Monday, April 26, 2010

I Have Really Got To Come Up With Some Better Titles For My Posts

So, let me first say that I'm sorry that I haven't posted in a while...the fact of the matter is, I've been lazy. Haha. But I'm sure no one cares anyway...

Some things that happened since I last posted:

- I went to Barnes & Noble's on Wednesday, and ended up spending quite a bit of time in there, looking for a book. I had a $25 gift card from Christmas that I still had yet to spend. I found a couple of good books, but they were all only available in hardcover, so I decided to wait until they come out in paperback to save some money. But I found one book in the teen section that sounded semi-interesting, called Waiting for You, so when I get around to it (or really...when I feel like it), I'll start that one. I still have a couple to read from my mom's stack, including, believe it or not, a zombie novel. While we were over in that area, we went into Best Buy so I could exchange my $15 gift card for an iTunes card, since we really don't get much at Best Buy, and I'm a music freak, so the iTunes card will help a lot.

- On Saturday, I went with Emma to see Sylvia perform in Reagan's spring musical, "State Fair", which was really cool. Sylvia did great, as always, and Emma and I had fun chatting before and after the performance. "Our state fair is a great state fair, don't miss it, don't even be late!" Haha...so yeah, we had a hilarious time watching Sylvia, and Nicholas, and James act and sing and dance. Great fun!

- Yesterday, as it was gloomy and all outside, we ordered Sherlock Holmes from our Movies on Demand channel. And it was a really good movie. The quick dialogue mixed with the accents made it a little hard to catch what everyone was saying, but the plot was really cool. The scenes that show how Sherlock Holmes deduces everything were really neat, and we had a great time watching it.

- Today, I got up and went with Mom for a walk at the parcourse, which I'm starting to count as my gym class for homeschool. We try to go at least three times a week, actually, we go there so much that I think I could drive there blindfolded, if that were actually a safe thing to do. Lol. Then, we went to the grocery store to pick up a couple of things. When we got home, I ate lunch, and then worked on my schoolwork, which was fun, except for geometry, but whatever. Then, Mom and I went up to Walgreen's and the gas station, and now I'm messing around on the computer until dinner.

So, I don't think there's anything else noteworthy to post about, so I'll stop here. Maybe I'll come up with some brilliant idea later to post about...haha.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Life Is Good Today...

Here's what's been going on the past few days...

Friday night, I watched a CMT Crossroads episode that was airing on Palladia, one of our music channels. It featured Jimmy Buffett and Zac Brown Band, and the whole thing was so cool. I mean, can it get any better than Jimmy singing along to "Toes" and Zac Brown singing "Margaritaville"? Awesome...just plain awesome.

This weekend, my mom and I went out to see Date Night, which was hilarious. Steve and Tina were great together, and the whole plot was so completely crazy. I loved the part where the car and the taxi got stuck together, but I think one of the funniest parts was when Steve imitates the man who he thinks is restaurant security, but is really the "hitman", in the restaurant. ("Yeah, honey, get up.") So anyway, Mom and I had lots of fun watching it and laughing and such.

I watched the ACM's Sunday night, just because I felt like it. And it was okay. I didn't like that Lady Antebellum won so many awards. And I don't think it was fair that Carrie Underwood won Entertainer of the Year again...that's two years straight. And I wish Zac Brown Band would have won something - I really love their music. But, such is life. Brooks and Dunn did a great job...and now I am totally buying "My Maria" for my iPod.

Yesterday, I got up, and worked on my schoolwork for a couple of hours. Then, I went downstairs and listened as my mom ordered our end-of-year tests, which we will be taking the week of May 24th. I'm not all that worried...it's very similar to EOGs, and we don't even have to go anywhere to be tested, we get to do it in the comfort of our own home. So yeah. Then, I went upstairs and made myself the most awesome flatbread pizza for lunch...oh, it was so good. I washed dishes after that (I love washing dishes...) and then Mom and I went to the parcourse for a walk.

When we came home, I finished up my schoolwork, and then messed around on the computer until 7:30. We had meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner, which is one of my faves, and watched Jeopardy, How I Met Your Mother, and Rules of Engagement. Then, I let Ella out for an hour, and she chewed on my shoes half the time. After I put her up, I made myself a single-serve chocolate pudding, and made a mess on not only the counter, but my t-shirt as well, but I can totally laugh about it.

And I absolutely cannot wait for Letters to Juliet to open on May 14th! The trailer looks awesome, and the whole plotline seems really cute! Plus, Amanda Seyfried is just adorable. And the scenery looks really pretty. And...well, I'll shut up. But, I'm really excited about going to see it when it opens.

So, life is good...very good right now.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

What I Did Today

Off-Topic Note: I've been looking at "This Day in History" for a while now, and this week is filled with stuff. The start of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln's assassination, Thomas Jefferson's birthday, the sinking of the Titanic...lots of stuff. Pretty neat. But anyways...

So this morning, I accidentally slept late, and ended up working on my schoolwork for a while before I had lunch. Then, Mom and I went to the nail salon near our house and got manicures and pedicures because we've both been complaining about the condition of our feet and hands. So, now my feet and hands feel awesome, and I have pretty dark pink nail polish on. I love my mother.

When we got home, I finished up my schoolwork and then messed around on the computer and texted with Aaron for a while. I put on my makeup and drove my mom over to my grandmother's house to pick her up for dinner. When we got home, Dad and Alfredo, his fraternity brother's son who goes to Wake, arrived, and we had dinner. Another reason I love my mother - she makes awesome lasagna.

So, while Alfredo was over, my dad pulled out his old Wake Forest yearbook, along with some of his other Wake and RJ Reynolds yearbooks. So we thumbed through those for a while, and I was skimming through one of his RJR yearbooks, and who do I find? Mr. Holbrook. Turns out, he and my dad were in the same year/same graduating class at Reynolds. Kinda cool.

Anyway, so after that, we drove my grandmother home, while my dad took Alfredo back to campus, and then I let Ella run around while I watched CSI: New York. And that's pretty much it, I guess. Not much to report, but I'm trying to post more regularly, even if it is just a boring retelling of my day. I'll try to do some deeper, more thoughtful writing soon, but tonight, I'm really tired, and my brain isn't working well. So, goodnight everyone!

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Wonderful Weekend

Whoa...I an so tired. Yesterday and today were tiring, but amazingly fun.

So yesterday, I went over to Target with Mom to get a couple of things, and guess what? I found a purse! And what makes that even better is that it was on clearance for only $10.50! It's more of a tote bag, but it works, and the sand/tan color looks good for spring and summer. So, my day started off wonderfully.

Then I met Sylvia, Emma, and Mayuka at the movie theater to see The Last Song, which was okay I guess. I mean, it had some great emotional power to it, but the whole storyline for me was really overly dramatic. Oh, and Miley Cyrus has the worst teeth ever...I mean, really, can she not fix that ugly crooked front tooth? Ugh. Haha, that was my one rant/complaint for the day.

After the movie, we went over to El Maguey for dinner, and had lots of fun. Then, we went back to Sylvia's house and listened to her play her new guitar. Then, we went downstairs and played Just Dance! on the Wii, where we danced to songs like "U Can't Touch This" and "Hot N Cold", which was awesome. Then, we were about to start watching a movie, when Anita shows up/crashes our party...lol. So we all ran upstairs screaming and goofing off. Then, we played Just Dance! some more until SNL came on, and after that ended, we watched the movie, My One and Only, which was pretty neat. Except I think I was the only one that stayed up to watch the whole thing. But it was cool.

In the morning, we got up and had a wonderful doughnut breakfast, and then Mayuka and Emma left. Anita, Sylvia, and I went on a walk around the neighborhood. When we got back, we played around on Just Dance! some more, and then Anita left, and my mom came a few minutes later.

When I got home, I got cleaned up, and then we went out to dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse to celebrate my dad's birthday. The food was really good, and we all had a good time. Except for everyone screaming at me about "do this" or "turn here" or "watch out" as I was driving, but that's part of the process, I guess. Later in the evening, my aunt and uncle came over for cake & ice cream and presents, which was really fun.

Oh, and I hope everyone likes the new background. I felt like the one I had before just wasn't "me". So, I'm trying this one out for now. Knowing me though, I'll change it within the next few months or something.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

This Week: In Review

Well, this week has been nothing short of interesting. A wonderful week overall...

On Monday, I went to the mall with my mom, looking for a purse. We looked everywhere, but nothing really called out to me. I was looking for something semi-inexpensive, but I realized that it's hard to find a nice-looking, nice-feeling, purse under $50. I found a couple nice ones, but they were both priced around $100, and I was definitely not getting either of those, even if my mom was paying. So, I'm still stuck with my blue one, but it's not like it's falling apart or anything, so I'll deal with it.

On Tuesday, I ended up watching a couple of movies. First up was Bonnie & Clyde (1967), and it was absolutely awesome. Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty made a convincing Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. The ending was really dramatic, and although that part was somewhat historically inaccurate, it was powerful nonetheless. The second film I watched was Dodge City (1939), starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. It was a really cute movie, and the scene where Flynn (who plays the town sheriff) trips and falls in front of de Havilland inside the newspaper office had me in stitches.

On Wednesday, I got up early and watched Easter Parade, starring Fred Astaire and Judy Garland, but I was quite disappointed by it. Judy Garland does not hold any appeal to me. I need to watch The Wizard of Oz again to see if she's any better in that; I haven't seen it in so long. The only good musical number was the "Happy Easter"/"Drum Crazy" sequence that Fred Astaire did at the beginning. So, after watching that, we went out to get my hair trimmed, and then ran a couple of errands. We had dinner at my grandmother's that evening, and had a great time.

On Thursday, I had another movie day. [Can you tell that I love movies? lol.] The first one I watched was The Pirate, with Gene Kelly and Judy Garland. I thought I'd give Judy a second chance with this one, and yet again she didn't make an impression on me. None of the musical numbers really stood out either, so it was a bit of a disappointment. The second one I watched though, made up for it - Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, a political movie starring James Stewart. Now, I recorded this one thinking that I would be bored out of my mind, but the movies I've seen James Stewart in so far, I've liked, so I thought I'd give it a try. And it was absolutely awesome. The filibuster scene at the end is extremely powerful, as well as very painful to watch...you can feel how tired Stewart's character is. It was a really great movie.

On Friday, I got up, finished my schoolwork for the week, which I had been doing in the evenings the rest of the week, and then we went to pick up barbecue for dinner. I sat around for a while, then messed around on the computer. After eating dinner, we watched tv for a while, and I let Ella out afterwards.

Today, I'm going to meet Sylvia, Emma, and Mayuka (who is in town for a few days from Richmond) at the movie theater to see The Last Song. I'm not really expecting much from it, the reason being that Miley Cyrus is in it, and I don't really like her. But whatever. Then, we're going out for dinner together and spending the night at Sylvia's house, which should be awesome.

So, I guess I'll stop here and say goodnight. Bye y'all!

Sunday, April 4, 2010

I Have Nothing Better To Do

Yesterday was fun - I went to the pool again with my mom, but this time, the sun decided to hide away after only being there for about two hours. Oh well, it was still nice and relaxing. We had fun talking with my aunt and uncle, and discussing their plans for renovating the pool this spring.

When we got home, my brother and I dyed Easter eggs. I only did a few, which was fine with me because some (but not all) the dyes took a long time to color the shell, so it got boring. But I had fun anyway. My mom and I did some work/research on Ancestry.com, but it was a little futile because her family is Polish, so when they immigrated, the spelling of their names most likely changed, so it's going to be hard to find anything. But it was still fun - looking at census records and such. When we finished, I spent a few hours poking around on the computer, just to pass the time really. I cleaned Ella's cage after that, and then wandered around the house until I went to bed.

I was on Wikipedia, looking up today's (well, yesterday's now) date as I sometimes do when I'm bored, and there were a bunch of people that I recognized (name-wise of course - I don't know any of them personally) that were born on April 3 - Leslie Howard (1893), Marlon Brando (1924), Jane Goodall (1934), Wayne Newton (1942), Alec Baldwin (1958), Eddie Murphy (1961), and Leona Lewis (1985), among others.

Oh, and my random movie-thing for this post. If you ever want to hear Winston-Salem mentioned in a film (which was something I've never heard before until now), watch Light in the Piazza. It's a movie from 1962 starring George Hamilton, Yvette Mimieux, Rossano Brazzi, and Olivia de Havilland, about a mother and daughter who travel to Florence (from their home in Winston-Salem, where the husband/father works at a cigarette company) and the daughter falls in love with a young Italian. The problem is, the twenty-something-year-old daughter has the mental age of ten after a horse accident years prior, and the mother worries that he'll find out and then not want to be with her. (But everything turns out alright in the end.) Anyway, it's a cute little movie, and to hear Winston-Salem mentioned (multiple times, too) was pretty cool.

So, that's about it for now. I'm gonna try to post a lot more often...we'll see how that goes. Oh, by the way, Happy Easter!

Friday, April 2, 2010

I'm Still Awake...

...as to why, I have no idea.

Well, first off, please excuse the random jumpy topics that I feel coming. I'm writing this at 12:30 in the morning, and that's the time when my brain is half asleep but also produces some good thoughts. Well, maybe not good, just semi-okay. Now, onto the writing...

This week has been really nice. Mom gave us the week off from homeschool, and so I have been happily watching movies the whole time. I think - no, let's rephrase that - I am movie-obsessed now, particularly when it comes to pre-1960's/70's stuff. Actually, I just hit the 50 mark on pre-1970 movies, but that's beside the point. (I know everyone's probably getting annoyed that all my posts have some sort of movie referenced in them...sorry. I wish I had something better to talk about, but I really don't.)

We went to Goober's 52 for dinner last night and then drove over to Wake Forest to see my dad's fraternity brother, who's in town visiting his son, who goes to Wake. We ended up having to wait in the car for a while, so we had lots of fun watching the students who were walking around campus. And talking about how expensive tuition is - when my dad went there, it was around $2,500 a year, nowadays, it's around $35,000 a year. Crazy...

Oh, I forgot to include this in my last post, and I didn't really feel like going back and re-editing, so here it is. If nothing else, if we all grow apart and become interested in different things, and don't have anything else to talk about, the group of us (Emma, Sylvia, Alicia, Natalie, Maggie, Chelsea, Anita, and I) will always have The Little Mermaid. [If you have no idea what I'm talking about, the simple explanation is that it's an inside "joke".]

Today, since it's supposed to be really nice out, my mom and I are going to go over to my aunt's pool to start building up a tan. And I am seriously looking forward to it, just laying in the sun. Haha, what a life...

Alright, here's the point where I sign off and say goodnight, because I'm finally starting to feel tired. Bye y'all!