The Lightning Thief

You, know, I just realized there are two author I have not yet talked about even though I have read multiple works from them. Let's start off with Rick Riordan, shall we?

The first book I read from him was The Lightning Thief.

I had borrowed the book from my mom's coworker only because the coworker insisted and my mom wasn't saying anything to get me out of the situation. I was convinced that I would not like the book because it dealt with Greek mythology, which was always tragic and graphic and hard to understand.

Imagine my surprise when, a few chapters in, I could not put the book down!

The book is written from main character Percy Jackson's humorous first person perspective somewhere in our modern-day New York.

Odd things have been happening to Percy his whole life, and his ADHD and dyslexia and tendency to blow up school property have not helped things in the least. He has been expelled from every school he ever attended, and his home life isn't that great either, what with his step-dad making a mess of the place and being incapable of holding down a job.

Percy's one sunny spot in life is his mother: Sally Jackson. She works too hard for too little reward, but as far as Percy is concerned, she's the best person to ever grace earth with her presence.

So instead of telling his mom about the most recent and most terrifying event in his life, Percy clams it all up least it spoil a weekend trip with just him and his mom.

Turns out, that one mistake just may have cost Percy his mom's life.

This book is filled with danger and mystery and twists all over the place, but it's also filled with humor and love and the best kind of heroes - the kind who survive each battle thrown at them, even if just barely.

Also, when it came to all the Greek stuff running around our modern world, Riordan did a great job of explaining how that worked so that even stubborn people like me have no choice but to admit they understand.

Wow, long post. See you tomorrow!

Lame Days and Poems

My days are mostly uneventful now that summer has started. Here, I even wrote a poem about it:

My days are lame
and so is this poem
because it doesn't
rhyme.

But lots of poems
don't rhyme.
Teachers all say
they have meter.

I'm going to say
this has meter too
and leave it to "experts"
to divine my hidden meaning.

So, didja like it? Work of brilliance, I assure you. And so will those experts; they love finding brilliance where the poet him/herself will just say he/she just wrote whatever.

I think I've dazzled the public enough for one day. If I continue this post much longer, you won't be able to handle my geniusness.

So, until tomorrow!

Harvest Moon Pt. 10

Should I give you a Harvest Moon update?

Hmm, I don't know if I should or not, but I'm going to.

I have recently begun playing Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns again, but this time on a glitch-free version. I've so far made it to the middle of summer, which is about where I gave up the last time I tried playing this game on that glitched copy.

Because I've made it to the middle of summer, it means I've met five of the six eligible bachelors. The only one I have yet to meet is Mikhail, the violinist, or so a few walkthroughs tell me.

I have also so far spent both of my seasons on Konohana, mostly raising crops with a few animals. I'm thinking I'll move to Bluebell maybe in the start of the second year.

Let's see... Anything else I can give you an update on?

Well, I have no idea which bachelor I'm going to want to marry, so I'm just courting them all. Which I probably would be doing even if I had decided on one.

I do know that there are two bachelors which I definitely will not be marrying. Maybe I'll talk about the bachelors I've met tomorrow? Or should I probably wait until I've met the last available bachelor?

Maybe if I talk about each of them extensively enough and play lots of ToTT these next couple of days, I'll have met the last one by the time his turn comes around.

Later!

Extra Stuff

I currently have way too much stuff in my room.

I have about double the amount of stuff I want in my room, actually.

Can you guess why?

It's all my college stuff. Now that I've moved back out of college, I have all my normal stuff in my room plus all the stuff that used to be in my room at college.

Now I've got two rooms worth of stuff crammed into one room, and I can scarcely get anywhere except from my door to my bed and closet, which are side by side and probably the only reason my closet is accessible too.

Sigh. The joys of no longer getting to live at home full-time except for a few months out of the middle of the year.

I wonder how much of this stuff I'll lug back to college come the start of the fall semester?

It won't be everything that I brought home with me because I brought home a lot of surcies (small trinket gifts from the college) that I kind of wonder if I should just throw away because I'll probably never use them here or at college.

Anyways, that'll be something for me to figure out at a much later date. I only brought it up now because it was the only thing I could think of to blog about.

Later!

Yard Saling Stuffz

This past Saturday, I went to a few yard sales with my dad.

Aside from his forcing me to drive, it was pretty cool. I picked up a couple puzzles (small ones; only 250 pieces), and Daddy got a new desk chair for Mommy.

Both puzzles I picked up I have by now finished. I pieced together one of them Saturday after returning home, and I started and finished the second one yesterday after getting home from church.

Both of them were the same style of puzzle, which is to say that they were both "framed." Whatever the picture was that I was trying to put together, the two outside rows/columns of puzzle pieces made up a frame.

One puzzle was of a lighthouse and the surrounding water and sky. The other was a house in the fall with tons of pumpkins and a few apples being gathered around.

The Saturday before this past one, I got a DVD copy of the movie The Swan Princess. I really debated over whether I wanted it or not. Even though I like Odette and the plotline is pretty good and the villain goes from fun to evil to an evil sort of fun and the royal queen is hilarious... I just don't like Derek.

Now, I'm not going to go into a rant about him and how he never really proved in the end what Odette wanted from him. I'm going to control myself. Somehow.

All I'm going to say is that I did eventually decide to get the DVD since it was only a dollar. And that I look forward to next Saturday's yard sale.

Summer Boredom

I'm getting a little stir-crazy this summer already.

Yesterday, I could scarcely hold still. I wandered from my room upstairs to the living room downstairs to the back room, the whole time talking to my dog about who-knows-what.

I finally plopped myself down in the living room next to my dog and started brushing him.

My dog sheds. A lot.

So brushing him can produce anywhere from three to an infinite number of handfuls of fur, depending on how long you're willing to sit there brushing him.

I brushed my dog for probably about an hour, and most of that time I was singing.

I didn't give myself a sore throat, but I noticed for the first time that your tongue can get tired.

And then later that evening, I was still bored and stir-crazy. I probably gave my mom a heart attack when I cleaned up a portion of our dirty supper dishes. Granted, I only wiped a few dishes and stuck them in the dishwasher, but still.

This morning, I still want to do something, anything. My parents took me out for breakfast since both of them have the day off, but I'm still hoping to do something else.

Wish me luck!

Cross-Stitching

Have I ever told you that I cross-stitch sometimes?

Well, I do. I've made a kitty-cat, puppy-dog, Ariel, and Cinderella. I've also made something that was for Mother's Day a couple years back as well as a map I drew out myself.

And a few years ago at a sale going on in my area to raise money for something, I picked up a pattern that showed two wolves out among a snowy forest howling at the moon.

It's a pretty complicated pattern, although there's really no reason why I shouldn't have finished it yet.

And yet, here it sits on my desk, only one wolf finished and parts of the background around him, plus a few trees next to him.

I still have another (bigger) wolf to finish, plus most of the rest of the background.

Honestly, I probably would have more done by now, but lately when I've worked on it this summer, my thread keeps breaking. How on earth am I supposed to sew with broken thread pieces half hanging from my needle and half stuck in the material?

At the very least, I'm sure you can imagine it's frustrating. I'm also worried that if it keeps breaking, I won't have enough thread to finish the pattern when I finally do make it towards the end.

Grrr.

Well, I guess I'll probably keep working at it off and on over a few more months/years/decades. Maybe one day I really will finish it.

See you!