Productive-o

I actually did something productive today. (grin) Proud of me? And it wasn't even something I completely procrastinated on, either! Well, actually I did, because I've known about it since September, and it's due on Thursday. But still, two days ahead of schedule!! Woot. Bring on the celebration. Ya, I finished my song. It kinda stinks, but at least I've got something to turn in now lol. And it's two days ahead of schedule. Go me. All the way. And another woot. =)

Mmk, so a couple of funny stories...

Now, class, meet Adam. Typical friend. Choir friend. Has the uncanny ability to make anyone laugh whether it's on purpose or not. Like today. He interrupted Baggett's "No Distractions" lecture in the middle of choir by falling off the top of the risers/steps, and spent a little quality time getting to know all the backpacks he landed on. And laughing his head off. Of course, I don't really think he did it on purpose (I think his friend Ben pushed him, honestly), but Baggett had to put his "Distractions" lecture on hold while he laughed. But of course the teacher never laughs as hard as the students, and we had a heck of a time finishing the song that Baggett had already distracted us from with his "No Distractions" lecture. The irony is just sickening.

Moving on to Friend B. I must keep her anonymous, because, for some reason, she gets embarassed over seriously odd things. I honestly think Adam had a lot more reason to be embarassed than Friend B(and he was...completely beet red, I tell you), but I'll be nice. Kinda. Anyway, so sitting in 6th period, with my two other classmates (gotta love independant study =]) and Friend B started eating her lunch. She started with the main course, of course, (a piece of pizza that was picked to pieces while she unearthed...or uncheesed...every little mushroom and olive on it) and then went on to her banana. It was then that her audience (Me, and Friend K)realized that she has a couple screws loose. She doesn't peel her banana's right! Most people, while holding the banana in their left hand, grab the top, and peel the skin about halfway down in 1-2 inch strips. Not Friend A, though. Nope, she took the top in her right hand, split the skin, and using a fingernail just slit it down the side, like a zipper and just popped the thing out! We gave her a hard time for that. I just had to point out that even MONKEYs peel them right. Generally, anyway. It's just a well known fact. There is ONE way to peel banana's and one way ONLY!

Geeze. Some people's chitlins.

It was still rather amusing.

C'est amusent or something like that.

And why am I not napping? You got me...

My mind has been rebelling against me as of late (no it's not!!! What am I talking about?)

I'm just gonna let that one sit for a while if you didn't get it.

Anyway, my head never thinks I've gotten enough sleep. Ever since I got sick (nearly three weeks ago) I have taken every opprotunity available to take a nap, go to sleep at seven (or better yet, six), or sleep until noon. Unfortunately the latter is hardly ever actually an option. The other two on the other hand, have been taken full advantage of, and my head still hasn't recognized that I HAVE actually gotten a reasonable amount of sleep, and NO, I don't need to take ANOTHER three hour nap, no matter how lovely it sounds.

Anyway, that part of life kinda stinks right now. But other than that, it's just peachy. =) Speaking of peachy, one of my friends got pretty tickled the other day at my use of odd words such as peachy, spiffy, and snazzy, all of which I use on a regular basis. She even went as far as to call me a 70's sitcom. Go figure.

So, that whole ski trip is next weekend. I have to figure out if I'm going or not, hopefully sometime before the thing actually happens. Do I want to spend the weekend with sixty other kids (that I don't know very well) falling on my butt as I try to slide down a mountain on a pair of sticks for hours on end? Or do I want to stay home, relax and sleep in until Sunday on Saturday?

To tell the truth, I'm kinda leaning toward the latter to tell the truth.

I have a Music Comp class tomorrow morning, followed by a trip to the Fleck's new house, which I'm hoping I can get out of so I can go back home and sleep. The song I've been writing for music comp is officially due on the 21st so that someone can learn it in time for the concert on the 31st. I'm a little more than halfway done, which I consider to be a good thing, but I'm guessing that now would be a fairly good time to panic just a little. Last minute pressure is good for you, I've been told. =)

Anyway, methinks I'm off to take a nap.

So ta.

Resolutions (If you can call them that)

K, I'm finally breaking down (but only after having read no less than four blogs about New Year's resolutions, mind) and listing my "resolutions". I'm not sure you can call them that. But they float my boat just fine. Occasionally. My boat tends to be a little leaky at times lol.

1)I have this book called "100 Words to Make You Sound Smart". I'm going to use every single one of them in the presence of someone who doesn't even know what they mean. (the purpose of that second part being that I don't even have to use the word correctly, because they won't even know! It's such a boondoggular idea, isn't it?) The hard part will be finding dumb enough people.

2)I'm going to switch out of aerobics. Oh wait. I already did that. Right before break. I'm ahead of schedule! How 'bout that?

3)Completely complete all my homework the night it's assigned, or

4)Start waking up early enough to get it done before school.

5)Text more people (This is much more easily accomplished by the new cell tower that was recently put in behind the Ag wing. I have full service all over campus now, which is nothing short of a miracle, to be sure)

6)Partake in at least one piece of junk food a day. That's also been made fairly easy by the presence of a package of cookies, some runts, and animal crackers that are taking up valuable space in my locker. Life is good. =)I shouldn't mention (but I will) that I probably actually ate an entire year's worth of junk over the break, if I'm going by the one piece per day. But of course, you can never call me an underachiever...

7)Learn some new piano music. No problem there, I just have to FIND some!

8)Blog occasionally. And I mean very occasionally. Not just ever other "occasionally". Every "occasionally" I come across will be an occasion to blog. And I'll even hold myself to that.

9)Go to at least one convention (If you know me in the slightest, you'll see why this isn't a problem...)

10)Do at least one long term assignment at least two days before it's due. (Yeah, right. Who am I kidding? lol)


Anyway, that's my resolutions list. I might actually come up with something a little more worth while, but there's no way I'm posting it. See, my theory is that the reason no resolutions ever stay resolved for very long is because the paper that they've been written on gets "lost". If I post a worthy resolution and I don't keep it, I can't exactly claim I "lost" it, can I? Because somewhere, out in cyberspace, easily accessible by going to my blog page, that resolution will be waiting to be rediscovered. Even organized by year and then by month. So I'm playing it safe.

But just watch...half of these will go undone and I'll be slapping myself silly for posting it at all!

I think too much. Someone stop me.

sick

well it seems like it 'tis the season to get sick. Apparently someone had the flu when we got to grandma and grandpa's, so pretty much everyone got it. Kirstyn, Shawna, me, Steph, Mom, Aunt Sue, Auntie Bert, Grandma and Grandpa, and four of Uncle Steve's kids caught it. I spent all of last night up-chucking. seven times. Eew. Steph only once. But I'm supposing that you don't really want all of the gory details...

Anyway, we're currently parked at a Super 8 in Missoula. We actually got here last night, and planned to only stay one night. Plans changed a little bit. Pretty sure dad didn't want to have two sick kids in his car. So we're leaving tomorrow for Oregon. Pretty 'cited!

Well, I'm off to check on our laundry.

Ta.

X-mas at the G-folk's

Well I guess I haven't posted since last Saturday or something.


So we cleared out of Shawna's Monday morning, which was really easier said than done, seeing as we had filled her entire living room, as devoid as it was of furniture, with our monstrous suitcases, an inflatable air mattress, various amounts of snow clothing, and some other misc items that prolly could've stayed in the car, but didn't. From there it was about a three hour drive to Steve and Julie's. (I think...I'm getting all our travel times mixed up)

We spent a few days there, shopping during one of them. I had the funnest time at Michaels with my gift card. =) I hope you never doubted my ability to spend all of it at once, because I most certainly did. Of course, some of the things I got were considered frivolous by my darling Amber. Her favorite remark (as it's been repeated quite a few times) was "You bought a $5 shoe box?". Well I beg to differ. It's a photo box with seperators. And besides...last I checked, shoe boxes didn't come in decorator colors! So there. =P

The rest of our time there was spent pounding away on the piano, which seems to be as much their hobby as it is mine. We get along so well.=)

We headed to Gramma and Grandpa's on the 24th...I think that was Wednesday. From the moment we got there Grandpa was on us to play him some more music. Good thing there were about 4 or 5 of us players...we managed to keep the music going almost non stop. Methinks it was pretty impressive. Thursday everyone got to go ice skating on the pond that Grandpa had just cleared off for us with his monstrous tractor. (He loves his toys) I tried the whole skating thing for a while, but when I discovered that I kept better balance with the full surface of my feet on the ground, I opted for the picture taking role instead. They had fun playing crack the whip, and I had fun video taping it. The whole escapade was called off pretty suddenly tho, when Amy's hand connected with someone else's skate. Cut it pretty deep. Oddly enough, the circumstances were in our favor, because we had two at least partial nurses in our party. Mom and Brend both insisted on looking at it. I insisted on leaving, because I have a very low tolerance for blood. Go figure.

The meal was scrumptious, of course, mostly because we had 30 ppl and most of them brought their own dishes. Dad made some sort of spare rib or something that was pretty good. I think it could've gone longer, because it covered my whole plate in blood. Needless to say, I ate around it. The mashed taters were a work of art tho.

The next day I got the nurses all twitterpated again. For some reason I passed out while Kirstyn was doing my hair. Still can't figure out why. I think Kirstyn and Amber got the most excited about the whole thing, although not in a good way. I woke up to Amber practically yelling "What are you doing, Kara? What are you doing?"

Well I don't know! I sure as heck didn't do it on purpose!

Word spread fairly quickly, and I still had people asking me today if there had been any more "Fainting Spells". No, thank you very much, there have not. =P

Thursday Friday and Saturday our crowd of guests changed little by little. Some people would leave, only to be replaced by another crowd. Friday, a family of violin players came over. I was pretty much amazed by the whole thing, because the youngest girl, who's four, has started playing a little while ago, and the 8 year old has been at it since she was two! I got a video of her and her mom playing a couple duets, but they'll have to wait until later to be posted, because I'm currently on Kirstyn's computer and my camera is in the car.

So pics and videos later.

We're gonna head off on our first part of the trip to Oregon sometime tonight.

And I'm off to take a nap.

Montana Part I

We're officially in Montana, and to tell the truth, it kinda sucks. At least the weather part of it, anyway. I don't think we've seen a positive degree since the last hour of the drive yesterday. It got down to 25 below yesterday evening, and you all know that I'm just a wimpy Cali person...cold should STOP at 20 ABOVE!

But did the weather get that memo?

Nope.

Anyway, we ended up leaving at 8 on the dot Friday morning...something we only managed to do because we were trying to leave a little earlier than that. (Just for the record, I was in the car by quarter till warming my buns on that loverly seat heater) We stopped at a gas station on our way out, and I decided that I really really was in dire need of a doughnut. So I got one. Of course, it took me five minutes to find out where the glazed ones were actually kept. When I found them hiding by the cash register, I bought one and headed back out to the car with it. And then I discovered that nothing is more disappointing than biting into a long awaited doughnut and finding out that, no, it isn't glazed, and yes, it has the consistancy of a brick coated with uncooked egg whites.

Yes, ladies and gents, that week old doughnut was coated in honey. It was disgusting.

After I had been revived we got back on the freeway. We actually made it past Colfax before the snow started. But I feel the need to throw in some version of "When it rains, it pours", only in something better suited for snow. Like, "When it snows, it snows hard." Anyway, it was definitely pouring in the snow sense all the way up the mountain. We made it without much incident. We all had lots of fun pointing and laughing at all the people without 4WD lined up along the side of the road in the snow putting on chains.

It snowed the whole stinking day. Which, of course, meant no driving for Kara. But that's okay. It gave me more time to sleep and work on Shawna's blanket. It's almost done, btw. (I showed it to her when we got here, even though it wasn't finished, and informed her that she wasn't allowed to have it until we see her again at G-ma's for X-mas.)We stayed in a hotel that first night and finished up the trip yesterday morning. Got here around three-ish. Tomorrow, it's off to Great Falls to see the Steve and Julie clan. And Kirstyn, if she asks nicely. =)

Ugh

Snow day on Monday. Definitely floated my boat all the way down any river. That meant no more Loftis than absolutely necessary, and a day of just generally sitting around and doing nothing. And even better was that I was at dad's where it didn't snow, it RAINed.

Have I mentioned I don't like snow?

It disgusts me.

Sure it looks pretty falling from the sky, and then you realize that it's going to make any sort of outdoor movement a pain, whether it be by car or by foot. Anything else is just completely out of the question. Take today for example. Firstly, I wasn't allowed to drive, because dad didn't know how icy the roads would be. Bah. Secondly, I wore flats today, and the people who cleared the sidewalks at school apparently like to see the smallest amount of space that is required for a school full of kids to walk. So even though there are actually thousands of square feet of pavement, only maybe ten were cleared. The rest was covered in half melted and refrozen snow. Flats didn't help at all. By the time I got home, they were soaked through, but that was partially because no one bothered to clear off the side of the road that I had to walk down. Apparently they thought that that was where they were supposed to scoop the snow from the road. Completely inconsiderate if you ask me. Just not even cool.

So yes, I froze all day. Methinks I'm gonna wear rubber boots tomorrow. Maybe I'll turn into John Lawson, who has actually earned the nickname Boots, because of his apparent lack of anything else resembling a shoe.

The only upside to the snow was watching some kids go sledding during lunch. It was definitely interesting. This is the one time of year that all the hills around campus are actually good for something. Someone smoothed a path down from the side of E, down the hill, across an ice patch on the uncovered part of cement, off a jump on the other side, and down towards D where they had to either get up or keep going down the stairs, through the quad, down more stairs, and out onto the road. I bet they could've done it if they had tried hard enough.

Arright...no more officially's. I promise.

I'm going to try to make it though a whole post without saying the "O" word. (it's in the title, if you don't get it)

So it was Madrigal weekend last weekend. It was definitely very much fun. I volunteered/got volunteered to be a head server all three nights, which turned out to be a bit much, to tell the truth. My arms hurt incredibly bad from lifting all those plates, and for some reason (don't ask me why...we were walking on flat floors the whole time), so are my legs. But not from lifting the plates. I dunno why.

Anyway, Friday the show had a few minor glitches. One being that the star of the second act went missing about a quarter of the way through the show. Turns out he spilled some water onstage, got yelled at by some chick, and high-tailed it out of there.

He got kicked out of Chamber.

So they made it through the rest of the night, stalling a ton. They had Tarney and her mom go up and play the harp and flute and drum and all that. It was cool.

Saturday, Mom volunteered, so I got there at four instead of five (well, that definitely guaranteed me to get a good costume...except that they all consisted of white shirts, black skirts and a sash. Not much origionality there...). I talked with Adam for a little bit before going off to help out somewhere. That's actually when I found out about the whole Bobby incident the night before. Turns out that Adam got to take over for Bobby, which meant learning a new part overnight. He had the part of a Scottish sheriff trying to find out "Who Killed the Kilt?". So not only did he have to learn 20 minutes worth of dialogue, but he had to do it in a Scottish brogue. He pulled it off amazingly well. He only said "Was I supposed to say something?" about three times, but it didn't really matter, because it just made the whole thing even funnier.

And he managed to pull off a skirt.

Not entirely sure how those Scottish people do "jigs" in skirts tho...Adam demonstrated one for us. What we saw was almost too much.

Sunday evening was great too. During the interrogations, a slightly middle-aged lady who was dressed almost granny-ish was called up onstage.

"Where were you, madam, last night between the hours of six and ten?"

"Well, watching a movie!"

"A likely story!"

*shrug*

"Then tell me this...Have you ever been into LeeAnne's Britches?" (The store that apparently sold the murder weapons...a darning needle and a seam ripper)

"No, I've only ever been in my husband's britches!"

*Uproar of hilarity, mirth, laughter...whatever you want to call it. Lasts about five minutes.*

a/n: It would've been easier for me to get under control a little sooner if I hadn't been trying to place a plate in front of a guest at that exact minute. Thankfully I didn't drop it, but I didn't try picking up a plate again until all the laughing had died down again.

*Trying to wipe the smile off his face,*

"You disgust me."

*Of course, more uproarious laughter follows.*

Anyway, that was the end of the Madrigal. Now we have concerts Wednesday and Friday, Finals next week, and I have a cello thing on Monday that I'm not quite ready for.

It's going to be an exciting couple of weeks, that's for sure.

In fact, even today was exciting. Well, kinda. Mom woke me up at five to seven today. She announced the time and I sat up, probably too fast to be healthy, to tell the truth. Yup, I was late. It wasn't until a little later, though that I realized that I was supposed to be out the door the minute mom woke me up.

Can you say over-drive?

But I managed to make it to the bus stop a minute early (don't ask me how) where I proudly announced to one of my friends that I had just beat his waking up late record. Ha. Beat that Carey. Of course, I hadn't actually done squat to my hair and my contact case was riding in my pocket, so that I could put them in sometime after I got to school. But I managed the whole escapade without forgetting a single thing, which is more than I can say for a normal morning.

That did leave me in a fairly grumpy mood all morning thought. And of course, it didn't help that my cold finally caught up with me. Humph.

Well, I'm off. I've got a lab to finish. Bah.

Ta.

Weekend

Well it was Madrigal weekend. It's officially over. I'm officially dead on my feet. (that's what I get for serving all three nights)

I'm officially going to bed.

I shall very officially write more tomorrow.

'Cause I'm pretty officially tired.

So officially, ta.

Pre-concert pics

She thought she would go out on stage like this.












I was only allowed to post this because I didn't put her face in the pic. But I thought it was pretty funny. =)




There were only a few pictures of this concert that I was actually allowed to post. Anywhere. Thank you Laura for being a sport. =)



Awwww...look at the cute little penguin!