Random Things of the Day

1) Please check out my art blog: www.shealynns-faerie-shoppe.blogspot.com I just redid the entire layout! I need to figure out a better way for organization. You shouldn't have to click "Older Posts" twenty times just to discover one of the older posts.

Please let me know if it takes forever to load or if it looks funny in your particular browser.

2) Today we watched The Importance of Being Earnest! Wow, it was randomly hilariously awesome.

3) I still intend to write up a quite long post about The Hike III, but in the meantime, please see THE HIKE III BLOG.

4) We just discovered that Marcus' vocabulary includes the word "exciting". He's two. My next plan: teach him to say "grandiloquent."

5) I do such a terrible job on this blog. I never keep anything organized and I never keep to any set posting. I don't get pictures up for months. This is a cross between a family blog, a blog, and randomly random things...

6) My latest catchphrase: This is manifestly absurd. From St. Thomas' Summa Theologica.

7) Please pray I survive exams! I'm freaking out. Just a little bit. Especially about math.

8) I'm sure I've posted this before, but my aunt has been in an out of the hospital with some complications with her pregnancy.

9) I'm still hyped from the HIKE! It looks like I have only one toenail in serious danger. In fact... I got relatively few blisters. Only four little ones and one medium one (under said toenail). I managed to hurt the outsides of both my feet, though. It appears to me to be either a numb cramp (get those there alot) or else a very tightly wound tendon right by that fifth metatarsal. (OOOH! I sound all medical-like.)

10) We're showing the house again soon. I hope we can 1) sell it, 2) get it clean without everyone freaking out, and 3) not get very behind in school!

Hike

Yesterday was the Hike III! It was SO MUCH FUN. I'll post about it later, right now I need to study!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day!

My mom is so awesome... She's so awesome that she makes me actually keep a bedtime so that I get enough rest... (bedtimes... why must they exist?) therefore I can't write a long, awesome post about her. Maybe I can do that tommorrow. :D

Interesting...

So Sorry!

Apparently all those blog posts I'd written over the past week or two didn't publish... this is what I get for not checking. So there are a gazillion new posts. If this clutters up your Blogger Dashboard, I'm sorry!

Turning Off Nick's Brain

I'm beginning to wonder if my brother's brain has an on and off switch. Because his brain seems to be turned off alot...

[PICTURE]

A few days ago, we were playing a Lord of the Rings game. I had my Evenstar necklace out, and we took the One Ring out of the LotR Risk game.

I hung the Ring on my Evenstar chain. My brothers asked to use it; I said yes. "Put the chain on my desk when you are finished!"

"Okay! C'mon, lets go defeat Sauron. We should recruit Ulme."

The next day we hurried around the kitchen, attempting to make a lunch out of quite old leftovers. Everyone was stepping on feet, knocking chairs over, being loud, and generally increasing noise and commotion. As I put my sandwhich of leftover meat in the toaster, I noticed something on the counter.

My chain! After practically knocking a milk jug onto the day's mail, I reached across the fruit bowl and grabbed my chain.

Only half of it came. (click read more)

Are YOU the biggest fan of FTN?

Are you the biggest fan of Regina Doman's Fairy Tale Novels for teens?

This summer...

beware of thieves.

Alex O'Donnell and the Forty Cyberthieves

a fairy tale retold 

(this is the fifth book in the Fairy Tale Novels series)

As part of a promotion for these books, the author is holding a contest. Details can be found HERE. Prizes range from free MP3 downloads, signed books, and a copy of the student film The Shadow of the Bear when it is completed.

These books are among my favorites. I wrote... not a review, per se, but some kind of post on them HERE.

The official website: www.fairytalenovels.com
The fan-forum (the forum I am constantly talking about): www.fairytalenovels.proboards.com

My idea for the entering contest: design my own fairy tale novels T-shirt, and get a picture of me riding my unicycle with it on. Mmmhmmm. That sounds cool. 

To all my friends: If you haven't read these books yet, I strongly suggest doing so! I have extra copies at home, which I am only too happy to loan. HOWEVER, if enough people request them at our library, they might actually buy the books. When I requested them years ago, I had to wait a YEAR before they got one of them in from inter-library loan. And it was the second book in the series. Come on, lets get our library to get some good books-- not the overwhelming majority of Scholastic stuff!

Non Euclidean

I spent a good deal of time drawing little triangles on a marble today.

Why? I'm learning non-Euclidean geometry. It is FACTINATING. A little hard to grasp, but so cool. Yes. I actually like something in math. Non-Eucldian geometry is cool.

Hopefully I won't have to do a bunch of boring proofs. Those proofs are what killed regular Euclidian geometry for me.

A Good Blog

I have been reading the Conversion Diary blog for a couple of months now. It is the blog of a women who grew up athiest, became interested in Christianity, and eventually converted to Catholicism.

As a "cradle Catholic," I've always taken my faith for granted. Seeing from the view of a convert is really something. The author has some truly amazing insights-- even in posts about everyday things like messy purses or scorpions in the house. (AHHH!)

I could write for ages about what I like, but I think I'll just post the link. :)

CONVERSION DIARY BLOG

Read through the posts on the left-hand sidebar first. You'll probably spend a good amount of time reading through the gazzillion posts on the blog-- I know I did!

Elf Dress

I forgot to post a better picture of my Halloween costume. Here it is-- minus the jewelry, cape, and accesories (I made a bucke thing, too.) I finally got Willl to take a picture-- I needed it to show someone on my forum. T'was my second sewing project!

Firefox vs Explorer-- Color

 EDIT: I HAVE FOUND A SOLUTION
The reason that select pictures looked really weird was because of 1) Firefox's color profile setting and 2) Windows XP. I didn't want to turn off color profile.... but I found a way to make firefox ignore it. All photos now functioning. Observe the magic:

Type about:congif into address bar.

Ignore the warning that pops up. You DO know what you're doing, because I'm telling you. :) Anyway, the warning does say its okay if you know what you are doing. :D


Find gfx.color_management.mode Change the integer to 0.


VOILA!


All pictures functioning.
~~~~~



Firefox is my preferred internet browser. I loves its features to no end. :) But I've noticed an odd thing happening with Firefox. Here is my evidence:

To the left are two windows in Explorer, to the right are the same in Firefox.

A pretty drastic difference, no? Much as I love Firefox, I might be forced to use Explorer when I want to look at pictures.

More Unicycle!

I haven't aquired many new skills since my last unicycling post nearly a month and a half ago. I simply can't go practice it every day.

I am having huge problems idling. Idling is rocking back and forth, so that you essentially stay in place. I am trying to learn a vertical idle, which I hear is the easiest. I'm leaning too much on my bottom foot, and turning in jerky circles rather than rocking.

Backwards riding also escapes me. I've traveled the length of the driveway once, but that was more of a fluke than a learned skill. I am already a catious rider, and the addition of not seeing where I am going does not help.

"I dun need ter know where Ah'm going-- I jerst need ter know where I've been," says Tow Mater-- "like tomato but without the 'ter'." That doesn't work for me. Most of the time, one of my siblings will run up behind me while I pedal uncontrollably backwards.

However, I have learned one new skill! Hopping!

I learned it without even knowing it.

I had just finished playing "hoola hoop catch" with my sister (I rode the unicycle, she threw the hoop at me, and I tried to either catch it or let it fall over my head-- then ride away as fast as I can so she had to come running to get her hula hoop back).

I rode from the driveway out to the middle of the street and attempted to idle. Now, our driveway, road, everything is a hill. In the past, I always learned new tricks by riding perpendicular to the slope. While I was idling, though, I accidentally twisted and found myself facing downhill mid-jerky-idle.

I told myself to hold on... I wasn't going to get that hurt if I fell... when I hit a rock. But somehow, instead of grabbing the unicycle as it flew out from under me, I grabbed it just in time to get my feet back on. Somehow, through all of this, I managed to leap into the air. I landed... and kept my balance!

I immediantly rode back and tried it again. After five minutes, I was able to control when and how I hopped. I could only hop in place, though, and only twice in a row.

But today I learned how to hop side to side (both directions) and front and back!!! I can also hop up almost four inches, and have enough control to jump over a peice of chalk without making it roll. I hope to be able to jump up things soon.

I  can also ride off curbs now. :) And I have gone on two couple-mile-long unicycle rides. And now, if I am close to a wall, I mount "silly foot" (aka, with my left foot instead of right.) Maybe I can learn how to freemount left-footed.

Mom's Birthday

Happy Birthday last week, Mom! :)

Getting presents for parents is always a bit hard. You can't possibly buy them anything, because they have to be the ones to take you to the store. After several years, though, the same old handmade presents (drawings, cards, handprints) get old.

This year I made Mom some "coupons". One of them is for a "spa night" when I take care of everyone and she gets to take a pampering bath. :) Another was meal I cook (I make alot of lunches, but those are generally just sandwhiches-- this is for a full dinner).

You can see Will's present in the picture here. It is a balloon with a drawing of our house-- with a sold sign.

I forgot what Nick and Ben did... Adelynn made a card and sang a song.

A couple of days before Mom's birthday, I babysat while she went shopping. Marcus, of course, was a pain.

"Do you want to make a present for Mommy?" I asked?

"Yes! Mommy wrist!" (He loves to make bracelets for Mom and Dad).

Marcus picked out all the beads ("Wed, so wed Mommy couwer," which translates to, "Red, because its Mom's favorite color.") Then then made a necklace with a red string and a teddy bear bead. Everyone knows that Mom loves teddy bears. :)

And he drew a picture!

The sweetest thing Marcus did, though, was to give Mom a "Pize" (Surprise). While Mom was opening her presents from everyone else, Marcus started shouting and then suddenly disapeared. He came back with his "special box."

His special box is a shoebox full of his favorite things: a hat I crocheted him, a birthday card, a dice (?), a pencil, and a few other random objects.

It was so touching to see him give his box to Mom! "You share me," he said. "You my pecil tuff." (You get my special suff.)

And then, when he saw how happy Mom was, he ran off and got Daddy Bear-- his teddy bear. "Pize! Pize! Mommy, you me Daddy Bear!"

Here is Will with his first balloon-drawing (it popped)

Mom's cake! My first time doing a double-decker. And the last time I will try to do individual petals for icing roses. Big blobs of red work just as well, and they don't cramp your hand. :)

April Fools!

I love April Fool's day. A whole day, in which you may do as many practical jokes as you like!

Except for this year. My brother was having a sleepover on the last day of March, and we were showing the house on April Fools. That meant... no loud and hyper jokes and no mess. Mom was particularly frazzled, so I realized I'd have to keep the jokes nice and calm.

I had this list of "possible jokes" in my notebook:

Cabinet Day   [My brothers and I name furniture-- Fred and George were two cabinets in the living room. Fred and George are the troublemakers in HP, and their birthday conveniently falls on April First. Thus the name Cabinet Day instead of April Fools']
Switch the clothes between the boys' closets 
Fake a spill of paint on the carpet  
Salt on my brothers' toothbrushes
Food color the milk so it looks spoiled
Buckle a gazillion stuffed animals in the van
Tape the ends of all the toilet paper/paper towel rolls
Move the showerheads so they spray the person turning the water on
Set all alarm clocks two hours early
Take a picture of the bathroom, and tape it over Mom's bathroom moving-mirror. She'd try to put on her makeup and wonder why she couldn't see her face! For a moment, at least.
Write on all the mirrors  (The Chamber of Secrets has Been Opened!)
...And LOTS more

But I couldn't be mean. I just couldn't. So I toned it down... and surprised everyone at breakfast.

"Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese." G.K. Chesterton

Nick was smart enough to KEEP the food coloring in the bowl, and enjoy blue cereal.

I also did the classic "tape the sink sprayer down". Last year I tricked myself THREE separate times. This year I caught Ben's friend Andy. Lets see...

William and Nick were reading LotR. I switched the covers between Two Towers and Return of the King-- they started reading the wrong book!

I also did fake makeup on Nick so it looked like he had a cut. He scared Grandma. :)

Here is something I did a year or two ago for April Fools. We were having pizza... I decided to make an extra one.
I rolled out pie dough for the crust, used the juice from cherry pie filling for the sause, used food-colored coconut for the cheese, fruit snacks for the peppers, grape slices for the onions, and fruit roll ups cut into circles for pepperoni.

While we are on the topic... check out these April Fools jokes by Google!

Adelynn's Glasses

Adelynn got glasses! We think this should help with some of her learning-to-read problems-- she kept getting headaches after just a few minutes of reading.

Rambling on College

I'm in highschool now, and I actually have to start thinking about what I'm going to be doing when I grow up.
I have to figure out my strengths and weaknesses. This phenomenon is really weird. Anyone my age or older can attest to this, I am sure.
You see, I do not have the slightest clue of "what I'm going to do." I don't have to "figure it out" for awhile yet, but still.

Crinkly Yellow Paper

...I had a little too much time on my hands awhile ago (I don't even remember how long ago), and typed this whole thing up. Found it in a Word document, thought I'd share.

There is something so precious about a good book-- not just the story inside, but the book itself.

Ink and Fairydust

I just realized that I have not posted the more recent Ink & Fairydust newsletter/magazines! The Fairy Tale Novel Forum, which I am a part of, puts together this monthly publication. I've written and co-written several articles, have a monthly comic, work on some graphics, and have just started a monthly semi-column.

We've been working on some major changes-- slowly moving towards a far more organized, professional magazine. Within the next couple of months we should have reached that point. :)

Older issues can be found at Ink and Fairydust on Issuu.

Er... please ignore the links under the embeded magazines. Issuu has that in their code... its not part of the magazine.

March 2010-- Jane Austen

Open publication - Free publishing - More rosary

I think my Fine Linen Drama friends, who just finished Pride and Prejudice, will enjoy. :)

April 2010-- Spring

Open publication - Free publishing - More awakening

May 2010-- May/Mary

Open publication - Free publishing - More virgin mary

We have both Catholics and Protestants writing on the Blessed Mother. I have to say I was rather surprised and pleased by the Protestants' devotion to Mary. :)
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