New Years Resolutions | Before

Every year on New Years Eve, we have a family night with me, the Youngling, my mom, my dad, Rocco, Cozmo and Norbert (the last of whom usually just sleeps in his hamster bowl.). We have crab, which is ALWAYS amazing. Once we tried fondue, but the table started on fire. So. No. After that, we do our New Years Resolutions. We usually have 5 that we write down in the Sacred LeNerd Book of Stuff every year, along with a saying that we like. Then the next year we start our resolutions by going through our old ones and either putting a smiley face, a sad face, or a expressionless face based on how we did with the resolution, then write down our new ones. After that, we each get half an hour to do whatever we want with everyone else. So it's pretty fun.
Anyways, I actually looked at my resolutions before New Years (usually I just fail):
1. Write at least 3 times a week
2. Learn guitar or bass guitar
3. Create a blog
4. Be optimistic
5. Get a record player
So I actually did stuff. I wrote a lot, I can play Freight Train on the Youngling's guitar, I (obviously) made NIKI, I'm kinda optimistic (ha, yeah right) and yeah. I didn't get a record player, but I did buy an Alice Cooper record for my cabin which... doesn't count. But still.
After that, I flipped through the rest of the book and decided there were some things funny enough to make

THE 2012

SACRED LeNERD BOOK of STUFF

GRAND TOUR!!!



 

Fancy.

STOP ONE: 2005-2006

Resolutioner: The Youngling

I cannot get over how adorable this is. Three year old Youngling. HE'S SO CUTE.

 

STOP TWO: 2007-2008

Resolutioner: KT LeNerd

Okay, what the heck is this? It does not sound safe. I'm actually pretty sure this game was not actually a designated, titled activity, but just my very very exaggerative imagination working. 

How does one climb half a mountain...?

Pretty sure an eight year old can't legally start a business, but it's a smiley face, nonetheless.

And write a book??? The only finished book I've ever written is a seven page Jack and Annie fanfic when I was 5. But apparently I wrote one in second grade too.



WHY IS IT A STRAIGHT FACE? I was still learning single-handed Ode to Joy in second grade!

I also saw the Youngling's saying for this year:

Me: Whoa. That's... deep... He was, what, five when he said this? Seriously-

Then I saw my saying on the page before:

Me:..... Gotcha.

STOP THREE: 2008-2009
Resolutioner: The Youngling

.... What?
Resolutioner: KT LeNerd

.... Again, where did this come from?

STOP FOUR: 2010-2011
Resolutioner: The Youngling

I'm just gonna let this one speak for itself.
And then the next year...
STOP FIVE: 2011-2012
Resolutioner: The Youngling

In case we weren't clear. Note the actual, as opposed to.... what...?
More or less, he did manage to poke a cow at the State Fair (did I already say that in September?), so we'll see what he comes up with next.
Thus ends our pre-'13 tour. Stay tuned for New Years Resolutions | After, which will *hopefully* be out tomorrow!!!

xx Kati

Quick debriefing:

So...
The Council is over (actually, it was over a long time ago, but...). I only messed up once in the full cast scene ("Man has the right to the trees, waters, air, ground, and... ground...") which is wonderful. The day after our last show, I auditioned for our musical, Dear Edwina which is REALLY cheesy but pretty good. I'm Aphrodite.
I sing.
*head desk*
I don't know why I got the part, especially since I'm an alto and Aphrodite's highest note IS A FREAKING HIGH E. I'm working on it, though. No guarantees that it's anywhere near good, but still.
My Avengers obsession, as I'm sure you can tell, has swelled to an enormous addiction that is probably not healthy (I spend my free time talking to Tony and Steve and Tasha), but I utterly ADORE them. So much.
And my writer's block is over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have started up a sci-fi/romance/action novella (which is fast becoming a novel, since there's 3 chapters and 30ish pages) which is actually not as bad as I thought it would be. I will be releasing it on KidPub after Valentine's Day. (But I do need more editors, as right now I only have a very busy language arts teacher working on it which is awesome. Anyone interested please email me at nerd.i.know@gmail.com with your name, age and any past literary experiences)
The Youngling and I also filmed a few short videos starring children of the Avengers (so far we just have Peggy, i.e. me, the daughter of Stony, and Burt, i.e. the Youngling, the son of Bruce, who magically became pregnant one day. Also mentioned have been Shield, Nick Fury and a friend of mine's daughter, Jane, the daughter of Thor and my other friend, and the unnamed child of Clint and Tasha.) which are actually pretty funny, thanks to the creepy Anna Lee dolls that my grandma has that fall down on their own and thus seem alive. We also found an eyeless doll in the guest bedroom that almost made the Youngling wet himself. Ah, youth.
So that's about it. Thanks to everyone who is actually still reading this (my little two month break might've lost a few followers...)!!!

xx Kati

Xmas

WHAT I GOT FOR CHRISTMAS:

• Epyklly vintagey Avengers shirt

•  Avengers pajamas (courtesy of the Youngling)
  

•  An Avengers calender (complete with two whole Coulson pictures and a whole month of Loki- AHHH)
  

•  An absolutely amAZING phone case

•  Pens!!!!

•  Chunky action figures from my friend Sonoma

•  A Hulk transformer from my cousin

•  Nontransformer action figures from my cousin

•  Lego Loki (the Youngling knows me so well)

•  REALLY good Chapstick and

•  The freaking awesomest poster in the eight realms.
• And some other normal person stuff.

I bought the Youngling a Marvel Lego set, which he "couldn't fit in his room" so he's letting me keep it in my room. Guess who my best friend is.

Also, check the new lockscreen:

Clever, no? Ha ha....
Hope y'all had an awesome holiday season. Glad the world didn't end (stupid Mayans). My New Years Resolution is to post more, so I will see you in 2013!!!


xx Kati

LeNerd Update

First of all, I apologize for my extensive leave of absence. My only excuse for not posting in, like, forever is MIDDLE SCHOOL, which I think is a pretty good excuse as they go.
So an update on my life:
The Council is coming along wonderfully. I'm an extra in a almost-all cast scene, bringing my line count to a grand total of 13. Pretty sure I broke some personal records here. My main scene as Condor has seriously amazing special effects by our soundies and light crew, and my cheap feather boas that shed whenever I move are kind of awesome in it. I have mastered the art of saying "ow" believably thanks to a few hours of rehearsing my lines and snapping hair bands on my wrist. By the end of it I looked pretty depressed, I'm sure, but hey, anything for the show. Our first performance is on Wednesday for the sixlets at school and yeah, I'm pretty excited. (Stay tuned this week for a clip of the show)
Halloween was also kind of awesome. I decided upon the Corpse Bride (sorry, voters!!!) and bought a wedding dress from Goodwill. Wow, that sounds lame. Caribou made my veil (awww) and we destroyed the dress slightly with scissors so yeah, it worked. I took Bear and Mallow and the Youngling trick or treating too. Bear was Cinderella (although she wanted very desperately to be a fairy again) and Mallow was a dinosaur and oh my Thor they were adorable. Unfortunately the first house we went to was by far the scariest, so Mallow kind of lost it everytime we went up to a house. I also went Goth at school this week (complete with eye makeup) which was pretty fun.

Also I have a new obsession. Like a serious, burning, fiery purple passion of love obsession. Like a scarily strong, possibly slightly unhealthy obsession. With

So that makes life that much awesomer. AREN'T THEY MARVELOUS???? (See what I did there? Ha ha...) My friend Marvel introduced me to the awesomeness with her amazing comics that were originally for her brother but have since become my personal obsession. The art is fantastic and she comes up with the storyboard herself, which ordinarily would mean the plot isn't good but in this case it's awesome beyond belief. Anyways, last weekend I watched Captain America (when I should've been doing my homework) and then Thor (when I should've been monitoring the Youngling) and then the absolutely completely unbelievably amazing The Avengers. So yeah, I kind of love life right now.

So that's about it. I guess I'm boringer than I thought.

 

May the Force be ever in your favor (Please see side bar to help me with a new closing!),

xxKati

Writer's Great Wall of China (and the lovely side effects)

Part of being able to fancy yourself a writer is being able to accurately diagnose yourself with Writer's Block. I'm far past the point of Writer's Block now. It's fast becoming Writer's Great Wall of China.
*sigh*.
This is a bit of a problem as I went through two whole half novels last year (rough draft, mind you, and one was in verse. Neither were even close to decent.) and now cannot even come up with an acceptable plot line. It's incredibly discouraging and, most unfortunately, lasts for long periods of time.
But in the mean time, I've been spending the time that I used to use to write wasting my life on the Internet.
Today I used it to see if WebMD diagnoses Writer's Block. My symptoms were as follow:

• Headaches
• Binge eating (okay, not really, but I do get hungry when I'm bored)
• Decreased school performence
• Dizziness (but that might have something to do with the fact that I sleep, like, seven hours a day. *sigh*)
• Fatigue (see above)
• Food cravings
• Hunger (this is getting redundent)
• Short Attention Span
• Socially withdrawed (that one's just my nerdiness kicking in)

So I most likely have viral syndrome, but there's also a possibility I have anorexia, mumps, diabetes, schizophrenia, tuberculosis, pregnancy or Mad Cow Disease. So. There's the undying reliablity of the Internet for ya.
I also spent two hours reading and rereading and having the depressing little voice that comes with the software read my science textbook- which, I might add, is 10th grade biology. Aw yeah. Unfortunately I understood about 3% of it, and that was only because I decided to compare the structures of cells to Jell-O. Even with that ground-breaking analogy, I failed to grasp the subject. So if anyone out there has read and understood Chapter 3 of the Holt & McDougal Biology textbook, my email is on the side bar.
On a happier note, my grandparents, who have season tickets to my utterly favorite theater, cannot use their tickets to Billy Elliot tonight so GUESS WHO'S GOING TO A MUSICAL TONIGHT?!?!?! Yeeeeesssssssssssssss! I've already seen the play with my cousin and it's pretty Wooking epyktastical. So. Am I psyched out of my mind? Yes.
In (honors) LA, we are reading The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt, and it's rather awesome. We are doing a whole load of Shakespeare stuff with it and IT IS LIKE THE ONLY THING IN THESE CLASSES THAT I UNDERSTAND. Kewally enough, I am the only one in my class who fully gets it, which is probably because I'm the only one dorky enough to worship Shakespeare. Zack, Kiki, Isaac and I (plus a few other guys) are working in a middle school production of Hamlet, which is my mass favorite play EVER, and guess who is Ophelia.
Yes.
You're talking to her.
Kiki's in charge of hair and makeup and she thinks I would portray my character better if I dyed my hair the same color as hers (i.e. pink), which has created some debate on the set. (To see the issue's first mentioning, check out the most recent comments in the NIKI Book tab.) Make sure you vote on the newest poll to help us settle this dispute!!!
Lastly, I have rediscoverd kpop. And yes, I am obsessed. (Specifically with G-Dragon from BigBang and 2NE1.) It's just. So. Fantastic.
So. That's about it. Time to try to understand the moucular buildup of cells.
Oh yeah, congradulations to the ever amazing L.S. Tredom on KidPub, who is currently celebrating his SECOND YEARAVERSARY!!!!! YEAH!!!! Happy yearaversary, dude. We all love ya. (The phenomenalness begins here)

May the Force be ever in your favor,
xx Kati

Chomped by the Trojans

AHHHH!!! Weasel!!!!
Actually it's a fisher (I think). Regardless, his name is Shirley and he is on my cabin wall and I love him most dearly. My cabin is extremely outdoors-y (almost cheesily so) and is in an isolated part of an isolated town in an isolated section on Minnesota. The town is one of those small towns that are so small, they don't put the population on their little green welcome sign. But I utterly adore it. I spent the weekend there, and it SNOWED on the way there. Real snow!!!! It's Wooking October!!!

Another great thing about fall? Homecoming. YEAH. I went to our game in the past few weeks with the ever awesome W, who painted her eyebrows and nose white and blue with my face paint. At our high school, there is a large hill that most of the middle schoolers simultaneously gather on to talk and not watch the game, which is what we did. The only downside was that it was windy and the hill's grass has long since been uprooted by middle schooler's feet and was thus VERY dusty. My Vans turned kind of orange. Also, the hill is extremely steep, so (and being me probably did nothing to help this) I fell about 80 times. On the bright side, it was also increasingly easy to push people into other people, which is extremely immature but never gets old. So I spent the first half listening to people and shoving them into others. Then it was half time, and we were losing by 14, and apparently the half time show was extremely cool but I wasn't aware that it was going on, so I don't know if it was. My loving father said that a helicopter could've landed on the field and we wouldn't have noticed. Probably true.
I spent the second half terrorizing talking with Pony and his friends (actually, it ended up being a surprisingly civilized and amusing conversation), who are actually very much hilarious. We ended up losing the game by 14, but I wasn't too upset about that as my cousin plays for the opposing team (the Trojans).
As for our homecoming attire, I think I'll have to add on an "ed by" after the "chomped":

*sigh.*

 

On a totally unrelated note, the Youngling has taken a liking to Andrew Lloyd Webber. I feel my duty as an older sister is complete. A few weeks ago, he was humming something and I told him it sounded like Variations 1-4. Obviously, he didn't know what that was, so I showed him it and he is now obsessed with it. He's borrowing my Andrew Lloyd Webber CD, and I cannot tell you how proud I am when I walk past his room and he's listening to Jesus Christ Superstar or Magical Mister Mistoffelees or the Phantom of the Opera theme. When I was babysitting him a few days ago, I made him watch Joseph and the Amazing Technicolored Dreamcoat, which, although he refuses to admit it, I think he really liked. He thinks Pharaoh's Song and the "block-head dancers" are hilarious, and I found him watching Potiphar on YouTube this morning. And coincidentally, Donny Osmond was on Johnny Bravo this weekend. It was pretty much the funniest thing ever.

 

 

 

May the odds be ever in your favor,

xx Kati

(thanks to playbill.com and armchairactorvist.blogspot.com for pictures)

Happy October

I could seriously not be more excited that it is October.
Yes, September's awesome in its own Septembery ways, but October's just... October.
As October is arguably my favorite month, this post is going to be 100% (you guessed it) Octobery. Here we go.

October got its name from the Roman emperor, Octavian Caesar (also known as Caesar Augustus), and the Latin root "octo", meaning eight. In the Roman calender, October was the eighth month. (Click here for more October history)

Our school's drama club held auditions for the one act play, Council, last week, and believe it or not, I got a part. An admittably small part (6 lines, 1.5 scenes), but a part none the less. My name is Condor. I'm a condor. I did not know what a condor was until I read the script and Googled it. (It's a bird. A bit of an ugly bird, too.) Yeah, it's not the big lead I was hoping for, but I'm still very much psyched to be in it. October is our rehersing month, with the 29th-3rd being tech week, and we open in November. It's a pretty crunched time period, but I think I already know my lines.

Halloween, as I'm sure everyone's aware, is also in October (YES). I adore Halloween. Everything about it is just awesome. Unfortunately I'm getting a bit old to trick or treat, but who cares? For costume options, I kind of had trouble deciding between

The ever awesome Wednesday Addams,

An equally fantabulous flapper girl,

The amazing-beyond-words Dead Bride and

Ruby Gloom. Ruby is the star of my all time favorite, G-rated TV show, Ruby Gloom. I wasn't quite sure if she was really in the running until I saw this amazing picture:

 So. That pretty much narrows it down to the Bride and Ruby. (Please make sure to vote on the second poll with your opinion!)

This October, me, my mom and my grandma are also going to CHICAGO for a few days, which I am utterly thrilled about. I'll keep you posted on that when it comes up.

Lastly, fall is officially here.

Leaves and serious weather changes (it's freaking 40 degrees)? Check.

State fair? Check. 

School and all the, ah, loveliness that comes with it? Check.

One step left. I'll have to go get the Youngling to rake up some leaves for me.

May the Force be ever in your favor,

xx Kati

(Please note that I don't own any of the Halloween pictures. Thanks to Sounds From my Garage for the Wednesday picture, Scavenge Costumes for the flapper girl picture, Laura-Ferreira for the Dead Bride picture, Ruby Gloom wiki for the first Ruby Gloom picture, and LavenderYuki for the second Ruby Gloom picture. All rights to them)



 

MISSION: COMPLETE

Oh. My. Wooking. Yoda.
Can't even talk. Just look:

 

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! It's done!!! Look at my MASS WOOKING AMAZING ROOM!!!!
Over the weekend we emptied my room pretty much completely and painted the dressers, bookshelves and walls white. After reassembling the room and adding those Jedily awesome bed covers, we finished everything else, resulting in the best room in human history.
Best features of the room:

• A wall of my favorite posters including Star Wars, the Addams Family and, yes, Albert Einstein

• my desk, dry-erase calender, greenboard and chair that the Youngling put together all by himself

(note the trash can!!!)

•  These cool green shelves that were at one point on my walls and now hold my Shakespeare books, plus the same bedside table and these drawers from my mom's computer area

• This fantabulous bed that cannot be described in words (Different note: Bear and Mallow came over to check out the room and literally could not stop rubbing their faces on the throw. They had to be lured away by the Youngling with stuffed animals and toy cars.)

• A RED DOOR!!!!

And last but DEFINITELY not least...

• This. I can't even describe how awesome this is. Thanks to the ever inspirational Pinterest, my mom found this design and replicated it with me and Caribou. In case you don't have supersight like the rest of us and can't see the picture very well, it's a heart of pictures. I utterly adore it. It's impossible not to smile around it. It's just awesome.

 



May the Force be ever in your favor,

xx Kati

 

Phase Two Status: COMPLETE

Yes, that's right folks, we're ONE WHOLE PART CLOSER TO THE END OF THE 2012 LeNERD BEDROOM REDESIGNING!!!!! (That's fun to spell)
After a full day at IKEA and Walmart, we have reached our $100 budget for the redesigning. Behold:

 These lovely bed coverings (black mattress cover for the bottom mattress, pink for the top one plus pink sheets, letter-y comforter cover and FUZZY GREEN THROW!!!! Also a crazy big assortment of pillowcases.)....

This utterly amazing colorful lamp...
4 corkboard squares, a calender whiteboard and a magnet board whose pictures refused to turn out...

AND THESE WOOKING AMAZING STAR WARS COLLECTER CARDS!!!!! Yayyy aw!!! We actually got three of these lovely little tins (one for me, one for the Youngling and one to Mod Podge on a wall or something), which each contain a pack of the most memorable ESB scenes and a pack of international Star Wars movie posters, all little-itized onto these cute little cards. The movie posters truly are awesome:

Hungary...

Spain...

Germany...

Japan...

and China.

Plus this cool abstracty USA one. Star Wars, will you never cease to amaze me?
We also painted those mismatchy dressers and attempted to paint the equally mismatchy bookshelves, but only the dressers turned out. They now match the future color of my room (i.e. cottage white) so they will kinda look like built ins, as will the bookshelves once we find good ones at IKEA.
On a separate note, the end of school is now two weeks closer! :D Okay, actually it's not that bad. My teachers, upon further inspection, are all better than mediocre and I found Pony's locker (yay for stalkerism!) with the help of his adoring, ah, fan, Cherry (who is also my friend, so I guess I won't go too in depth with that drama). My utterly least favorite class ever, gym, got actually tolerable this week, too. Since there's only like twelve boys in our gym hour, we switched classes so that it's now two all girl classes and one all guy class. And this is brilliant in every possible way. Having just girls means we have luxuries such as

• Yoga
• No football
• Kickboxing
• Nature walk (not quite sure what that is...)

HALLELUJAH!!!!
Lastly, my church's Youth Group kicks off tonight with our annual bonfire, which I am attending with Squid, Cherry and my lovely faux leather jacket that, according to the Youngling, makes me look like a Harley Davidson dude. I made some homemade (a.k.a. Bettie Crocker mix) brownies with a gourmet icing (a.k.a powdered sugar dumped in cool little lumps in various places). I'm sure they'll amaze. (Shhh... as far as anyone knows, they're homemade. And also fancy.)

xxKati