New Blog

Okay guys, I did it. I reached over 30 whole posts before I created a new blog. That's actually a record for me.
But, I finally got tired of this background and URL and...everything. So I set up a new one. With my favorite posts from this one copied over. I won't delete this blog or anything, I just won't be updating it.
So, check out (and follow!) my NEW incredible musings, all the way over at I Have a Voice.
If that link doesn't work, comment and let me know.
Love you all! Bye. :)

-ME

A Wonderful IM Chat between Lilly and I

Lilly: (Quoting something) "The knight in shining armor can sometimes be just a guy wrapped in tin foil."

Me: Why would a guy be wrapped in tin foil? What does he think he is, a campfire dinner?

Lilly: No, no, no. it probably is because he wants to appear to a girl, from a distance, that he is a knight in shining armor.

Me: So what’s he gonna do when it’s no longer ‘from a distance’? “Uhh, surprise! I was too cheap for armor, but we can reuse this foil to cover our leftover lasagna! I’m being frugal!!!!”

Lilly: Hey! You may never know, the girl could like a frugal guy! Or if she doesn’t like his appearance, it’s his bad luck…..

Me: Frugal, yeah. Wrapped in tin foil?? Probably not.
He’ll be eating that lasagna all by himself.

Lilly: Hey I think it would be kind of cute if the guy went through all that work to wrap himself in tin foil to appear as my knight in shinning armor….but then again if it was a guy I did not know then I would think there is something wrong with him

Me: I would rather he just act like a knight in shining armor. He could be a knight temporarily without armor. A knight in shining tinfoil is just…no.

Lilly: Okay, yeah. Maybe your right. I think I would like a guy who acted like a knight more than a guy in tin foil, but….it would be hilarious to see a guy in tin foil and take pics of him and then post them on the internet and label him as the oddest man ever!

Me: That’s true. Mock him (over ice cream) with your friends at sleepover.

Lilly: Yeah I like that! and maybe if we are hyper enough we would wrap ourselves in tin foil!! Haha. We would have to be really hyper (and rich, to buy all that tin foil) to do all that.

Me: We need to have a sleepover soon…



The moral of the story, guys, is that while we don't require you to literally be a knight in shining armor, we do prefer that you act like one. And be frugal.


P.S. The sleepover is planned for this Friday

An AMAZING Plan

I have come up with a wonderful plan so that I never again am at a total loss about what to post. 
I am going to write an incredibly exciting story. I will write and post it in installments, whenever I don't know what else to write about, and that's how you'll know that I am in desperate need of a superior blog topic. It will be wonderful, I can tell.
But first I need a topic...and a main character...and a setting... Post your suggestions in the comments!

Calculators, Earrings and Sneaky

I asked my friend for a topic to post about and she said "calculators". I guess it's probably because she was doing her math homework right then, but still... What am I supposed to say about calculators?
So I asked her for option B which was "earrings". Once again, what am I supposed to say about that?
Her final suggestion was "Sneaky" which is the code name for a boy we go to school with, who my friends have randomly decided is the man of my dreams (notice that I don't get any say in the matter). There is actually quite a bit I could say about that topic, but I'm not going to. I refuse. :D

So here I am, topic-less and alone (alone as long as my friends don't get their way, that is). I need some ideas or inspiration. Help?

5 Things to Do When Bronchitis Has You in Its Clutches...

For the past two weeks I have been trapped in my home, forced to wallow in the knee-deep piles of cough drop wrappers and Germ-X bottles that litter my bedroom floor, shut off from the world to the point that even school seemed a welcome reprieve from the germy boredom that has overtaken my life (unfortunately, the whole "school seems like a good idea" thing died as soon as math class started this morning). Who or what do I blame for this sad, sad fate? BRONCHITIS. 
This accursed inflammation of the main air passages to the lungs not only gives you a heinous cough that interferes with even the most basic, necessary things like, oh I dunno, SLEEPING, it also is contagious enough that you can't spend any time with your friends for the 3-6 weeks that it lasts, and your physician father forces you to wear a medical mask (like the one pictured above) any time you leave your room.
So what, you might ask, does one do to stay sane when held in the clutches of such an abominable illness? The answer is this: nothing. There is nothing you can do to stay sane -- it's just impossible. There are, however, a few things you can do to postpone the total mental/emotional breakdown that must eventually hit.


These are my personal favorites:

1. Sleep. Really, I think that one is pretty self-explanatory. When the coughing keeps you awake, medicate yourself. Look for the cough syrups that say "may cause drowsiness" and then take as much as you can without killing yourself. (Even though death might seem preferable to your current state, is OD-ing on cold medication really the way you want to go?) Once you finally emerge from your sweet, medically-induced slumber, move on to things 2, 3, 4 and 5.
2. Watch *insert TV show title of choice here* reruns until your eyes fall out. My *TV show title(s) of choice* are Pushing Daisies and Chuck. Anything silly, fun and slightly weird that doesn't involve too much thought on your part. If you're particularly medicated, though, you might be able to throw in a little Primeval or Heroes, just to shake things up.
3. Eat anything and everything in sight. Make 16 servings of your comfort food and then label the container "Poison" so no one else touches it. 
4. Listen to music. Once your favorite radio stations start repeating themselves, admit defeat and go to your dad for music suggestions. No matter how strange the 80's may have been, the music was pretty good. And really, anything's better than listening to nothing but the not-so-dulcet din caused by your own hacking (up a lung, that is). Or, if you're really lucky, you'll discover that a band you sort of like did a cover of a song you sort of like -- and the result is a sound that caresses your ears and sooths you like a shoulder rub to your soul. Yep, I'm talking about this one:

5. And five, if you ever start to sink into a deep despair because you are feeling sorry for yourself and your admittedly pitiable condition, ask your friends for a pep talk. Because if your friends are half the friends that my friends are, you will get wonderful, comforting, heartfelt messages like this:
  "Oh, you have a cold? You can GET OVER IT."
Yep. My best friend actually gave me that note. Feelin' the  love, Not Cosmo -- reeeaaally feelin' it.

I hope, but don't expect, that you have found this blog post helpful, that you will take it to heart, and that it will come to your relief the next time you suffer from acute bronchitis.

Love,
ME

Some random pics I took and edited...

Tumblr

Okay, so there is this blogging site called Tumblr that I was introduced to by a friend. It seems pretty cool so I set up an account. That doesn't mean that this blog is toast, just that I might not post on it for a while...and that it might be toast in the future...We'll see. Maybe I can find a way to link the two of them or something and then take turns posting on both...
Anyways, just letting you guys know. Here's the link:
Unwritten
If that doesn't work, here's just the plain URL to copy and paste:
themusicofthespheres.tumblr.com

I love you all!

A Not So Girly Post

Here it is, as promised: the post full of non-girly things. We'll start with a list of non-girly things that are on my mind right now.

1. I have decided that I want to join the Peace Corps after I get my bachelor's degree
2. I have re-discovered my love for One Republic, especially "Stop and Stare"
3. I adore the casting for The Hobbit film
4. I have made a slightly late New Year's resolution to start reading comic books (mostly so my dad will take me to Comic-Con). Methinks I'll start with DC...Justice League, here I come
5. Today I made my best horchata so far

Now, a couple of non-girly pictures:

And to finish it all off, a video about Spock from the 2009 Star Trek movie. Set to a non-girly song, no less.


Love,
A very geeky me

Girl Party and TV Couple Ships

I realized I've only really been writing girly sappy posts for a while, so I'm gonna get all the rest of it out right now so I can go back to writing about National Geographic and science fiction. If girly things offend you (pointed look at Kaytlyn), then just skip this post and wait for something more...masculine?

Girly AND true!

I am currently sitting on the bathroom floor while my future-cosmetologist sister attempts to crimp my hair (my "dang crap hair" as she puts it. you know, if that's what she says to her customers, I don't think she'll do so well in the business. she yanks ears and hits, too.) We do this sometimes (not the dang crap thing, the hanging out thing) and she tries to convince me that I don't have to be a slob all the time. I allow her to think she's succeeding just because I like not having to fix my own hair.
It's funny, really, because with my friends I am one of the girliest but with my sister I am manly, unfashionable, and all-around geeky. A slobby slob, as opposed to a sappy sap. Ah, well. No way to win, I guess.
So here is a list of the most girly things about me. The things my friends (except Kaylla) make fun of me for. Here goes:

1. I LOVE a good chick-flick now and again. Not the gross raunchy "romantic comedies" but the ones like Letters to Juliet or The Notebook (censored, of course) or Tangled. I hold Disney and Jane Austen fully responsible for my "ridiculously high" standards when it comes to guys.
2. Flowers. I think if a guy got me flowers I'd be hard-pressed to not like him, at least a little. (That doesn't mean there aren't exceptions. You know who they are.)
3. I shamelessly ship TV couples. That means from episode 2 I've decided who ends up with who, and if the writers of the show do it differently than I want...beware, Lilly. Us shippers (me and middle-aged women across America) even have nicknames for these couples. Caskett, Rayne, Pyka, Charah... Yeah, a whole new kind of geeky you didn't even want to know about.
4. I love this song:

5. I like smelling like sugar cookies. Yes, you needed to know that.

Okay, the end. Expect the next post to be full of Sherlock Homes, mummies, country music, and how stinkin' EXCITED  I am for Andrew Garfield to be Spiderman.
Love you all,
 - Me

My Birthday! :D And a Song from Dumbo

Okay, wow, it's been FOREVER since I last updated. Sorry about that.
A lot of things have happened, but the most exciting (in my mind, at least) was my sixteenth birthday. I didn't have a big party or anything, just some family stuff and then I went to the Incredible Pizza Company with some of my good friends. I got some great presents -- some CDs I'd been asking for, a necklace from my grandparents, AWESOME shoes, you get the picture. But I have to say, one of the best presents I think I've ever gotten in my entire life has to be the boyfriend that my friends Lilly and McKaylla got for me. Yes, a boyfriend. You see, my friends are very much aware of my longtime crush on singer Josh Groban. And, being the wonderful friends that they are, they decided that they would get him for me. Wait, I'll post a picture...
Yep, that's him. :D You see, they got a Ken doll and just taped Josh's face on the box. He doesn't talk much (or sing, unfortunately), but it's the thought that counts, right?

On another, no less happy note, I have discovered that I LOVE the lullaby from Dumbo. I am going to post it so you all can share in the joy.


Love,
Me

The List

First off, I must acknowledge that I got the idea to do this post from my dear friend Kaylla. She posted basically the same thing just a couple days ago and since she always gives me shout-outs on her blog I figured it was time to return the favor. 

 So I don't know about you, but I know that ever since I was a little girl I have, both on my own and in countless Young Women's lessons, made list after list of qualities I want require my future husband to have. 

Sure, some things have changed as I've gotten older. I no longer demand that he be European royalty (No complaints, though) or be a young, LDS (but every bit just as Australian) clone of Hugh Jackman (and once again, no complaints if it does end up that way). Some things, though, have stayed pretty much the same since I was 6 years old -- 

1. He has to be a returned missionary 

2. and honor his Priesthood. 

3. He has to be worthy to take me to the temple, 

4. and he has to have all the same standards as me. 

5. He will treat me like the princess that both I and my Heavenly Father know I am. 

6. He will love liberty and fight to defend it. 

7. He'll be great with kids and want as many as I do -- at least 6.

8. He'll be smart and well-read.

9. He'll have a great sense of humor and always be able to make me laugh but also know when to be serious.

10. Oh, and he'll be a total HOTTIE. :P Maybe I will require Hugh Jackman II..... :D 

As always, thanks for reading. 

P.S. This is from what looks to be an AMAZING documentary about the oldest living Holocaust survivor. She is such a sweet lady and her laugh is contagious. I can't find an embeddable copy, so here's the link: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/11/alice-herz-sommer-worlds-oldest-holocaust-survivor/

Thankful for the Little Things

Today was a good day. I don't know if it was for any reason in particular, it was just good. I got enough sleep last night (for the first time in forever), I had some good laughs with my friends, I got all my math corrections done, and my favorite song came on the radio right when I got in the car this morning. It's days like this that make up for all the other bad, crazy, stressful, tear-your-hair-out days, ya know? Days when everything goes right and you remember all of those little things that make you happy. It's like that song in The Sound of Music -- 

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad

Oh, and another thing that makes me happy? Watching my two year-old brother breakdance in the kitchen. :D

And my best friend is Elizabeth Bennet?

The first term of school is almost over, life is crazy busy, two weeks ago I turned in my application to work in Washington and what do I have to talk to you about? A recent discovery about my friend's personality. Yeah, it's just that exciting.
So the particular friend that I am thinking of is headstrong, smart, kind, frank, independent, loves her family and friends, loves the outdoors, loves reading, isn't afraid to tell a guy what she thinks..... Sound like anyone from classic English literature? Anyone?
Bingo -- Elizabeth Bennet, the heroine of Jane Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice (and if we're talking film adaptions, as I believe I've mentioned before, the 1995 version starring Colin Firth is the ONLY way to go).
And speaking of Colin Firth, Pride and Prejudice is most certainly not a single-character based story. I would have been content to just make snide remarks about my friend's general need for her very own Mr. Darcy, but it just so conveniently happens that there is a certain guy at school who is, oh I dunno, tall dark and handsome? Smart? A little bit of a jerk sometimes? Yeah, and it gets better: my certain friend and this certain guy didn't exactly hit it off from the beginning. They were completely content to barely tolerate each other for quite awhile. (Ringing any bells for you yet?) Oh, but now? My friend thinks maybe she doesn't hate him any more. I'm not saying she likes him (yet :P), she just doesn't dislike him...... :D
Anyways, teasing my friend totally makes my day. Love you lots, honey pie!


Oh, P.S. This friend may or may not by the time you read this have written a blog post about this same topic at sweetcheeks48.blogspot.com

Hmmm...Hmmm...What to post about?

Well, when in doubt post about your favorite music, right?

So I don't usually listen to pop music and I definitely am not into the teeny-bopper television shows that are on channels like Disney and Nick (because they are, for lack of a better word or any tact, STUPID) but flipping through channels the other day I discovered a band (technically I discovered a tv show, but it holds no interest for me besides the songs) that has some surprisingly good music. Yeah, it's mostly (okay, maybe all) sugary feel-good pop but they're pretty darn talented and the one good thing about a band that comes from a Nick tv show is that you know their music will at least be clean.

Anyways, it's a group of four guys (I have no idea how old they are, but probably no older than 19 or 20) called Big Time Rush. I'm not saying, "Go listen to them all day and buy their album and love them forever," I'm just going to post a couple of my favorite songs by them because at the moment I am lacking a better post topic. The first one is called "Stuck" and the second one is "Halfway There". My other favorite is called "Counting on You" (featuring Jordin Sparks), but I figured posting two is enough and then if you really like them for some reason you can go check out other songs on your own.

Thanks for reading! :D

I think this one has the lyrics, but I give no guarantee that they are correct.

Sorry, the only one I could find for this was the actual music video.


Okay, I thought I would just end the post there but I feel weird just posting pop music (it's very un-me) so I will now post a country song in order to get my mojo back. Here is one of my all-time favorites, Lady Antebellum's "Our Kind of Love".

My new favorite movie/musical

So this weekend, while staying with my aunt and uncle, I watched The Phantom of the Opera (the one with Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum) for the first time. All I can say is that I love, love, LOVE it. I would definitely not recommend it for young audiences because it deals with some...suggestive topics but the story, the music, the cast *cough cough Gerard Butler cough cough* : it all makes for one AMAZING film (and I would give up a limb if I could go see it live on Broadway).
One of my favorite scenes is towards the end where Christine, traumatized because she's the object of the Phantom's creepy, obsessive love, goes to visit her father's grave. The song she sings in the cemetery ("Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again") is BEAUTIFUL and the "Angel of Music" reprise right after that she sings with the Phantom (thinking he's her father's spirit?) sends chills up and down my spine (or maybe that was just the sofa's built in spine-chilling mechanism...hmmm...)
I do wonder, though, what the next step in the Phantom's plan was, because if Christine's boyfriend hadn't shown up she would have gone into the crypt and realized he wasn't her dearly departed daddy. What would he say? "Ummm....SURPRISE! I'm not your dad, but how do you feel about coming to live under the opera house with me for fooorrreeeevvveeer? You, me, and that creepy lifelike doll/replica of  you that I keep right by my bed could be one big, happy family!" Hehe maybe he should stick to "Christine *wheeze wheeze* I am not your father *wheeze wheeze*." :D
The movie nearly made me bawl my eyes out, though, because the Phantom's story made me so sad! I can't imagine watching anyone treat a little boy like that, that one little scene in the movie made me feel physically sick :( And he was so sad... Christine made him really happy, he was just bonkers because of the abuse he suffered as a child and didn't know how to handle the happiness...
Okay, I'll stop now and just post a couple videos. Thanks for reading!

Here's that song I love:

And here is the ridiculously sad almost-final scene:

P.S. -- Mmm-hmm, yeah. And he's Scottish too.

All boys are weird, but some are weirder than others

I found this incredibly  profound
statement on Google Images.
My life now has meaning.

Once upon a time there was a girl who had some awesome friends--and some slightly less awesome possums, but that's another story. This girl, unfortunately, went to school with a lot of teenage boys. "What could be so unfortunate," you say, "about going to school with a lot of teenage boys? I thought you liked boys, ReallyShawn."
To this I answer, "Nay, I like MEN. And since there are no MEN at my school, only teenage boys, it is indeed unfortunate." And to this you say, "Why are you talking so strangely, ReallyShawn?" and for that I have no answer. 
Moving on...

Ooh, and here it is
with a picture!

So in order to make snide remarks about these unfortunate teenage boys, the girl (that's me...in case you hadn't figured it out yet, I'm the girl...) and her awesome friends made up a nickname for each boy. That is, only the boys who mattered... Some of these nicknames were really random, like "Bud", "Presley" or "Gem". Others, like "Ella" or "Handsome Devils numbers 1 and 2" had to do with inside jokes dating back to at least the beginning of 10th grade. And finally, there were the nicknames that had to do with the unfortunate ones themselves--names like "Old man shoes" or "Stinky" that related specifically to their odd senses of style or the amount of cologne they bathed in (yeah, someone really needs to teach them the 'mist and walk through' technique).


And then writing in this odd, past tense-ish style became too difficult for the girl, and she decided to just tell you the rest of the story in a slightly more normal fashion...


So we give nicknames to any guys that we need to talk about without them, or the eighth grade girls that worship them, knowing about it. It's not that we particularly care if they know that we don't think they're quite all that and a bag of chips, it's just that everything's more fun in code. It makes us feel dangerous. *cue Mission Impossible theme*


One of our favorite things to do is go stink-eye hunting. Do you know what a stink-eye is? If not, you have lived a very sad life until now. The stink-eye, not to be confused with the smoldering love-look, is the perfect blend of glare and eye-roll, and is best delivered pointedly and with a subtle snort of disgust. 

It is our strong belief that it is precisely because we don't worship the ground that certain boys walk on, unlike...others, that we are so good at getting stink-eyes. It's the most fun to pass someone when they are having a conversation with one of their friends and they (1) stop, (2) give you a fantastic stink-eye as you walk by, and then (3) go right back to their conversation like it was totally normal to optically send death wishes your way.


Well, I'm done rambling (for now). Thanks, as always, for reading and THANK YOU, my dear Kaylla, for the shout-out on your blog.  It made me feel special.


And no, I don't actually have any possums.

And we'll have our own show on USA...

  So the mom of some of my really good friends is going back to school to study forensics. Since I work with her most school days in the elementary library we get to talk about this stuff a lot. For a really long time I wanted to go into forensics, the top choice being a...detective-y person (I don't know what the official title is. You know, the ones that work with the cops to solve crimes involving dead people?). This fantasy kind of ended when I realized how much science would be involved, but hey, maybe this year I'll discover that I actually LOVE chemistry.
  You see, I've always had this (somewhat un-ladylike) fascination with death. No, not as in the gothic, creepy, "deeeeeaaaathh" fascination, but as in I wanted to be an archaeologist just so I could touch mummies and my favorite part of studying the Middle Ages was learning about the Black Death.
  Anyways, my library buddy and I decided that we would have our own forensic-detectives team.  We'll solve mysteries and fight crime and be JUST like those TV shows, right? :D

Well....

  So, the first week of school was actually pretty darn good. I LOVE my core teacher, my family science class is AMAZING so far, we are doing one of my all-time favorite plays in drama class (Fiddler on the Roof), and for one period a day I get to work in the little kids' library down in the elementary hallway ( so far it's just been organizational stuff, but soon I'm going to learn how to check books out to the kids). The only problems are pre-calculus and chemistry. It's only the first week (which means review from the past two years) and I already have at least an hour of math homework every night. And while I am actually excited about science fair (because I get to do it with one of my best buds again this year) it's the whole, you know, science thing that I don't love as much.

  You see, I'm pretty severely right brained. Random, subjective, intuitive (okay, so maybe not so intuitive), looking at wholes rather than parts: pretty much me in a nutshell. It takes quite a bit of effort for me to be analytical or logical (dang it! not Vulcan after all...) With some effort I can do math and science and those things, but they come a LOT less easily.
   Well, enough complaining. Happy Labor Day everybody!

Thanks for reading, you are incredibly wonderful. :D

a COUNTRY song :)

Here it is, as promised.
This is quite possibly one of my favorite love songs ever. It's by a group called Jaron and the Long Road to Love. ("Jaron" was also in a pop duo with his twin brother Evan a while ago. It was called --you guessed it!-- Evan and Jaron).
Anyways-- beautiful song, slightly random video.

BACK TO SCHOOL! (and another song from Mr. Groban :D)

YAY! The 2010-2011 school year (for my incredibly wonderful school, anyway) officially starts tomorrow and I, for one, am SO EXCITED! I doubt that it will last past the first assignment or two, but I'm enjoying the joy while it lasts.
I'm going into the 11th grade which is arguably the most stressful year of high school, what with college applications and ACTs and SATs and all that fun stuff...but for now I'm just not going to think about that. I am excited to see my friends and excited to be a Junior and excited about who my core teacher is and excited to turn sixteen...
I'll try and post an update (and maybe some pics) when I get home tomorrow.

 Oh, and one more thing. If you hadn't noticed, I really really love Josh Groban and I think that I will post my new favorite song by him. :D Yes, I do actually listen to other music too. I'll post some good country or something next time.

Thanks for reading! :)