Feel the rush of the ocean...

Well I'm back from vacation. I cant believe its been a week already! it went by way too quickly!!! Not fair. lol. The beach was amazing... I havent been there since i was four or so and it was a lot better than I remembered.

This was my check list

spending at least two sunrises on the beach,
taking a million and one pictures,
getting a tan so I dont look like i live in a cave,
go jogging on the sand because i heard on tv thats good for your feet :P
and go SWIMMING
and go see some stuff. Lol.
Fly a kite and what not.

I saw one sunrise, but it was cloudy so we didnt see much. It was still kind of cool though
I didnt take quite a million pictures but pretty close
I HAVE A TAN. It occured to me how weird we people are. We want our skin to change colors. lol.
anyways, i did run in the sand a little bit but i didnt actually "go jogging" It was way too hot x3 if i was jogging it was because my feet were bare and the sand was scalding :P
I swam every single day.
Saw a ton of stuff
and flew a kite at least twice.

awesome possum.
i gotta stop saying that.

i also spent $35 xD Remember way back when when I mentioned spending five bucks? Yeah. it didnt happen obviously.

anyways I'll post pictures and stuff later, its almost ten and josh fell asleep next to me on my bed so i gotta do something about that.
i also have to take a shower
I CANT BELIEVE ITS SATURDAY.
okay.
pics later like tommorow or something
im almost done loading them all onto facebook so xD after i get that accomplished......

All sorts of excitement...

Well turns out we aren't going to South Carolina. bummer huh? Yeah, I was confused, we're really going to North Carolina xD Which was where I wanted to go in the first place, of the two Carolinas so its all good.


Friday there was a HUGE fire. Not at our house, down the street. My mom was taking Jake to a doctors appointment and saw the huge pillar of smoke and we all went outside to see it. They took my camera and drove down to where it was before the cops blocked off the road. They were RIGHT there.... I listened to the police on my dad's ham radio which was kind of cool. conveniently enough it was already set or else i would have had no idea how to work it xD



Then later that day there was a guy the cops were chasing right by our street, there were cars zooming all over the place. Cop cars, i mean. :P They caught him though. So thats good.


Saturday i painted a statue and some pillars to raise money for the trip Im going on later this month and we had a bake sale sunday...

Then my mom found a turtle next to our house o.o and we got a new garage door.

But best of all, we went to Target today and I found the most amazing thing ever for ten dollars.


I had my heart set on it before I even showed my mom. It was ten bucks and exactly what I was looking for, for my room. I didnt ever think I would actually find a poster like this, but i did and I was SO happy. so i showed my mom and was all like "Dont you think this would look awesome on my wall!?!?!?" and Sarah immediately decided she hates it. The poster is ugly and dumb and stupid and she hates it and wouldnt let me buy it or put it on the wall.

Well I reminded her that I didnt want her to put flowers on the wall but I let her anyways, and so now it was my turn to put something on the wall. She didnt understand my unexplicable need to have this poster xD I might have compromised if this wasnt exactly what I was looking for...

But I bought it anyways and she cried for about an hour total and whined about it for even longer. I think she'll get over it. eventually.

It Just Feels So Good

Well I have several things to blog about. Lets start with OGT results! Yay! I took the OGTs at the beginning of March. I was uncharacteristically calm about them :P And they were rather easy in my opinion. I got my results back today finally. My mom walks into my room and goes "This paper says you're smart." Pshaw. A surprise, I know. The real surprise is that I passed science in the advanced level. I did better in science than any of my other subjects. Zomg. o.o The average at my school was a 402, average in the state is 419, I got a 457. Next in line from highest to lowest was reading. State average was 425, school average was 417. My score was a 446. I got a 438 in Math and Writing. History was the only one I was concerned about but I still passed with a 421, just four points below the state average and 14 points above the school average. This means I can graduate now. Yayness.

Second on my list of things to blog about is this amazing book I got from Borders. Its called Twilight and its about this seventeen year old girl who moves to Washington and falls in love with a vampire. I know what you're thinking, "oh emily's one of those vampire people" no :P
its not what you think, lol. Its actually pretty cool. Its not creepy like Anne Rice's books, its a romantic kind of fantasy type adventure. Does that make sense? Its fast paced and pulls you in and never lets you go. I read 300 pages in a day if that means anything :P And I finished it the next day. Its part of a series that only has two other books out so far. I need to get the other ones... like soon >.< But yeah, its Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. Amazon calls it the best book of the decade so far, Publishers Weekly said best book of the year, and its really really good, so.

I spent the rest of my money I got from school. The DS games counted so thats good. I got $60 in books the other day too. w00t. I got this HUGE horse book that was on sale half off. It was $20. I also got a photography book, Twilight, a Maximum Ride book, a book called What If everyone knew your name (its like a chose your own adventure book) and a book called The Mysterious Benedict Society. I also got this really good drink at the cafe there, it was called Izze. It was a natural fruit drink with sparkling water so it was like soda only healthy :D it was black berry flavored and it was deeeelicious.

We are officially going on vacation. My dad booked a little cottage right on the beach and I am excited. ^_^ A few things I look forward to doing are spending at least two sunrises on the beach, taking a million and one pictures, getting a tan so I dont look like i live in a cave, go jogging on the sand because i heard on tv thats good for your feet :P and go SWIMMING and go see some stuff. Lol. Fly a kite and what not. But first I need a bathing suit and some flip flops. I found a suit that I really like but you can only order it online >.< which sucks. I dont know what we're gonna do yet though. I only have a few simple requirements for bathing suits x3
1. It has to be black or have black on it.
2. It has to have two pieces
3. It has to have shorts
4. 95% of my stomach has to be covered, if not all of it :P

See? Simple. lol.

What else?
I think I might have poison ivy or something between my fingers on my left hand. o.o it was itching like crazy this morning and i looked at it and noticed the little bumps I've seen before I was like -.- are you freaking kidding me? so ive been putting calamine lotion on it all day and that makes it feel better.

My trip to Scranton is also coming up, and in July the vans warped tour is stopping in Cleveland. My cousin is trying to get a group of friends to go and she invited me. Tickets are $40 but thats not bad considering its like ALL day and there are 78 freaking bands that are gonna be there. I HAVE to see The Academy Is, Relient K and Cobra Starship. And Anberlin. There are others I want to see but as long as i see those first three I'll be content. I still have to listen to all the bands on myspace and organize the ones i want to see from the ones i dont :P Im a nerd. sorry.
Which means I need a job x3 I figure if I spend five bucks in south carolina on a shot glass and five bucks in scranton, then ten dollars on a movie this saturday thats only twenty bucks and if I save up every penny until july 17th and if my parents let me go, i will have enough to buy some stuff at the warped tour. dundundun

So i think thats it, lol

Can I Lay In Your Bed All Day

We have a bunk bed now. Its nice and dark and... woody or something. And yesterday I was wearing clothes that didn't match. Sue me.

I get to sleep on the bottom. Because I chose to. Despite what my siblings say. They like to insist I'm afraid of heights, which I'm not, really. I just prefer the idea of having my own little cave thing than to climbing up a ladder, banging my head on the cieling and then having to climb back down. I hung a sheet from the side so it was like my own little room sort of. The only thing is I cant stretch out and hang my feet over the bed like I usually do because theres a rail there now. I'm trying to figure out what I want to put on my beautiful clean blue walls. Both by my bed and on the opposite wall.

Oreo seems to approve.
My pillow just happens to match my wall and my sheets almost perfectly. imagine that.


we put some stickers on the wall by sarah's bed so that I can get out of putting princess boarder on my walls. it sort of kind of ish goes with the whole retro-y idea. flower power and all that xD
I guess that isnt retro, along with Queen and Pink Floyd. I have no idea what to call it. Um... older? x3 Im not sure. PEACE, LOVE AND ROCK & ROLL, MAN. ;)

Thats what I'll call it. lol. I'll get some tie-dye sheets and stuff. I'll get a "peace love and rock & roll" sign and hang it on my door :) get some lava lamps up in hurr. I'll be pimpin, yo. :D


Unfortunately for someone like me who has this issue with having my own space, everyone else seems to think they can come in here and do whatever they want, whenever they want. Having all four of my siblings running around my room screaming and making lots of noise really makes me mad. So since my desk is right by the door I yell at them whenever they try to come in :P

And Sarah has gotten the idea in her head that she is so awesome, the room belongs to her and she's just nice enough to let me sleep in it. Pshh.

You Look So Good In Blue

Sunday my mom said that since we were officially getting a bunk bed (tonight sometime) it might be a good idea to paint. My room has been this pale pink color for forever. Probably more than five years. More like eight maybe? I dont remember but I was more than glad to get rid of the dull pink color. The wallpaper (before i tore it down) had horses in a field with pink border.
We went to the store to pick out paint and I saw a page in an idea book for a retro style room, and the walls were blue. If you remember, a while ago I mentioned wanting to turn my room retro style and so I really liked the idea of blue. So i found a shade I liked. The only problem was, now that it would be Sarah's room too, and now that Sarah was a stubborn six year old, she absolutely hated the blue. she wanted it to be... well, pink. I explained that it was already pink and change was good. :P So we tortured ourselves in the paint department at Home Depot for a long time and finally gave up. We took several paint samples and booklets and then went home. I taped the samples on my wall and went to bed.

In the morning Sarah came in and we narrowed it down. I'd picked out purples, yellows, oranges greens, blues and even a few pinks. The pinks were some of the first to go. Finally Sarah points to the color I had showed her the day before and goes "I think we should paint it this color!" And I could've smacked her. She decided she liked the blue and the pale yellow and left the decision up to me. After thinking about it for a while, I picked the blue. So Monday I cleaned out my room. Tuesday my mom had surgery and later that afternoon we went and got paint. Wednesday we did the painting and I was surprised we finished it in only a day.

This was my room. Sort of. There was more crap on the walls and more stuff spewed everywhere but I didn't think to take a picture BEFORE i started so. This is as close as it gets.

I started moving things around to make room and started taking things down stairs.


stuuuuuuffff
Tuesday I slept on my bed in the middle of my room and it was freaking cold.



Then we started working on the cieling. Those white patches on the wall are places where nails had left holes and we patched them up.



we got a lot of help from Timmy, Sarah and Jacob. My dad showed them how to use the rollers and stuff.



Almost finished! I did the trims (with a short break to watch the Jonas Brothers on American Idol :P) and finished about 9:15 or so.


It was called Nevada Sky :) So I liked the name and the color, lol



Everyone thinks its so fun to run around and yell and make noise now because it echoes.
But we get the bunk bed tonight and eventually we have to figure out HOW THE HECK to fit my huge honkin elephant of a dresser in here again.

I was looking at retro posters. I saw one for gay tooth brushes xD that was pretty awesome, lol. I also found a route 66 one I would love to have. Not to mention several awesome retro band posters of bands I've either never heard of or never heard before x3 The posters were sweet but it might be weird, considering I dont even listen to those bands xD But oh well. Pink Floyd and Queen had some cool posters but I liked some of the other ones too. And Bob Dylan, who for the record, I don't really like. :P I liked the lyrics to the ONE and only song I've heard from him but I don't like his voice t all. He reminded me of a duck being strangled. He was just cute about a million years ago :P He's pretty scary looking now though, I looked him up and it made me sad for a while.



Anyways, my mom pointed out that the bunk bed is going to take up a lot of space and she wanted to get shelves for something, and my freaking dresser is gonna take up like the whole rest of the room. so Im a little nervous. Or a lot. We'll see how it goes. In the mean time I have no idea what to do with my old posters... o.o I had a couple Lord of the Rings posters up and a Jack Sparrow one too. Dont get me wrong, I love Jack and Aragorn and all them buuuut everything else changed you know? And i think it would be totally sweet to have some retro posters up in huuurr :P So yeah.

We'll see.

Rub it in my face why dontcha...

As you know, The International Society of Photographers recently held our annual convention in Las Vegas. We informed you that you and your artistic accomplishments could have been honored. Unfortunately, you were unable to join us this year. We are so pleased with your artistic vision that we would really like to present your photo, Solitary at our next convention. Of course, we hope you will be able to attend and present your work personally next year. Unfortunately, you could not attend this time, so we're trying to do the next best thing.Emily Has Been Selected To Receive Two Free Airline Tickets!Due to the success of our convention this year, our Travel Partner is providing airline vouchers good for two free tickets to a select group of photographers who become members of our society and agree to let us present their work at our next event. There is more! We will also send you the following as recognition of your artistic achievement in photography: Outstanding Achievement in Photography Crystal Award Trophy>Commemorative ISP
Award Medallion

Your Outstanding Achievement in Photography Crystal Award Trophy
(a $300 value)

Your Bronze Commemorative Award Medallion (a $40 value)

Full Basic Membership (1 year) into the ISP ($60 value)

A personalized membership card entitling you to $100's
worth of discounts

Free entry to a special members-only photo contest

All that's required for us to immediately send you all of these awards, including the free airline travel voucher for two, is for you to give us permission to present your photograph at a future convention. Additionally, we must also ask you for the necessary funds ($169.00 plus p&h) to cover the cost of the time and effort required to present your photography before the convention attendees, and to cover the costs incurred in insuring and shipping to you these extremely large and heavy awards.

Emily, we are ultimately most interested in meeting you and having you personally present your artistry in front of the thousands of other photographers who attend these live events. Unfortunately, you could not attend this time, so we're trying to do the next best thing. We sincerely hope to personally present you with your most deserved awards in the future. As an added bonus, I am going to send you a $100 gift certificate off the registration of a future ISP convention.

Go Here To Have Your Photograph Displayed At A Future Convention!

Sincerely, Craig Foster Convention Awards Chairperson

Where THE HECK am I gonna get $170 to pay them for things they want to GIVE to me? just draw my name when the contest time comes, jeeze.

All Shook Up

Yesterday I volunteered at the nature center for Home and Garden Day. I helped little kids make scare crows. It was a nice idea, but we didnt have the right stuff for scare crows. I mean, we had straw and clothes but the poles for the frames were too thick and all we had to hold everything together was staples and rope. So yeah, it was interesting. I got straw in my eye and it was bothering me for the rest of the day, that was fun. So that was from 10:30 to 2 when I had to leave and go to my Aunt S's to meet up with my Aunt R because I was volunteering at some charity even she was helping out at.

It was for the Akron Symphony Fanfare or something? Basically lots of rich people came, ate food, bought stuff and then went to see the Ultimate Elvis experience. So I got to wear a spiffy red jacket and stand in the parking garage of The Radisson, telling people to go to the elevator for an hour. Then we went upstairs and the volunteers got free food in the little restaraunt. We had salad, stuffed chicken, asparagus and baked potatoe. Mmm. After that my cousin and I went outside and helped people onto shuttles to take them to the Civic. VIPs got to ride in the Cadillac Escalades. My cousin asked if they could pick us up and the driver said sure. Then my cousin asked if he could drive :P I thought he was just playing around but the guy said it was okay so he got to drive! lol. The Escalade was awesome. I've never been even up close to one before and I probably won't ever get to ride in one again so ;)

The Elvis thing was pretty cool, if you like that sort of thing :P I happen to have an unexplicable fascination with Elvis and this guy was supposed to be the best impersonator in the world. So. Yeah, no pressure. All the fangirls old ladies were cracking me up. I thought the lady in front of us was going to pass out. or something. We werent that close but we had good seats. Considering everyone in the audience was probably a little old lady, no tall dudes were sitting in front of me for once and I had a good view. The Imperials opened for Shawn Klush (the elvis dude) and then Shawn performed with them. He was pretty funny, he was joking around and stuff. I was thinking, and I realized it was just like acting only he only played one person. Then for some reason I was thinking about his wife, if he's married, and I was trying to imagine being married to an Elvis impersonator. It would either be the biggest joke and I couldnt imagine taking a guy like that seriously or, based on the chic, it could be somebody's dream come true, lol. Anyways, that was pretty cool. He kept giving out his neck scarves to girls who came up to the stage, it was funny. He must've given out like 30 of them.

Then we went to drive home at about 10:30. My aunt's car was acting up and eventually just died. My other aunt had been driving right in front of us and she tried to help us out. Eventually after a couple frustrating hours, we left the car at a hospital, got in my other aunt's car and went to her house where my OTHER aunt's neighbor picked us up and took us to their house again and then my cousin drove me home. I ended up getting in at about one o clock. definitely a long day, lol. Interesting to say the least, and most of it was kind of fun so... I guess thats it for today, :P

Run With Me Through Rows of Speeding Cars

this is the most amazing thing ever. <3

Its called the Molly Pop mustang, all specially for Steve Saleen's daughter. And as you can tell by the SALEEN across the top of the window, he was the founder of Saleen cars, including the mustang :P
The color is customized for his daughter, its called Molly Pop x3 Steve's wife also has a custom color. Its called Lizstick Red.

Did you know? According to Wikipedia, Tim Allen drove cars for Steve with some race car driver. So they called it Saleen/Allen "RRR" Speedlab thus leading to Tim Allen's trade mark "arr arr arr" grunt. I thought that was funny.

This Is The World Coming Down On Your Head

Saturday night I had a dream that aliens were taking over the world. Humans were being shipped off in rockets to other planets so the human race didn't die out. Aaaand. Shaun White was there. It was an interesting dream to say the least. xD Did I mention I had to read War of the Worlds this year? It amazes me that dreams seem to last about ten minutes but they really last several hours... Like... time runs differently or something. Its weird. And that probably made no sense. And thats the only reason I picked my title because I like the song and wanted to use it as a title. So there.



Yesterday I went to the store with my mom because with school, we have some money to spend on educational stuff and I had this great idea to buy the educational games for the Nintendo DS. I didn't own a DS but the games were $20 each and I bought three of them for starters. AND THEN i saw the hot pink nerf armor and I decided to go for it and bought the DS. I had the money in the bank for it so I thought about it for a while and then just got it. Oh and the pink armor of course. I WANTED the fashion designer game and the horse game, and they had some pretty awesome looking other games BUT i was looking for educational ones since the ones I got might not even end up counting (AND I DON'T HAVE $64 ANYMORE) thanks to some confused teachers. The list said educational games. Meh. hopefully it counts. <3 My Academic advisor said to take photography classes instead. Its a great idea but I only have three weeks left, you know? So...




Yesterday i went to a friend's picnic with their youth group. It was fun. I didn't actually meet any new people but it was fun to be around the other people and hang out with the two girls I already knew. We had a lot of fun. We messed around and went for an impromptu walk and me, being the forest geek, wanted to go exploring so we did and found a little creek and everything, lol.



AND my dad sent me a website about selling photos to microstock companies. Some die-hards are making $20,000 a MONTH selling stock photos. I was thinking of all the things I could do with $20,000 a month. The list was pretty amazing. I KNOW I KNOW I'm not gonna make $20,000 xD at least not right away, I was just thinking about it.

Last but not least, we're going on vacation this year. My dad was looking at some beaches so it should be fun. I havent been to the beach since I was REALLY little. When he said beach I was thinking Florida and California but then he said east coast and not below a certain point x3 But thats fine... I was interested in Chincoteague, VA because on neighboring Assateague is where the wild ponies are. Or North Carolina because theres more history and stuff there. And we all love history. So I have an excuse to get a decent swim suit this year because I hate mine with a passion. Its too big in some places and too small in other. We got it on sale in like November or something xD

A word from our sponsors?

Sarah is six years old. She loves to draw, and her favorite animal is the panda bear.

Build-A-Bear has a panda bear and she would really like to get it. So to earn the $25, she decided to sell her drawings to the general public. She is taking custom orders and will draw whatever you ask her to. Each picture is only $1.

So please help Sarah reach her goal of $25, so she can buy her favorite panda bear. J

For ordering, please email

with the number of pictures you would like, what you would like the pictures to be of, and your home address.

Risotto

I mentioned last week I was going to make Risotto and yesterday I did. With some help from my dad and my little sister, we threw it together. I wasn't exactly prepared xD I chopped up all the stuff and then we realized we didn't have a scale to weigh the rice or a grater for the cheese. But we managed.




Heres all the stuff. I swapped out the light oil for some fancy italian stuff hiding in the back of the cabinet. We also got a bigger thing of garlic and some chicken broth xD We used Pioneer Woman's recipe for perfect risotto. Can't go wrong with PW, man.





Here's me chopping up garlic.Chopping chives. Remind me to never be a hand model. :P




We heated the onions and garlic in the oil.
Then we added the rice and a couple cups of chicken broth at a time.





threw in the chives and voila!




the chives were a bit much. WAY too many chives in there.
BUT IT WAS SO GOOD. lol. now I know why she said you cant stay skinny while eating risotto.

then we topped off our italian (?) appetizer with some...


pizza. xD

Crashing Not Like Hips Or Cars

Well I had quite the scare today.
For one, the power went out for a total for two and a half seconds. It was funny, we all kind of froze and waited for it to come back on. After I turned my computer back on though, it loaded it like I was a brand new Windows XP user. And I realized after I took the time to think about it that this meant all my stuff was gone. ALL of my school work, ALL of my pictures. My pictures! I almost cried. Seriously.

But before I realized all 4598237458923742 of my pictures could possibly be floating out in a black hole with no hope of return, I had the great idea to turn on a movie for my brother and my cousin. They're both two or so and my aunt is over helping out since my mom had surgery today. Only... to my dismay I saw something on the tv screen. First you need to know we have a huge tv. Like 53" and it probably cost a lot too. So I about died when I figured out it was juice. And I freaked out and went into hyperspeed as I ran upstairs to ask on yahoo answers how to clean it off. I used a damp baby washcloth with hot soapy water and gently washed it off. Its a little smudged but not sticky anymore. Then I discovered the juice all over the place. So I had to clean it up. I turned off the power strip to wash it off. Then i turned it on. Nothing. On. Off. ON. OFF. Onoffonoffonoffonoffonoff. Nothing. So freaking out again, I ran upstairs and got another power strip and replugged all the crap in. Turned it on. Nothing. Freaking out even more... So Jacob plugged in the extension chord to a different outlet and that worked. So we apparently beat the crap out of our outlet.

Anyways. After I cleaned up all the juice, plugged all the chords back in and thought I could relax I sat down and realized I had no documents on my computer. No documents means no pictures. So, getting ready to cry my eyes out, I restarted my computer. Luckily it worked and all my stuff is back.

So now I'm really tired. I was running around and freaking out, plus I didn't sleep too well and was awake a lot earlier than normal. So yeah.

Just Getting Up For The Let Down

Things have been pretty hectic here, lately. My mom has two kidney stones and a problem with her leg so last week she was feeling pretty crappy and wasn't able to do much at all. So it was kinda hard for me to get used to doing a lot more. I was in a bad mood for a while too, and just frustrated in general. Joshua doesn't like whats going on, and he's been acting up a lot so he doesn't help things. And Sarah and Timmy don't really help either. Then there was the period of time where whenever I asked Jacob to do something for me he'd say "Why can't you do it?" That leaves um. Just me!

Plus, my dad is in Vegas this week. This time he's staying at the Venetian, the hotel built around the Phantom of the Opera theatre. Where they perform Phantom of the Opera live, every night. Lol. Talk about jealous. ;) But yeah, he's not here in the evenings like he usually is so Josh still misbehaves a lot. He found out that ever since my dad and Jake oiled the sliding door, its really easy to open now. So Mr. Nature loves being outside when he isn't supposed to be out there and sometimes he'll just leave the door open. Which is bad for two reasons.

This week it was nice so I was trying to get outside a little more and play with rascal and work with him on NOT running away. Well at about 10 at night he broke his chain and was running around the neighborhood like a maniac.

Also in the past couple of weeks, our cat Cloey has just gotten really really sick. We took her to the vet and for $200 all they could tell us was she didn't have luekemia. We can't afford to get her checked out again so she's wasting away despite the fact she has food and water, and she's oozing mucus out of her eye and nose. And peeing on the floor. So during the day she has to live outside because I am NOT cleaning up more cat pee. And if Josh leaves the door open she can come in while the dog leaves... fun stuff.

So, yeah. The past two weeks or so have been pretty stressful. Sunday was really really bad. We skipped church but pastor came over Saturday and we had a mini service in our living room. And then we went to my grandparents house which honestly didn't turn out as well as I think they planned it. I was really REALLY stressed out on Sunday but I'm not as stressed out now. And tomorrow is my mom's surgery and my dad comes home Saturday morning so hopefully things can start getting back to normal now.

The thing is, I was getting the idea we were going to start working on moving again. Maybe I misunderstood or something but we were talking about painting and stuff and cleaning up the basement a little bit. And it seems like every time we get all excited and ready to work towards moving, something big happens. This time it was a couple big things: Josh was in the hospital, Cloey's vet bill, then my mom had to go to the hospital and she needs surgery... so it just pushes us farther and farther back you know? And that gets really frustrating.

But I'm done ranting now, honest. I had a good day yesterday - i got to go hang out at a friend's house and mess around with her for several hours so it was fun.

Sisky Business = Total Domination

Emily,

After thoroughly reviewing and discussing your photograph, I am pleased to inform you that our Selection Committee has advanced your contest entry, "Solitary," to semi-finalist in the International Open Amateur Photography Contest.

Your photo will now be automatically entered into the final competition, where you now have an excellent chance of winning one of over 114 cash or gift prizes, including the $1,000.00 Grand Prize. You may even win the $10,000.00 Annual Grand Prize!

And that’s not all! In celebration of your unique talent, we also wish to publish your photograph in our forthcoming anthology series . . .
Endless Journeys

Endless Journeys will be a classic, coffee-table quality hardbound volume that is printed on fine-milled paper specifically selected to faithfully reproduce the unique texture and character of your photograph.

"Solitary" was selected for publication because of its unique perspective and your artistic vision. We believe it will add to the importance and appeal of this series. You are under no obligation whatsoever to submit any entry fee or subsidy payment, or to make a purchase of any kind.

Of course, many people do wish to own a copy of the anthology in which their artistry appears. If this is the case, we welcome your order and guarantee your satisfaction. This finely crafted volume makes an excellent addition to any home, a treasured family keepsake, and a highly valued personal gift. Go here if you would like to purchase the anthology featuring your photo.

Emily, let me assure you, your image remains your property; Endless Journeys is copyrighted as a compilation. The copyright notice for your photo is published in your name. This means that you retain the copyright to your own work of art.

You should also decide if you’d like to have some personal information about yourself and your photo included in this elegant edition. Many readers have told us that one of the most interesting and enjoyable parts of the anthology is learning about the artists and the stories behind their photos. You may give the reader this added perspective about you and your photo by including this information in a special section of the anthology set aside for this purpose. Although we must charge a nominal fee for this service, you are under no obligation to include this information. Your photograph can be published without it if you wish. Please see the order form for further information. (This feature is only available to book buyers. You will be able to add an Artist's Profile once you order your book.) We look forward to reading more about you and your photography!

Emily, you should be genuinely proud of your accomplishment. Of the thousands of photographs we see each year, only a fraction can be published. We are pleased that "Solitary" will achieve the recognition that a national publication can give it. And, if you order Endless Journeys, we are so confident that you will love both the quality of the edition and the way your photograph is presented, we can proudly offer an unconditional money-back guarantee. If for any reason you are dissatisfied, simply return the book to us within 90 days and your money will be promptly refunded.

Again, congratulations, Emily. We feel you have a special talent and look forward to the publication of your photograph, "Solitary."

Sincerely,

Jeffrey Bryan
Managing Editor

BUY ME THIS BECAUSE YOU LOVE ME

and its the most amazing thing since. forever.
so.
yeah.
its $85 at walmart.
and the bike i have is too small
sooooo
yes.
and i dont have $85 right now because my tax returns didnt come back yet :D :D :D

Life Is A Highway

Today my grandma stopped by randomly at one o clock and asked if I wanted to go for a drive.
So I thought about it and decided I would.
We were gone for about an hour and a half. I think we spent about half an hour in Marc's though so that doesnt count. I should probably write that down.
But anyways, I think i did pretty good.
There was one time where I was turning and I didnt know the people in front of me in the other lane had the right away but guess what I wont be forgetting? ;)
And my turning could use some work.
But we went down and back up like three huge hills without dying or even going off the lines so thats an accomplishment xD I was scared of those big hills.

AAAAAAND eventually I'm making risotto x3 Doesnt that sound exciting?
Hopefully it'll taste good.
Heck, it better taste good.

Chris Richardson

We stood in line for a while but it wasnt too bad. The only thing was Joshua. He hadnt had a nap and he got bored standing in line waiting. Luckily they had free ice cream samples to humor him for a little while.

Chris was really nice. I had no idea what to say to him... so. I never know what to say to famous people... But yeah he was nice. He was talking with Timmy and Sarah and tried to get Josh to get a picture with him.
And he didnt rush people. There was a lady there who said "Most people just rush people a long like cattle but he lets them stay as long as they want" And I was thinking of Chris Daughtry because my dad compared the way they controlled that whole thing like herding cattle x3
so yeah.
Then Joshua screamed the whole way home.

How in the bloody hell....

-- Did I manage to wake up at 7:25, under the impression it was later.
I was, after all, up until 10:30 or so doing algebra. I was dog tired.
And BAM. 7:30 rolls around and it feels like 9. Until i actually looked at the clock.

But its not all bad.
Guess who I got an email from today?
Glenn the Funny Song Man!
I haven't talked to him in like, over a year so I was pretty surprised.

He was emailing to let me know that Chris Richardson - American Idol Season 6 Finalist - was in the studio. He said he was going to get a picture because I told him a long time ago that he looked like Chris. AND he said Chris is going to be out somewhere for two hours signing autographs and talking to people and stuff.

Pshaw. Awesome.