Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!!! Just taking a moment to test out a new app I got for my phone, it seems as though it works :D Have a great day and remember to be thankful for every day you have!


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Awww!

Good morning! This cute little guy's name is Cicero, and he wants to say HI! He is my mascot that leans up on my computer and acts cute (he's really good at that ;) ). My friend made him for me, and I bet she'll make you one too! Here is her shop. She's adding new stuff today :D She is the best doodler I've ever seen. Period. But she is a crafter, and makes monsters, picture frames, paintings, and other neat little goodies! *wink* you should get a monster to be your friend *wink*

'Ello Guvna!

Hola readers! Sorry I haven't posted anything, I've been busy! But, we all know what is just around the corner, don't we? Thanksgiving! :D Thanksgiving, among other things, marks the start of Calorie-fest '09! It's also home to: eating cinnamon rolls while watching the parade, making cranberry sauce, and having all 14 of us in one home. It doesn't even get crowded! But, it is also the 1st of many fires to be set ablaze in my wood stove :D So, if you have any fun traditions or recipes, feel free to share! On another note, IT'S 34 DEGREES OUT :D I *LOVE* cold weather :D :D :D

Music anybody?

Hola all! I have recently bought/gotten some great music and I thought I might share with you.

Just last week I got one of The Beatles best albums recorded as a full band.

It consists of the following:

Magical Mystery Tour

The Fool On The Hill

Blue Jay Way

Your Mother Should Know

I Am The Walrus (in my top 3 for the album)

Hello Goodbye

Strawberry Fields Forever

Penny Lane (another top 3)

Baby You're A Rich Man

All You Need Is Love (the other top 3rd)

That's just a piece of what I have recently purchased.

I also bought:

"Eleanor Rigby" by Paul McCartney

"Maybe I'm Amazed" by Paul McCartney

"We Weren't Born To Follow" by Bon Jovi

"Instant Karma" by John Lennon *love*

And, my dad being the dinosaur he is *evil snicker*, He owns a lot of music that I've heard on Pandora radio and loved.

The entire "Long Road Home" by John Fogerty/CCR

Some John Mellencamp Stuff

Multiple albums by Crosby, Stills and Nash (and Young)

Some Neil Young stuff

Enough Harry Chapin to Satisfy a freak (thats not a bad thing ;)

Not too long ago I bought "The Hazards Of Love" by The Decemberists (The only Emo music I will ever listen to)

A bunch of The Eagles

And 8 hours and 31 minutes of Elton John stuff (Bought that all myself)

So there you have it, Just a small peak into my iTunes library. I promise something more interesting tomorrow!

The season of awesome is here

So, due to tropical depression Ida, we had rain ALL day yesterday, which meant Starbucks, of course! My brother was at play practice, so dad and I went to target to get some things, and then to Starbucks. Now, you can tell that it's my favorite time of year, just by looking at the cups! Red cups mean Christmas time is just around the corner :D It's the season of coffee, cold weather *LOVE* wood stoves, and winter break. Coffee. We all know how much I like coffee. I drink it every morning when I watch CNN, and then the today show (I'm a routinist), while I'm blogging. Cold weather. It's awesome. It gives a feeling of safety and security when you're inside a warm house. It makes you want hot chocolate every afternoon. It's gloomy a lot more, another comfort of being inside. It is the season of hoodies and pea coats. Speaking of hoodies, I just got an awesome new one at target, that is warmer than the sun will ever be. Wood stoves. There is one in the living room of my house, see earlier posts for a pic. That thing makes for a wonderful heating system, considering it is our main heating element for this house, it does pretty dang good. I like to say I have another one in my room, because my plasma tv puts of as much heat as that stove! keeps me nice and toasty. Winter break. The home of snowball fights and Halo 3 custom games. We always stay up all night playing Xbox with friends, talking about how our year has been. Great times. It'll be great again this year if MICRO$OFT FIXES MY FRIKKIN XBOX! That is all. signing off.

And so I am mad

Remember when I ranted about Micro$oft and Xbox? Well I mentioned in there that my most recent Xbox only lasted 9 months, and I thought that was due to it being a refurb. Well IT WAS’NT! I had a BRAND NEW Xbox, in a good environment, that lasted 9 MONTHS. Thats not very long to me. I payed a lot of money for that, and I’ve payed a lot of money on warranties, so I wouldn’t have to wait if it broke. Oh wait, IT SHOULDN’T BREAK! So, since that Xbox isn’t a refurb, I have to send it in. I planned on taking it in to my local Game crazy, using my system swap warranty. It states that it is valid 90 days after purchase, or replacement, in my case, to swap a refurb. But, since it’s not a refurb, the warranty kicks in after the Micro4oft warranty ends. That’s December 22 ’09. I’m not gonna wait that long. So, due to a series of cheap events, I will have a new Xbox in 2-4 weeks. Oh, did I mention that the print out UPS label doesn’t work? So I have to wait for them to mail me one! Add another week to that. Thanks again Micro$oft, for a happy holiday season.

May my absence be over

the past few days have been without blogger, due to my sleeping. I am sorry, and will try my best to pack the rest of the week full of articles. Monday morning, my mother left for California, to help with her parents. So, we’re “batchin’” it this week. this week will be blog packed and busy. My brother does sound for a local theater company, and their upcoming play is next week, and that makes me happy. It makes me happy because the bunch of people there are a wonderful, fun group of people, and this time I get to help build the set. I always help take it down, but it’s nice to do something more than that this time. Plus the cast parties are a blast.

So, I just realized that the paragraph above is just a bunch of thought tidbits. Now on to the real posts.

Micro$oft!

Hats off to a company called Micro$soft! I am an XBox LIVE regular, and have been on 360's since December of '07. Now we all know that XBox's tend to last a year before they get the dreaded RROD (red rings of death), and that theory is holding up pretty dang well. Who wants a timeline?

December 2007: Buy first XBox 360

July 2008: disc drive starts getting cranky

Late nov/early December 2008: graphics card starts acting up

Early January 2009 : Graphics card goes out, displays "complete system malfunction" on screen

same day: Take it to game crazy, use system swap warranty, get new xbox, new warranty

May 2009: starts freezing more than old one did

November 5th 2009: freezes up within 2 minutes of startup, EVERYTIME.

same day: Go through troubleshooting, turn on, Red rings. E74 error, xbox is dead. In the process, I find out that they gave me a refurb

Present day: Planning on taking it in for the system swap, again

I don't have any problems with refurbished products, but when I pay for a warranty, I expect better. This xbox lasted 9 months, the first one lasted 13, and it was a different, older model.

Thanks, Micro$oft.

Remember the cookies?

I promised you cookies, and I stand by that. So, here is a cookie recipe that I made yesterday.

Hoot Owl Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup cashew halves

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
2. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Add baking powder and salt. Beat well. Add flour and mix until blended. Remove 2/3 of dough. Roll or pat dough out to form two 10 x 4 inch rectangles. Add cocoa to remaining 1/3 of dough. Mix until blended. Shape chocolate dough into two 10 inch long rolls. Place on rectangle and roll plain dough to cover chocolate dough completely, not including ends. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill at least 2 hours.
3. Cut dough into 1/8 inch slices with a sharp knife. Place two slices side by side on a cookie sheet to resemble an owl's face. Pinch upper "corners" to resemble ears. Put chocolate chips in each dark circle for eyes and a cashew in the center for the beak.
4. Bake for 8 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven, or until lightly browned.

Now, wht I did was reverse the recipe. Make it 2/3rds Cocoa, and 1/3rd normal. Why? because I think they look better, and who doesn't like more chocolate???

If the cocoa part of the dough looks dry, add about 1 1/2 or 2 tablespoons of hersheys chocolate syrup, or whatever syrup you have.

It's Friday!

Hello all! It's finally Friday! Now I'm sure that this is probably your favorite day of the week, no? Well not mine O_0 My favorite day of the week would be Wednesday. Why you ask? Because I get to see friends, I get to worship God, and have a good time doing it! This past wednesday, we had a bonfire/cookout, and what's more fun than that? We played football, rugby (yes, 2 types of football), soccer, and some odd games. But, back to Friday. ANYways, Friday is home to early wakeups *love*, Coffee while it's still dark *love*, and a trip to the bookstore *LOVE*. The only thing I dislike about friday is that I don't like saturdays. Yes, you heard me, I DON'T LIKE WEEKENDs. Never have. The only reasons weekends are nice is 1. No school. 2. Church. 3. Sunday is next to monday so I get to start my next day off right. So there you have it, I don't enjoy weekends as much as weekdays. Call me crazy (you wouldn't be the first).

Blegh.

Well, I promised you pictures, didn't I? Well, I've got a sore throat. A bad sore throat. I couldn't get any pictures of the fall, but I did go to a friend's house for dinner. She has two dogs, and they are just the sweetest things ever.

But you can't break a promise...

Welp, I woke up late today, so I'm a bit ticked at my alarm. Yes, you heard me, I like to wake up early. So, on to fall. I, unexpectedly, went out of town yesterday. I was out until it was dark. I only got one picture, and It's not a good one. I will do my best to get some good ones today, and try to wake up tomorrow, k? Kewl. now, I guess I could leave you with something...

How 'bout a pic of my cute ol' living room?!

Because They Were There.

On a completely not Fall related note, I have two more pictures to share. Every week I go to borders *love* or Barnes & Noble, and sometimes I see book covers that make me think of my friend, and I just have to post them here too.

November is Here!

Happy November everybody! My second favorite month (December being first as it is colder and the atmosphere is a smidge lovelier) has rolled around into function, and I am in awe of the tree color right now. Through today and tomorrow I will be sharing pictures of this lovely time. OH! I almost forgot to tell you that I made marshmallows last week! Sadly no pics as my hands were way too sticky the entire time, but they were awesome! The recipe will be up in the coming days, courtesy of Foodnetwork.com & Alton Brown.

These photos were taken with my little 3GS and it's 3 MP camera. Tomorrow's will probably be taken with my Nikon D60. 10 MP.

Decisions, Revisions, and Changes Oh My!

Hello readers! (If I have any...)  I have some things to discuss with you.  I have recently started this blog to talk about cameras, photos, etc.  But, I found that quite limiting in terms of me enjoying this hobby.  So, There has been a slight name change (It sounded better), and there will be more, different posts.  I will still write about photography anytime something of interest shows up, but this will now house recipes, crafts (occasionally, not often though), and just more fun.  ;)