Here's Lookin' at you, kid.

I've already posted today, but a few things of note have happened besides it being the first official calendar day of Autumn. For one thing, we decided to make our famous home-made gourmet pizza! Well, it is a Tuesday, isn't it? ^_~ Yummy. For another, my brother lost a particularly loose molar while he was eating his last slice, so that was definitely cause for celebration. He'll probably be getting a visit from the Tooth Fairy tonight. He he.

(sigh) This might seem weird, but I kind of miss the days when I was losing my teeth. When I still had teeth to lose, it meant I still had some growing up to do, that I was still a kid. Now I'm 18 and apparently fully grown. I don't remember the last time I had a growth spurt, and if I lost a tooth now, I can't grow it back! ^,^

Moving on, my twin Annette managed to put up a new video on our YouTube channel, of Adam singing as Elvis again, but to the tune of Jailhouse Rock! You ought to see it! He's fantastic. ^_^ The camera shakes a bit in the middle and he forgot a couple words near the end, but other than that I personally think it's a piece of YouTube gold. Here's the link. Remember to check out Adam's first Elvis vid, where he sings Blue Suede Shoes! ^_~

Finally, tonight we saw an old Warner Brothers classic from the '40s, Casablanca. Normally I don't really have the patience for old movies, thinking they are too cheesy for my taste. Well, I ought not be so quick to judge those classic films, just like I shouldn't judge an old book by its cover. I don't know if anyone else would appreciate these old pictures in this modern day and age, but I think it's very educational to take out a hit from the past.

The last scene, of course, is my favorite. I'm pretty sure it used to be everyone's favorite. Where Humphrey Bogart is trying to convince the girl to get on the plane, and she doesn't want to, so he cheers her up by saying his catchphrase to her, "Here's lookin' at you, kid." Pretty big moment in movies at the time, I'll bet.

First Day of Fall!

Or Autumn, or whatever you like to call it. In the story I'm writing, I call it the Red season. ^,^

Ah, I wish I lived somewhere like here in the Fall. But I live in Florida. The leaves don't change color quite so rapidly here, but at least it gets a bit cooler, so that's something. =P Still... that scene sure is beautiful.

So anyway, this is pretty exciting. There's no season I like better than Fall, because of all the wonderful holidays and special occasions that I have come to associate with it. Before I rack off a list of what I'm looking forward to, let me just say Happy Rosh Hashanah! That's Hebrew for the Jewish New Year. Hey, stab a guess at what year it is... Give up? Oh, okay. The Jewish year is 5770. Mm-hmm. Can you believe it? I remember that in past years I could never quite keep up with what year it was compared to the Gregorian year, but now I think it'll be easy to remember that the one is 3,760 years ahead of the other! Hee hee. ^,~

Okay, so here's what I'm most looking forward to:

1. My mom's birthday! (It's on October 3rd. Did you see the count down clock? I better make her card soon.)
2. Halloween! Well, duh! Who can forget Halloween? I'm not sure what I'll be doing on the day. I usually come up with a costume idea a week or so before Halloween. Not like my brother, Adam, who is always full of ideas for dressing up as his favorite characters months ahead! (He he. Just teasin', Bro. ^,~)
3. NaNoWriMo! If you don't know what that is, it stands for National Novel Writing Month. There's some sort of contest at the beginning of November for one to write 50,000 words by the end of the month. Sounds pretty wicked, right? Well, I'm gonna enter in it! I learned about it too late last year, so I'm going to be taking my chances this year, and see if I have fun with it. (Hey, at least it'll get me to write 1,666 words at minimum a day!)
4. Thanksgiving! Again, pretty obvious, right? But I love Thanksgiving! I love the feast part. (And no, we don't eat turkeys on this day. We're vegetarians, remember?) My favorite part is eating pumpkin pie. ^__^ Ooh, and my mom even makes pumpkin pie ice-cream, usually! Mmmmm...
5. Technically, this is still in the Fall, even though it's sooo close to Winter, but... also my brother Adam's birthday! He's turning 12 on December 10th! Man, he's growing up fast. ~,~

Yeah. That's pretty much the coolest things that will happen in the coming months. The rest is impossible for me to predict, like blog contests ^,~ and trips I will take and other un-see-able stuff. (sigh) I forgot that another thing I'll look forward to is when Jacoby Nielsen comes back from his mission in Mongolia.

I really miss him already. He was the first truly awesome friend I ever met as a Blogger. From the get-go I've felt that we were thick as thieves. And now he's gone, for 3 months. ~,~ He says he'll come back on December 16th. I better make a timer for that.

I love these profile pictures of his. The colored one is what he uses now, but I believe I will always remember Jacoby for being the kid with wild hair, small mouth, small nose, closed eyes, and meditatively listening to music that no one else can hear, but wish that they could, because he looks so peaceful. *_*

I hope you're okay down there, whatever you're doing on the other side of the world. Try to write soon, okay?

My Heart-Shaped Rock

It's probably a little late for me to be writing about this, but I just felt like it right now. It's a fun story from when my family and I were coming back from our Boston road trip a couple weeks ago.

Well, it was Sept. 2nd, (we'd set off really early in the morning) and by late afternoon we'd driven through a bunch of states already. Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. My dad drove the first half and my mom drove the second. Now we were in Maryland and on our way to my dad's old friend, Efi's house. We'd gone to Efi's house and had so much fun the year before, so I was really looking forward to getting there.

We got to his neighborhood and saw his house, but we decided it would be fun to relax a little first and stretch our legs a little before we met up with our host. We were early, anyway. So we stopped in this quaint little park a little way off. I thought it was beautiful, with lots of grass and open spaces. We had a little picnic there. I remember it was quite peaceful and relaxing there. I wished I could live there. The colonial houses were so big and cool, and each one was different. I live in suburbia, so I love the look of large, fancy houses.

Anyway, those small details aren't part of my story. When we were done with the picnic, me and my sibs ran off to play some Friz-Bee and just run around. Near this small, kiddy playground, we noticed a cute little rushing stream that had cool rocks and was just plain beautiful. I absolutely loved being so close to nature. The quiet sound of water and birds... I saw a couple dragonflies as blue and sparkly as fairies, and even caught a quick glimpse of a hummingbird! I was just filled with childlike wonder in that place, and wished I never had to leave it.

I had to take a souvenir of the place, to remind me of this beautiful memory. So I started hunting among the smooth, shiny rocks below the shallow water for my perfect stone. It took a while to find the right one, but then... I saw it.

(This picture isn't of my rock, btw. Neither is the one on top. I just found these two on Google Images. Seems that heart-shaped rocks aren't all that special and unique. But then again, they are, aren't they?)

My rock looks precisely like a heart. No mistaking it. It's kind of smooth, because it came from the stream, but it has little bumps and grooves in it. It's grayish-brown, and fits perfectly in my hand. I'm serious, it's just the right size to sit in my palm and have my fingers close over it and squeeze it...

My heart rock has almost never left my side since I found it. I'm not kidding. That night at Efi's I slept with it clutched in my hand. Okay, maybe that was a little dumb and I don't do that now, but I've rarely ever lost track of it for more than a few minutes. It's on my bedside table when I sleep, in the pocket of my jeans when I'm going somewhere (every once in a while I like to check it's still there and I grin at it's familiar weight). Writing this post, my rock is sitting right next to the computer at this minute! I just love it. Having it by me makes me feel good and happy.

Here's another story about my rock. About a week ago, I'm not really sure now, I was tossing the rock back and forth, from one hand to the next, like you might with a ball. I guess I was careless for a split-second and it slipped, fell onto the tile floor and broke in two. Not in neat halves, but in two pieces, plus some tiny fragments. I was shocked at my carelessness, and sad at my broken heart. I wasn't as upset as I though I would be, because it's just a thing after all. It's not really anything of huge importance, except for any emotion I attach to it, but it was still a sad thing.

(Not my rock either!)

I collected the two large rock pieces, saved them and tried not to think about it for a couple days (I didn't think the fragments were that important). I did not through the rock out. I loved it too much. Finally I began to really miss it, so I used some super-glue called that is actually named "Goop" and stuck the pieces back together again. They fit satisfyingly, like puzzle pieces. ^,^ I let the glue dry overnight, and by morning it was just like new! It smelled a tiny bit like glue, but I knew that would go away, and it was like new! I was so happy, just like when I first found it.

I'm not sure why I've told you these rock stories. There's not really supposed to be any morals attached to them... But maybe there's a hidden moral somewhere anyway. Like, "Love is neither practical nor logical." Or maybe it's supposed to be happiness. Perhaps it's one you've most likely heard before, "Time heals all wounds." I don't know. But it felt good talking about my rock. Who knows? Maybe my stories have inspired you to go out looking for your own heart-shaped stone. (It's also just plain fun to look through Google Images at heart rocks! ^_^)

MTV Awards! + MJ is the greatest!

Okay, the last couple of nights have been totally wild! Through both, I ended up going to bed at a really late hour, because of all the stuff I was watching on TV. Funny me, I usually hate it when I sleep late, because it means I will wake up late, but I didn't mind staying up for what has been on lately...

Who else saw the MTV awards the other night, by a show of hands? Er, comments. =P Well, what a to-do that was, huh? That was a lot of fun to watch. I thought the host, Russel Brand, was pretty funny. I recognized him from Bedtime Stories. He's crazy. ^,^ It was hilarious how he seemed able to say whatever he wanted and everyone was okay with it. He says Barack Obama's name weird. And isn't his hair completely wild? He he.

The Michael Jackson tribute was absolutely stunning! I loved it! And I positively can't wait for that documentary thing about him, THIS IS IT, to come out. That looks so great! I'm discovering more and more what a truly awesome legend MJ used to be, and I can't wait to learn more about him.

Boy oh boy, did you see what happened when the very first award was given out? That female artist something that went to Taylor Swift? I couldn't believe it when Kanye West suddenly went onstage and stole Taylor's spotlight! So mean. ~,~ I really didn't think things like that went wrong on live TV, only in books and movies. But this was real life. So weird...

Well, luckily Beyonce was nice enough to let Taylor finish her speech and cleared up the bad air a little bit. ^,^

Anyway, who else is ultra-excited to see New Moon after that new, wicked, action-packed preview? Man, it looks so much... scarier than Twilight, doesn't it?

I mean, I do not remember the book New Moon being quite so hard core. Still eager to see it, though.

(He he. You ought to see what my sister says about New Moon on her blog. She remembers the way I seemed to have a spell cast over me when I was reading the Saga, and she refuses to be caught up in all this movie hype. I bet she still wants to see it, but since she never got farther than the first book she probably won't appreciate it like I will. ^_~) The guy who plays Jacob, Taylor Lautner... I can't wait to see him in action! This is pretty much his movie.

Alright, now I'll talk about last night. What an awesome evening! We'd come back from the library with a DVD that was supposed to have several of Michael Jackson's legendary music videos in it, so we decided to see that first. I remember my sister and me seeing a bunch of his videos on YouTube after he died, but I knew this would be a ton better. Boy, I had noooo idea...

Thank you, Annette, for taking this DVD out! God, I have never seen the King of Pop quite like this before. I mean, I loved him before, with all his music and stuff, but now I have a whole 'nother level of respect towards him. This collection didn't just have his music videos (most of which, btw, I'd never seen before and had songs I'd never even heard him do). They showed behind-the-scenes footage of what actually went on while making some of his videos! (I love seeing those behind-the-scenes stuff in the special features of my favorite movies, but this was totally awesome! You see a whole other side of Michael here.)

AND there were various clips of his ground-breaking concerts (I never appreciated how famous he was before) and his speeches at the 1993 MTV awards, or something like that. Those were cool! I'll never forget that. First his sister, Janet Jackson, said such wonderful things about him, how he became such a legend and all, and then Michael goes up and gives the sweetest and most inspiring speech ever! I noticed that whenever someone in the audience interrupted him and screamed out "I love you," by habit, Michael would smile and reply, "I love you too." He was truly the greatest. I'm sad that I never knew Michael like that. ~,~

My favorite music video of Michael Jackson, I'd have to say, was the one of "Black or White." That's the one with Macauly Culkin in it, and all those morphing faces. Awesome. Did you know that when this video first aired, there was a ton of controversy? Because originally it was 11 minutes long, and the very last few minutes of it had Jackson doing some weird, suggestive dance moves and breaking windows and acting crazy. This was cut out in later versions, but seeing this for the first time, I thought it was pretty awesome. The guy is such a dancer. Even with no music playing behind him, his moves are wild!

My second favorite video is "Jam," which I never saw until now, and featured Michael Jordan in it. (Ha ha. 2 MJs! lol ^,^) There's a scene where Jackson tries teaching Jordan how to dance like him, and it's funny! Honestly, if anyone wants to lovingly reminisce over the late King of Pop, you absolutely have to take out this DVD! He is soooo cool!

Alright, that's enough of Michael Jackson out of me now. Phew! It's actually tiring, thinking how awesome the guy is... Anywho, after we finished that movie our parents told us Jay Leno's new show was on. We switched to it just as his first guest, Jerry Seinfeld, came on. It was funny!

And after that, we saw the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report. I didn't know these guys had taken 3 weeks vacation from their shows. I guess because I was up in Boston for a couple weeks, and then I didn't watch them for another week. Anyway, both their shows were hilarious as well. Yes, even Stephen. I've learned to laugh at his humor too. Finally at midnight we turned the box off and went to bed.

Wow, this is the longest post I've written in quite a while, isn't it? ^_~

Change is what I need!

No, this has nothing to do with polotics. =P

I've just been thinking a lot lately... It's been an entire week since my sister and I turned 18 (yay me! Thanks for all the comments, btw ^_^), and I haven't really felt any big changes yet. You know, I still feel like a 17 year-old. I'm just used to it. I don't know how on earth I'm going to wrap my head around the fact that I am, in fact, 18 years old. I'm a legal adult! I'm supposed to be ready to take on the world, as it were.

I ought to consider myself very lucky. I have a loving family who isn't trying to kick me out of the house, now that I've come of age =P. Since I've been home-schooled most of my life, I pretty much have all the free time in the world. I think I've been raised pretty well. I'm whole, healthy and happy.

But at heart, I still feel like a kid. All I want to do is read books, watch movies and blog. My parent's friends ask me all the time, "SO, have you decided what college you want to go to? What do you want to study? What field will you pursue?" Inwardly, this is driving me crazy. Mostly I'm undecided. I'm practical. I don't want to make any decisions unless I'm positively sure it's what I want to do.

Of course, to me it's obvious that I'd be happiest in the field of publishing, or anything to do with books, so I'd be closest to what I love. But at heart... I hate to say it... I feel lazy. I've led a comfortable life-style. Why should I change anything?

Then again, I don't want to live with my parents for the rest of my life. Another side of me wants very much to have the adventure of a lifetime. A few days ago my sister and I tried applying to this Birthright Israel trip program thing, where people from 18 to 26 can go on a 10-day trip to Israel for education and fun, but we were put on the waiting list because we didn't act fast enough. These trips take place either in the summer or winter. Well, at least we know about it.

Today I sent an email to apply for a job at a restaurant called Salad Creations. For those who don't know, I am a vegetarian and love eating healthy. What could be a better job for me? I'm crossing my fingers here. I haven't had a lot of work experience, mostly baby-sitting. A steady job would be good for me.

I'm gonna have to invest more time in my story sometime soon. Nothing is stopping me, except for the distraction of hot, exciting new book releases. And I guess the fact that I'm stressing over everything else. Also, it's just soooo easy to put it off. I can get back to it later... I've got a lifetime ahead of me...

This post isn't very special. I just want the world to know that I'm thinking very hard on this. It's time for me to change. I need to step up to the plate, and take control of my life.

-----

One of my bestest friends is leaving the country in a few days. I'm really going to miss him. A lot. ~,~ But he does say that he'll try to keep on the blogging scene. I really hope he's able to. I'll say a better goodbye on the 18th, when he's actually leaving.

Happy Birthday to Me!!! And Annette! ^_~ We're both 18, baby!

Okay, it's probably obvious what this post is about. ^_^ Yesterday was such an awesome day!!!

I know, I know! I've left you guys high and dry for a really long time. No updates, no stories, just an incredibly frustrating (I'm guessing) silence from me for, had I waited until the 13th, an entire month! Well, I've got really feeble excuses, so I might as well not make them. But my biggest reason for not blogging a lot here is that I took a road trip with my family to Boston for a couple weeks, and I was having such an awesome time that I had absolutely NO time at all to post anything about it. So you can't even read about my adventures on my Travel Blog. Not yet, anyway...

Anyway, I don't want to talk about that right now. I PROMISE I'll get to it in another post soon, but right now I just have to tell you how wonderful and memorable my 18th BIRTHDAY was! ^__^

1: We woke up early to go to a beach we don't usually go to and saw the sunrise. We ate a relaxing breakfast and my sister and I had a blast reading the homemade cards our parents and brother made us. Also the ones Annette and I made each other. ^_^ That's always the best part. To me, cards are much better than presents. (I'll try to put up pictures sometime.)

2: A couple hours later we went to our usual beach and loads of friends wished us a happy b-day. We also handed out oatmeal -raisin cookies (our favorite) to everyone. No cake or candles, but totally fine with me. Didn't stay as long as normal, but went back home to wash up a bit.

3: For a birthday lunch/dinner, we drove to a Chinese restaurant called Dragon Gourmet Buffet. Stayed there for about 2 hours, sampling fascinatingly-tasting foods. There was even more food than shown here! It was an incredible and filling meal, and I enjoyed myself immensely. I think the fortune in my cookie said, "Never trouble trouble until trouble troubles you!" (If you say it enough times, trouble sounds like a goofy word, doesn't it? =P)

4: After "rolling" out of the restaurant, we went to Comp USA and Best Buy to compare prices for new laptop computers! I had a lot of fun at this part! We didn't actually buy new machines, but we did manage to get the Jonas Brothers' brand spankin' new album, "Lines, Vines and Trying Times!" I love Jo Bros almost more than any band, so this was an uber-awesome present!!!

5: Also while at Best Buy, we saw someone playing a Rock Band game and realized that she was actually playing a Beatles song! It was a preview for the special Beatles Rock Band, which isn't supposed to come out until 9-9-09! After the person was done, me, Annette, Adam and even my dad (who is a huger fan of the Beatles than I am, having lived longer, of course ^,~) had lots of fun playing the songs. I really, really want to own this game, but it was great that we could play it like this.

And that's it! That was how my 18th birthday, my first step into the world as a legal adult, was spent. Later that night I had fun listening to the 13 new JoBro songs, and even singing along with them. How, you ask? It came with a little lyrics booklet, that's how! Even though I didn't at all recognize most of the songs on the cd, I was able to follow along with the words. More or less. Well, I'm sure I'll get more familiar with them.

If anyone wants to wish me a happy birthday, I would HIGHLY appreciate it if you did so now!