Happy Halloween!

Happy day to all on my favorite holiday!

I was Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas:



And Mike was Joe the Plumber:



Katie-Perchick (She was Perchick from Fiddler on the Roof for Halloween) is sleeping over tonight, and we're currently watching---what else?---Nightmare Before Christmas. Then, if the sugar from the candy holds up, we'll watch Edward Scissorhands. As we fall asleep, it'll be Fiddler on the Roof.

"What a wonderful combination of movies," says Katie.

Halloween '08 was a success. I have to admit that I'm gonna kind of miss the buildup. I absolutely loved ABC Family's "13 Days of Halloween", where they claimed that it was a variety of Halloween movies, let's face it---aside from The Adams Family, it was just a big Tim Burton marathon, and you know how I love me some Tim.

It was absolutely GREAT this year, but as they say in "Poor Jack":

"And I just can't wait until next Halloween!"

PS- Katie says, "And we're gonna watch The Great Pumpkin next year!!!"

A day in the sick ward

I was home again today, mostly as a recovery day. I feel much better, and I believe tomorrow (being Friday) is a great day to go back to school.

I spent most of the day lounging in bed with Ginger. We (meaning me) performed several non-demanding tasks, including:

- Editing my Flickr page/deleting old "photos" that are part of the older MTP site design. (If any of you are going through the archives and see a picture missing, please tell me which post it is!)
- IMing Quinn
- Attempting to edit PDFs
- Listening to "Dark Waltz" over and over again for no reason
- Watching Memoirs of a Geisha on YouTube---and having to go to TWO channels, as one cut it off at part seven or nine. It was a high odd number.

Sick, but not sick enough

I don't exactly like being sick, per say, but I have to admit that on the right day, it does feel really good. I'm kind of in the middle.

Like, today, I felt horrible. After a day in bed, I've kind of gotten better. But right now, I feel insanely tired, my stomach feels gross, my back hurts, and I just feel gross.

I suppose it's kind of a two-way deal. Tomorrow, I'll probably be well enough and sick enough to either suck it up and schlep through the school day or have a recovery day. However, if I do decide to schlep, then calling home for the recovery day is kind of out of the question, as that's the nature of recovery days. You either take then full or don't take them at all.

So now I'm trying to figure something out. I'm not sure if I want to be sick tomorrow or not---like I said, I hate being sick. But going to school after one day of sick leave is kind of tiring, since you're not entirely fine. On the other hand, I don't want to be seen at the Kid Skipping School. By doing that, though, I also don't want to have to go half-rested.

Now I have contemplation.

Wasted (Day)

Maybe not technically "wasted", but I did spend my entire afternoon IMing people. I kind of feel like I should cut myself some slack, though---I haven't talked to my IM people in forever. It's been nice being able to actually work on MTP, my roleplaying site, and figuring out if random MTP ideas are good or not (A couple of them, yes, some more, no)

Tomorrow I'm going to have piano, Musical Theatre, and probably homework. It was nice to have today as a little mini-cation, though.

Having a case of the "Hmm"s

I'm brainstorming random ideas that probably suck for MTP. Visitor rates went down again, so I figured that if we all started adding content like rapid fire, they might rise up a little. I'm deciding to actually film the little movie that I've been planning, just on my Mac's webcam. After all, I can just edit what would NEED to be edited in iMovie.

So far, I've got a few guides in the process of idealizing, but I need to get to bed soon. I have to present a German project tomorrow, and I'm kind of nervous. I have it pretty much down-pat, but...still. I wrote a lot of the content today, being the procrastinator that I am.

Hmm...maybe a downloads section or something would be good.

Multitasking

Right now, I am thinking about, doing, or helping with several things right now, to include:

-Blogging
-Cleaning my room
-Bassooning
-Updating a roleplay
-Sewing my dress for my Halloween costume (Actually, my MOM is sewing...but I'm passing her the right sheets of felt to sew)
-How I'm going to finish my German project due Tuesday
-Spirit week next week and
-If I'm going to be busted for wearing school pants and a non-school shirt for Dress UP day

Expecting foolish fun

My friend JoAnna (From Beauty and the Beast) is spending the night tonight! Sure, we're probably not gonna stay up all night...but there might be random outbursts of stupid laughter from time to time. (JoAnna says, "Actually, we promise it.")

Waiting to fall asleep

I'm listening to "A New Argentina" right now, and just waiting to get tired enough to turn the computer off. So far, it might be a few more minutes...

Or a few more videos.

I just hope it's soon; we kind of have to wake up kind of early tomorrow.

Meet Molly!

This video brightened my day:



"What a cute dog."

Big thanks to Katie!

My friend Katie just posted on her blog a very nice post about Missing Triplets. Visitors are beginning to come back, and we've even had a visitor from Malaysia! That makes two foreign countries that have visited MTP.

I follow Katie's blog almost daily, and I totally love it.

As I promised her, in return for her awesome post, I'm providing a link to her blog in this post, and it's also in my sidebar.

Visit Adventures of an Unschooled Girl!

Thanks again, Katie!

Lost and found

As many of you know, I've carried my hat everywhere. Like, NYC, Syracuse, Florida, you name it, and its been there. It's a rather special hat.

I've also taken it to school several times. Granted, I can only wear it on the bus on either side of the day, but I've always done it for some reason. Once I enter the building, I take it off, put it on my jacket pocket (which is in my locker) and don't worry about it for the rest of the day.

Today, though, apparently the hat either slipped out of the pocket or someone broke into my locker, because apparently the hat wasn't there. I didn't realize this until fifth period, when I found it.

Someone put it in another kid's locker, who took it out and tossed it on the floor in confusion. I examined it, and once I saw the velvet ribbon and "Trixie" tag, I knew it was mine. Sure, he apologized for tossing it on the floor, but I think it's almost good that he did: otherwise, I'd have lost my Special Hat.

Talk about a stroke of luck! I'm still not carrying my hat to school anymore.

Cookies!

My new favorite video, staring Bea/Quinn:

Why am I so freaking tired?

I've done nothing active all day. I swear. I've walked the dog, I've cleaned my room, I sorted some catalogs (And read a Pottery Barn Teens one; one can only dream, looking at the huge rooms with fancy furniture), and something rather strange.

I took all of my stuffed animals out of the net and tossed them onto the floor. I then sorted them into separate piles and categories, such as Anteaters, Hello Kitty, Neopets, Diddl Maus, etc.

Once they were all in their neat little piles, I waited a few minutes and admired them. Then, in no order at all, I tossed them all back into the animal nets, keeping the pillows on the bed (I have a lot of little pillows that were up in the net).

Good night.

Requesting advice

How does one lure people to their site?

Cause Missing Triplets has not had any visitors at all for three days straight.

I've entered it to search engines, the URL is in everything I can possibly put it in, and I tell people about it all the time. Still, nobody's visited!

Therefore, I am asking you, as my dear readers, if you know of any secrets or articles to get more page hits. This no-visitors-for-three-days is really starting to put a lull on my weekend, and it'd be nice if things could go back up.

Or if you don't have advice, maybe click on the link I provided and wait a few seconds so that it appears like I've had visitors. Cheap? Probably. Easy? Sure thing. (I'm just kidding, by the way)

My latest obsession

Nightmare Revisted! (Sally's Song, at the very least)



We got "Boo'd" tonight, and our goodie bag was filled with a nice variety of assorted Halloween stuff. I put most of it back in the bag...but snagged this for the nail polish right off the bat; mostly for the nail polish, but I might retake my Marilyn Manson shot sometime when I'm bored.

What does Sally look like?

Mom, that's the best answer I could find.

Favorite Book #2

The World of Henry Orient.

My mom's been bugging me to read it for years, and last year she actually went out and bought it. I read the first few chapters, thought it was wicked-boring, and tossed it aside.

This year, though, I needed a book for a report due Friday, so I reluctantly picked it up. I finally finished it, and here's the report:

The World of Henry Orient was written by Nora Johnson and takes place in 1950's New York City. The two main characters are Marian Gilbert and Val Boyd, two thirteen-year-old eighth grade girls. Marian's parents are divorced, and she lives with her mother ("Wimpole," as Val calls her) and Boothy, her mom's friend. Her life is plain and boring, unlike Val's. Marian spends her mornings surviving Norton School and her afternoons eating butterscotch sundaes at a local drugstore. Val, on the other hand, has rich parents whom she rarely sees, and she lives in a boarding house with an artistic couple, the Hamblers. She mysteriously leaves Norton every day before school is let out to see her Dr. Braintree, her psychiatrist. She's also very fond of playing the piano.

Despite their differences, Val and Marian become best friends. Trouble arises though when they go to see a concert by pianist Henry Orient at Carnegie Hall with Ms. Gilbert and Boothy. Val finds herself obsessed by Mr. Orient, and, not able to keep her crush secret, finds out as much as she can about him with Marian. They learn where he goes after concerts and in his free time, what is his favorite place to go for fruit cups, and much more. As they find these facts and put them in a "Bible," problems with Val's mental health and within their friendship become bumps along the path, but nothing prepares them for Val's mother's complete disapproval of Val's obsession and "the Bible".

The climax begins when Val and Marian decide that Val has to meet Henry Orient in person to free herself of her guilt and obsession and to get her life back under control. They go through New York City at night alone, going to Henry's favorite places, his concert, and eventually, to his apartment building.

One of the themes of this book was that not all problems are black and white but are often a shade of gray. Val is often confused, troubled, and occasionally depressed throughout the book. Marian gets annoyed at Val's moodiness but has to try to keep a level head to help her friend. She doesn't know if she totally understands Val and her problems.

Although the plot took awhile to get off the ground, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I didn't especially find the first few chapters very invigorating, but after they went to the first concert, things became really interesting. I thought that I was really able to connect with Marian, though, which I really liked. I know what it's like to want to help one of your friends, but whenever you try, they find a way to be difficult. My favorite part of the book was when Val and Marian drew Val on cardboard, cut it out, and burned it, therefore "burning away Val's demons." One of my friends and I did something similar once, so I was able to relate.

I would recommend this book to any teenage girl who's confused about her school life, friends, herself, and where she fits in. The way that Nora Johnson wrote Val and Marian makes them so lifelike and realistic, and you can quickly see yourself as either one of them and your best friend as the other. In that way, it was almost like a nonfiction memoir. Although it doesn't exactly give any answers to problems that many girls have, it puts those problems into just enough words to fill thirteen chapters.

Just like I promised

It's the Karen and Alicebelle Show!

Home Again!

We rolled into the back alleyway at just about 6:45 tonight, and we're all just unpacking and readjusting. I'm also uploading a video of Karen and I---probably what I'll wind up blogging tomorrow. Tomorrow is right back to school (5:45 AM---ew) and the beginning of the second quarter. Christmas Break doesn't seem too far away!

Road Trip!

In about thirty minutes, we'll all be in the car on the way to Alabama and, eventually, Kentucky. Fall Break has been nice, but I'm actually kind of excited about starting the second quarter (And being that much closer to the end of the first semester). I still have to read The World of Henry Orient in the car for a book report due Friday---I want to write it in the car---but I think that in the 16 total driving hours that we have, I'll be able to squeeze in a movie or so and work on my new script just a smidge.

Look out, Fort Knox---we're coming back.

Florida---Saturday

It's our last day! We're watching Into The Woods, and I'm trying to find out who played Little Red Riding Hood, as well as how old she is.

It's been a nice break, but I'm ready to go home.

LOL of the day

UCF

Long day. UCF was hot.

Got two new sheet music books. One's for bassoon/trombone.

Have seven minutes until midnight.

Florida---Wednsday

Today we continued Mike's Let's-Look-For-Colleges trip by visiting UF. After some serious parking issues (The tour guide actually suggested not bringing a car if you go to UF), we were all kind of in a bad mood about it.

However, the tour and college proved to be really nice! I know they mainly ran over the good points, probably skimming over the negatives, but they seemed to be pretty well-rounded. I think I'll be giving it some consideration when it's time for me to start looking at colleges.

Directed by me

My latest YouTube video:

MTP News

For those of you who followed Rodents on the Roof, you may have noticed that I haven't posted in forever. If you're a pessimist, you might have decided that it was dead, and the rodents would never be heard of again.

Well, in my ongoing attempt to add as much content to MTP as possible, I took a good look at the Rodents skits---skits being the key word. They were short, yet rather funny, probably good for younger readers who either

A) Had short attention spans or
B) Didn't want to/weren't allowed to read Quinn's flirt sessions with Robert Pattinson

I spent most of the afternoon today editing seven of the eight posts (I skipped the one with Ginger, but might add it sooner or later). Now, when you go to my skits' page, you can see each of them, proudly proclaiming their *NEW* status.

I also began adding the art section. I'm asking around on IM for pieces to put on the site (Rather than sending out a huge mass email---when people come onto Yahoo! or AIM, I ask them for submissions). Right now, I have five pieces of mine that I rather like. Quinn's getting a self-portrait in soon, which is going to be cool.

On other note: Mike got his driver's license today!

Go Dogs, Go!

Today was the Dog Party at Hal and Desiree's house. We brought Ginger to hang out with their dogs Willow (Golden Retriever) and Panda (King Charles Cavalier Spaniel), and she had so much fun! Panda is actually Ginger's size, so they seemed to enjoy each other's company as they ran around the pool in endless circles.

Ginger seemed to get anxious whenever Mike and I got into the water. She'd start barking like there's no tomorrow, and would stop when we swam over to the side to pet her. Eventually, we thought she wanted to come in, so I held her and slipped her into the pool. She stayed in for a few seconds, then scrambled to the pavement.

However, that apparently wasn't good enough for her. A few minutes later, after even more ear-piercing barking, she sprang right off of her short legs into the pool. I wish we could have filmed it---it was epic.

Tomorrow, I might be seeing Karen for the first time in about six months. If I don't then, it'll be Tuesday. Either way, we're having lunch with Grandma Grace and Dave tomorrow, and we're all excited!

Film Fest 08

Today was our Movie Day.

We began with my DVD production of Beauty and the Beast, which took us until about mid-morning-to-noon. Minutes later, it was followed by War Games. I wasn't such a huge fan of the very beginning, but by the end, I was pretty close to going to some hacking site and learning how to do more with my Mac than PowerPoint presentations.

Right now, we're watching The Breakfast Club special features (We already watched the movie). I liked it a lot more than I thought I would---watch me add Judd Nelson to my List of Obsessions, right next to the Pink and Black Attack.

Tomorrow we're headed to Hal and Desiree's house for a Dog Party with the non-injured Ginger. We're all excited!

Posting from Florida!

We made it to good old FL! We had Bellini's for dinner (Their manicotti is heavenly), and we're ready for a nice week of food, visiting, and watching the Presidential Debate.

Stay tuned!

We're off!

It's about 5:45 AM right now, and I'm just about to get ready for school, as always.

However, Mike and I are being picked up at around noon to go home and prep for the drive down to Alabama!

Hopefully I'll have a better post tomorrow, filled with nice little travel stories. As for now, see you Friday, Florida Peeps!

One Midnight Gone!

"Slotted spoons don't hold much soup."

Tomorrow we'll be in Alabama! Once THAT Midnight has passed, then we'll be on our way to Florida. It's coming up really soon, people!

Oh, and I promised Karen that I'd post a picture of her and ask all you good readers: which celebrity should she be for Celebrity Day for her school's Spirit Week/Homecoming?



(That's her with Nat from "HeartBeat Boys")