Hobbies~

1. Embroidery-I am currently working on a pillow case. It has a cupcake, Domo, turtle, mushroom, ladybug, and the lyrics to Swim  on it so far.
2. Knitting-I love to knit scarves and blankets. This year for Breanne and Sophie's gift, I knitted them scarves. For Sophie's birthday I knitted her bows. I also like knitting small blankets and clothing for my stuffed animals. Yes, I am that juvenile. Let's see, the first scarf I ever made was given to Madeline for a just because gift in 2nd or 3rd grade.
3. Reading-Whether it's magazines, comics, or novels, I am almost always reading. I usually read one book for school, one book for enjoyment, a comic book, and a magazine all within a week or two. I tend to read a tiny bit of each and then when I get bored with one I move onto another one and then I go back to it sooner or late. I am currently reading Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Van Alan Legacy, Pandora Hearts, Time, and Vogue. Quite a difference in genres from book to book isn't it?
4. Drawing-I like sketching pictures of people. They're cruddy most of the time, but I always get a compliment from people calling them "cute" or something along those lines. I also enjoy drawing frogs, tofu pillows, and pretty much anything cute. I also like making drawings that consist of symbols and lyrics. Most of the time these word/symbol drawings are dedications to Andrew's music.
5. Painting-I am currently working on a recreation of a Monet painting. It is one of his lily paintings. I could not find a picture of it online though. It is one of his lily paintings, where the water is a pastel pink/purple mixed in with muddy greens.
6. Going to Stores-I like going to vintage clothing stores, vintage furniture stores, and foreign food stores.
I love eating foreign I love eating foreign candy and chips. The furniture store is incredibly fun. You never know what you'll find. The pictures in this post are of things I found at the furniture store. One time I found a chandelier that had frogs playing violins on it.

RIP The Hand Me Down Kids

 It has come, yet another break up, another happily never after. The Hand Me Down Kids, who have become part of my top 5 favorite bands, broke up. After writing one of my favorite songs, how could they just end so abruptly? Supposedly the members just drifted away. Still, it's incredibly sad. Plus, I was about to send in a Fan Pic soon of me holding a sign for them...I think Lamoni said he was going to be part of a band called Kids Like This? I'm not sure, so if you could tell me, that'd be wonderful.

The Hand Me Down Kids Songs (In Order of how much I like them!)

• Despite the Distance
• College Girl Queen
• Liquor Makes a Liar
• The Comeback
• Heart to Molly
• I Wanna Waste My Time
• Vacate (Vacate never even made it out of the acoustic stage, how sad!) 

I'm going to miss them...RIP THMDK

MY BIRTHDAY GIFTS!

Hello once again! My birthday was on November 10th and today is the 16th. I hope it's not too late to write a post on it! So this was the very first year I went to school on my birthday. It's not because I'm a spoiled kid whose parents allow her to stay home on her birthday, it's because I never had school on my birthday due to Veteran's day. There's two boys at my school, who are twins, named Colin and Clyde who share the same birthday as me so as a joke we always scream, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" to each other. Then when I got home I had four hours of homework because that's how much my language arts teacher loves me. (Sarcasm. Just a little side note, my friend Hannie told me that I'm an overly sarcastic person...Is that true?) After that I had a dinner of my choice, which was curry udon! My favorite dish, but curry gives me stomach cramps....I should probably erase that. Then I had birthday pie! Yes, birthday pie because I usually don't like cake due to the fact that it's usually dry.  The only cake place I like was closed, unfortunately.

Now here's the part that describes the picture. It's all my gifts from various friends and relative!

Mom and Dad: A neon green purse, a donut pillow that I named Tadashi after my favorite character in SA, a silence+noise blazer (not pictured), and a book called What White People Like. (I can't underline anything for some reason...)

Madeline:  Harajuku pencil case, tokidoki for Target binder, a Book Thong(awesome name for book mark), and a homemade mustache pillow that is GIGANTIC!

Rebecca: A paper craft of me, these little baggies that I've been asking her for that are epic, and a little cell phone charm that looks like it's saying Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Maggie: A $15 itunes gift card

Tiffany: Two mamegoma folders, an angry pineapple, and a Domo-kun key chain/neck strap thing-y

Auntie La La, Uncle Mike, and Kenji: $50 bill

Grandma and Grandpa: $50 check

Sophie: Eventually a Chubby Bunny Pillow 

All the money is going to my traveling savings because one day I'm going to travel the world. Click on the picture to make it bigger!

Edit-I ended up returning the purse because it had this weird stain that we couldn't get out.

Dear Jack EP

Today is November 3rd and you know what that means? The Dear Jack movie, "Swim" art book, and the Dear Jack EP came out. (Does anyone know what EP means?) The Dear Jack movie is about Andrew McMahon's fight with acute lymphatic leukemia. I'm planning on getting it because I forgot to preorder it! (SHOCKING, I KNOW!) Anyways, I'm going to see if Best Buy or Target has it. If they don't, I'll just get it online. Now the "Swim" art book I'm not going to get. I don't need to be reminded about how bad my art is every time I open it up. Plus, I sent in a picture that I drew and it never made it in! (It's my secret shame, that's not that secret anymore...) The Dear Jack EP includes "There, There Katie", "Swim (MusicBox)", "Diane, the Skyscraper" and "Dear Jack", which are all being downloaded on to my ipod right now! "There, There Katie" is for his sister, who donated bone marrow for his treatment. It is one of my absolute favorites by him. The piano music is beautiful and calming. "There, There Katie" was originally called "Katie." I personally thought the song sounded better acoustic. It felt more raw and heartfelt. "Swim (MusicBox" is a lot more calming than the original recording, but I felt the original version was more powerful and inspirational. For some reason "Swim (MusicBox)" reminds me of the sensation of being underwater. "Diane, the Skyscraper" has more of a drumbeat than most of Andrew's other songs.  I'm pretty sure this song was originally just called "Diane." You know how sometimes when you're listening to a song, you just start envisioning what the music video should look like? I felt that the music video should be in black and white, with Andrew walking through New York looking up at the skyscrapers. His breath would leave in wisps of fog in the chilly air and the occasional scenes of him playing at a coffee shop or something of that sort with his band will pop up...And Diane will just walk in. That's about as much as I had planned. "Dear Jack" is set at a faster pace than the rest of the songs and has a bluesy feel to it. A third of the way into it, a slightly country feel hits it. Not the hardcore country about their horses and stuff, but more of a fast paced cheerful country song.  Then half way in, Andrew goes back to his slow powerful ballad ways. Anyways, here is the order in which the songs rank with each other:

• "There, There Katie"
• "Diane, the Skyscraper"
• "Dear Jack" and "Swim (MusicBox)" are tied...