An Excursion

Yesterday, we went to the library, and these are the books I came out laden with:

• The Visitation, by Frank Peretti (like all of Peretti's books, utterly amazing)
• The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations, by Robert Andrews (SO excited to read this...I am a complete quotation junkie)
• The Deep, by Helen Dunmore (boring book...)
• The Indian In the Cupbard, by Lynn Reid Banks
• The Secret of the Indian, by Lynn Reid Banks
• The Mystery of the Cupbard, by Lynn Reid Banks
• The Tapestry Book One, by Henry H. Neiff
• The Tapestry Book Two, by Henry H. Neiff
• Daily Life in Victorian England, by Sally Mitchell
• Everest Book One, by Gordan Korman
• The Revenge of the Shadow King, by Derek Benz and J. S. Lewis ("J. S. Lewis"...sound familiar?)
• The Tolkien Companion, by J. E. A. Tyler (I'm re-reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and thought this would be good to have)
• The Illustrated Library of World Poetry (Not a big poetry fan, but this book was so thick [literally, like three inches thick] and the font so tiny [at the most, size nine, and the font is Times New Roman, so that makes it worse] that I had to get it...shows how nerdy I am, but whatever. *shrugs*)
• Laylie's Daring Quest, by Kersten Hamilton (I normally don't get books with such incredibly boring titles, but I couldn't resist. I've read this book several times and love the storyline. But I admit it, the title of this book needs to be re-thought out. And replaced.)
• Red Rock Mysteries Book Five, by Jerry Jenkins and Chris Fabry
• Red Rock Mysteries Book Nine, by Jerry Jenkins and Chris Fabry

Sixteen books. Six genres, if you count Quotations as one. Mysteries, Fantasy, Fiction, Non-fiction, Mystery, and (possibly) Quotations.

And I'm going through The Synonym Finder and jotting down awesome words so I can look back and use them in Midnight. I really need to get around to reading the dictionary, too.

NaNo Update: as of now, my story is 6,028 words, 18 pages. My format is double-spaced with 1 1/2 inch margins, and the font Georgia size ten.

Later,

I Can't Believe...

...that NaNo starts in two days!!

I've seen several NaNoWriMo Survival Kits and decided to do one.

1. My Laptop. Thank goodness for it. Did I tell you that I love you, Araldar? ("Araldar" actually means "Evil One" in the language of one of my stories...hm...maybe "Araldar" isn't such a fantastic name for my laptop...)
2. My Notebooks. My main notebook is this tattered one that holds about five plots, random quotes, Bible verses, great books, and excerpts from my stories. I have several others, however; unfortunately, I am very unorganized, and, if I have a "brilliant" idea, I just grab the notebook that's nearest to me. Therefore, I have several notebooks and I have to search all of them to find something specific.
3. My Bible. I have it sitting on my desk so when I get "nano-drepression", I can just look up an inspiring verse.
4. Coffee/Tea/Chocolate. I will most definitely be drinking a LOT more decaf coffee and green tea this month. *grins* The occasional cup of hot chocolate, perhaps. And a LOT of chocolate from the stash my mom got specifically for Halloween, but whose leftovers may be used for more productive purposes. ^^
5. The Work-Out Machine. Working out is a stress-reliever for me, so that contraption will be getting a lot more use this month. ^^
6. Gmail. All my friends on gmail better get prepared for some venting. *laughs*
7. Hannah. Hannah, I'm going to call you a LOT, and most of the conversations are going to be complaining about how far behind I am. And yes, we can always bury names if we get depressed. :) (Inside joke...)
8. My Family. Definitely. Where would I be without them? *grins*
9. My Diary. Oh my word, almost all the entries from this time forth until the end of November will be freaking out about NaNo.
10. My Characters. There would be no story without my awesomely-cooperative characters. One of my main characters, Jole, agreed to die without so much as a soft shriek. And another, Arayna, resigned to being stuck in jail for twelve years. And, of course, my evil character, Imandr, is really a good person at heart, but is determined to impersonate a deliciously-evil character just for me. *sighs* But of course, it's my eminently main character that's being stubborn...she's refusing to let Jole and Arayna die, and says she doesn't need to listen to me. *rolls eyes*
11. Books. Insanely inspiring books.
12. Gimp. *grins* thank goodness for Gimp.
13. Music. Lots and lots of music. I have a song for every mood. ^^

AGH! I'm so excited!! :) On Sunday, I'm setting my alarm for around six, so I can get a few pages done before church. ^^

Since I'm only doing 20,000 words, once I achieve that goal, I'm going to keep pushing and hopefully get 50,000 words so I'm ready for full force NaNo next year.

Why do I get the feeling that I'm going to be doing a lot less eating/playing/hanging out and a LOT more writing/scribbling/screaming? :D

One last thing (Note: this is an edit): An AWESOME giveaway at the Elvish Maiden!! Go enter! :)

My Birthday!! *applaud*

I celebrated my birthday today, though in fact it's a week later (I'll be gone at camp on the 27th [my birthday] so we just celebrated it now). I got SO many wonderful WONDERFUL gifts!!

At five-thirty me and my family (Dad, Mom, Josh, Abby, Peter, and I) went to Applebees with my granma, granpa, and great-granma! The food was delicious and of course I couldn't eat all of mine (*roll eyes* I never seem to finish my food :D) and neither could anyone else and so guess how many take home boxes we had? Six. And they were big. And full of food. It was amazing! ;)

Then we came home, and since everyone was positively stuffed, we (or should I say "I"? :D) opened presents. Man. Alright, so from my granma, granpa, and great-granma I got: four CDs (Tenth Avenue North [Over And Underneath], Press Play [Life Is Beautiful], Superchick [Beauty From Pain 1.1...they're older CD. I already own their newest: Rock What You Got], and then a gift card to buy Run Kid Run [Love At the Core], and FM Static [Dear Diary] that I asked for, but which they couldn't buy, as Northwestern was sold out), a skirt and ruffled collar T-shirt, a beautiful studded necklace and nail set, and a small green leather purse. From Mom and Dad I got a sheet of paper telling me I'D GET TO BUY THE GOUDY FAMILY SET!!!!!!!! I GET THE REAL FONT GOUDY THAT PAOLINI USES IN Inheritance Cycle!!!!!!!!!!! *SCREAM* AH!!!! I still am in shock!! Hannah I bet you're so jealous!! lol jk :D Wow I LOVE GOUDY!!! I'm so excited!!! I'll feel REALLY professional! Dad and Mom wrote me this really awesome poem about it too!! *dreamy/content sigh*

Alright I also got from Mom and Dad: a set of colored Hope golf balls (so colorful...so beautiful...so awesome...in fact, they're be-awesome!! [from Bolt :D]), a charm bracelet, and wonderful books. The books are: This Present Darkness (AH!!! LOVE THAT BOOK!!!!) by Frank Peretti, The Fairy Tales (or something like that...) by Gail Carson Levine, another book by her called The Two Princesses of something-or-other, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling, and this other book that is really cool that I can't remember the title of. Then from Josh I got Mat Kearney's City Of Black And White (SO AWESOME). From Abby I got a small pack of Butterfinger's and Kit-Kat's (yummy lol). From Peter I got a small pint of ice-cream!!! *scream* double yummy!!

My dad and I are going to buy the Goudy Family Pack (bout seventy five dollars) sometime tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When I dreamily chattered about the Goudy Family Pack, I didn't even have any idea whatsoever that my parents were actually listening to me!! :D!

I'm bringing many of the books I got today to camp. I'm reading The Giver right now. I'm going to save many of the books for camp :D

The surprise cake my mom made me was a garden!! I took a picture of it, so I'll upload that sometime soon. We have been working really hard this summer on a garden over at my granparents house, so that's why she picked a garden :D

I got SO many great gifts tonight!!!!! I'm still not an actual twelve year old, but next Saturday I will :D

Award and Blend!

Alright, so I just wanted to share an award and a blend!

Here is The Avid Reader Award...



I hope you guys like it ;) I award this to...Earwen, Hannah (from Aspire), Alex, Jake, Elanatantil, Chloe, Abby, Josh, Myself (lol :D), Awel, Moriah, Elrania, ah...and I can't remember anybody else. Alright, everybody, listen up. If you follow my blog, or if I follow your blog, you may have this award. If you don't follow my blog, or I don't follow yours, then follow my blog, and you may take it. Otherwise, you can't ;D



Just wanted to share this blend I did of Frodo...I kind of like it. ;]

That's it.

Blessings in Christ,

This Summer...

So what is everybody doing this summer?!

I'm taking this online Northwestern Chinese class this summer, finishing up my writing class, and continuing violin.

Oh, and reading a lot :D Right now I feel overwhelmed by books...I'm reading Eldest, The Silmarilian (is that how you spell it?), The Children of Anduin (I think that's the name...right now I'm blanking out. But it's by Tolkien :D), The Return of the King, The Door Within, Les Miserables (STILL reading it :D), Pride and Prejudice, The Origin of Species (I decided to read Darwin...but right now, fifty pages into it, I'm thinking about stopping it because it's so confusing.), and John Adams by David McCullough. Nine books at a time! Talk about reading too much. :D Every time I sit down, I take a long time deciding which book I should read! But all of them are so good, I can't put any of them down, so...I just end up sitting there will all these books in my hands, torn between which one I should read...and then before I decide, I have to go do something, or my mom wants me to clean up or something...

The only book I'm considering about stop reading is The Origin of Species...To be honest, I'm a little disappointed in it. I was expecting Darwin to be a great writer. I mean, he's called by some people "The Father of Science" or something like that, isn't he? He repeated himself, was unclear, told the readers that his theory was "unlikely"...AGH! I think I just have to quit it. I can see why modern day scientists are ashamed of The Origin of Species.

Right now I can't think of anything else that is new with me, so...
Until next post,