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

Psychedelic, Baby

 

I have developed a particular fondness for brightly colored hair.

The above picture is me in five years. (Yeah right; like my mom would let me do that.)

This is me now.
Well, as drawn by a KidPubbian friend. Unfortunately, it looks nothing like the real me. (Thanks to Calla for the AWESOME picture!!!)

In honest reality, this is me now. Yeah. (Nice picture, no? It's all lovely and abstract) Thankfully, I do have my cheap Claire's clip-in streaks, although the pink one got kinda frizzy at the bottom.
Yesterday it was my Grandma's birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GRANDMA!), and our whole family was over there last night. I was carrying some cupcakes outside when my ADORABLE four year old cousin noticed that my hair was, in fact, glowing.
The streaks are psychedelic.
OH. MY. WOOKING. YODA.
I have never felt cooler. Like, ever.
On a slightly different note, I'd like to inform you all that the 2012 LeNerd Bedroom Resdesigning has begun. My room, as of now, is soft pink with this velvet coating on it. Cute for a little kid, but not for me. Ideally, it will be neon green on one wall, neon pink on another, cork board on yet another and chalkboard pain on the last one. As long as we're talking about things that will never happen as long as my mom is supervising this, I'd also like a red door, hard wood floors and more bookshelves. (My Star Wars novels are taking up a lot of space.)
In reality, it will probably end up being one {neon} color, the same white carpet and a normal door. I'm planning on completely covering one wall with posters and pictures, but other than that, my ideal room is definitely not gonna happen.
However, I did win on the ideal bed. It's actually just two mattresses stacked on the floor, but I think it's mass awesome. I'm looking for the perfect blanket and sheets still (hopefully a black comforter cover with pink sheets), but we're halfway there.
I also rearranged my dressers so that they're on either side of the bed. They are wildly unmatching, but they both kinda match the bookshelves that I have stacked on top of them. Unfortunately, the bookshelves are not as big as I thought they would be, so I need more of them.
Here's the top yea's and nay's of my current room:

Cool but slightly out of place comforter cover- Nay.

Holographic trash can- Yae.

Crowded Star Wars novels- Nay. Star Wars novels themselves- Yae.

Bookshelves (organized by author, if I might add)- Yae.

Little kid-y pink walls- Nay.

Abraham Lincoln in Jamaican hat and dreds- YAE.


May the Force be ever in your favor.
xx Kati

More LeNerds

Today is Norbert's birthday, so I decided to make a little tribute for my three pets.

This is Rocco in one of his very rare calm lapses. He's five years old, completely trained and still convinced that he's a puppy, which means that if you pet him, he will tackle you and lick your face off.

This is our oldest pet, Cozmo. My pet raising experience has awared me of a personality defect: I definitely play favorites. Cozmo was a present for my third birthday, so he is not half as young as Rocco. He's pretty social, for a cat, and has a particular fondness of crawling into purses when we have guests. He used to come into my room when I was supposed to be sleeping when he was a kitten. Usually we had staring contests, which he usually won by pawing me in the eye, or he would jump on my bed and attack my feet. Now he is much less active and usually just sleeps in one of the warm, sunny places in our house, but he is still the best cat in the world.

That's Norbert. And this is pretty much all he does. He's one today. Happy birthday, you lazy little furball.

One of Rocco's favorite pass times is staring out windows, supervising the goings on of the outside world (be it birds, neighbors, cars or the Youngling.) and voicing his opinion on how they should proceed loudly enough to rouse both of his fellow pets.

Cozmo also has a serious weight issue going on. What used to be a small, fuzzy cat is now a large, fluffy glob of chub. Seriously. I can (and have) hid the Youngling's Lego minifigures in Cozmo's chunkiness and he won't find them until Cozmo gets up. It's quite amusing, especially when Rocco starts chasing him and he speed-waddles away, discarding Legos as he goes.

Once, Caribou was coming over and let herself in. Rocco, not knowing who it was, started growling menacingly from another room. He then came racing in to protect me- with his blankie. My hero.

May the Force be ever in your favor.

xx Kati

Melts and Maltitivity

Tonight I got a call from my four year old cousin, Bear, asking us if we wanted to go out to eat with them. Actually, it was the Youngling who answered the phone. After asking our mom if it was okay, he asked Bear if her parents had agreed to this. She promptly went to ask her mom, but I thought it was extremely amusing that it had even crossed the Youngling's mind that Bear had just picked up their phone and dialed our number to ask us out to dinner. I can totally picture the conversation:
Bear: Hey, this Youngling?
Youngling: Yeah.
Bear: It's Bear. Hey, wanna hit Snuffy's tonight?
Youngling: Uh, sure.
Bear: Great. Pick me up in five.
Anyways, we did end up going to Snuffy's Malt Shop later on. I haven't been there in, like, forever, and the last time I was there, I think I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich. So I had never really been exposed to true Snuffy's awesomeness. I ordered a California burger. (Yay for originality. *Sarcasm*.)
It. Was. Awwwwwwesome.
Seriously, you have not tasted a burger until you've tasted Snuffy's. I finished it in about five minutes.
Of course, you can't really go to a malt shop without ordering malts. So we did. I split a chocolate coffee malt (called chocofflate-we had a pretty heated debate about whether it was choco-ful-latte or choco-full-ate. Turned out to be choco-full-aht.) with my mom, the Youngling got a strawberry and Bear and her parents split a Fudge Scotchie. (Bear, having never heard of a malt, renamed them melts. She is SO adorable.) Bear's equally adorable baby brother, Mallow, had about an inch of a strawberry-fudge-scotchie in a little cup, most of which ended up smeared across his face.



The "melts", too, were Wooking amazing. I love Snuffy's whole theme, too; very muchly 50's and 60's rock, red cushion benches, juke box, and a personalized mural of Boulevard of Broken Dreams. It's so kewal.
Earlier today, I also found the Youngling surveying our front yard.

I didn't even ask.

May the Force be ever in your favor.

xx Kati

FALL | Part 1

As any true Minnesotan can tell you, fall is the season of three primary things (four, if you, like me, enjoy life's simple pleasures.)
1. The Minnesota State Fair
2. School
3. Weather change
And sometimes
4. Watching your family rake up all your leaves into giant piles and then jumping in them, thus depointalizing their efforts and screwing up your yard.
Yup, it's fall.
Well, school hasn't started quite yet, the weather is still 10wooking2 degrees, and all the leaves on our trees are still green and not on the ground. However, the state fair, at least, has begun. My parents tooks me and the Youngling to it on Sunday, so I can officially say that fall is upon us!!!!

Here's a picture of a tiny fragment of the massive amounts of people who usually come to the fair. I'm pretty sure one of the requirments for being Minnesotan is that you must attend the fair every year.

 

 

 

This probably goes without saying, but NO State Fair experience is complete without cheese curds. They are the building blocks of the fair, the foundation on which the great Minnesota get together sits upon, the sole reason a lot of people even come. Here's a little insider LeNerd secret: The best cheese curds at the fair are in the Food building, over in that corner where all they sell is huge masses of cheesy goodness. We also tried jalapenos stuffed with cheese and meat and wrapped in bacon (and then probably deep fried.). If you decide to try them, make sure you have something to drink nearby.

Sweet Martha's Cookies are also a must at the fair. They have two locations on the fairgrounds, but it is so worth the walk. I have yet to find a cookie more ridiculously delectable than these.

Lastly, as gross as it sounds, my new favorite state fair food is fried green tomatoes. Don't even ask; just buy.

We also spent a lot of time in the animal barns. I very much like the sheep barn, especially the adorable little sheeplings. Mostly they were just being boring and crowding in one corner to try and stay close to the fan, but they're just so CUTE.

Then we went to the poultry barn to see poultry such as

Ducks,

Chickens,

And bunnies. Not sure when bunnies were declared poultry, but hey, they're pretty cute.

We also went to the Midway, which has become considerably lamer over the years. My main interest was the roller coaster, so that was the first thing we did. The Youngling had never been on any roller coasters except for the Pepsi Orange Streak at the Mall of America, so it took a little coaxing to get him onto the ride. I convinced him that it was really fun and that it was over mass quickly, and that he wouldn't be able to feel the hills or loops at all.
Yeah. It turned out to be a little bit scarier than I had anticipated.
After that we stuck to his favorite fun houses and the Ferris Wheel.

So yeah. Pretty fair-y day at the fair.

We also had our school Open House last night, yet another sign that fall is on the way. I'm pretty happy with my locker and schedule. Me and Squid have a large amount of classes together (including gym- Thank Yoda), and W has LA with us. I covered my locker in pictures (like, covered-you can't really see the locker anymore.) and I already have my combo memorized. Yay. I'll try to get a few pictures of my locker if I get a chance, but until then:

May the Force be ever in your favor.

xx Kati