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A Great Weekend

Yesterday started out pretty slow, but it got better.

I woke up around 10:10, took a shower, then watched Avatar: The Last Airbender (2 episodes every Saturday morning on Nickelodeon from 11 am-12 noon!). About 10 minutes before the second episode was over, Jason (my brother) called to see if I would be willing to take him to the library. I said sure, I'd be there after the show was over.

We went to the library, and Jason couldn't find the book he was really looking for, but he checked out a different book instead. We tried to get him a new library card (he keeps losing his), but they require either a school ID or a report card to show that he is who he says he is. And Jason's also lost his school ID. He used my library card to check out the book.

After that, Jason and I went to McDonald's for lunch. He still had a gift card from Christmas, so he treated me to lunch yesterday, and considering he's not yet 12, that was pretty cool.

Jason finally got to see my new place yesterday. We ate our lunches here in the kitchen, then I gave him the full tour of the place. He thought it was pretty neat.

A little while later, Anna and I went over to Patrick J.'s house to meet everybody (Kayla, Jason O., Devon, Kendra, Patrick J., & Cassie) to go hang out. Cassie took a wrong turn when she was trying to get to Patrick's house, so we just met her and Kayla in the church parking lot.

We went to the good theater to see Wild Hogs. It was HILARIOUS.

After that, we decided to go to Jason's house, where he'd order pizza--Anna was hungry.

When we got there (Anna, Cassie, Kayla and I all got there before Jason and the others), Brother and Sister O. were watching Monster-in-Law with another lady, so we all decided to watch it with them. That was an awesome movie.

Then we all talked for a while while we decided what to watch next. Finally, we decided on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which was actually the first one anyone suggested. It was okay--not good enough to be one of my favorites, but not bad either.

After League, we all decided to go home. There was a pretty thick fog, so Anna drove slowly until we got back to Liberty Rd. She finally dropped me off around 1 am-ish.

After that, I got ready for bed and went to sleep--I didn't even do any reading or turn the TV on sleep like I usually do. I was exhausted.

This morning, Sister G. called me at 7:45 (half an hour before I had to get up!!!) to ask me to let Jen C. know about something that she was doing this morning. I knocked on Jen's door, but it sounded like she was in the shower, so I slipped a note under her bedroom door and then went back to sleep until 8:15 when I had to get up and get ready for church.

My left knee had been bugging me off and on yesterday, so I put on my knee brace this morning too. It started to feel better somewhere between Relief Society and choir practice, but I'm not sure exactly where. Just a few minutes ago, I took the brace off because it was starting to chafe, but then I had to answer the door and go up and down the stairs to see if one of the Jens were here, 'cause that's who the person at the door was asking for.

Yes, I actually went to choir practice today. My allergies and throat were actually cooperating today, so I figured I'd better take the opportunity to do some singing. We practiced "All Glory, Laud and Honor" for the Easter sacrament meeting coming up, and then we started on another hymn--I can't remember the name of it, but it's fun because there are a lot of eighth note-double sixteenth note combinations, so it kind of sounds like mini trills.

Dad was at my ward this morning, and he asked after the third hour if I wanted a ride to his house, but I told him I was staying for choir and I had stuff to do at home (like get lunch) first. He added that if I drove myself, I wouldn't have to get someone there to drive me back home afterward, and I said that yeah, that's probably a good thing too. According to Dad (and he would know, since he's the main cook of the family) we're having lasagna. YUM!

Scriptures/quotes from this week:

3 Nephi - The Savior's visit to the Nephites
Moroni 10
1 Nephi 19:9

In Sunday School, we went over the last half of the Sermon on the Mount, and we found things in Matthew chapters 6 & 7 that true disciples should and shouldn't do.

The Relief Society lesson today was about Elder Bednar's talk from the October 2006 General Conference called "And Nothing Shall Offend Them." Here are some good paraphrases from the lesson:

To be offended is a choice we make. It is not something afflicted on us by others. We can't blame the other person just because we took offense to something they did or said.

Try not only to not be offended, but also try to be careful not to offend others.

If a snake bites you, you have two choices:

1. You can curse the snake, yell at it, abuse it, or any amount of other things done or said in anger at the snake's action.
2. You can go immediately to get help to get the poisonous venom out of you before it kills you.

So it is with being offended. You can choose either to be angry and take offense to something someone says or does to you, or you can take a moment to think on the situation and do your best to get the poisonous feeling of anger out of you as soon as possible.

One of the sisters said that she tries to see the other person the way the savior sees him or her. Often, the other person doesn't realize that what they've said could be taken as offensive, so looking at it from the other person's point of view may help to keep you from taking offense as well.

And now, for my favorite quote of the day:

And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?
~ Alma 5:26

Why I Like the Disney Channel

Up until a couple nights ago, I had only really recorded things (shows, movies, etc) from the Disney Channel on my new VCR/DVD-Recorder. But then I wanted to record The Mask of Zorro onto DVD, so that I'd have it. I only had The Legend of Zorro, since my parents were the ones with the first movie before I moved.

Mask was on ABC Family a couple nights ago, and I wanted to record it without the commercials, so I watched it while it was recording.

Oh my gosh, it took FOREVER!

See, on the Disney Channel, no matter what you're watching, there's never more than 3 or 4 commercial breaks. And for movies, the first commercial never comes before the first half-hour is up. But ABC Family, while it was showing The Mask of Zorro, had commercials every ten minutes! It made a 2 hour and 10 minute movie into THREE HOURS! That just made me all frustrated, because I couldn't even really go downstairs and do something else between commercial breaks--heck, I couldn't even read in my bedroom at that time, because a commercial break could come up while I was in the middle of a sentence!

GAH. That just made me appreciate the Disney Channel even more than I already do because of its good, clean, fun shows and movies.

Last night, Patrick J. came over to watch Smallville, and I forgot that I wanted to record A Cinderella Story (which was on ABC Family) while it was on, so I didn't get that movie.

I don't know whether to be bummed that I missed getting a copy of the movie for myself, or relieved that I won't have to worry about sitting through the commercials when I re-copy it later to VHS and then back to DVD without commercials, like I'm going to have to do with my recording of The Day After Tomorrow.

Before he left, Patrick and I got to talking about books and things, and he told me how he would try to read 7 or 8 books at a time (from the library) and then get all burned-out on reading. I told him how I tried that a couple Spring Breaks ago with the Dragonriders of Pern series and reading 8 books in 8 days. That experience pretty much ruined me for reading more than two books in a row. And I still can't read for hours on end like I used to be able to--I have to take a break from minutes to days in length between groups of 3 or 4 chapters before I pick a book up again.

Anyway, I told Patrick about the Song of Ice and Fire cycle by George R. R. Martin, and he thought it sounded cool, so I let him borrow my copy of A Game of Thrones. If he likes it, then I'll probably let him borrow the other books in the series as he gets to them. As soon as LibraryThing is back up and running, I'm going to make a note in the tags for GoT that Patrick is currently borrowing it.

2 down, 48 to go . . .

I finally finished Anna Karenina yesterday, around 3pm. WHEW!

The reason it took me so long to read it (two months, the longest it's ever taken me to read anything except The Book of Mormon--including the 2 weeks it took for Little Women) is because I sort of had to psyche myself up to read it every time I wanted to sit down and do it.

See, the whole book is set in 19th century Russia, and is about people in the Russian aristocracy. The customs, clothing, cities, and even the characters' thoughts were all strange to me, so to understand even a little bit of it, I had to concentrate really hard on what I was reading. So, I couldn't really read before bed or anything like that--I had to be mentally awake. That severely cut down the amount of time I could read, and I couldn't read more than 9 or 10 chapters at a time for the same reason--it all just started to run together after a while.

I posted a review of the book at LibraryThing which is more of a rant than a real review, but read it if you like.

I've got 48 books left now, to reach the 50-book challenge posted a couple months ago on the Lois & Clark Fanfic Message Board. So, yesterday I decided that for the next book, I was going to choose one that was shorter, and more modern. That way, it wouldn't require too much concentration and I could read it faster. Not to mention, my brain needs a rest from all that cerebral-ness.

Around midnight last night, I realized that I hadn't yet chosen a book, and since it was so late and I just wanted to go to sleep, I didn't go down to the computer to use LibraryThing to figure out what I had. I just chose a book that I could see just by looking at the shelves upstairs.

I decided I was going to re-read my Harry Potter books. That way, I'll have books 3-8 out of 50 in the bag, and I'll be prepared when book 7 comes out on July 21 (two days before my brithday, yay!).

Ah, Sunday

I forgot to put some paper in my bag so that I could write down the scriptures again, and I got there too late to get a program, so I didn't write any down. However, I did manage to write a quote on one of the blank pages at the beginning of my hymnal. I'll type it in later.

The two talks during sacrament meeting were about modesty of the women (and young women) of the stake, and about the relationship between husbands and wives. Sunday school was a lesson on the Beattitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, and the teacher focused on Matthew chapter 5 and 3 Nephi chapter 12.

In Relief Society, the lesson was on prayer.

My roommate, Kayla's mom and two of her brothers, Garret (6) and Nathan (8) are staying at our house for a few days. Her grandma is also in town, but she's staying at Kayla's uncle's house. Garret and Nathan are adorable, and Sister Miller and her mother taught me a new card game called 13. We also played The Settlers of Catan a couple of times this weekend.

Dinner tonight was Indonesian Chicken--YUM! I taught Jason how to play 13, and then we played a bunch of other games like Checkers, Backgammon, and Mormon Trivia. We both managed to get six spires, but we had both been in and out of the "cloud" a few times by nine pm, so the last time I got the question wrong, we decided to just call it a tie since Jason had to go to bed and I had to go home.

Here's the quote I liked from sacrament meeting:

Good friends should never embarrass you, demean you, or exploit you.
Neither should your clothing.

~Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

The only problem I see with that is that many people have been wearing demeaning clothing for so long, they're no longer embarrassed by it. Otherwise, it's a great guide for modesty.

The Target Thing

Heather,

If only it were that simple.

The target I got is actually a 3-inch-thick square of hard foam. It's not paper or anything like it, so it can't really be pinned to anything. It's got two metal legs that you're supposed to stick into the sides and then lean the target with the ends of the legs on the ground.

I just need some sandbags or bricks or something to keep the legs in place, and to put in front of/behind the target itself, so that the force of the arrows going into the target (it's a compound bow, so it's pretty powerful) doesn't knock the target over.

On a side note: the only thing I don't like about BlogSpot is that there isn't a "reply to the comments" feature, like on LiveJournal. I either have to post a comment to my own entry, or make a new entry if I want to answer comments posted by other people.

Busy Week

Monday was the usual craziness--I had to get my allergy shots after work, and then I had to wait until Jen R. was done with the machines so that I could do my laundry. I didn't get dry jeans until Tuesday.

After work on Tuesday, I stopped off at Fox's Sport & Bait store to get my bow re-strung. It was pretty cool. The guy there had this machine with four wheel things on it. Two of the wheels went on the outside of the bow, at the ends, and then the other two went in the middle of the bow, right where the arms join the handle. The two wheels in the middle got pushed down as the guy turned a crank, and that bent the bow enough so that he could get the string into place.

I also bought half-a-dozen Venture carbon arrows, and got to watch while the guy cut them to the right length (26 inches, as opposed to the 29-inch arrows I got before) and put in the inserts to hold the tips. I bought tips, of course, and a target.

It was about 6:30 when I got home, so I got some dinner and sat on the computer for a while. Then, a couple sisters from the Relief Society presidency came to welcome me to the ward and give me a list of all the sisters in the ward.

Yesterday, I actually managed to get home on time and managed to get in two rounds of archery practice before I felt hungry enough for dinner. The target kept jumping around whenever it was hit though--I think I'll grab a few bricks from my parents' back yard to help keep the target steady next time.

A while later, Anna showed up so that I could look at and beta read the next chapter of her story. But first, we went to Auto Zone so she could buy some new wiper blades, and to Wal-Mart so she could get a few other things.

When I was almost done beta reading the chapter, Kimba called Anna asking if she wanted to go to Kohls and get some new shirts. So, Kimba came over, and the three of us then went to Kohls. I tried on about five shirts, but none of them looked right, so I ended up just getting a new set of black sheets, so that I could put them on my bed when I wash the red ones.

Tonight, Smallville is a new episode, so I'm going to watch that. Other than taping two episodes of Phil of the Future though, I don't have much else to do.

Maybe I'll actually take some time and type up one or two of those fanfics I've been meaning to write. Or I could use the time to get even closer to the end of Anna Karenina, because seriously, it's taken almost two months for me to get through the first six parts, and that's just ridiculous!

It's Official!

As of about ten minutes ago, I am now officially moved in!


Seriously. All the bins are un-packed, my books are on the shelves and catalogued, and everything has its place--even my bow, which I need Dad to re-string for me.

According to LibraryThing.com, I have 514 books total. I know I'm missing at least four though, so it's more like 518. I'm missing the Chronicles trilogy of DragonLance, and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. And, yes, I'm certain I had them before.

I promised Patrick J. that I'd take pictures once I got my books all shelved and such, so here they are. The picture to the left is the white book case in the first-floor TV room.

The picture to the right is the book case on the right-hand side of the third-floor nook, and the final one is the case on the left-hand side.


On the top shelf of each book case are only either Harry Potter books or books written by Orson Scott Card. The Orson Scott Card books are there because he's my favorite author, and the Harry Potter books are there because they're pretty much the only series with books that are all the same size that would fit on the top shelf of the right-hand book case.

For those interested, the "cloud" of words on the right-hand side of my main blog page will take you to my "library" of books at LibraryThing.com. It's a great online book database, and it's got all these nifty quirks and perks.

It's free for up to 200 books if you catalogue your own. After that, a yearly membership is $10, and a lifetime membership is $25. I decided that a lifetime membership was definitely worth it to be able to keep track of all of my books without hassle, so I forked over the $25 last week.

Snowed In . . . Yet AGAIN

I got snowed in again today. That's all I've got to say about that.

Over the last week and two days, I've managed to get five more bins over (actually, Uncle Andy brought them over for me last Sunday, because my car was at Fitzgerald for a recall). Today, I just finished cataloguing the last of the books in those five bins. I even shelved 3 bins' worth of books! I've got my own, special location codes that I use at LibraryThing in my tags.

I've added a widget at the side of my blog so that people can see a list of random authors whose books I have.

Gabe at work told me about this place called Demonoid.com where people can download stuff using BitTorrent. He had to e-mail me an invitation to Demonoid, so I gave him my e-mail address. We've been e-mailing back and forth, and we both agree that a certain other person we work with is a bit creepy. Talking in the office at work is kinda weird--it's just so quiet, and it kind of feels like talking is taboo, even though it's not.

Yesterday, I went to lunch at Beans, Bagels & More with Gabe. It felt good to actually TALK in the middle of the day like that. We might go bowling on Saturday.

Gabe's cool and all, but I hope he's not expecting much more than friendship. I mean, he's fun to talk to, and we have a lot of the same interests, but I don't have any physical attraction to him at all. And although that's not the first (or even second, third, fourth or fifth) thing I look for in a guy, for anything more than friendship, it's still pretty important.

My bow is still at my parents' house, and so are the last two bins of books. I'll probably get them all on Sunday.

I should probably shovel the sidewalk and the back path today if I'm going to get out tomorrow morning, but my back hurts from lugging the bins up the stairs so that I could catalogue and shelve them.