I told her I was making it out of that. She grimaced.
The story kept growing as the week went on, until it was a three-foot tall vomit coloured chicken with a huge hole in one side (where I miscounted stitches, of course), one eye missing, with one leg twice as long as the other.
I used a big box to put it in for her to open...and she was very relieved to open it and find a pink chicken.



However, he ended up being named Strawberry Vomit...either Berry or Vomit for short, of course. This is a picture of him and the other chickens I've made.
I'm taking a break from chickens for a while. Next I'm going to make either a turtle, an armadillo, a flamingo, or an otter, I think.

Saw some of the stupidest driving on our trip, though. At one point there was an accident that locked up most of the road, and people were driving over the grass to get onto the frontage road. ><
Impatient people driving idiotically.
We had people cut us off without looking, changing lanes, running reds...all sorts of stuff.
The one who wins the "Most Likely To Cause An Accident" prize, however, was the motorcyclist who drove up between our car and the car beside us at a high speed. Seriously. He drove on the dividing line and just about surprised my mom off the road. He was driving like you see in the movies, all reckless like. Won't be surprised when he gets in an accident.

A Rather Productive Weekend Thus Far (picture heavy)

Did stuff for other people this weekend.
Plushies first, since they were finished first.



A thank you gift done specially for the surgeons who saved my mom's life several weeks ago.
Framed it and am giving it to them Monday.

Coloured sharpie and coloured pencil for the figure, no lines and watercolour pencil (dry) for the background (except for a metallic pencil for the Emerald City's lines).
Half a day of constant work.

Turned out much lighter in the scan than the picture. Kinda like it though...looks ethereal.



My first amigurumis.
My mom has an internet friend...because of injokes that would take too long to relate, he sends my mom frogs and my mom sends him chickens. Or tries to. It is very difficult to find inexpensive chicken items.
Anyways, I was roaming the innards of the DA monster, when I came across this adorable chicken pattern: [link]
So I made two - one for my mom's friend...then one for my mom when she oohed and ahhed and looked longingly at the chicken.
Now there's two chickens fluttering around our house...but we'll be down to one sometime in the next couple weeks when we send the left chicken to his new home.
Or will there be only one? "I want a chicken..." I hear my siblings murmuring...>>

I used two yarns held together for the main part of the chicken - a regular yellow and a fun fur yellow.

The right hand chicken is bigger because I think I miscounted the stitches. ^^" I was tired.

Lots of accomplishment. My hands hurt now.

Must go finish dinner - gotta make the garlic butter for the breadsticks. TTFN

My E-mail is Going to Throw Up On Me

I don't get very many e-mails. Or at least I didn't.
Not counting the spam (which mostly goes in its own folder where I ignore it), I would get many 25 e-mails per day...usually all comics from arcamax.com.
The other day...I was bored. I went to the Arcamax site and realized that they had added some comics. So I subscribed to those. The I wandered to the other newsletters...and subscribed to a bunch of them - even ones that I wouldn't normally care about, like political essays.
Then I hit the limit - they wouldn't let me subscribe to anything else.
So today I was bored...again...and I found a way to subscribe to every one of the newletters. Then I sat and subscribed to a lot of "a chapter a day" books. Then I hunted down some crochet newletters and signed up for them.
Then I found out that about.com does newletters for all of their pages.
Score.

I'm kinda scared to think of what my e-mail is going to be like tomorrow.

Ouch!

Lately, I've been waking Mom up with breakfast in bed.
I got a wakeup call of my own this morning, though it wasn't half so good.
I get up this morning, go to put my feet on the ground...and stare in confusion at my bunny-ear cactus, normally found in my windowsill, but then found on my floor.
Being tired, I blink a couple times, then ignore it and go downstairs.
I put my fingers to keyboard to type and STING. Sudden tiny stabs of pain in my hands and arms. I look closely at my fingers to see that my hands are full of cactus prickles.
At some point in the night, my cactus must have wanted a hug, because it feels like I sat and cuddled it. I have no memory of even touching my cactus, but it seems to have happened.
So right now I'm going through duct tape therapy wherever my fingers sting, because the prickles are small enough I can't see them. *sigh*

Moosebutter Star Wars returns!

A couple of months ago I put up a Random Youtube Tuesday (here!) that had a man named Corey Vidal did a video tribute to Moosebutter's Star Wars song. In it he had a four part screen where he lip synched all the parts that were sung, and it was actually really funny.
Tonight I was looking at other multi-window lip synchs after I came across a 9-window one, and I came across something totally awesome!
The Moosebutter group did their own video in response to the guy's! They did a recording of their song (slightly updated) and acted out their own roles, just like Corey did.
It was awesome!
So I thought I'd post it for anyone who happens to still read my blog. ^^

Plushiepalooza!

Today in Baking we made pies. (I know that has nothing to do with plushies, hold your horses. It will make sense in a moment.) In a moment of intelligence (and laziness) last class, I told the teacher I would make Key lime pie. My reason could have been because my brother loves Key lime pie and his birthday is coming up...but it's not. It could have been because it's the only pie filling in the book that everyone in the family will like (except me)...but it's not. The real reason I chose Key lime pie? It has four steps. Mix eggs with condensed milk. Mix in lime juice. Pour in baked pie crust. Chill. No muss, no fuss, out of class before I'm bust. (Hey, that kind of rhymed! Kind of.)
Most of the other people were slaving over apple, pumpkin, or cherry fillings...except one. As we waited together for the oven to heat so we could put our crusts in we started talking about all sorts of things, from cakes to games to game-related cakes...and so on.
To bring everything around to the title (finally!) I told her about a blog she oughta submit pictures of some of her cakes (nifty cakes that geeks would lust for...like Star Wars insignia and suchlike) to a blog I watch - the video game craft blog found somewhere to the right of this post.
Then I got started talking about stuff I draw (on the subject of geekdom), and I mentioned the plushies I draw (DRAW! Not sew/make but DRAW! This is a sore point with me online...I get comments all the time of people going "Will you make that for me?" Aargh.)
I realized then that I never put up any plushies here on the blog.
So as I promised, my fellow Key lime pie maker, here are (some of) the plushie pictures!

This is (I think) the first plushie I really did like this. I've done plushies for a while, but this is the beginning of this evolution of them. Big round arms and legs and dots for eyes. All details of the original characters remain, just made smaller.
This is Bakura, from Yugiou, one of my favoritest characters ever.
This is the "old-style" plushie, before I started inking with thin-tip Sharpies. Also before I knew how to colour very well.


This is Naruto, from the anime Naruto. Still just pencil lines, but better colouring.


This is one of the first plushies to have Sharpie outlines. I think it really adds to it. It's Vincent, from one of the Final Fantasy games.


Did a couple of Disney plushies once. ^^" Robin Hood.


Maleficent


Finally, these last two are, for some reason, the most popular of the plushies I have up on DeviantArt. Go figure.
Kakashi from Naruto.


Axel from the Kingdom Hearts series.


These are just a few of the many plushies I've done. You can find all of the anime/game/other plushies I've done at http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v607/rana-chan/Plushies/?start=0
I've also done a lot of custom plushies for people, too.

Cute, ne? ^^

Oops!

Random Youtube Tuesday is a day late today. ^^"
Actually, when I forgot to do it yesterday, I wasn't going to do it this week.
But then I came across a really random video when I was searching for fanart of one of my favorite games.
If you've played it, it's hilarious, and if you haven't, it's still random nonsense and thus enjoyable. *laughs*

More Food!

Before I start, let me mention that I added a picture to my post about the pizza I made in baking.
I will also add a picture to this one as soon as I remember where it is. ^^"

Anyways. The other day we made cinnamon rolls in baking. Actually, we made multi-purpose dough...didn't find out until the day of the class that it would be cinnamon rolls. I thought we were doing croissants.
We pulled out our dough and rolled it out - my dough was thicker, because there was less room on my counter. That's okay, I like thick cinnamon rolls.
All I put in mine was a cinnamon sugar mixture and butter. Don't like nuts and raisins.
However, to actually cook it at the school would have taken forever - I wouldn't have gotten home until 9pm, and I had a test to study for.
So I took it home to proof and bake.
See, I did have homework, Stevie!
Anyways... it turned out really good. Not as thickly coated with cinnamon as some I've had, and big and fluffy. The teacher made some thick glazing that was really good on it.

I'll put up pictures later.

Random Youtube Tuesday!

Well, over the past week and a half or so, I've gotten several games. One of the ones I bought just a few days ago for $10 at Walmart, called Line Rider 2.
I've been watching for that game for a half a year or so now, ever since I heard about it, because I really enjoyed the original flash game on the 'net.
I decided that today's RYT would be some clips of original tracks people have made on the original Line Rider game. ^^







There are tons of videos to look at, and a bunch of them are awesome. I just can't put them all up here. *laughs*

The Super Bowl

Subtitle: "You could bounce a quarter back off those tight ends!"

Last week was the Super Bowl. Hoo...rah.
I've never understood football...I don't see the point in running then stopping, running than stopping. I've always liked sports like gymnastics and tennis where the action is quick and continuous.
I do like the food though. And the commercials. So I don't disappear into my room. I load up my plate with snacks galore and run in to watch the commercials when they come on, then leave when that boring football stuff returns. As I jokingly said the other day, "They play football at the Super Bowl?"
This year, we went all out with food and stuff for my brother, who does actually enjoy watching the game part of the Super Bowl. Since Dad's in Iraq, we women watched it with him. I was tired and too lazy to get up off the couch, so I actually stuck around and watched the gameplay.
What have I been missing out on all these years? I don't know if it's the fact that one of the teams had shimmery yellow pants, but the butts were mesmerizing! This was the first superbowl I watched all the way through...didn't care who won, but I couldn't tear my eyes away.
Oh yeah, the food was good too. I wasn't impressed by the commercials this year though.

Random Youtube Tuesday!

Since we had the Super Bowl just a couple days ago (and I will have about that, you can be sure), I decided that the unofficial theme of today's youtubes could be football!

First up is a video showing a bunch of clips of football bloopers.



As for Super Bowl commercials (which I will expound upon in my upcoming blog post about it), my favorites have always been the Budweiser Clydesdale ones. Couldn't have anything to do with the fact that I love Clydesdale almost as much as I do wolves, could it?
Anyways, I was surfing through old Super Bowl commercials on youtube, and found this one rather funny.



That's it for today!

I actually made something!

Woah! After like three weeks of listening to the teacher blather on and on, I finally got to make something in my baking class!
Before I continue my happy rambles, let me rant for just a moment.
When I decided to take fundamentals of baking, I assumed that we would…well…bake. The first three weeks or so we sat…and listened to the teacher meander through the book, reading stuff at random (often reading it wrong!), attempting calculations, and just plain boring us all to death. The worst class was the one where we sat for three hours watching a set of movies about some guy making French bread where they kept reusing the video clips. Snore!
Finally, though, we got to DO something last week. We made pizza dough! It was a variation on Italian bread. Of course my dough ball has problems…first it was too dry, then too wet…it was a comedy of errors. First we’d add flour, then water, then flour again. Finally it formed into a nice puffy little ball…just in time for the class to be over.
We wrap our happy little dough balls in saran wrap (smearing them with vegetable oil first…to keep them from sticking) and leave them to rise over the weekend.
Then last night we all wandered into class, waiting impatiently for it to start so we could get on with the pizza making.
I hung around like a useless lump as people prepared the sauce – from cooking the Italian sausage and the bacon to cutting onions, green peppers, mushrooms, and zucchini. (Yes…somebody brought their own zucchini to put on their pizza. I, being sane, refrained.) At first my only contribution was to find that container of parsley that was hiding among the 30 other bottles of spices, but eventually somebody set me up sautéing onions. Maybe I should take a cooking class next year so I don’t look so lost in a kitchen!
It took us forever, but eventually we got the sauce and all the toppings done.
Then we pulled our happy not-so-little-anymore dough balls out and rolled them into happy large flat pizza crusts! Mine was less flat than most…I hate thin crust. My pizza has to be thick and slightly chewy…mmm. *wakes from daydream*
Anyways, I rolled mine out and loaded it up. (On an aside…when I was waiting in the topping line, somebody said my vaguely triangle-shaped dough looked like a heart…and after poking and pulling and prodding it into shape, I agreed. ^^) It had a medium amount of sauce (I don’t like either dry or soggy pizzas), a few of the sautéed onions, lots of sausage, bacon and pepperoni, and tons of cheese. Finally, a bunch of us dabbed a bit of the leftover bacon grease onto the crust (that is…I dabbed. Other people soaked theirs.) then popped them in the oven. After an interminable amount of cleaning – for we’d made a huge mess – our pizzas were done.
I took mine home whole and shared with the family. Mom said that “she thought something tasted off about it…I’d better make some more to figure out what.” Hm….really? Couldn’t be that it was really good and you want more, could it? *laughs*
My brother was a magician with his – it disappeared faster than doves in a Lance Burton act. Even my nibbling sister chomped hers down in record time.
Sounds like my first baking attempt was a success!

Arrrgh! Or, Test week.

For weeks now, I’ve been scraping the bottom of the idea barrel to come up with things to write about. But all of a sudden it’s like the sky has opened and is raining inspiration on my head. It’s been a veritable downpour of events that have occurred and ideas of what to write. This is the first of many blog posts over the next couple of weeks (I hope!). Y’all will be glad to see something in this blog other than youtube videos, ne? *laughs*

The first three posts in this new series of rambling (may it be long-running) are all event-based blogs. I write them first, before the events become ancient history…like the geology field trip I haven’t written about yet. Maybe I’ll just wait until later this month and write about the physical geology trip at the same time as I do the historical one. *grimace*

Anyways. Back on topic.

I was massively busy this past weekend as I madly studied for 4 tests this week. Yes, four. They popped up out of nowhere!

To begin with, yesterday we had the first *real* map test in geography. The map of Europe…160 different places and things to memorize, and I did it in two days. *die*

It was a good thing I got it all memorized in time to take the test (instead of taking advantage of the no-points-off late regulation the teacher has). We knew we were getting one bonus point for taking this (very hard) test in class, but then the professor told us to add two bonus points to our page. Very nice. I missed a place on the first map test, so that’ll definitely help make up for that. Now I must move on to the Russia map, for next Monday. *sigh*

Today there are no tests…merely studying for upcoming tests.

Tomorrow is the first test in my baking class. I have no clue how I’ll do because I have no clue what is on the test. The teacher went through the test with us yesterday, but after three-fourths of she said we needed to know is stuff she’s never mentioned. *shrug*

Thursday has the next really worrisome test – the minerals test. In physical geology we’ve been studying minerals and the properties of minerals. Thursday we get to demonstrate what we’ve learned. *yuck*

We do get to use one resource on the test, however, so that will be a big help. Last week I’d been getting pretty good at recognizing minerals. We’ll see how I do this week with a couple days left to study.

Finally, on Friday is my last test. Before we go to Waco I need to run over to the test center at the college and take the first test of my online western civilization class. I don’t know how I’ll do…I’m terrible at remembering dates and stuff, but about half the unit focuses on cultures I’ve actually studied on my own (such as Greece), so we’ll see.

And those are this week’s tests. Next week there’s even more fun to come!

*gag*

I love to go to class and learn stuff…it’s the throwing it back up onto a test paper I don’t like.

Edit: Results!

I got a 41/40 on the map test. *yayhappydance*

I got 86 out of a possible 108 points. *silentgrimace*

I got a 82 on the baking test. I think it was the highest grade in the class, though. [Everyong else got 60s and 40s. One person got a 70.] Part of the problem was that ten of the questions were on chapter 7...when the test was chapters 1-6! Teacher says, "Well...you should've studied that, too." *snort* I'm not enjoying the lecture/test part of this class...and we don't get to do as much baking as one would think. *sigh*

Finally, I got an 82.5 out of 110 points on the Western Civ test. Not great. I'll have to make it up in the other tests and the paper.

End of results show. *grins*

Random Youtube Tuesday!

Today's theme is...cute baby animals!

Of course I will start with my favorite animal, the wolf.
This video is a clip from a longer documentary. The last minute or so is the cutest part, if you want to skip the talking at the beginning and just watch the wolf cub howl.



Cute little fuzzy cheetah cubs.



The next video is an adorable one of a baby giraffe, but embedding is removed...not surprising, as it's an official animalplanet clip. *grins*
Here's the link, you should go look: Giraffe

As chance works out, the three clips I chose are my and my siblings' favorite animals. *laughs*

Happy Dance of Yayness

Over the years, my family has accumulated a number of games for the computer. Several binders' worth of games.
This year, mom decided to start going through the games, weeding out the games that are just too easy, the ones noone would play, and the ones that don't even work anymore.
I've decided that I don't like computer games. Unlike video games that will work as long as you have the game system, it takes very little for a computer game to not work on a different computer.
There's a pile of games that gave error messages that's like 2 inches thick now.

Anyways, onto the yayness.
Yesterday Mom was testing games, and she came across several that weren't working on the computer. My Petz games for one - Catz didn't work at all, Dogz did but we no longer had the game code. *sigh*
Two of my favorite games ever, that I used to play for hours, weren't working on the computer: Museum Madness and Ecoquest: Search for Cetus. (It was really no surprise that DOS-based games wouldn't work real great on a Vista OS. *laughs*)
I took them up to my laptop, to see if they'd happen to work on it. To my shock and awe and happyness, BOTH of the games worked! So now I can play my favoritest games in the world in my own room. *grins*

My brother now wants to borrow my laptop, though. Museum Madness is one of his favorite games, too. *laughs*

Mandatory School Blog

So, college has been going for two weeks now, which is time enough for me to make an assessment of how my classes are, so it's time for a life update: school edition.

I'm taking only 4 classes - a light load for me, but necessary since I'm running out of classes I can take and have to stretch it out another semester.

First off, Mondays and Wednesdays at 9AM, I've got Physical Geography. The teacher is the same guy who taught my Geology class last semester (and the one I'm taking this semester). That's the main reason I'm taking the class. *laughs*
It's good so far...if it weren't for the map quizzes, it would be an easy class, in fact. Unfortunately, we've got lots of countries and stuff to memorize, so that bumps it up to the medium hard category.
Love the textbook. It's by National Geographic, so it's full of beautiful pictures.

Then in the evening on the same days, I'm taking Fundamentals of Baking. No, I'm not a culinary student - I'm just taking it because it sounded interesting.
We're taking a long time to get anywhere, though. The last couple classes have been spent wandering through the first chapters of the text. Rather boring, and the teacher doesn't know her information. She's using someone else's notes.
We're supposed to be making rolls today, though. We'll see. If nothing else, I'll get food out of the class. *laughs*

On Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:30 AM, I have Physical Geology. So far it seems easier than Historical Geology was...maybe it's just because I'm familiar with some of the concepts already. There's about half a dozen of us students from last semester's Geology class, but they're all taking the later lab, so I'm all by my lonesome in the 12PM lab.
We're currently studying minerals, preparing for the mineral exam coming up in a few weeks. I hope its easier than the fossil one. I only got a 95 on that one. *sigh*
The textbook for this class is wonderful, too. I'll probably keep it instead of the Historical Geology book.

I'm taking Western Civilization online. I never got to take a world history class in high school because we moved. In Idaho, where I had my freshman year, American history was taught in 9th grade and world history was 11th. In Florida, where I graduated, world history was 9th and American history was 11th. I ended up taking American history twice - it wasn't until the middle of the year, when the teacher started teaching manifest destiny, that I realized that I'd heard all this information before. *laughs*
Anyways. Western Civ online...it's okay so far. Got a test in a couple weeks.
I have to write a paper on Isaac Newton. Could be worse - the student a couple higher on the list than me got Machiavelli.

Finally, I have a kind of unofficial class. I took Spanish last semester and learned nothing. I need to take Spanish 2 before we leave, so I don't have to buy a different book up at ISU. The Spanish 2 class that has the good teacher is ahead of where the bad teacher left off. Therefore, in order to take Spanish 2, I have to learn enough Spanish not to fail.
Dad very kindly set up the Rosetta Stone program he gets free through the military for me so I can use that to learn. It's really very good...I think I'm going to go down the list. Start with Spanish, move on to Japanese, Italian...*grins*

So, those are my classes this semester.
A mix of easy and hard.
We'll have to see how it all turns out. ^^

Random Youtube Tuesday!

Meant to get a blog post in about school before today, but I just never got around to it.
I'll do it sometime this week.

Didn't have anything ready for today, so I just put in random phrases until something caught my eye...so today is red panda video day!

Random Youtube Tuesday

Today's youtube videos...are just weird.
Don't ask, I don't even know how I found them.

Birthday Blog!

My birthday was on the 3rd - I turned 21.
No, we didn't have big wild parties, but it was still great. ^^

It was a birthday that kinda streeeeetched out over a week or so. First, a couple days before my birthday, we all went down (up?) near the Austin area. (At least, I seem to remember that's where it was. ^^") We met up with my aunt Margaret, who was in the area, and wandered around doing cool stuff. We hit up a used bookstore that had some neat books...I found about half a dozen books that looked good. We ate at a little restaurant for lunch. (I had a bacon cheeseburger...which is like my favorite food. ^^) We went to the outlet mall...but really only the Disney store that's there. *laughs* I got an Eeyore shirt that's really cute. We went to a couple other places before heading home. Margaret spent the night, which was kind of fun - we all watched Wall-E (which is one of the cutest movies I've ever seen).

On my birthday (which was a Saturday) we went out and hit a bunch of Goodwills and pawn shops. We had Taco Bell for lunch, and the casserole I really like for dinner. I got a couple of movies at the pawn shops.

I got nifty cool presents, too. I got a lot of gifts throughout the week: for example, I got J.K. Rowling's Tales of Beedle the Bard at the used bookstore and Nintendos for my DS before Saturday. They were gifts, we just didn't see the need to hold onto them. ^^ I got a cool crochet book, though. We also went to Barnes and Noble and I got a couple of manga and a how to draw manga book.

All in all, a pretty good birthday. ^^

Mandatory Christmas Blog

Yah, I know, I'm slow.
Before I sit and blather about my viewpoint of Christmas, first I think I'll link you to some of my Mom's Christmas blogposts. Hers are nifty special, 'cause she adds pictures. *oooh*
Cookies, traditions, family gifts, Santa gifts (and slideshow), making Gingerbread house, and Dad's Christmas pictures.

Alright.
Christmas was good...I already posted about my Christmas cactus, which the main decoration in my room. ^^
I actually brought it downstairs and put it on a little table so we could put our gifts under it (which I thought was a cute idea).
Got a bunch of awesome gifts. Just a few of the things I got were candy (including my favorite Reese's Trees), DS games (Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles and Animal Crossing), an Elfen figure, several cool books, and a pretty necklace. Also cool were some of the gifts to the family - two very cool Wii games and an awesome board game.

Mom gave me an odd look when I said we needed to get the guinea pigs a gift too. They're part of the family, aren't they?
We all laughed when they ignored the gift in favor of the wrapping paper. *sigh*

One of the main things we did to celebrate this year was make a gingerbread house kit Mom had picked up last year.
Let me tell you, gingerbread house frosting is nasty. I kept getting it on my hands...and I'd lick it off, so as to not get it on the table. Sugar high of the year, man.
It turned out cute, though. Mah siblings each decorated one side, and I decorated the front. Didn't spend much time on it, since I got tired of the thing while icing the sides for the kids. ><

Hm...anything else?
Not that I can recall...next time I need to not wait so long - I've forgotten a bunch! *laughs*

Random Youtube Tuesday!

Since I'm running late this morning, this is gonna go quick.
As any of you who have faithfully been watching my RYTs may have noticed, I really like the song "Flight of the Bumblebees." I've put up videos of it several times before.
Well, a couple weeks ago, I came across several really interesting versions...and decided to do a Flight of the Bumblebee RYT, and hopefully get it out of my systen so I can bring you other random things! *laughs*
Without any further ado, let the flight commence!

Apparently I can't do a RYT without acapella videos anymore.



Trans-Siberian Orchestra, whoo! (Best quality I could find)



Finally, I keep coming across euphonium pieces. I couldn't play this song on the piano, let along a brass instrument.



That's it for today! See you next week!

Life Updates!

Before I put up this week's videos, I thought I'd do a life update post.
It's what I do when I'm too lazy to do a real post, but still want something between RYTs. *laughs*

Christmas was recently...I'll have lots to say about it soon. Also my birthday was the 3rd - it was great. I'm now 21.
School starts next week, so you'll probably get a post about it.
I've got a bunch of new games...I'll probably write something about them in the coming weeks. I'm also doing good on old games - I recently got past a part in Zelda: Twilight Princess that my video game-talented brother was stuck on, so I'm ahead of him. *grins*
I haven't been drawing as much as I'd like, but I've getting through some of my books at a pretty good pace. Today I'll be finishing off the Black Stallion series and get rid of about half of them. Then I can get back to my normal cycle of books. [For those who don't yet know how I work, I have around 8 books I read at a time. I read ten pages in one, switch to another and read ten pages, switch to another, etc.]
I've got a number of long, 350+ page books to read. *sigh*
When school starts again, I'll be getting through the very long (500+ pages) books faster, because I keep one in my bag and read it when I've got breaks.
Um...that's everything I can think of at the moment.
Stick around, because RYT is coming up next!