Shopping Excursion

We were planning to do some grocery shopping the other day. So my friend calls me, and of course, she's asking if we're going to town tomorrow, because she needs a ride so she can do some shopping. I then accused her of being psychic, of somehow knowing we were planning to go shopping the following day.

Anyway, we picked her up and drove into town, chatting with each other on the way. We went to get breakfast first. My family's been going to that café for a long time, and we're rather well-known by the staff there. I'm not asked, "What what you like to drink?" No, they ask, "Chocolate or vanilla?" By now they know I'm in love with milkshakes.

We went to Ross, because she had a gift card there, and we proceeded to spend well over an hour there while she looked for late Christmas gifts for her family. Then again, it was after Christmas, so things had been picked over and there wasn't a great selection. That, and she had a lot of people to shop for and only $100 to do it with.

Then we went to get some groceries. My friend and I were kind of hyper and goofy. Mom jokingly claimed not to know us.

After that, we started heading home. We were originally planning to pick up some things at the hardware store, but Mom was tired and didn't want to. That's strange, she acts like she spent ten years following my friend and I around Ross, or something. Either way, it was a fun day.

A Child's Christmas

I recall being a young child, and really looking forward to Christmas. I looked forward to the music, the television shows, and movies that were about Christmas. I enjoyed it when we put up the tree and decorated it. In class, we would do fun projects like making holiday-themed craft projects. Often we wrote letters to Santa as an assignment.

I recall my first grade teacher telling me she would send the letters we wrote home to our parents. I was skeptical; weren't the letters supposed to be sent to Santa Claus, up in the North Pole? She told me that she would copy all the letters, sending the original to our parents and the printed copy to the North Pole. Even then, some part of me wasn't sure if she would really do that.

Every winter, I hoped that it would snow where I lived. It's only happened a few times over the many years, but nevertheless, you gotta have dreams.

I recall some of the things that I've requested for Christmas over the years. Pokemon and Barbie was always appreciated. And I remember for a long while, I wanted a Poo-chi. I was rather happy when I finally received one. Later on, I also became a big fan of Neopets. At one point in time, I had interactive toys, stuffed toys, plastic figurines, and magazines. I also liked getting books for Christmas. I've been an avid reader since forever. In fact, some of my ultrasound pictures probably show me holding a book. And when I was born, I was clutching a Dr. Seuss story in my hands.

I recall many instances of sitting on Santa's lap, telling him what I wanted for Christmas. I remember one time when I was telling Santa what I wanted. He looked somewhat confused when I mentioned that I wanted Neopets toys.

What on Neopia is a kacheek? the man dressed as Santa thought silently as I prattled on.

On Christmas Eve, I could never sleep well. I was too excited, and so it took me forever to sleep. Even then, I woke bright and early and tried to drag my family out of bed as soon as possible. Of course, they wanted to sleep. But when you're a kid who wants to open gifts, you're relentless.

Like a lot of kids, I was happy about the toys and the books, but often wasn't very excited about clothes. Socks? I want a stuffed dog, and a Barbie doll, and a comic book, and some chocolate! Of course, if it's clothing for my Barbie, then I'll be happy about it. My friend says that there's a sort of irony about clothing for Christmas. When you're a kid, you get clothes and aren't enthusiastic. When you get to be older and are grateful to receive clothes, you oftentimes don't get clothes for Christmas.

It was always sad to see Christmas end. The tree and all the other wondrous decorations went away. The holidays are something you wish would last forever. But they do end. So the holiday decor goes into its boxes, the time of Christmas carols and holiday specials ends, and the children all wait impatiently for next December.

'Twas the Saturday Before Christmas

We went grocery shopping the other day. The traffic was horrible. We went to In-N-Out and there were hardly any parking spaces. We also ate outside because there was nowhere in the building to sit. There were plenty of people at the supermarket. When I walked into Barnes & Noble, there were a lot of people. The woman at Barnes & Noble said that the Saturday before Christmas is one of the busiest shopping days.
Of course. We really know how to pick our shopping days. So a few words of warning- beware the Saturday before Christmas if you want to avoid traffic and crowds.

The Pack Rat

When our family moved recently, we sifted through a lot of stuff. It was a time of major purging. We seem to be somewhat of pack rats.

I had at least eighty thousand stuffed animals that were sitting untouched in my closet. I also had a bunch of random stuff that I had kept for various obscure, trivial reasons. You know the kind of things I'm talking about: the miscellaneous objects, the little knick-knacks you have too many of, the useless items that anyone else would describe as junk or garbage. So I went through things and got rid of a lot.

And the scary thing is, some of my stuff never got unpacked from the previous time we moved. Somewhere out there is a shoe box filled with Pokemon cards, a dreamcatcher my brother made for me, some posters, and other things which have not seen daylight for several years. I don't even remember all of what's missing anymore. Some of the stuff will be kept when I find it and sort through it, but I'm sure a lot of it will be things that I don't need or want anymore, and ultimately will be sold or donated.

Even now, I seem to have a bit of the pack rat remaining. There are little boxes beneath my bed that have random stuff in them. There's an MP3 player I hardly use, a set of portable speakers that have the sound quality of tin cans, and a few small figurines. I also seem to have more cords than anyone could possibly need. Chargers, USB cords, and more litter my room. Why are there so many different sizes of USB ports? It makes life more complicated than need be. And then there's a container filled with random things, most of which would be classified as trash. I keep it in case I do a craft project at some point, and the random junk is still waiting to be used.

I look through some of the random stuff every once in a while, just in case I change my mind about anything. At the moment I have a ton of stuff hidden in my closet that I plan to eventually get rid of. If anyone wants it, please contact me at 1212 Packrat Lane. 

Journey of a Thousand Miles

I was going to vacuum today, so I started moving a few things off the floor to make the process easier. Then I decided that I could put a few things into the back of my closet to make my room feel less cluttered. After that, I figured I ought to dust a few things, especially my dust collector computer table. Then I decided to organize some of the things on the shelf of my computer table, and get rid of some stuff I didn't need or want anymore. Finally, I actually did the task I originally planned: vacuum the house. Once finished with that, I grabbed my hamper, computer chair, and other stuff I removed from the floor, and put all back.

My room looks a bit different now. The floor is clean, my desk is less dusty, my monitor is shinier, and the space where clutter once was is empty and looks bigger.

Now that everything is done, now that I've worked and worked, now that I'm tired, I'm going to relax until my room becomes so horrible that slime drips from the ceiling.

And then I'll start the process all over again.

Cereal and Vintage Gaming

There's a TV commercial in which a couple are sitting on a couch in the living room, the man feeding his wife cereal as she plays video games. Funny thing is, the thing in the commercial that's being advertised differs from that which I want from the commercial. I'm not interested in the Froot Loops cereal. No, it's that beautiful NES with Super Mario Bros that I want.

My precious... (strokes game console while looking disturbingly like Gollum)

It's Raining Arachnids

It's been raining for a while now. I can hear it out the bedroom window, and I can hear it beating on the skylight when I go into the kitchen.

Anyway, I walked into the kitchen tonight to get a drink of water. As I'm standing upon the linoleum floor, I saw something fall from the microwave onto the stove. Don't ask me why the microwave is installed directly above the stove. It doesn't make sense to me, either.

My first thought was 'Wait, is rain somehow leaking into the house?' Obviously I dismissed this idea quickly because it was absurd. It would have to go through the roof, the cabinet, and the microwave. Perhaps it was an optical illusion. I went over to the stove to investigate.

Lo and behold, what do my eyes see, but a skinny brown scorpion looking at me. After staring cluelessly at the scorpion and my surroundings, it finally occurred to me that I could make use of the blue plastic cup on the counter, waiting to be washed. I picked it up and squashed the icky bug with it, then disposed of the body.

It's not raining cats and dogs here. It's raining arachnids.

Saturday

I went with my friend to youth group at church. We played Truth or Dare. We each picked a truth card or dare card that the youth pastor had written up. There were some rather funny dares, such as putting marshmallows into your mouth and trying to sing, or making a whipped cream mustache on yourself. I thought it was rather funny when one of the girls was dared to throw a marshmallow and catch it in her mouth, and she succeeded on the first try. The youth pastor was disappointed, as he was hoping to see several failed tries first.

Last Saturday, instead of having youth group at the church, our youth pastor had a Christmas party at his house. However, I was already going to another Christmas party with my parents. The party was being hosted by some good friends of ours that we've known since forever. In fact, Megan is one of my close friends and my former classmate, and her mother was my first grade teacher. The guests were also people we knew.

Anyway, we had a lot of fun. All of us brought different foods to eat. There were lots of amazing desserts, such as pretzels dipped in chocolate, and some wonderful creations consisting of crushed Oreos and cream cheese with a chocolate shell. Needless to say, I ate a lot of sugar.

We also had a gift exchange, and later on some of us playing a gambling game. I sat there with a couple other people and watched as the players shouted and laughed.

Megan came home after work, and I talked to her. She had to pick up someone from the youth pastor's Christmas party, and I decided to come with her. She told me I was her first passenger. We went to the youth pastor's house, picked up the person, then came back to the party. I told Megan, "Now I can say I went to two parties in one night!"

We left after eleven, and we weren't the last people to leave the party either. We were exhausted, but we had a lot of fun.

Downpour

It's been raining off and on for a while now. Today it was fantastic. It wasn't going to rain today. Oh no, it was going to POUR. There was also plenty of wind at the house, and random objects in the yard began to travel. I went outside and threw away a ton of useless junk that served no purpose other than to be an eyesore and be blown across the United States.

When we went shopping today, the rain followed. increasing its output until great oceans puddles formed everywhere. You walked outside for a few minutes, and you were soaked. We came home and it was still raining. We went into the kitchen and we heard it pounding against the skylight. I sit in my room typing this, and I hear it outside my window. I told Mom we ought to start building an ark.

Our phones are out right now. Whenever the rain becomes plentiful, the dial tone is replaced by the sound of wet weather.

Anyway, I'd better start on that ark. Already the animals are starting to arrive. I hope those two mountain lions are friendly...

Winter Tastes Like Peppermint

I was in another room, and I heard something interesting on the television. The person in the commercial was wondering aloud if winter tastes like peppermint.
I thought to myself, Well, of course it does! Where do you think that song came from? And of course, Owl City began to sing in my head.

"This peppermint winter is so sugar sweet,
I don't need to taste to believe,
What's December without Christmas Eve?"

Great. Now I have a craving for an enormous candy cane.

Distraction

I have a friend who I often tease about being easily distracted by shiny things. There's a rather funny story behind that, but I fear what she might do to me if I revealed the tale, so I won't explain.

Then again, I also have another friend who apparently is easily distracted by rain. Her mother was talking on the phone, and she heard her mom mention hearing rain. She was so excited at the prospect of rain, she leapt up from her chair and knocked it over.

I suppose if you asked my friends and family what I was easily distracted by, they would probably say 'sugar' or 'animals'. Many funny stories stem from the times when I ate large amounts of sugar and became hyper. And of course, I always seem to wind up petting dogs, cats, and other such creatures.

I suppose everyone has something that tends to draw their attention away. It's like the dogs in the Disney movie 'Up'. They get so easily-

Squirrel!

What was I saying?

Christmas Tree

So, my family put up the Christmas tree today. We put on the colored lights, some garland, and a wide range of ornaments. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Anyway, I got this crazy idea not too long ago, and I decided to go through with it. So I found an image of a Christmas tree that I made a few years back, and opened it in Photoshop. After making a few improvements on the tree, I then proceeded to add lights and animate them. Why? Because I'm one of those odd people who will spend hours making animated images.

So here's some Christmas decoration for the blog.

Gremlins

There are many unsolved mysteries in the world. One of these mysteries have to do with things like string lights, power cords, and jewelry chains.

You get out the vacuum cleaner. It was put away nicely, the cord neatly wrapped around the canister. But when you prepare to use it, you realize the cord has a knot in it. How?

You put the Christmas lights away carefully. The next year, you take out the box, and they're a jumbled mess. How?

You have a stand that you hang your necklaces on. You accidentally knock it over and it falls to the ground. When you pick it up again, all of the chains are wound together and tied in knots, a nearly impossible puzzle to solve. How?

This is my theory: gremlins. The tiny, invisible creatures sneak in when you're not looking. They get into the box of Christmas lights and tangle things up. They gather around your vacuum cleaner and tie the cord in a knot. They all pounce when your jewelry stand falls, and in a matter of seconds, they wind everything together in a confusing, complex manner.

If there's anything scientists should study, it's this: the reasons behind how things get so tangled up. Seriously. It defies all the laws of physics and impenetrable tangled messes, so obviously it has to be gremlins. We need to know how to get rid of these little gremlins, or else train them to use their skills to good use instead of for driving people batty.

December is Coming

It's been raining off and on the last couple of days. Today the sky didn't even achieve a speck of blue. It was all a wall of cloud, occasionally dropping more of the precious water onto the ground below. The weather is cooling off, and we're making use of the central heat and the wood-burning fireplace, as well as wrapping ourselves in blankets and warm clothing.

So Thanksgiving is over. Now it's getting to be that time again, the time when people consume their weight in candy canes and cookies, cover their homes inside and out with flashing multicolored lights, and dream about the miraculous white stuff known as snow.

Yes, everyone, December is coming. And with it, the month brings Christmas and New Year's Eve. As I type this post, TobyMac is singing a Christmas song, one of many I've set up on the holiday-themed playlist. Before long, I'll be starting holiday shopping. Hopefully by some miracle, my family will be easy to shop for. And though it scarcely happens where I live, I'm hoping really hard that it will snow at some point this winter. Soon many people will be experiencing snow. In fact, in some places, people are trying to dig a tunnel to the driveway already. I could have sworn there was a yard here, before ten feet of snow fell...

To all of you people, I wish you a merry holiday season. It's the time when we spend time with our families, when we are thankful for what we have, it's the season of giving, and so much more. And don't forget the reason we celebrate Christmas: because on that night many years ago, Jesus was born.

Casey

I sometimes tell people I was born in a town called lard. In a way, it's quite true. I was born in Manteca, which means 'lard' in Spanish. The name of the town was actually a spelling mistake; it wasn't supposed to named after pig fat.

The town was growing rapidly, and my parents wanted to move to a less crowded and busy place. So after I finished kindergarten, we moved to a rural town, so small that atlases generally don't mention it. One of the houses next door was home to a family that included Casey, a girl one year younger than me. We soon became friends. It was pretty lucky, if you ask me. I had a friend not long after moving to a new place, and we could literally walk to each other's houses.

Hibernation

I was talking to one of my friends, and she was saying that she planned to go to sleep soon, even though it wasn't even seven P.M. yet. I make a joke about her hibernating for the winter, and she said 'I wish'. Then again. she's fairly busy and doesn't always get as much sleep as she'd like to.

The idea of hibernating brought something to my mind. If I were to hibernate, I would choose to hibernate during summer. What can I say, I'm not a big fan of hundred degree weather under the blazing sun. Of course, hibernating would mean I spend months asleep, months I could use to read books, write stories, and eat frozen treats like popsicles. So what I would like to do, rather than hibernate, is sprout wings and fly north for the summer. Imagine all your friends complaining to you over the phone about how the weather is 110 F, while you're sitting on the porch staring at the snow and stroking the thick fur of an arctic wolf.

 "Oh, I'm really sorry that the weather is so horrible. And your air conditioning broke down? That must be awful. Anyway, you should see the weather up here. We got sixteen inches of snow, and the mercury in the thermometer froze solid last night. Below fifty degrees last night, it was crazy!"

Of course, if you have a conversation like that with your friend, you might not have them as a friend for long. Here they are, melting in the sun while you're relaxing in an igloo.

Of course, the weather is finally starting to cool down, so it'll be a while before I consider fleeing from hot weather, and hiding in Siberia or Antarctica or something like that. What I will be doing is hoping really hard that it snows this upcoming winter. 

Thanksgiving Day

It was shortly after Thanksgiving Day. A four-year-old boy came walking out of the kitchen, a huge hunk of turkey in his hand. His parents looked at each other, questioning.

"Did you let him have the turkey?"

"No. Did you?"

"No."

"His first refrigerator raid!"

Yes, my brother loves eating turkey. So do I. And my mother. My father also loves turkey, but unfortunately he can't eat it anymore because of gout. But between the three of us, we happily gobble up the delectable goodness.

Thanksgiving is the day we often associate with turkey, cranberry jelly, pumpkin pie, and other wonderful foods. We associate with the house smelling like food. We associate it with putting another leaf into the table, and even then the table is crowded with dishes of different edibles.

Of course, Thanksgiving isn't just about gorging yourself and then falling into a turkey coma while Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is moving across the flat-screen TV. Otherwise, it would be called 'Feastgiving Day' instead.

No, Thanksgiving is about being thankful for what we have. Perhaps we don't stop and think about that enough. We are blest with many things, such as friends and family who care about us, food, a roof over our heads, clothing, the freedoms our country allows us, good health, the possessions we have, and so much more. We are blest with God's love and mercy, blest with all the things He provides for us.

So, this Thanksgiving, don't just be thinking about stuffing your face. Reflect also on what Thanksgiving is all about: being thankful.

Rough Drafts

I hide from my own writing sometimes. I avoid it, avoid looking at the stuff that will reduce me to a mad, foaming-at-the-mouth monster who will delete massive portions of things, screaming, "NO!!! THIS WON'T DO! I'M A HORRID WRITER AND I HAVE TO START OVER WITH A NEW DRAFT! EVERYTHING STINKS! NO ONE CAN BE PERMITTED TO SEE THE HORRIFIC THING!"

Er, anyway, you get the idea. I don't do this to everything, of course. Some of my writing, I'm fine with. Other stuff, I criticize terribly. When I refer to 'hiding from my writing', I'm mainly referring to my manuscript.

Yes, the manuscript. Insanely long, yet I know there's a thousand things I'll want to edit/delete/hide from. One of the reasons for my madness stems from the perfectionist. The perfectionist looks at things, and then points out a hundred flaws, such as being poorly written, ridiculous, not well, explained, and so on and so forth. Another issue is that I keep changing my mind. An element of the story is now different (because my original idea wasn't turning out well). Really, this happens a lot. An idea doesn't work well, or is crummy, or I think of something better, and so my story morphs.

Poetry

I remember being in elementary school, and being assigned to do poetry. I always dreaded this, because I felt like I wasn't good at poetry, didn't really know how to compose a decent piece of this writing form. Not many poems interested me to read, either. I just wasn't the sort of person who was much into poetry.

This feeling continued on until around high school, or maybe it began to change around junior high. Anyway, there came to be a time when I started feeling that perhaps the poems I created weren't so bad, a time when I actually came to find some enjoyment in poetry and would willingly write poems in my free time. It's interesting to think of, now, considering that I've now written over a dozen poems on my volition that I feel rather satisfied with, even going so far as recently sending four of them to a magazine in the hope that they'll be published. The only trouble with my desire to have some of my poems published as that I have to find some that are short enough to be accepted. It's kind of funny that a magazine accepts poems of fifty lines or less in length, and some of the poems I have exceed that. Even in poetry, I tend to go on forever. Yes, the person who once had little interest in poems now has a great number of poems, most of which go on for a great number of lines.

At one point in my search, I came across a place that had no limit to how how long the poems could be. I'd like to say that I exploded in ecstasy, then sent them a ten-foot long scroll filled with words, but that, unfortunately, did not happen. It was a company that prints various secular magazines, and somehow I didn't think that any of the four thousand Christian poems I'd written would be what they were looking for. In fact, a good portion of my poems are religious, and often it's the religious poems that are the longest. Of course, the fact that I tend to look at the works that do meet specifications, and think, Nope. Nope. Not that one. This one needs to be edited first. Nah, that one isn't good enough, may somewhat affect the fact that I haven't sent anything to them yet. What can I say; I write long things, most of them have religious themes, and I'm a perfectionist who sometimes has trouble feeling that something is good enough. That's also why I haven't gone back and edited my manuscript too much; I keep feeling that my writing stinks, I need to edit huge parts of it, or I should start over with a new draft.

So, uh, if anyone knows of a Christian magazine that accepts insanely long poems, feel free to tell me about it. Until then, I'll just have to settle for battling perfectionism, editing things I feel need editing, and sending in the less lengthy of the poems.

The Messy Sloth

Laziness and messiness often coincide. For example, you look at the floor and think to yourself, Gee, that floor needs vacuuming and/or mopping. Or you look over at your laundry, which is labeled as a mountain in some atlases. Your closet and drawers are extremely spacious, with only a few articles of clothing in them. Clutter is everywhere, covered in a thick layer of dust, and some of the leftovers in the fridge are moving on their own.
Then you make excuses for not cleaning. You can do it later, you think. I'm busy right now, you say. And so on, and so forth.

Rain, Rain, Stay and Play

Last year while I was in school, a wonderful downpour occurred. Living in a place that the rain clouds have made an effort to avoid these last couple of years, I was rather happy about the rain. In fact, I was so enthusiastic that I proceeded to run around outside, reveling in the fact that I was getting utterly soaked. One of the other students, Savannah, was also happy about the rain and let herself be rained on. She had recently dyed her hair, and the rain was causing some of the dye to end up on her shirt, staining the originally white fabric pink. Eventually we both looked like drowned rats. Perhaps some of the kids thought we were insane, but who cares. It was RAINING!

My Week, volume I of XXXVI

For quite a while, various people have suggested I start a blog. Since I constantly seem to have monologues and interesting thoughts running through my head, I figured this was a good idea. So now I've started a blog, and sometimes I can't think of anything to write for a blog post. Go figure.

Anyway, the last week has been somewhat eventful. My friend invited me to the Trick or Trunk. Since it was raining that day, I brought a coat that was waterproof and had a hood. And of course, the one coat that's waterproof and has a hood is also the really thick one that weighs forty pounds. And after that careful planning, it turned out that the Trick or Trunk was going to be held in the gym because of the rain. So really, the coat was overkill—beyond overkill.

Halloween, part 2

I recall being at a Halloween event once, and was asked by a parent that my family knew, to take her daughter to the haunted house set up in one of the rooms. She was often scared by such things, but she nevertheless, she wanted to go, perhaps trying overcome her fears. Off I went with the young Kalynn, to a room with a long, long line. I could hear spooky sounds coming from inside, and I remember Kalynn clinging to my arm, quivering. As we came closer to the entrance, a hand would occasionally come out from behind the curtain, grab my ankle for a moment and shake it. I thought to myself that it was a good thing Kalynn was on the other side of me, because if it had been her getting her ankle grabbed, she likely would have shrieked, jumped ten feet into the air, and zoom out of the room without her shoes ever touching the ground. By the time I would get outside, she'd probably be halfway to Tokyo, and I'd have to break the news to her mother that she would never see her daughter again.

Upon finally entering the place, we walked through the passageways, seeing various creepy things, including a headless man. Kalynn said nothing, though she did stay rather close to me, always clinging to my arm. Upon leaving the haunted house, I found her mother, who was waiting at the exit. Kalynn was all too happy to exchange clinging to me for clinging to her mom.

Halloween, part 1

Over the years I've been on this earth, there has been this curious phenomenon known as Halloween. It's this day at the end of October, when kids are encouraged to dress up in fun costumes and go around begging for candy. For a long time, I engaged in this awesomeness, ending up with an assortment of sweet treats, some of which were eaten ASAP, while those I didn't like were left to rot, until my mother cleaned out the fridge many moons later and threw them out.

While I don't remember all of the costumes I've ever had, I can recall a few. I had one costume in which I was a reptile. I think I remember having a bat costume at one point. Yet another had pink tiger print, and my current one is a gray tabby cat. I think the longest back I recall is when I had a cheetah costume. Now that I think about it, I realize I've had a lot of feline-related costumes.

A great deal of memories come to me when I think of Halloween. My elementary school would have a day when booths were set up, and the classes went around to each booth, playing games to earn prizes, which of course were things such as cheap plastic rings with spiders on them, and of course candy. The prizes given out were brought to the school by various staff members and parents. Despite the school saying a thousand times not to bring gum, it seemed that someone included it, and so gum ended up among the prizes. Gum can be a wonderful thing, although I distinctly remember finding one type of gum that was... bleah. As I put it into my mouth and began to chew, I thought to myself, I've never tasted a car tire, but I imagine this is what it would taste like. Needless to say, it did not stay in my mouth for long.

There's also an event in the area known as Trick or Trunk. People set up their vehicles in a large area, decorating them with Halloween stuff, and giving out candy. Basically it's just Trick or Treating, only the kids go from car to car instead of door to door. Seeing as it's a remote area, and no one wants to walk three hundred miles to get from house to the next, it's a pretty good idea.

Of course, there was also the regular Trick or Treat, going around to houses or even sometimes to stores, in hopes that they would give out wonderful candy. I recall going to stores or other such places, and the things that came of it. Once, walking into a place that my father said probably wasn't giving out candy, I came to a woman behind the counter and said the familiar phrase 'Trick or treat!'.

"You're the first kid to come in here." she said. She stretched her hand out wide, grabbed an enormous handful of candy from the bowl, and dumped it into my bag. It was wonderful.

So that sums up my monologue about Halloween for now. If any of you have some Halloween experiences you'd like to share, feel free to comment below!

The Beginning of Completion

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single ARGH!

But, putting aside the hair pulling-out, the process of learning how everything works, and obsessing over every little detail, I think I might be (close) to getting this blog started. I would have been done earlier, but as mentioned, I have to figure out how everything works, plus the fact that just slapping on a premade layout isn't enough. Oh no, I have to take the original layout and then change the color scheme, background, etc.

I somehow found myself picking colors and a background which is wintery and icy. Perhaps I have glaciers running through my veins and just haven't figured it out yet, or perhaps it stems from the fact that where I live, snow occurs once in a hundred thousand blue moons, and I am constantly longing to see the cold white stuff. If I ever end up living somewhere where it snows often, every winter, I will probably transform into a small child who loves making crude art from snow, throwing misshapen snowballs, making snow angels, and becoming a frost-encrusted being that once may have been a human. But really, who would be able to tell under the thick clothing and the yet thicker layer of snow which cover me?

Anyone who happened across this blog probably doesn't want to hear a fifty thousand word description of my obsession with perfecting layouts and being surrounded by snow, although some may have found my description of being a human icicle a bit entertaining. And still others are probably living in a place with insane winters, and laughing at how naive I am about snow.

"Snow, good?" they'll laugh. "Snow is the thing that buries your car, blocks the driveway, makes the roads impossible to drive on, freezes the pipes. Snow is evil. Beware of the snow. It's coming for you. Muahaha..."

Nevertheless, the point is that I played with options, read random help articles, and obsessed over things like font types, and now I'm finally approaching that point where I feel that everything is coming together the way I want. So I celebrate by writing a long post about snow and color schemes. Now, all I have to do is wait for someone to read it.