Toys

Today I went to Burger King and got a kid's meal. Except for the fries (BK fries are nasty, okay? And yes, I realize you can get mac & cheese (don't get me started on that) or apple fries, but seriously, who would?), it was tasty.

When I ordered they asked me if I wanted a boy toy or a girl toy. I got the girl toy, which briefly made me wax nostalgic, because I didn't realize they still ask that question. It brought me back to a childhood of getting ice cream cones at McDonald's and then one of us kids innocently asking, "What kind of toys do you have?" They almost always gave us a free one. We were shameless. It was awesome.

Anyway, my "girl toy" was not the SpongeBob SquarePants toy I was expecting. It was a lame leftover Princess Peach. With wheels. Uh, okay? Thanks, Burger King. They even have the new SpongeBob bags, but the toys? I think not.

Not that I wanted a SpongeBob toy. I didn't know people still adored him. They should bring back awesome toys such as these:

I'm pretty sure McDonald's had those actually, but still. These fast food chains need to relearn the benefit of capitalizing on something already wildly popular. Not trying to suck dry already parched things like SpongeBob SquarePants. Please!

Sadly, I don't have any of the above beanie babies in miniature size... But I have two or three of them in full size. Heh heh. I was a beanie baby collector, man. Even named my dog after one.

Anyway, even though the Burger King toys are lame, they know how to make a sweet commercial:



Sharp right angles? Phone book implants? Yes yes yes. That's not obscene at all! ;)

Musica!

Music. It's all around us. It's in the wind blowing the wind chimes, the rain pattering on the roof of your house or splattering against your window. It's in the mornings when you wake up and hear the birds singing (no matter how annoying it may be). It's everywhere.

Can you imagine a world with no music? I sure can't. What a dull place this world would be. I imagine everything and every day to be gray because there wouldn't be any music. Music keeps us going, it's a great motivator, it's a great relaxer, it does so much. Without it, where would we be? *Shudder* I don't really want to know the answer to that question.

Music has always been around. There is no actual date that music just happened. I guess, the first day....EVER, was the first day music came around. I'm sure Adam was in the Garden and I can envision all of creation creating music with their many unique sounds. And it was good. No pun intended.

There are many different styles of music, many different kinds of music. It's a very diverse and unique subject. Everyone likes different styles and kinds of music, it fits ones personality, as i've come to understand from listening to a few of my friends very different music. It may not by my style, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

From classical to hip-hop, there is something out there for everyone. Music is not just out there to listen to, but it's out there to create as well. Many people enjoy playing an instrument or singing. I personally love to sing. I sing in church and at the camp I work at in the summer, it not only calms me, but lights a fire in my soul every time I sing a song that I really like. You can tell which songs I really like by the way I sing them. I get really loud, and almost go all diva-ish.

This brings me to another point. What does music mean to you? Is it a get-away? Something you use to relax with or is it just background noise, because it's too awkward to just sit in silence?

To me, music is many things. I use it to relax and I use it to escape. I use it to get me excited and to jam out to. I use it to prepare me for certain events during the day. Music is also a form of worship to me. I love singing and listening to praise and worship songs, many of which the lyrics tug at my heart and when I sing those kinds of songs, I can't help but raise my hands in the air and turn my face up towards the heavens and think, thank you. Because music is amazing and powerful and awesome and sensational and it always does something to me, something that I cannot explain.

With the invention of the ipod and many other different mp3 players, music has become ultra portable. I mean, we've had walkmans and cassette tape players, and those were pretty portable, but ipods have replaced all of those and saved us lots of space as well as batteries and is more convenient. Not to mention pretty sweet looking. :)

So what kind of music do you like to listen to? Do you play any music, either vocally or instrumentally? What does music mean to you?

FOOD FOOD FOOD

Sorry if this is totally disgusting, but I had a bad experience with bamboo shoots today, and now I covet every greasy, breakfast-looking, bacon-filled food I come across. Witness:

The Thunderdome
Three stacks of bacon, sausage, elk meat, onions and cheese between tortillas all topped with sour cream, two fried eggs and scallions.

Okay, I could do without the elk meat, but the rest sounds like a scrumptious way to consume 100,000 calories. Brings me back to the time when I told Mindy that if I were a whale, I'd eat Arby's every day. I'd also eat the above. Not to mention the below:

Carny Casserole
Ground beef, pierogies, french fries topped with green onions, avocado, bacon and egg, smothered in cheese and topped with gravy.

Nevermind that I have no idea what a pierogie is. That just looks tasty. Mmm, green onions. Mmm, bacon. Both of those images come from This is why you're fat, which features photos and descriptions of super, super unhealthy foods that people either eat or they only created to send to the website.

And I'm not going to lie, a lot of the stuff looks good to me. I could say it's because of my very unsatisfying diet of Cheez-Its and yogurt today, but... It looks good a lot of the time. Not that I'd willingly consume a "Thunderdome" or "Carny Casserole." At least not the whole thing at once. ;D

So! Are there any foods you crave at the moment?

Brighten up your day!

Meeting people you haven't seen in a long time really helps to brighten up your day!

This past weekend I went on a youth retreat with my church's youth group to Districts in Duluth MN. It was wonderful! There was a great speaker, a pretty decent band and some really good seminar's to go to.

While I was there, a few kids that were in my cabin at camp last summer, (I am a camp counselor during the summers) found me and approached me. It was a nice little reunion. :)

On Sunday, I sang for my camps' spring rally at a church in the middle of no where, and was again reunited with a bunch of people that I haven't seen in ages. I would have to say that those mini reunions have been some pretty significant highlights of my weekend.

It's funny how you can go from not really having a good day or just being so exhausted that you are to the point where you can no longer be social, to seeing someone and suddenly get excited.

Anyway, I didn't want this entire post to be about camp reunions, but about things that help brighten up your day.

I know that for myself, things as little as a smile can sometimes brighten my day up. I always get excited when I get ACTUAL e-mails and not just some stupid facebook update or spam e-mail. Finding something that you thought was lost forever is also another good thing to brighten up your day with. Being with friends or just talking to friends helps as well.

More things that always make me happy are shopping, going out, taking naps, laughing, watching a good movie, reading a good book, making something creative and cute, knitting, etc.

I feel like I should sing the song "My Favorite Things" from "The Sound of Music." You know, the whole listing favorite things parts, "raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, snowflakes that stay on my nose and my cheeks, these are a few of my favorite things!"

So, what are YOUR favorite things or things that just help to brighten up your day?

My Girl

Guess what I watched today.

My Girl. Oh Vada Sultenfuss, you're remarkable. All the dead bodies would freak me out too. And Thomas J. Poor Thomas J. I love them and this movie.

Oh, and I really like their bikes.

No more elaboration needed.

Cerulean Blue

When I was little, I remember going to cub foods, just before school started and in their entry way there were these GIGANTIC bins full of crayons. (Random right?)

This was probably one of my favorite days ever. When I was little anyway.

You got to get a box that held 12 crayons and go around to all the bins picking out different colors and fill up your box. And then you pay like 50 cents for the box of crayons. But, the important thing was you got to choose your own colors. If, I hadn't had been thinking logically (meaning grabbing all the standard colors that you needed) my box would have looked more like this:

I know that box is bigger than 12, but you get the picture.

Cerulean blue is my favorite color ever. It is superior to all the other colors crayola or rose art has to offer. Yes, it beats mac and cheese. I remember getting SO MAD when my box of 48 crayons or whatever didn't have Cerulean. Out of 48 crayons, c'mon! I refused to draw any water or sky without it! I could seriously sit and look at cerulean blue for hours and be lulled into some sort of a peaceful state of mind. To me, this color is very calming.

I don't color with crayons very much anymore, but I still really appreciate cerulean blue. Every time I see anything in that color, I get very excited. Cerulean blue is spectacular! I should buy a cerulean blue shirt or something. I'd probably wear it all the time. :)

Buy a box and do your share

Do you know what's tastier than tasty? More delish than delicious? More scrumptious than lots of stuff (lima beans, watermelon, potato bread, etc.)?

Girl Scout cookies, of course.

Seriously, they're good. My parents randomly gave me a box of thin mints last weekend. Right after the box is bestowed upon me, my mom commented that "they're not as good as they used to be" which is a claim I don't really understand. But I guess I haven't had as many years to critique them, either. But anyway, thx parents, for your reject cookies. I still like them, at least.

Apparently, there are like a zillion different kinds of Girl Scout cookies. I haven't had all of them, but they all look pretty tasty to me except the shortbread - ew. Obviously, though, thin mints are the fave. And if you don't believe me, look at the official Girl Scout Cookie website. For a second I thought the bit about Little Brownie Bakers and ABC Bakers was some kind of slogan. It isn't. Crying shame.

Anyway, I was never a Girl Scout myself, so I really don't know how it is to stand outside of a Wal-Mart or something trying to sell cookies for a Kiosk Management patch or whatever. But! I do know a tasty way to eat thin mint cookies:

Ew, sorry for the crappy webcam pics/facial expressions.

Yeah, seriously. I have like four sandwiches worth of peanut butter left and one week of needing my own jar of peanut butter. Thus, experimentation. But it was worth it. Om nom nom.

Oh, and here's a relevant video clip from an awesome movie. Troop Beverly Hills. That's right. Here we go:


But seriously, buy some Girl Scout cookies! It's easy! Just go here so you can find out how to contact your local council and enter cookie heaven.

Knee-High Socks

Ahh, the knee-high sock! I have like 6 pairs of these babies in my dresser. I LOVE them. I cannot wait for this summer so I can flaunt them off. I've been having to hide them under my jeans, but not for much longer, it's starting to get warm outside!

It's really fun to wear knee-high socks. They come in all sorts of colors and patterns and such, these socks really just tell people about you. For example, would you choose the socks pictured above over plain white ones? If you choose the ones pictured above, I can see that you like fun, quirky things. And if you choose the white well, then, you don't, plain white is boring, sorry.

According to Wikipedia, (yeah yeah, I use wikipedia, I bet you do too) socks are designed to:

• ease chafing between the foot and footwear
• protect footwear by absorbing perspiration and dead skin lost from the foot
• provide comfort
• be fashionable
• keep the feet warm

I am pretty much quoting wikipedia word for word in this upcoming bit, just so you know.

Socks were originally made from animal skin, wrapped around the foot and tied around the ankles. In the 8th Century B.C, the greeks wore socks from matted animal hair for warmth. The Romans also wrapped their feet with leather or woven fabrics. By the 5th Century AD, socks called ‘puttees’ were worn by the holy people in Europe to symbolize purity. By 1,000 AD, socks became a symbol of wealth among the nobility. From the 16th Century onwards, an ornamental design on the ankle or side of a sock has been called a clock.

The invention of the knitting machine in 1589 meant that socks could be knitted six times faster than by hand. Nonetheless, knitting machines and hand knitters worked side by side until 1800.

The next revolution in sock production was the introduction of nylon in 1939. Until then socks were commonly made from silk, cotton and wool. Nylon was the start of blending two or more yarns in the production of socks, a process that still continues.

It has become a recent trend in pop culture today to attempt to fit a sock over your head. However, medical problems have occurred through such behavior, including shattered nose bones and in some cases suffocation.

Knee-high socks are often associated with dress codes, such as school uniforms and different sports teams. But, they can be worn with anything, at anytime.

That is about all that I have on the knee-high socks. I just think that they are sensational and awesome and I think i'm going to wear a pair today as I go out to do some errands. It's not quite warm enough to wear shorts though, so I guess I will have to hide them under my pants. :(

The Blue Whale

A few posts ago I said that the biggest things are the most important and now feel the need to back up that claim.

No, that's not right. The claim doesn't need to be backed up (it's obvious!), and the above statement was just a way for me to start my post. Yes, that sounds good.

My fascination with things big and awesome began early. As a small child visiting Kings Island in Cincinnati, Ohio, I rode the Beast many times. What is the Beast, you ask? Why, only the longest wooden roller coaster in the world. According to the official Kings Island website, anyway. This may not seem like it would make such an impression, but wait - there's more!

My delirious euphoria at having ridden the Beast again and again likely contributed to my getting lost at the park that day. After walking around aimlessly for some time, I realized I was lost and began to cry. Some kindly strangers took pity on me and I was eventually given a giant lollipop after I was found. The Beast lead to the lollipop, and the lollipop lead to whichever thing next left its big impression on my life. Thus, it can only be concluded that big begets big.

The blue whale is the biggest animal to have ever been begotten. Yeah, even larger than any dinosaur. Much more ferocious, too. Its heart alone weighs over 1,000 pounds. A baby blue whale is more huge than most full grown animals.

The blue whale is also the loudest animal on the planet, and it can grow pretty old too. They've got it all! They are seriously my favorite animal, and I'm not just saying this for the sake of the post. I think they are awesome on every level. Though I do wonder how much water they displace. I mean, if we took 12,000 blue whales weighing 400,000 pounds each from the ocean the sea level would probably drop like 10 feet.

Or maybe not. But they're still dang huge. And cute too:

Aww.

Online Shopping

I have another addiction.

Online shopping! Lately, it's been my procrastination to homework and has inspired many many idea's about things I want to make and stuff. Oh yeah, I make skirts, well..when I say I make skirts, I really mean that i'm in the process of making one. Anyway, there are soooooo many things that I want to buy online! If only I were rich.

From shoes to hair clips to dresses, you should see how many bookmarks I have of things that I want to buy online. They are all nicely arranged (in alphabetical order) in a folder in my bookmarks titled "Stuff I want to buy."

I just counted and I have 73 items in that folder. I would have more had I not have lost all my bookmarks a few weeks ago...

There are so many cute things to buy online. I really hate how I can spend hours upon hours browsing through different sites that have cute summery dresses and shoes, but cannot make it through five minutes of homework. It's really rather pathetic. But that is what online shopping does to me. Last year, I bought a lot of things off the internet. I got a few seasons of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman (I LOVE THAT SHOW!) My textbooks, a new coat, a shirt, music...I got a lot of stuff. But yet, it seems to never be enough. There is so much more that I want.

Online shopping first began in 1990, when Jeff Bezos started up a glorious website called Amazon. After that, bookstores opened up on the net, secure payment options became available, online banking became available and Pizza Hut opened up an online service, and then in 1996 Ebay appeared.

Online shopping is a very convenient way to shop. You can shop in the comfort of your own home, without having to drive miles to the nearest mall (at least, that's the case for me) and you won't use up any gas. However, you do not get to try on or try out anything that you buy ahead of time. You just have to hope that it fits/works. But you can always return it. You do have to wait a few days to a week or so before getting what you purchased online though, which kind of sucks.

Siiiigh. This post makes me want to go look through all my bookmarks and order a bunch of stuff off the internet. I really need to practice self control. :)

*Edited to add* I DID go through my bookmarks. Aren't these rainboots cute?

WORD UP.

Atop a coffee table.

Most often, when I think of poetry, the above is the first phrase that comes to mind. I don't know why - I don't recall ever writing it or reading it, so as far as I know it just appeared in my mind one day. Probably in "creative writing" class back in high school... Shudder. I do not wish to think of those redundant classes where personification of animals was the end-all, be-all of good poetry.

Something or other about implosive or explosive consonants (or something) probably brought the phrase about, but I never used it in one of my "poems" - I am not a poet. But really, when I say "atop a coffee table" out loud, it sounds pleasant to me. I like it a lot.

As I peruse Poetry Critical, a site I stumbled upon in my early days on the internets, I am often struck by poems where the author chose some nice, maybe unusual words, and they really flow together. (In case you're interested, my favorite poems on the site are here and here.)

I think the huge variety of words and their origin makes English a really interesting language. I kind of like to read about how words have changed over the years and where they originate. I regularly check various word-of-the-day websites. I just like words, okay? Thus, the real topic (paragraphs later) of this post is not poetry, but words.

But not just any words. Oh no, no no no, not that. Only good words count. Do you think that people who give mere speeches get on in this world? Because they do not, gurlfran. If you want to be well-respected, you've got to give a declamation. Yes, that's a good word.

Just ask Amy March the importance of having a nice vocabillary of words in one's repertoire. She got to go abroad, after all... Which, now that I think of it, seems like a poor example since Jo was the writer (and those obv have superlarge vocabs, am I right?) and she didn't get to go. But you probably didn't need convincing anyway, did you?

As I was saying, a well-chosen word can make or break a sentence. One well-chosen word after another can make you a genius. Just ask Shakespeare.

So, what are your favorite words (or phrases or sentences or paragraphs or pages or poems)? Maybe you write? Show off one of your lilting, lyrical masterpieces in a comment, hm? Does that sound good to you?

Word.

Shoelaces

Clothes are one of our many methods to express ourselves. Our outfit shows our personality and our mood. One aspect of the outfit are shoes. Shoes are sensational. While women's shoes come in many different styles, men's are not quite as varied. The only style changes that are immediately obvious are the different athletic shoes. But there ARE in fact ways to individualize your shoes. Converse, and similar shoes are very good "express yourself" shoes. But what should you do if several of your friends have these shoes. The answer is shoelaces.

Shoelaces weren't widely used until the 20th century. Before that buckles or buttons were used. It is estimated that a shoe with six eyelets has 2 trillion ways it can be tied. Besides the basic
criss-cross method, there is the checkerboard method and the bar method. Today there are many different styles of shoelace. My current shoelaces have kitties, and colorful bubble things. Shoelaces are a very creative way to make unsensational shoes sensational!

Facebook Applications

Is anyone else addicted to some facebook applications or is it just me?

I remember when facebook didn't even HAVE applications.

When facebook got applications, I was so turned off by it. I remember thinking how lame some of these things are. And then i'd get millions of application requests and that would just annoy me.

But there are quite a few good applications out there--like scrabble and my current addiction--sorority life.

Yes...sorority life. I kid you not. It's like playing with paper dolls online. Only...just...different. You'd have to see it and play it to understand. I just want my little character to get rich and have sweet clothes and drive sweet cars.

Well, this post is very short, but seriously though, sorority life, it's addicting!

I know where the summer goes

I love spring.

Actually, I like sunshine more. And I don't mean this post to be opposite-but-really-the-same to my last post, because that's not how I mean it at all. I was actually thinking about this stuff today, and the fact that this relates to my last post is purely coincidental... But anyway!

A few years ago my family lived in a house without air conditioning. I always loved waking up half sweaty with a fan blowing on me, the sheets cool and the sun shining through the window. To me, that feels like summer. I don't like air conditioning. That is why pictures like this really pump me up for the months to come:

Weird maybe, but I like that airy sun-through-the-curtains quality. I have this whole odd idea in my head about what summer should be like: lazy, sweaty, with friend outings here and there, but mostly lonely in a good way. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else, but it does to me.

Really, my idea of the perfect summer is probably largely informed by Belle and Sebastian songs. Not that I'm a person who revels in loneliness, but... I don't really have a "but" statement for that. I suppose I meant it in a find-beauty-in-sadness sort of way, but that's really lame and really cliche, and I refuse to stand by that statement.

Sorry if this post is meandering and over-hyphenated, but I'm distracted by how excellent it is outside! Thank goodness I have some plans for tonight, because I don't feel like finding beauty in loneliness right now. It's too nice for that.

Anyway, I really don't know how to end this post, so I will now sum up what the main idea was meant to be in one sentence: I like it when the sun shines through curtains.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz

Sleep. Every living thing's chance to "recharge". Sleep is a fantastic thing. Sleep gives you a fresh start, a clean slate. Even after a super stressful day you get to relax and sleep. It is recommended that you should get 7-9 hours of sleep a night.

Sleeping has also become a huge industry. Every one of us can list several mattress brands. The special ones like Sleep Number, and Serta stand out. There are schools, like the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. There are sleeping disorders, like sleep apnea, and insomnia.

Whenever you talk about sleeping you have to talk about dreams too. Dreams are often little mini vacations to fantasies or horrible nightmares. While researching this I discovered that I have several lucid dreams a week. When you realize you are dreaming it is called a lucid dream. At that time you can manipulate the dream. Another fascinating thing about dreams is that dreams are said to have hidden meanings, from religious origins, or from you're own sub conscious.

Sleeping is just a wonderful thing. Its free. Its relaxing. You get to do it every night. It is simply sensational!

Pompeii

I seem to like to post about things starting with the letter "p" these days.

I became inspired to post a blog about Pompeii last night while watching the Doctor Who episode "Fires of Pompeii." Yeah, I'm a Doctor Who fan, don't laugh. Anyway, it reminded me of the time long long ago when I was in the third grade and had some sort of weird obsession with Pompeii. Random huh? I also had an obsession with Rocks and the Titanic. It was an interesting year.

More seriously though, I felt really bad for the people of Pompeii. Wouldn't you have noticed something strange happening to that big old "mountain" in your back yard a few days prior to the eruption? If so, wouldn't you want to urm...get away? I sure would. However, they probably thought that one of the gods was angry. At least, that's what happened on Doctor Who anyway. :P

I used to love checking out random Pompeii books from the library and looking at all the lost artifacts that were found in the ruins. Paintings, pottery, bones, you name it, I deemed it interesting.


Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, causing ash and pumice to literally bury the city alive. The eruption lasted for two days. Many people tried to run and hide, and i'm guessing it was mass chaos. People hid in their houses, thinking that the ash would not get to them. While that might have been true, for a while at least, the poisonous gasses got to them, and then the ash itself. The city of Pompeii was lost for nearly 1700 years, and then was accidentally discovered by the Spanish military engineer, Rocque Joaquin de Alcubierre in 1748.

Since then, Pompeii has been excavated, and it's findings preserved. What always fascinated me was when you look at the pictures of the people, and they look like REAL people. After all those years, their bodies had been preserved, amazingly.

This photo is called 'The Garden of Fugitives."

We can learn so much from Pompeii. If you want to know what life was like in the first century of Rome, all you need to do is study the ancient artifacts, the art, the pottery, etc. Looking through all these pictures that I found on the internet, it gets to be very interesting. I highly recommend a google image search of Pompeii.

Today, the city of Pompeii is a huge tourist attraction, you can walk the streets and see many of the recovered buildings and artifacts. I hope one day I can travel to Italy and get to see Pompeii for real.

The Moon

Last time I looked out my window, the brightest light I could see was a bus in front of the library. I was actually looking for the moon so I could wax poetic about it as it wanes, but it must be shining on the other side of the building. Pity! But I think I'll talk about it anyway.

Reminds me of a giant melting cookie.

To follow Mindy's example, the Moon was born on September 16, 1908 (Edward Cullen's older!) according to IMDB. However, I really don't think this is very accurate; they also say the Moon is Ronald Reagan's older brother. A more accurate guess would be about 4.6 billion years ago.

I think most people who know me pretty well also know that I have an odd fascination with outer space. There is a giant telescope in my room to prove it, which coincidentally has only been used to look at the moon. Because it's big. I just don't have telescope skill. Which is fine! Obviously the biggest things are the most important.

And that is probably why photographer Boris Bendikov has created some lovely photographs for your viewing pleasure. I saw a few of these photos in other blogs, and many of them referred to the project as the "Personal Moon Project." As Boris Bendikov's website isn't in English, I won't bother with intricacies like names. The pictures are the most important! Here's my favorite:

I love the thought of opening a little trap door to finally see whatever mystery is in the attic and then seeing that! If I had my own personal moon, I'd put it in my backpack and show it to loud people at the library so maybe they'd be lulled to sleep! What would you do?

Popsicles!

Popsicles. Summertime treat. Sore throat remedy. Whatever the use, i'm sure most of you would agree that this frozen treat is sensational!

I just re-discovered the wonder of popsicles today. They are so simple, and often times when you want a frozen treat, you reach out for the drum stick or the dippin' dots or some other novelty. But when you have a sore throat (like I did) popsicles sounds mighty tasty and not to mention soothing. And it was. :)

I went online and searched up some interesting facts about the popsicle.

In 1905, an eleven-year-old named Frank Epperson accidentily discovered the first popsicle. Frank left his fruit flavored soda drink outside on his porch, with a stirring stick in it. That night, the temperatures reached a record low, and when Frank woke up and went onto his porch, he found his drink frozen on the stick, creating a fruity tasting icicle. He called it the 'epsicle.' And he waited eighteen years before he released it to the public.

The early popsicle was available in six different flavors. Today, there are thirty different flavors for the popsicle.

Sensational Watermelon Popsicles:

Ingredients:

Watermelon
Chunks of fresh fruit - try grapes, strawberries, or kiwi fruit

Instructions:

Puree watermelon and pour into Popsicle molds. Drop in chunks of fresh fruit, insert caps and place in freezer. Serve when frozen.