My New And Improved Alarm Clock

If you are one of my long time followers, and has been looking at my website ever since April 2008, you have read my post called 'The Mystery Of The Timex Clock'. That was the story of my awkward alarm clock. Click here to read it. A couple of weeks ago, it was my birthday. Yaaay! A week later, my dad took me to Willow Books, my favorite book store. I was planning to buy the 5th book of the incredible series called Maximum Ride, by James Patterson. So I got it. $20.00... kind of a rip off for one book.. usually they are around 7 bucks. Yes, It was new, and sure you can raise the price a little for that reason, but not by $13. It was worth the book anyway. Read about the Maximum Ride books here.

We went to FYE later on after we had some lunch at Willow Books, and I started my brand-new, shiny book. You know that smell of a book that's brand new, and no one has even touched the pages? I love that smell. I call it the new-book smell. The name makes sense. Anyway, FYE was just down the road. How convenient. You could just drop by Willow Books, grab a book and a coffee, not to mention the cookie, and head out the door. You can just drive down to FYE and get yourself that CD you've always wanted. Two of my favorite stores on the same road. I love it!

So I had 3 gift cards to FYE. Wow. 2 of them I got this year, and the other one was left over from last year- it still had about $10 on it. So all together I had $50 to spend at FYE. :-) For a long time, I had NO clue what to buy. Normally, I'd flip through the posters and get one or two, but I don't really like posters anymore. I don't really use CD's, since I got my iPod, and there wasn't any Wii games that I was interested in. I was going to get Get Smart, but turned out that was like $30. Never mind then. I figured I wanted to get something for my brand new iPod. (It's the new ipod nano 4th generation. Green. 8 gigs.)
No, I do not need 16 gigs. I'm not that crazy for music.) I saw this cool pink thing- it was like a speaker cube. Sadly, they only had it in pink. Which, if you have read my Crocs post, you would know that I am through with pink, and practically hate it.

My dad saw this really cool clock radio thing and showed it to me. It was like an iHome only not! It charges your iPod, and it has 2 alarms, you can wake up to either the buzzer (which is NEVER going to happen- I hate waking up to the buzzer. It freaks me out. One time, I woke up to the buzzer, and I was so scared- I though it was the fire alarm. And another time, I had my first clock ever, I set it to the alarm. The only setting was buzzer. How brilliant. I woke up on early on purpose because I was scared to wake up to the buzzer. I realized that when it goes off, after a little while, it'll slowly get louder and louder until you can't really sleep through it. And it doesn't turn off unless you do it. Thankfully, I sold that clock at a yard sale for 75 cents.) So, you could wake up to either the buzzer, the radio, or your iPod. How cool is that? It works with pretty much every single ipod. Including the mini, the touch, and the iPhone. Don't worry, they didn't leave those iPods out.

Pretty sick piece of technology, huh? I was totally willing to buy it, because (1) I have had bad experienced with my previous alarm clock (2) I wanted to get rid of my old clock because the radio signal is really poor (3) This thing was so freaking cool!! Time for the moment of truth. Checking the price tag. It's....... it's...... $80!! Poor me, I only have 50. My sweet and loving dad chimed in and said he'd pay the part I couldn't afford. Aww... I love him. He does so many nice things for me. :-) He always trys to hold my hand in public, which to me is a bit embarassing, but not too much. So when we walked out, I held his hand. No wait- it was us putting our arms around each other. Yeah.. that was it. I love that guy. He said it was like a late additional birthday gift. :-)

So now you are probably wondering what the heck I'm going to do with my other alarm clock. I gave it to my mom, who's been really iritated with her alarm clock lately. About 5 days later, she tells me she doesn't like this one either- and says sorry. I don't blame her. I didn't like it either. I was a bit upset, but then again, I could always just sell it on eBay. Oh, eBay. What would we do without you?

Treehouse Sleepover

In 2003, my dad decided he would start building a tree house for us while the rest of us were in Finland. When people ask him,
'How did you build that??' he just says, 'One step at a time.'
That's even a song by Jordan Sparks. When we got back from Finland, the floor and the base of it all was pretty much covered, but that was just the beginning. Sam, my oldest brother, is really into building things. He built his own bed, a catapult, and even a potato cannon. Click here to read more about my fun with the potato cannon. :-) Anyway, he really wanted to help, and we all helped. Well, except for mom. She watched us. She was like our audience. This was the beginning of a wonderful tree house.

That summer, we continued to work on the tree house. We measured wood, cut wood, nailed wood, there was a lot of wood involved. Luckily, I don't think we got many blisters. We went to the hardware store several times each day, mostly to pick up wood, and maybe some nails. We also ended up getting several signs, like 'PUSH' for a light that you push the center and it will come on. 'PULL' for the rope that you need to pull in order to open the window. 'PLEASE USE OTHER DOOR' for the emergency escape hatch. The only problem with that hatch is (1) It's a bit difficult to open (2) It's in a weird place so if you jump, you'd end up smashing into a piece of wood and part of the tree.

The windows were very interesting. The entire tree house has 8 windows. 2 of them have ropes attached to them that go up into a pulley, and the other end of the rope has a 25 pound weight attached to it. We built shelves for these weights to rest on when the windows were closed. When the weight is hanging, you can push the window open as far as it can go, and it will stay there because of the wait hanging down on it. It's one of those windows where the hinges are on the top. It's similar to those flapping doors that dogs and cats use to get in and out of the house. Another window, same basic method as the last two, has a rope attached to it, which is attached to a pulley. The other end of the rope doesn't have anything on it. For this window, you would pull the rope, causing the window to open, and then you would wrap the rope tightly around a metal thing to hold the window open in place. Then we have our 2 'N' windows. They got their name because the wood is put in a formation from the inside that looks like an N. The last three are also part of the 'N' window family. These ones are much simpler than the last ones, but are smaller. The hinges are on the side, and it's a simple push open, and it will stay open. All of our windows have locks. You know, just in case someone might want to sneak in. Heehee.

One of the hardest things about building this tree house was trying to build around the branches. We cut no branches in the making of this tree house. We just had to cut large holes in our wood in the places where the branch would go in order for it to work.

Believe it or not, this tree house has 2 floors. That's right. You heard me. (Well, not really 'heard me', since you're reading this rather than me actually telling you, it's more like, 'Yeah, you read it.') Anyway, yes, it does have two floors. But the thing is, the second floor is more like an attic/loft space. You can't really stand up in it, unless you are a couple feet tall. We made a ladder for it, hatch and everything. Now, this loft is unique for multiple reasons. (1) Because the floors don't go all the way across the tree house like a complete ceiling. Mostly, yes, it does. But right where the 2 simple working 'N' windows are, a couple feet of an opening from the loft. So let's say you're in the loft, lying down. You can just drop your head down a little and see the bottom floor! So it's pretty cool. We have a picture where my oldest brother, Sam, is peeking over the edge of the floor and he's all, 'Hey people! I'm hanging from the loft!' (2) Because it's the only part (for now, at least) in the tree house that actually has carpeting. Yes, carpeting. You read it. The only problem with that, is sometimes smart little squirrels climb up and scurry around in our tree house when we aren't there. (Which is quite often, actually.) They like to chew on the ends of our ropes and the carpets, making these big clumps of carpeting. When you get a lot together, it looks like the fluff came right of the sheep. Yeah, that fluffy stuff on sheep. That's what the chewed up ends look like. So every now and then, we have to get in every nook and crany of the loft, around the branches, and trim the carpets. So that sounds a bit odd.. 'Hey, honey, I'm going to trim the carpets!' But you know what? It's just one of the things you need to do if you happen to own a tree house with carpeting. (3) When we sleep in the tree house, (more about that one coming soon to the next paragraph) some lucky person will get to sleep up there. Just imagine that. Sleeping about twenty feet from the ground on carpeting in this tree house with no heating, just you and your sleeping bag and the little battery powered light over your head. (4) On the end where the floors are attached to the walls, there is a little window that you push open, only this time, the hinges are on the bottom. So say you're sleeping in the loft, and you wake up all of a sudden. It's morning, and you can tell. You open up the little window. How convenient is that? Very, I'd say.

We painted it around 2004, Brick red, the same color as our house. It's our mini house! Here's a pic of our progress:

We love to paint things! Especially on high ladders.

Starting in 2003, (that same year we built it), my family started to sleep in the tree house. Well, except for mom. Once again, she's like our audience. There isn't really room for five in the tree house. You probably could cram one more person in, but it would not be comfortable. In 2003, let's see... I was about 5 or 6 years old. Pretty cool adventure for me, since I was so tiny! Getting ready for the tree house sleep over took a lot of work. Before even thinking about getting our sleeping junk up in the fort, we needed to clean it all out. Sweep it, and of course, our 'trimming the rugs'. We need to dust here and there, and sweep everywhere. (Ha! That rhymes.) So it's clean now, right? So now you are probably wondering how we get our sleeping bags and all that jazz up in the tree house. We use the most inefficient way you could possibly think of. We don't have any pulleys, no baskets, we don't even attempt to carry them up through the hatch. (1) Because the hatch would be too small for our large sleeping things. (2) There is no way we could carry my dad's insanely huge- and insanely heavy sleeping bag up the ladder. (3) We need all of our hands to climb a ladder. So what do we do? We throw them. We have two large windows on one side of our tree house. Here's how it works: Somebody goes up into the tree house, (this year it was me and my friend, Annika.) and stands in the window, ready to catch anything. The rest of the people down below, are trying to get the stuff to us. Catching it, in my opinion, is MUCH easier then trying to throw a 10 pound sleeping bag 13 feet in the air. All we have to do is hope it comes near us and grab on to it. Here's a picture of my dad trying to throw his large heavy sleeping bag up.

This is my dad, trying to throw his heavy sleeping bag up. Let's hope he makes it.


You see those two blue and green rolled up things in the corner of the picture? Those are the pads that we sleep on. We only use them for the bottom floor sleepers though, because the loft has carpeting, like I mentioned earlier. They are very helpful because if you didn't have them, you'd wake up and have your back against hard wood- with your sleeping bag in between, but that isn't much support. You'd think that they are the easiest ones to get up there because they are so light. Well guess what? You are WRONG. Those things are the hardest thing to throw up. You can get it up in the air easy- sort of. When it's up in the air, it unwinds and acts like a parachute. So you need to get it really rolled up seriously tight- we could use rope, or rubber bands of some sort, but like I said, this is the worst way to do this task.

I was really sad when my brothers didn't want to sleep up in the tree house- one said because he's afraid of heights, which I don't blame him for. The other one-- uh.. I don't really know why he didn't go up. But imagine how excited I was when my dad said I could invite a friend over to sleep in the tree house. The sleeping in the tree house excitement I was used to- I got that every year. But I was more excited than ever this time- because this was the first time ever that some one had come over and slept in it. !!! I climbed down the ladder as fast as I could, sprinted over to the porch, snatched the phone from the little plastic holder, and dialed my friends number. Several minutes later, our tree house sleep over was scheduled. I couldn't wait.

I already explained above the whole process of the 'sleeping bag and other sleeping needs transporting technique' to you, which is what was next, so I will fast forward to when we have all the junk in the house. The tree house. This was so cool!

We set down our pads, got our sleeping bags in order, water, bug spray, all those outdoorsy things. My friend and I slept down below on the bottom floor, the main floor of the whole wonderful piece of art. My dad slept in the loft for the first time- pretty exciting night for him! He got the comfortable carpeting and the little window by his head. The only thing I find obnoxious about the loft, is that if you wake up, you have a large chance of slamming your head on one of the pieces of wood on the very low ceiling above you. Aaahh.. the birds are chirping... it's a wonderful morning....(as you rise up out of your sleeping bag)...... SMACK! Now you have a large bruise on your forehead. Teehee!

Since my friend doesn't have cable, we watched an episode of iCarly on my iPod. I have this pillow speaker- which the name is pretty self explanatory. It's a pillow, and an iPod speaker. We used that for sound. We stayed up until 10:00 PM. That's pretty late for me, but not too too late. It was a bit buggy, so we had to keep squirting bug spray all over ourselves. Finally we fell asleep for a couple hours at a time. I woke up. Checked my iPod for the time. 3:00 AM! It certainly wasn't time to get up yet. I still had about 5 more hours to go! Back to sleep. I woke up again. Checked my iPod for the time. 6:30 AM. A little early.. so I doze off for another hour. This time, I really did wake up, and actually sat up this time rather than feeling around for my iPod in the dark. I'm glad I didn't bonk my head on anything.

American Idol Finale 2009

As you might have heard earlier in 2008, I am not watching Fox's top hit show American Idol this year. I couldn't help catching up in things, see who was left, and watching the finale, though. It's down to Kris Allen and Adam Lambert. Now, everyone says that Adam is totally going to win. I've heard people say, 'He rocks! He's awesome!' and 'Kris is such a wimp. He shouldn't win.'. Everyone says it's so obvious that Adam is going to win. Here's a shocker for you: I was rooting for Kris Allen. There. I said it. I don't have anything against Adam, I mean, he's a great singer, but I like Kris's style better. Adam doesn't really.. well.. he should start his own band if he doesn't win American Idol- well, actually, he should start a band period. He's the rock type. I like the Kris type. He's a nice singer, and that's what the competition is about. I've heard Simon Cowell say that the competition is for singing too many times. When people get all dressed up and they have way too much mascara on it looks like they used the whole bottle, when people start dancing in the middle of their performance, when people try to play the guitar and sing at the same time and end up doing a better job on the guitar then on their singing. Here's a tip for all you people who's dream it is to win American Idol: Focus on the singing. It's all that matters.


Wednesday, May 2oth, 8:00 PM. The Finale begins.



Well, well, well. Will you look at Randy? He's got this red bow tie and everything! Simon is wearing is usual black t-shirt with black pants. No surprise there. I cracked up SO hard when Ryan Seacrest introduced the judges- the video where it showed Randy saying 'For me, for you' Over and over again. He does say that too much. 'For me, that song just wasn't the right one for you.' Would be an example. Kara, the new judge, was also hilarious. They showed how much she says, 'sweetie' and 'honey' too much. 'Sweetie you're just not good enough.' 'Honey, I'm sorry. You didn't make it in. Paula, though, is kind of another thing. She doesn't say a certain word too much, like Randy and Kara, she has serious vocab. Simon even said we needed a translator on the show! The video for paula was so funny. Small little clips of very large amazing words that I haven't even heard of. Simon- as Ryan says, hears every note and every sound of the song. The video showed clips of Simon Cowell saying, 'What? I'm sorry, what'd ya say?' That was my favorite out of all the judges. Yeah, Simon can be a real pain when it comes to judging a song, but he stands out.

Well that was nice to see the top 13 again, singing So What. The top 13 that I never knew because I didn't watch the show this year. Hah! Yet I'm still blogging away.

At least I watched season 7 last year. Where David Cook rocked the house! At the finale, he did it again. Time for me to be the judge. My opinion: It could've been a better song, but it was phenomanal, but a little to calm song for David. He's really good at those rock songs where you sing your heart out, like Dirty Little Secret. (One of my favorite songs.) I heard that David Cook's brother died about a week ago, because of brain cancer. We need to find a cure.

Here we go- the outstanding male awards. They didn't make it all that far... at all.. but he still won something. Congratulations, Nick Mitchel! (AKA Norman Gentle) You crazy male singer. But Simon is right! It IS like horrific comedy!


Ok, who doesn't love the song, I'm Yours? Seriously. I love it. The ukulele really makes a nice touch in the song, but I don't think there was one at the finale. Aww.. but go Jason Mraz!

Next up on our text-finale show, we have Kris Allen preforming Kiss A Girl with Keith Urban. I believe Keith is a famous country-western artist. How about that. This was one of my favorite parts of the show- because, like I said earlier, I'm rooting for Kris. He has that nice feeling in his voice, not to loud like a rock band singer's voice, but not to quiet like a shy guy.

GLAMOROUS. By Fergie. Another awesome song- that I actually haven't heard in months, actually. So when I was watching it, I was all, 'Oh my gosh I know this song! What's it called?? Aaahh!!' It's pretty obvious, though, what it's called. They spell it out for you in the begining of the song. GLAMOROUS. Now there's a way to remember how to spell that word! Hah. But what I didn't like was that they changed songs from GLAMOROUS to Big Girls Don't Cry the moment Fergie appeared on the stage in the middle of GLAMOROUS. (Count how many times I say GLAMOROUS in this paragraph!!) I hate the song Big Girls Don't Cry. Partly because it's all country style, kind of. It's just too.. too slow.. weird.. not my type. It's funny because it's from the same person- yet I hate it. Another 30 or so secconds into THAT song, and all of a sudden, the Black Eyed Peas (whoever those dudes are, I have no idea) started performing. What's up with that? Hardly a minute per song. Right in the middle of the songs, someone would shout, 'Ladies and Gentlemen, insert band name here !!!

Back to our golden Idol awards. Next up: Best Attitude. So, we have 'Bikini Girl', one that took everything as compliments, and a few others. Especially that blond one who said she's never gonna give up and says that she's totally gonna win and she doesn't care what they all think. There's the attitude! I thought she should have won.. but
Bikini Girl one instead. Uh, a little odd... seeing a girl with hardly anything on her.. but I have to give it to her that she's not that bad of a singer. I wonder what that must feel like to be known as 'Bikini Girl'. Finally Kara steps on stage to perform with Katrina! Go KA's! (You know, KAtrina and KAra?)

I know this has nothing to do with what happened in the finale, but imagine if Cook won again!! It's like everyone on the votes voted for David Cook.. because maybe they loved him more than Adam and Kris.. that would be HILARIOUS!

Here's the funniest part of the entire finale. So Adam Lambert is performing Beth by KISS- a rock band from the 70's. My dad and the rest of my family was watching it, and he said, 'It would be so epic if KISS appeared on the show!!' and the second after he said that, what do you know. Here comes KISS, make up and everything coming down on stage. Then they had to change the song to one of my favorite songs, Rock And Roll All Night. (I have a lot of favorite songs. It's hard to pick one, you know?) That long-tongued guy- you should have seen my dad cracking up. It's so funny when he does. He's like falling back on the couch laughing hysterically and snorting in between. Yeah, that's my dad. Erik J. Heels. That went on for about a minute. Wow. That must be a record. At the end of KISS's performance, one of the dude's tried to smash his guitar on the stage. Success came, but fail at the same time because he just damaged his own guitar for no reason- other than entertainment to keep my dad laughing.

Wednesday, May 2oth, 9:30 PM. The winner is announced soon.

You know that song called Smooth? NO? I'm not surprised. It's by Carlos Santana, and I actually really like that song. It's calm, relaxing, and what do you know, smooth, too. It's one of those songs that would be good music for a coffee shop. Social music, I call it.

David Cook appears! AGAIN! To give the two finalists brand new, shiny, ooh la la, pretty, cars.

Here's the last of the golden Idol Awards. This time: Outstanding Female. Way to not listen to Ryan Seacrest, Tatiana! That was incredibly outstanding. (Instead of so funny)'Tatiana I'm not kidding, we need to go to a break!' He kept saying, but of course, Tatiana wasn't listening. Just singing. :-)

Who here is a fan of Queen? ME! I love We Are The Champions. I love a lot of songs, in case you haven't noticed yet. Adam and Kris perform We Are the Champions- and of course, when someone performs it, the band appears. So, as we follow the drill, Queen appears.

Wednesday, May 20th, 10:00 PM. The moment we've all been waiting for.

'Dim the lights one last time!' Says Ryan, making everyone excited, and nervous. It's the moment of truth. The moment where the American Idol 2009 will be announced, the moment were everyone is dying to know who it is. No pressure on Kris and Adam. And the American Idol...(girls scream in the background) Season 8, 2009, (even more girls are screaming in the background) is....(this time everyone is silent).....KRIS ALLEN!! Seriously, did you see the look on his face? He was all, 'REALLY?' Like he was possitive Adam was going to win. Just like how everyone thought it would end. With Adam winning. But NO. Kris still had a chance. He had the chance to win, and he did. For some strange reason, he looked like he didn't want to win, like he wanted Adam to win the whole time. Believe it, Kris. You are the American Idol of 2009.

My 11th Birthday!

Guess what everyone? On May 14th, 8:00 PM, I turned 11! That day was the best school day ever. Because usually when my birthday is on a school day, half my time is wasted doing math worksheets, social studies, blah blah blah. Thank GOD my birthday landed on a Thursday this year! For some strange reason, our school has 'half days' on Thursdays, so it only goes from 9:30-1:00 instead of like 3:20.

You know how I'm in band? (If you didn't know that then you might want to consider reading Fifth Grade Flutist first.) Yeah. Like I said in that, band practice is on Thursdays. Thank you, band schedule for saving my life! I'd much rather be playing flute than be sitting down all day doing the BSW. (Before School Work. Come to think of it, what's the point of BSW? It's before school, and it's work. So you get a worksheet before school starts! What an excellent way to start the day. Heehee.)

Me and my friends were dieing for school to end, because at 2:00 that day, my party started! (Those of you who personally know me and didn't go to the party, I'm really sorry. I could only invite 8 people. Just because I didn't invite you doesn't mean I don't like you. Please don't take it the wrong way. It was really hard for me to chose who I wanted to come and I'm sorry you couldn't come.) Anyway, we couldn't wait to get out of school. It was so funny because all my friends around school were like, 'Hey, Sonja! I can come to your p- the thing... you know?' And I'm all, 'Oh, right, the thing! Yeah! Great!' and everyone around us were totally confused. (We didn't want them to feel bad... so we discised the party as the thing. Pretty smart thinking, huh? I know 'the thing' isn't really good.. but it was something.)

Pretty easy day for me- I handed out cookies to my class, and all my previous teachers around the school. I was all, 'It's my birthday! Have a cookie.'. Too funny. They were all, 'Oh, boy! A cookie! With M&M's! My favorite. I think I'll have that with my lunch.' Like I said earlier, band took up a chunk of the day. Thank you, band. Cookies around the school took another chunk out of my day. Sadly, I didn't have any excused left for not being in the classroom. But we weren't doing much, just working on our portfolios. Now there's something that you can do while talking! My teacher sometimes tells us how chatty we are, and when we're doing our portfolios, it doesn't take a whole lot of effort, so you can just pick some papers while chattin' to people- even though you're not necicerily making eye contact, you're still contacting in words, which is good enough for me. We did that for pretty much the entire day. Lucky me.

So let's just fast forward through the whole end-of-the-day-routine to when I get home. No, when the party starts. I don't want to bore you with me getting my hair ready, and organizing the movie and popcorn. --->Fast Forwarding In Progress --->

First, to start of this party, we play on the tire swing!! We took turns on the tire swing in my front yard. It was so much fun- although it was hard to not hit the tree, so we decided to stop and start watching the movie. Yeah, we were watching Get Smart. My #1 FAVORITE movie EVER. Yes, I do realize that it is rated PG-13, but almost everyone at my party had already seen it. Believe it or not, I've only seen about 3 PG-13 movies in my entire 11 years that I've been alive. I'm not really into other ones, except for The Simpson's Movie, She's The Man, and of course, Get Smart.

A couple people were going to come later, as far as I knew. So when the doorbell rang during the movie, we all rushed to the door hoping it was either Natalie or Gwylan. Who was it? The pizza guy! How about that. I was pretty shocked- I was ready to say, 'Thanks for coming! We're just in the middle of the movie.' (Yeah, sure, pizza guy! Come on in! We're in the middle of the movie.) But when I opened the door, this dude was holding four large boxes of pizza. And boy, did it smell good!

Yeah, yeah, you know the drill when pizza comes. You all go to the bathroom to wash your hands, and then run as fast as you can to get in the front of the line to get your pizza. I'm not going to bore you with our chewing and socializing, so I'm going to fast forward to the presents.
--->Fast forwarding in progress--->

Ok, we're all gathered in my living room and we do this thing called 'pass the pressents'. Each person holds a present. There's music- of course it's set to Kiss 108! That's like everyones favorite station. Anyway, when the music is going, you pass the presents (which as you can see ties into the name) in a circle, and someone needs to be in control of the music. When it stops, the present the birthday person is holding is the one he/she will open. I know, it's a little silly young kids game, but heck. We're 5th graders. We like to be ourselves. It's actually a really good way to pick presents, because then you can't really feel bad that you didn't pick someones present. You know when you're opening presents, and everyone is crowded around you, asking you to open this present first? I kinda hate it.. I mean, I don't want the others to feel bad I didn't pick them or anything, and of course the whole 'crowd around the birthday girl and see what she got' thing gets on my nerves. So pass the presents we do. Here's a list of the things I got:

• Window Art
• 3 Adorable glass kitties!
• Twirled Paper Kit
• Painted rocks
• 2 F.Y.E. Gift Cards
• A Woolpack gift card
• Gardening Gloves
  
• An adorable handmade pink purse
• A brand new bathing suit

Window art is another post, coming soon. Same with the 3 Adorable glass kitties. The twirled paper kit is from Klutz- as you know, is my #1 FAVORITE art company. Well, they do more than art. But I call them an art company because all I get from them is art. :-) I think my first project will be a penguin.

The painted rocks are awesome! It's like.. like.. they're so smooth and beauitiful! (To any of you people out there that actually went to my party, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!)

Everyone knows that I love F.Y.E. Last year, I got a gift card there. Yay! This year, I got 2! Which makes it even funnier is that I still have money left over on the one from last year. So, when you add it all up I had about $50 to spend at FYE! (A whole woppin' $5o!! Thank you to everyone who gave me an FYE gift card. I really appriciate it!)

My brother has noticed how much I love gardening. So he got me a pair of gardening gloves. Gee, thanks, Ben! (No sarcasm there.) It was too funny because the first thing I noticed when I unwrapped it is that it smells like fresh rubber. Ah... the smell of fresh rubber.

I also got an adorable hand-made pink purse. It's so cute- perfect to hold some lip balm, some money, and some hair clips. You know, just in case you have one of those bad hair days, you always gotta carry clips with you. It's like the perfect purse to go shopping with!

Everybody knows I love swimming. You didn't know? *GASP!* I should write about that sooner or later. It's one of the most important parts of me- my swimming skills. Anyway, I got this really cute 2-piece bathing suit- and here's the best part- it's green and blue!! My two favorite colors. (In case you haven't noticed, I've been mentioning a lot of my favorites in this post. Just FYI.)

Next on our list, a whoolpack giftcard! Now you're wondering, 'Gee, Sonja, what is the Whoolpack? I've never heard of it before.' Gee, people out there, I'll tell you what the Whoolpack is. Now you're hearing of it. The Whoolpack is another one of the stores on my Favorite Stores list. It sells one thing and one thing only: YARN. It's like yarn heaven when you step through the doors. Rainbows of yarn everywhere.

Thank you to everybody who made my birthday special! I appriciate it. :-)

Aeropostale

Hello! Spring's coming and it's time to get those t-shirts out! Great sales on shorts, flip-flops (which personally I'm not a fan of), polo tees, and camis are going on now! Aeropostale has it all for spring. :-) Go to www.aeropostale.com to check out the deals. :-D

Now, if you've been following my site ever since it was born, (December 20th, 2007) congratulations. You've earned yourself 5 smileys: :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D. (You should feel proud. Heehee!) If you haven't been following my site for that long, but have been following long enough to read the post called, 'My Insane Mall Trip', then you're good. If you're a newbie here, and you saw me on google or something, welcome. Now, before you keep reading this post, I'd recommend reading My Insane Mall Trip first, so you understand the next paragraph of this one. Go on, click the link!

Next time I step through the doors of that store, there had better be no alarm. Just calm, quiet music and people talking. No extremely alarming alarms going off everywhere, no flashing of any lights. So lets talk about that few minutes when there wasn't loud, scary, annoying alarms everywhere. When there wasn't flashing lights like lightning all around. Aeropostale has pretty good deals- except for their belts, I gotta say. Who would pay $30 for a belt? It shouldn't cost that much to hold your pants up, and at the same time look fashionable. I think it should be about $15. Their polos have great deals, though. I got a green and yellow striped polo tee, for only $6! Now that's a good deal. I've always wanted one of their sweatshirts. One of them that says 'AERO' on them in white, and the sweat shirt would be either blue or green. Also, Aeropostale has really cute dresses. Here's one of my favorites. (If the link doesn't work, it's most likely out of stock.) Here's another cute one.

Yes, Aeropostale has boys, too. A bunch of new really cool tees just came in- green ones with skulls on them, black ones with 'Aeropostale' written on it, check it all out. Plaid shorts are on sale, along with some polos.

What I like about Aeropostale is that it has that fresh, springy, bubbly look in it that's casual and cool. But I don't really like the things that have 'AERO' written all over it, including the flip flops. Yes, I did say I wanted one of those sweatshirts that said it, but then again, maybe I want to get that cute jumper dress instead. I don't know! (The problem with me is that I can never get enough tee shirts. My closet is stuffed with tee shirts, and every time I go shopping, I tell myself, 'It's a really good deal, it's really cute, and I'll empty out my closet later.' I never get to cleaning my closet.) I LOVE their summer dresses. That's what I need. Dresses. Not tees, dresses. Next thing I know I'm trying to stuff one more tee shirt in my closet. It's hard to focus on what you need and what you want when you're shopping at Aeropostale. But It's all worth it- if you get to cleaning out your closet later. (But if you're going shopping at Aeropostale and need clothes, that's another thing. You see, I went to Aeropostale because I wanted to. I already had a decent amount of clothes, and was buying more than I needed. Which ties me in a knot of closet disaster. Uh oh. Better go clean it.)

Super Smash Brothers

Nintendo- you are geniuses. You've come up with one of the most popular video games: Super Smash Bros Whether it's Melee or Brawl, this game is incredible- and very addicting at times. Yes, it's violent, and it IS rated T for teens, just to let you know. (I usually don't listen to the ratings of video games. A video game is a video game- period. There's no, 'you can't play this game 'cause you're to young!' Unless it's like with a toddler, I don't think they should be playing this game quite yet.) So there are good reasons to listen to the rating, but I just don't. There. I said it.

This game is all about fighting and defeating- and feeling proud of yourself for winning the round if you do. If you don't, it's not the end of the world. The end of the world would look more like a mediator falling down to earth, the town on fire, and the largest earthquake is accuring. and of course, everyone is screaming and running around in circles, hopeless.

You can unlock many characters in this game, such as Luigi, and Jigglypuff. Isn't that such a funny name? Jigglypuff? If you get her, she's tough. That is, if you really know how to 'fight'. (Press the buttons rapidly and hope you win.)

Those of you who enjoy the Halo games, I think you'll like this game. Brawl or Melee, (I recommend brawl!) Just make sure you don't get too addicted... that might be pretty hard for the people who love video games like my brother, Ben. Honestly, it's happened to me several times. One day, I'm bored, so I try and play. Next day, I'm fighting as Zelda and winning all kinds of virtual trophies and awards. (She's my #1 favorite character.) I'm not very good, but I'm average. So try it! Make sure you have your parents permission: it's rated T for the teens. There isn't really blood that shows, but guns and swords with violence- yeah. This game has all that stuff. Heads up. You might find your self always playing this game- if you do, just breathe. This is just a game. It's not, and I repeat not end of the world.

Something I found on Youtube- If you have Super Smash Brothers Brawl, go right now and listen to the lyrics of the theme song. Most people usually can't tell what the heck they're saying. Here's the video that will solve that question once and for all: