General news

Hey guys. It's taken a good, long, easy week, but I've finally gotten used to life back at home. My time in Boston with Annette was a lot of fun, but I'm very happy to be back with my family and doing familiar stuff.

(Just so you know, I'm really blogging right now so I'll be able to take my mind off of me going to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince with my sibs in a matter of hours. Eeeee! So excited! Don't worry, I'll rant... uh, talk, more about it later. After I've seen it. Then I'll give a whole review on it! Huh. I wonder if everyone is going to write HP reviews in Blogger world. Well, we'll see at the end of the day.)

Okay. Here is a semi-random list of news from my little world:

• First of all, who has noticed that I'm a few posts away from 100 posts on this blog? Anyone? Anyone? Only me? Oh well. I'm probably the only one who would care, anyway. But I think that's pretty neato. In fact, if you added up all the posts I've written since I got started blogging, including the ones from my Book Blog, Travel Journal, and the few I've published on Picture Perfect, I've got 170 posts under my name, all floating around in cyberspace! To quote Wakko Warner, "Faboo!" Plus, since July 12th, I've been blogging for 7 months, so yay me!

• Despite all my pride in my blog writing, I haven't been giving much attention to my Imazia story. But you'll be glad to know that just the other day I did a teeny bit of work on a paragraph. I've got it in my head that I need to change one of my oldest characters, Diggory the Mole, into Diggory the Badger. See? Same name, but different creature. I've thought it over a whole lot, and I truly think it's a good idea.
  
  I don't know why I never thought about it until now. A badger would be a lot better for my story than a mole would. For one thing, he would be a lot bigger, so it will be easier for my main character, Maggie, and therefore my readers, to relate to him. Plus I read that badgers are known to hold their own in fights with wolves, so that's useful for me. And he'll be able to keep a lot of the mole Diggory's characteristics: He will still live underground, eat worms and stuff, be a little on the old side, and speak in a very gruff voice. And he'll be annoyed with those twin squirrels' jokes and pranks, though maybe I'll give him a better sense of humor than the mole had.

• Since it's been so long since Annette and I have had home-made pizza, we're making a couple pies right now, so we can eat them before we go off to see HP6. Yippee!
  
  
• I was a little bugged myself this morning, because it took a really long time before I was able to coax our cockatiels, Sasha and Sammy, back into their cage. It's really weird. While my twin sister and I were away for two weeks, we left our parents and brother to feed them and take care of them. We always asked about how they were doing, and they said the birds were fine. Of course, from what I heard, it was usually hard for them to control our pets without us around. Like, Sasha and Sammy would kind of make hissy noises at them and open their beaks threateningly. I think they were hostile because somehow they knew their "mommies" weren't around.
  
  Well, we've been home for a week, and though I believe our birds are happier now, I think they might be holding a grudge against us or something. Particularly this morning. I've never seen both birds act so mean! (Sammy is usually so easy-going. Sasha's the one you've got to watch out for. Especially in his present state.) I couldn't believe it. If I move my hand to try to pick them up, they'd try pouncing me to bite my finger or something. It was hard showing them who was boss. Well, obviously since I'm able to blog now, I've gotten them back. Without sustaining any bites, either. I hope our boys' behaviour improves soon...

• It's hard to believe it was so recent, but yesterday I made a new friend on Blogger. ^_^ For those who don't follow the Dashner Dude, he put up this awesome post the other day. He told his fans that, just for fun, he'd like to to hear something odd or unique about themselves in the comments, so everyone went all out with their confessions. Turns out everyone's a weirdo. ^,~ Anyway, about my new friend. She was the 7th commenter down, before me, in fact. Her name's Laura. I noticed her profile picture and thought it looked interesting. It seemed to be the cover of a cool-looking book.
  
  So I checked out her blog. I read the entire thing, too. (I'm usually prone to reading a persons' whole blog, so I can get to know them.) I found out that this Laura Bingham is a budding author from Idaho who is trying to get her debut novel, Alvor, known to the general reading public. I think she's a totally awesome person. She's already touched many hearts with her writing, or so I've heard.
  
  A great thing about Laura's blog is that she actually put the entire first chapter of her book at the bottom of her blog, so people can get a sneak peek and decide whether it's good enough to read the rest. I think it's awesome. Even if you choose not to read or follow her blog, you have to at least read the chapter at the bottom. I doubt you'll regret it. Plus it'll make Laura so happy if you'd give her a chance.
  
  Anyway, how did I become her friend, you ask? Well, I wrote her a comment on her most recent post, so she'd find it easy. I told her about how I'd just discovered her and really liked her style and hoped she would be able to give advice to a young writer like myself. So then I had to go to the library so we could pick up some movies, such as Wakko's Wish. (That movie was so funny, even the second time around!)
  
  When I went on a computer to check my emails (yeah, I'm like that. Checking my inbox constantly ;P), I was surprised to discover that Laura had written me back. And she'd commented on my blog, and decided to follow me! Yeah, she seems to be using a different account, but she follows the same people, so I know it's her. I was so happy about this news that I wrote her an email to say how honored I was that she paid attention to me. And then this morning she wrote me a reply! She is so awesome. I think of her almost as a female Dashner.
  
  I promised I would blog about her and her book, so now I did. Hey, here is the picture of her book! Doesn't it look all mystical and fantasy-cool?!