Neat Stuff Tuesday

Okay, so I didn't find this on the internet. Actually, I found this completely by chance in real life. My little brother Lukas is part of a summer baseball league and he had a game the other day that I was supposed to drop him off for. I was supposed to drop him off at this park in McFarland somewhere, 30 minutes away, and at first I was all "uuuuuuuuuuugh..." because I had to go Google Map it and then try and figure out where the heck I was going, while I was driving (because Lukas is really no help at all). Once I got there though, I saw this:

And I was like: "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? That looks amazing!" It's a place called Lewis Park. And it is pretty darn cool. It was so cool that I spent like, half an hour exploring, when I really didn't need to be there. It looked pretty new, probably less than two years old, and definitely not my generation of 'Big Toy.'

This structure is what I called the 'Spider's Web.' You can't really see it from this picture, but in the very center of the web, there's a spot where you can just sit and hang out. It's super fun.

Here's a view of the larger 'Big Toy.'

Off to the side there are some swings.

There's also a climbing wall! I love climbing walls. I love climbing, actually. I don't really do it that often, but when I do, it's awesome.

This is a weird tunnel thingy. It narrows from one end to the other, so it's a little odd to navigate. Still awesome though.

This is a smaller 'Big Toy,' which I imagine is for smaller kids. (Duh.)

That's about it. It was super fun climbing around and having the playground basically to myself. (It had rained the day before, so not a whole lot of kids were out.) I kinda wanna go back there with my siblings and just hang out for an afternoon or morning. Huh. That actually sounds like an awesome idea. Maybe I'll do that sometime soon!

"Schedules"

So since I really can't be counted on to be inspired every single day by something awesome (although that'd be awesome if I could... is there a class for that?), I decided I'd make a schedule/set of themes for me to post about every day. I wouldn't follow it to the letter, but if I've had a less than exciting day, I'll use it to come up with ideas. Here's a rough sketch.

Sunday: Word of the Week - in which I pick a word from the dictionary, post it's various meanings, maybe use it in a short sentence and muse on how it applies to my life.

Monday: Media Mondays - in which I introduce music, books, magazine/newspaper articles, photos, etc., that I enjoy and talk about why I enjoy it. Alternatively, I could talk about my own media misadventures, as I'm sure to be having them.

Tuesday: Neat Stuff - in which I post something awesome I found around town/on the web for you all to marvel at.

Wednesday: Writing Wednesday - in which I either post something I've written, whether I wrote it last semester, last week, or right there "live." I've already talked about this in the previous post,  and I think it's kinda helping me keep my writing groove going. Yay! Inspiration!

Thursday: Therapy Thursday - in which I post thoughts/rants/praises about life in general. It'll probably be one of my more random categories.

Friday: Food Adventures - I love food. Most of the time, I also love making it. I've got this plan to try out more of the recipes in my "Star Wars Cookbook," which I featured in one of my previous posts, "A Special Sort of Brownies," so I figure I'd share those too! I think I'll start this tomorrow, as I'm actually planning on trying out the "Galaxy Grilled Cheese" recipe from the Wookiee Cookies book tonight. :) Also, since I'm headed over to London in the fall, I'll probably be eating slightly differently, so I'll post my thoughts on the London food scene as well.

Saturday: Picture Time - Just a picture, which I have taken with my own camera (so no Googling, or that's cheating), to express how I'm feeling.

Like I said, I won't follow this to the letter. I'll probably skip a day every once in a while, and I'll definitely be posting about other things as well. This was just a way of sorts for me to organize my thinking and my blogging strategy. I'm recently finding that I really don't like "schedules," per se, but I rather prefer "lists." I really don't like being confined, where I'm doing this activity from this time to that time, and then that activity from this time to that time and so forth. What if I'm having a really awesome time doing one thing and I don't want to stop and go on to the next quite yet? However, without any sort of structure, I find myself playing Sims 2 from like, 8 in the morning until 1 in the afternoon. Then I look around, realize I'm really hungry and wonder where the heck my day went. (I'm a bit slow.) This is why I'm really starting to like lists. They don't confine me as much as schedules do, but they give me enough structure so I know what I need to get done.

What I've actually found really useful is an app on my iPod, which cost me, I dunno, 99 cents in the App Store, called "EpicWin." (They have a blog here on blogspot! Granted, it hasn't been updated in six months so... yeah, but here's a link anyway. EpicWin App Blog) What it does is basically turn your life into a bit of a video game by turning all your tasks, such as "Do the dishes," "Turn in project," or "Defeat evil warlord," into battles, which you can "win" once you finish them and from which you can gain XP (that's experience points, for those of you who don't know), loot, and gold (not sure what you do with the gold though...). You can choose from different characters, such as a dwarf, a warrior, a girl warrior, a zombie skeleton king, and a tree, and level them up with your XP. Right now I'm a Level 8 Girl warrior: Mistress of Task Submission. This app really helps me keep things organized, as I like to put the in the order in which I'm going to do them. Yay! Organization!

So, in a way, I've already started this whole 'schedule' thing in talking about how I don't like 'schedules.' How ironic is that? Anyways, I've got to get those Galaxy Grilled Cheese Sandwiches going soon, so until next time!

~Becca

Writing Wednesday

Okay, so here it goes. This is a off-the-cuff, totally unplanned, mini-write-a-thon. I'm going to write for 15 minutes non-stop, using a few writing prompts and post it up here to see what we get. Here's the prompt:

Redefine the cliche phrase "ice water in her veins."

Ready, set, go!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It kinda burns, really. It's so cold it hurts. I clench my teeth and dig my nails into my palms, take quick, short breaths.

"Don't worry," the bespectacled doctor says. "We only need you to do this for five minutes while we get the sample."

"Okay," I say, through clenched teeth. You see, I'm sick. Terribly sick. I've been in the hospital for almost a year now, wasting away to skin and bones. There's something inside me that's eating me up. It makes me want to eat too, all the time. I eat and eat and stuff food in my face for like, 20 hours a day, and I'm still hungry and getting skinnier and skinnier. Right now I weigh 101 pounds. The doctors keep me constantly connected to a drip, trying to get nutrients inside me. That helps, but not much.

No one knows what's going on. They don't know what's wrong with me. And they're getting desperate. Which is why they are pumping ice water into me right now. Whatever it is that's inside of me is in my bloodstream, and for some reason, they could never find it. Whenever they tried, my body would heat up like crazy and the thing would move so fast, they wouldn't be able to catch it. It was actually me that suggested we cool me down. I figured, if this thing is making me hot so it can move, why don't we fight back? So here we are.

I feel like there are ice crystals forming in my veins. Like I have millions and millions of tiny slivers slicing through my flesh right now. It's so cold I can't even shiver.

"How much longer?" I ask.

"We're almost there," says the doctor with the glasses. "I can almost see it."

I glance up at the display screen. Right now it's showing the inside of one of my blood vessels. So strange. The doctors are all riveted, searching for answers.

"God damnit!" mutters one of them, the one operating the little camera tube. "It's heading for her heart!"

"Alright, that's enough, I'm pulling the plug." Nice glasses doctor reaches out towards the camera doctor, but he slaps his hand away.

"No! I've almost got it! I can get it, I swear!"

"Carson, get out of there! We don't know what that thing will do if it gets to her heart!"

The pain is getting worse. The ice is turning into coals. I feel like I'm burning again, only, I know that I'm not. I  look at my toes; they're white, almost blue.

"It hurts," I say, but both of the doctors either don't hear me, or ignore me.

"Oh my god," the bespectacled doctor whispers. He grabs the camera doctor's arm. "Get out! Get out of there!"

"What?" I say, twisting my head around to see, despite the deep, cold burning that's penetrating farther and farther into my body. "What is it?" I get a glimpse on the screen of something white, angular, and shaped like a mass of tree roots before, suddenly, there is a flash, and a stab of pain in my heart, like someone poured lava straight into the center of it, except completely opposite. There's a noise like a thousand panes of glass shattering, and then silence and whiteness.

When I next open my eyes, I have blink to make sure they're really open. The room is white. Well, not really white, but covered in ice and snow from top to bottom. I sit up and look around for the two doctors. It's quiet. Like New Years Day morning.

"Hello?" I call out, softly, my voice hoarse, like the wind. "Hello? Is anyone there?"

I see the tip of a polished black shoe poking out of a snowbank on the other side of the room. Leaping off the warm metal operating table, I tramp through the snow and grab the shoe, pushing piles and piles of it off of the man with my bare hands.

"Hey, are you okay?" I ask, worried. The nice doctor's face comes into view and I gasp. His eyes are frozen, literally frozen and clouded over like an ice cube, open in an expression of horror, and his face is covered in frost. One lens of his glasses is broken. He's dead for sure.

I stumble back into the metal operating table, knocking over a tray of instruments. My legs are white, whiter than white, nearly as white as the snow surrounding me. And I realize I'm not burning anymore. Or hungry, for that matter. In fact, I feel fine, even though I'm sitting in the snow in nothing but a hospital gown. I pick up a handful of it and it doesn't melt. It actually feels like flour. I grab the tray from the floor and turn it around to look at myself. I'm pale as a ghost.

"What's going on?" I ask no one. The metal tray clouds over with ice crystals and creaks, then shatters into shards in my hands.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And that's it. Kinda weird. I've been kind of into X-men and stuff for a while, so I can definitely see some of that in my story. I hope you guys enjoyed it!

Taking Over Me

So I realize it's been a little while since anyone has heard from me. My facebook has been pretty silent, in addition to my last blog update being a week ago. In most cases, that would mean that a person has been insanely busy for a while. Not really so in my case. Well, I guess in some ways, that has been so. Let me tell you what I've been up to.

1) Searching for and interviewing for jobs. I've driven 30 minutes across town to interview for jobs I didn't even get. :(
2) Babysitting children. Thankfully, one of my neighbors has offered to pay me to babysit her kids while she and her husband are out. They have two girls and two boys, all under the age of 5. Whew! Let me tell you, while I'm familiar with handling baby poop, I wasn't exactly thrilled with the prospect of dealing with it again. Also, it never ceases to amaze me how much energy little kids have. Seriously. It's like they are constantly on an adrenaline high. Still, the littlest one is pretty darn cute.
3) Helping out in the garden. My mom, when she first planted our garden, decided to border it with cinderblocks. Fast forward four years and there's tons and tons of grass growing through the holes in the cinder blocks, which she now wants removed. My sister and I were offered $200 to remove the cinderblocks, get rid of all the dirt and grass in and around them, put plastic lining underneath them (so the grass wouldn't grow back), and then fill the holes with rocks. Holy. Cheese. That was a very very very hot and un-fun job. Dirt and ants are not very fun. But now I'm $200 closer to London, so that's very nice.
4) The Sims. I used to be really into the Sims a while back and have just rediscovered my passion for it. I stayed up until 2 AM the other night playing god (kinda weird, I know) with the silly and sometimes frustrating people of Pleasantville. It got me thinking about God and the nature of God. I mean, sometimes I'll let a Sim wander around and do what he wants and he'll just set his kitchen on fire, let garbage pile up in his living room, and get fired from his job. And I'm just like "You idiot! Why would you do that!?" And I just have to wonder, does God ever feel that way about us?

So that's what I've been up to lately. I've also come up with an idea for blog posts. It'll be called "Writing Wednesday." Every Wednesday, I'll post something I've written for you guys to read. I think it'll really help me get back into the writing mood after school let out. I think I might even start today! :)

Weirdest. Dream. EVER.

So I just wanted to share this with you guys while it's still rather fresh in my mind. Ok, here goes.

I was getting ready for some sort of party, looking in the mirror, putting on my makeup and stuff when I realize, 'Hm. My face is really hairy. I should shave my beard.' I know I'm still me, still a girl, but I have a really hairy face. So I start shaving it. Only, this really irritates my skin and I get a giant zit on my cheek. It's seriously like a freaking unicorn horn. So of course I feel self conscious and don't go to the party. That turns out to be quite impossible though, because the party is happening on the floor above me in a large house. People come down to see where I am, and they laugh because my giant zit is giant. I feel gross and ugly. But then, suddenly, Flynn from Disney's Enchanted appears and all the girls flock to him because he's so handsome and roguishly charming. He flirts a little with them, but makes a beeline for me. I wonder why he does this, because he's already married to Rapunzel. It occurs to me that I might be Rapunzel. Awesome. He says that there's something downstairs that I should see, so we go down a set of stairs that lead to an empty room. He kneels down on the last step and pushes on a higher one, revealing a secret passageway that looks dark and creepy. We exchange knowing looks. But people from upstairs are curious and begin coming down to see what we are doing. Flynn and I know that this secret passageway should not be shown to anyone ever, so we try to close it up, but people see it before we are able to. They ask us where it goes and what it's doing there. We shrug and pretend not to know, but everyone keeps looking around to see if there are any other passageways. I try to distract them by saying that it's an old house and this was probably once a living room, as there is an old desk and piano in the corners. However, when Flynn looks behind a bookshelf, he sees another dark, scary passageway and quickly tries to hide it. Some other guy notices it though, and wants to know where it goes. Regina from Mean Girls suddenly appears and announces that everyone should go search the grounds to see if they can find the end of the passageway. Flynn and I know this is not a good idea, but there are too many people to dissuade now. He instead suggests that the guys should go down the passageway, and the girls should go search the grounds. I shake my head at him, knowing that when he goes down the passageway, he'll need me to save him. "You know it doesn't go like that," I say to him, but he doesn't listen to me. Suddenly we are walking around on the grounds, looking for anything suspicious. Someone finds a boarded up tunnel entrance, and I flashback to the moment I first found it. It had a sign hanging from the top of the entrance saying, "Come in and play my game. You're guaranteed to have a SCREAM!" I return from my flashback to people pulling down the boards and trying to go in. I scream out, "NO! NEVER AGAIN!" and begin backing away. People give me weird looks, but continue to try and enter the cave. Flynn and I back away slowly and then run back to the house. My mom follows us and asks what is in the cave. Flynn tells her that there will only be one survivor from that cave, and he will appear tomorrow night in the empty room at the bottom of the stairs, hanging from the ceiling, still alive, but horribly disfigured. There is nothing that we can do now but wait for him.


So that was my dream. Really odd, but it did feature my favorite Disney prince.

Gotta love that stubbly chin.