Wooly-headed

I made a knitted and felted hat...that means I made it out of wool yarn and then washed it in the washing machine in hot water until it shrank. Wool does that. And that's not something you want to do to a nice wool sweater, unless it says it's machine-washable, just so you know!

So I got a nice green yarn and knitted a huge hat to felt down to the proper size. Here it is before I felted it:












Chain wool mail, anyone?

I tried rolling it up, but I still couldn't see:












The next day I felted it, shaped it, and left it to dry. When it finally dried all the wet wool smell was gone (good!). Have you ever smelled a wet sheep? No? Well neither have I, but wet wool smells NASTY! It's an awful, awful smell. And this was nice clean processed wool; I can only imagine how bad the fresh wool roving that spinners get must smell!

It doesn't look quite look how I wanted it to look, but I think that just may be my head. I must have a funny shaped head. Oh well. Or it may be the pattern...since I didn't want to pay the $5.95 to get that pattern, I went with a free pattern. And now that I look at it, it isn't really the same shape as the other pattern, though it's kind of hard to tell around the furry yarn (I did not use the furry yarn!).

Hey-la, hey, hey-lo-ah

Sorry about the silence! I was really busy this weekend, I had a bread order to work on Saturday, a pie to make, and Mom and I went to a cross-stitch get together. On Sunday we had a church fellowship (that's why I had to make a pie) and then I babysat that evening, so I was too tired last night to post!

Anyway, I got my skirt done and wore it on Sunday, along with a belt I made to go with it. I was going to get one of my friends to take a picture for me, but I forgot to ask her, so I had to make do with the tripod and timer on my camera. :)
It doesn't always turn out great, but it works.

Here's the skirt hanging up, so you can see the shape of it more:












I'm using this pattern, view D, but without the pockets:

I decided I didn't want the pockets for the look I was going for, plus if I have pockets I have a tendency to jam my hands into them, which doesn't look very lady-like, when I should really just figure out what to do with my hands! :) I found myself trying to find the pockets yesterday, and then forcing my hands to relax...at least I've gotten over what I use to do, which was to stand with my right arm behind me, holding my left arm which was hanging down, in a sort of speed-skating pose. I'm not even sure why I did that instead of folding my arms... "I'm not defensive, but my arms are too long!" :D Okay...that got rather off-topic!

The fellowship yesterday was fun and my right arm is sore from playing air-hockey...ouch! I love playing air-hockey and I'm rather intense in my playing, especially since I'm used to playing with my dad. However, I was playing someone who was as intense as me, but more accurate, so I lost the game!

Ah, I think that's all I have to post about right now, my next posts will be about sewing (how to do French seams) and my felted hat that I finished.

Getting there

I'm almost finished with my skirt, all I have left to do is hem it, so I tried it on. I'm really happy with how it's turning out, and the waistband fits perfectly...perfectly! As you might have guessed that's not always guaranteed even on something I sew myself. So I'm very happy about that!

I tried it on with the brown boots I plan to wear with it and Colin said it looked very nice. I thanked him, and he proceeded to explain that he liked how the boots blended in with the skirt, and the shirt I was wearing looked nice too, but it would look even better if I wore a brown shirt, then I would match all over. "With the brown skirt, and the boots, and shirt, and your hair." Um...number one, I was not aware that my hair was the same color as the dark brown skirt. Second, I'm not going for a (feminine) UPS employee look. I'll wear all black, but not all brown...that's just too...brown. Although I guess there's not a whole lot of difference between all black and all brown.

So Colin approves of my new skirt and I'll post pictures of it when I get it completely done. :)

Prince Edward who?

Okay...so I'd never, ever heard of Prince Edward Medley before. Nor had I looked at the bag for the "mixed vegetables" we got from Aldi. Until tonight, when I was looking at the back of the bag to see how long it needed to cook for: "Place desired amount of Prince Edward Medley in a small amount of boiling salted water." Do what with who???? So I flip the package over and see that the mixture of green beans, wax beans, and baby carrots is indeed called Prince Edward Medley.
After doing some searching on it, it looks to be fairly common, and it originated presumably on Prince Edward Island, Canada. Why it's specific to there I don't know, and I couldn't find anything about it. I did find a link to the Aldi webpage and the PEM: http://aldi.us/us/html/offers/2867_4130_ENU_HTML.htm

So there you have it...has anyone else never heard of PEM?

Dear old PEM...he's been boiled now. And he was quite tasty...even though I forgot to boil him in salted water...oops!

Which Austen heroine are you?

Take the Quiz here!

You are Elinor Dashwood of Sense & Sensibility! You are practical, circumspect, and discreet. Though you are tremendously sensible and allow your head to rule, you have a deep, emotional side that few people often see.

Random fact for Rebecca...and Colin

I told Rebecca in an email this week that there was some random fact I was going to tell her about, but that I couldn't remember it. I just remembered it.

You can marry your second cousins in any state, but in North Carolina you can even marry your first cousins...which might explain a lot about North Carolina. :D Cousin Marriage Laws.

So when Colin told Rebecca they should get married, they actually could...well, if he was 12 years older they could! :)

So anyway, that was my random fact for the day!

Ten things

Okay, so my cousin Rebecca posted a list of ten things she'd want to have with her if she was stranded on a desert island, and challenged her readers to come up with their own list. So here's mine:

1. My Bible
2. Sunscreen
3. Bottled water
4. Lip balm
5. The Complete Edgar Allen Poe
6. My iPod
7. Pencil & paper
8. A totally hilarious guy (okay, so I got that idea from Rebecca, but I would want that too!)
9. Sunglasses
10. ...uh, I can't think of a tenth thing...help me here...um, some band? Celebrity? No, scratch that, I don't want a celebrity with me. Another practical thing??? Other than something like, say, a boat. :)

Tell me your own list in the comments, or link to a post about it!

Sewing

Here's what I've been working on sewing-wise. I bought the fabric quite a while ago, but I haven't had time till now to do any sewing.

All I've done so far is cut out the fabric and sew the four skirt panels together (wrong sides together). I like to do French seams because it binds the seams neatly, which will be good for this especially, because this is corduroy that would probably fray pretty badly.

To make a French seam, you sew the pieces wrong sides together with a 3/8 inch seam allowance. Then you trim the seam allowance down to 1/8, turn the pieces around wrong sides together, and sew a 1/4 inch seam. That's if your seam allowance is supposed to be 5/8, if not you have to subtract 1/4 from whatever it's supposed to be and sew that first. Did that make any sense? I'll show pictures when I get to that point. That's actually what I'll be doing next, then I have to attach the waistband and sew a zipper in. I don't like sewing zippers, but this should be easier than the other two things I've made with zipper (a rayon skirt and dress with a long zipper)!

I'm also almost done with the hat I'm knitting...I'll post pictures of it when I get it done. I only have maybe twelve rows to go.

After I get these things done I'm not sure what my next knitting project will be, but I need to find a pattern for the fabric I bought last month. Oh yeah, that's right, my knitting project will be a shrug to go over the dress I make with that fabric! Well, maybe I can knit something else before I start on that.

So I think I'll go look at the McCall's, Butterick, and Vogue pattern websites for dress patterns, because Hancock Fabrics is supposed to have those patterns on sale in February...

What I'm doing

Flipping and rotating my mattress while pondering the irony of having to flip/rotate a mattress (twin-size, but still fairly heavy) to help my back pain.

I feel like a hypochondriac, but my back, neck, and head have been hurting a lot lately, and it's getting really annoying. Well, actually it's more like really painful, not annoying. My neck is giving me the most problems, and I got a new pillow to see if that would help, but it hasn't. And of course that wouldn't do anything for my back. I also had a weird headache sort of thing all the sudden yesterday afternoon, right between my eyes. It felt the way it feels if you eat a lot of something really cold, or right after you take an ice pack off your head. It was probably just a random headache, but it was weird.

Some of it is probably caused by being on the computer more than I used to be before I had a computer in my room, but I don't think that's causing all the problems.

I don't know... I just wish my back and neck would stop hurting. :<

Changing it up

As Rebecca mentioned in the comments, I've added some blogs to my blog roll.

I also added an email link down at the very bottom of my sidebar. That's not my main email address, so anyone who has my main address, please continue to use it! I just didn't want to put it on the blog; this Yahoo one is what I use to avoid spam when signing up for something.

I also made a Meez. There are a lot more details than on Yahoo avatars...of course it's mainly a time-waster, but it's kind of fun! :)

I thought about adding some other blog buttons, but I couldn't figure out where to put them that wouldn't look cluttered.

So take a look at my updated sidebar!

Should I, now?

You Should Play the Drums

You are often hyper, restless, and full of a little too much zeal. However, people may be surprised to know that you can focus your energy well. You are driven and engaged enough to be a great drummer... and you have the stamina to practice for hours. In fact, when you can channel your energy productively, it only increases! You are independent and spirited... but also consistent. You can definitely keep the beat. You work well in a group and contribute heartily - without needing to take the lead. Your dominant personality characteristic: your aggression Your secondary personality characteristic: your precision

What Musical Instrument Should You Play?

Breakfast smoothies

This is just how I like my smoothie, but basically you can put just about anything in!

4-6 ice cubes
2 cups plain yogurt
2 T. sugar
2 T. honey
2 t. vanilla
1 cup frozen fruit

Crush the ice cubes in the blender first. Add the yogurt, sugar, honey, and vanilla. Mix the honey into the yogurt a little bit with a spoon, trying to avoid the sides of the blender. (Once the honey gets stuck on the sides it is hard to get off.) Add the frozen fruit. (I've been using a blend of blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries.) Blend this all together thoroughly and eat!
This makes two servings.

I use plain yogurt, so if you use vanilla yogurt you probably won't need the sugar, honey, or vanilla....unless you like it really, really sweet!
The berry blend I'm using now is a bit tart and you end up with seeds in your smoothie, so if you don't like that, I would suggest some other sort of fruit. I'm thinking of getting a bag of frozen strawberries from Costco and making a strawberry/banana smoothie. If you don't mind bananas, they're supposed to make a smoothie a little bit thicker too. You could add the berries to that as well...as I said there's really no one way to make them, but I gave you the basic proportions anyway.

I'm thinking of getting some calcium/magnesium powder to add, because those are two things I need to get more of, but I can't swallow the pills. I imagine there are tons of other protein powders and stuff, but if you start adding too many healthy things, I'm not sure how long it will taste good! :D

Friday catch-up

Okay, so I promised a real post today, and I think I might just have time to write one. I managed to get a lot done today; I got my schoolwork done, vacuumed the whole house, mopped the kitchen floor, and still had time to go for a short walk. And Mom and I went to two grocery stores tonight. We still haven't eaten supper, but the pizza's in the oven, and I'm finally starting to get hungry!

Let's see, what did I do during my blog break? Not much of anything extra I guess, I just got everything done that I needed to, with a little leftover time after that. I got started on a skirt I'm making, and I started knitting a hat: I'll post pictures of those two things tomorrow. Other than that, I slept, got schoolwork back into my schedule, relaxed, and read some!

Oh, the pizza's done!

Okay, that was last night, and I never got back to finish my post!

Recently I've been doing some research about vegetables and fruits...I'm hoping that if I eat more vegetables and fruits like you're supposed to that maybe it will help with my energy levels. I think you're supposed to eat three servings of fruit and four of vegetables per day? I'm really not sure how you can manage to eat four servings of veggies in one day, but maybe I can manage at least two! It's fairly easy to eat some fruit with breakfast and lunch, but I guess I would need to eat a serving with supper as well. Hmm... Well, mainly I'm trying to be eating better than I am now.

Speaking of fruit, I've been making yogurt smoothies for breakfast this week. The only problem is that it's a little bit cold right now for smoothies, so I usually have a nice hot piece of toast too! :) I know the smoothies will taste really good in the summer though.

I think I mentioned on here a long time ago that I was thinking about starting a craft business...well, the more I thought about that, I realized that wouldn't really work for various reasons. What is going to work is selling homemade bread! I may eventually try selling some at the farmer's market, but not for a while, and I'm not quite sure yet what all that would require. I sold some last week to a lady at church, and I have two orders for bread this week. So that's what I'm doing today. I've got three batches, or six loaves of bread to make today, plus my usual Saturday work, so I'm going to be pretty busy!

I only have three types of bread right now: White Bread, Milk Bread, and Honey Whole Wheat. The white breads are $2 a loaf, and the wheat bread is $3. I need to get some more recipes and make some different kinds as well, but I haven't gotten around to that yet. Other recipes might call for different types of flour that I'll have to find where to buy, so that may take a while. Oh, and speaking of flour, that's why Mom and I had to go to two grocery stores last night. The Lowes Foods near us that we usually go to isn't carrying the whole wheat bread flour anymore! :( That's very annoying, because that's the most convenient place to get it since we shop there all the time anyway. We had to go to Harris Teeter to find the flour, which they had, but it's kind of out of our way to go there. Oh well, at least they have it there, and I bought four bags of flour, so that will last for a while. We get the regular bread flour at Costco now in a big 50-pound bag, but they don't carry whole wheat, which is a shame because their prices are really good.

There, somebody told me I should talk about the bread on the blog, so I did! :) Well actually, I was planning to anyway.

Hmm...I made a list of things that I thought of to blog about while I was on break, but I'll have to cover those later!

I'm sorry if this post is a little disjointed, I'll try to make more sense when I post next time! :)

Quote

I promise I will have a real post sometime today, but probably not till tonight, since I have a lot of stuff to do today.

This was in our paper last week:
"When Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee speaks to crowds of evangelical Christian voters, the scene more resembles a rock show than a political rally.

Teenage girls with digital cameras trip over each other for snapshots. Grown men nod in rhythm to the cadence of Huckabee’s stump speech, which often resembles a mini-sermon." Read full article.

Hmm. And I really don't have anything else to say about that, as I'm not for or against Huckabee,* but this does seem a little weird. I'm just referring to the part I quoted here, not the whole article.

*mainly because I haven't looked into what the various candidates' views are yet; something I need to do, as I'm old enough to vote now.

Random facts

From my history book, in reference to the Crimean War:

"The war is also remembered for the fashions established at the time. The British general, Lord Raglan, wore an overcoat in which the sleeves went directly to the neck without shoulder seams. Today we call such sleeves 'raglan sleeves'. The leader of the Light Brigade, Lord Cardigan, popularized a sweater that buttoned down the front and could be easily slipped on under a uniform jacket. Sweaters of this type are now known as cardigans. Even the ordinary soldiers in the British ranks introduced a new item. Cold and shivering on the plains of Balaclava, they kept themselves warm by pulling woolen socks over their heads. They cut holes in them for their eyes and mouths. The soldiers called them 'Balaclava helmets'. We call them ski masks."

It almost sounds silly now... we know about cardigan sweaters, so it seems more like Lord Cardigan was named after the sweater, rather than the other way around!

Breaking news

Or rather, news worth breaking my break for...not that I'll be buying one of these, I don't have $1800 to spend!


MacBook Air



A guided tour of the MacBook Air...by John, Apple's employee who looks the most like Steve Jobs.

Watch the commercial...

...then watch the music video for the song in the commercial:

New Soul ~Yael Naim


And all you PC users... I hear the scoffing! :) What do you have to say about the new MacBook??

Taking a break

I think I'll start out by saying that I am not a calm person...well, no, let me rephrase that. I am calm, in that I'm not hyper most of the time. If I have caffeine, or stay up late, I can get hyper, but most of the time I'm fairly calm. However, I get stressed easily. Very easily.
Because I have been getting stressed out lately, I'm going to take a week-long break from blogging and reading blogs. Probably the reading blogs is what takes more of my time, seeing as I don't blog that often. I am going to make an exception for Rebecca and Mom...I'll keep reading relatives' blogs, just not all the others I usually read. I think to do that I'm going to have to move my blog bookmarks down to the very bottom of my long list of bookmarked pages and that way I won't get started reading them!

A week's not very long, but I think it will be enough for me to work on getting some stuff done. One thing I need to work on is my time-management...I have no time-management skills, and that is also contributing to the stress.

So, I'll see you all back here next Friday...because I do have things to blog about! They'll just have to wait though.

By the way, I'm feeling better today. My stomach is fine, and I'm tired, but that's because I couldn't sleep last night. Dad is well, and went to work today...I guess I didn't get whatever this was as bad as he did, since I'm better already. Weird, whatever it was.

I guess I'm sick

Because I'm not sure what else could be wrong with me. Dad got sick Monday night with a slightly upset stomach and aching all over. He stayed home yesterday and today, which means he must really not feel very good, because he very rarely stays home from work. I think he's basicaly better today though, so at least this isn't a long-term thing.

Mom got it yesterday, and I guess I must have it now...whatever it is. I mainly feel like I'm hungry, but then if I eat, my stomach feels a little bit "off"...not queasy exactly, just not right. I feel fine other than that, except that I'm cold, but I'm always cold, so that's nothing new. My brain is not working either though. I read my History section, and when I got to the end of it, realised that I could just barely remember what it was about, and certainly not enough to answer the questions about it! Oof.

And it's no fun feeling hungry all day.

Note to self:

Don't expect to get a ton of stuff done the first Monday back from vacation. Especially not extra stuff...focus on the basic things that need to be done. Like taking a Tylenol and drinking some water because your head's hurting again.

I had big plans to organize my home-management notebook, put a bunch of stuff in it and such like. And research healthy diets that improve your energy. I think I should have slept an hour later and maybe minimized my to-do list today instead.

On a positive note, I got my room cleaned! It needed it too, I don't think I had put anything away since we got home.

Ah well, I have a feeling I'll be very energetic tomorrow, so maybe I'll get a lot done then! I have a ton of stuff to blog about that's for sure...I'd probably better write some of it down so I can remember it. Right now I think I'll go take that Tylenol I mentioned...

So I like hats now

I thought I'd post a picture of the hat I got at the mall in Springfield:

I got it on clearance at, of all places, Hot Topic. My cousin Lauren and I both got a hat there, and if you knew Lauren and me, and have ever seen Hot Topic, you'll understand why it amused everyone immensely. Most of the stuff in there is black, or red, with lots of chains, and studs...not our style really. :D So we both got cool hats, hers was black and mine's sort of reddish-brown, and our cousins agreed we looked awesome. I plopped a black fedora on Jenna's head, and it looked really cute, but she didn't want it. I think she should have bought it. :(

I think maybe I'll make it a tradition to buy a hat whenever I go on vacation. Which I don't do very often, so I don't think I'll end up with too many hats...although one of my aunts also gave me a pink, fuzzy bucket hat, gloves, and scarf, with angora in them. So they're really soft and fuzzy, and they shed all over. The hat doesn't quite fit, but it stays on my head, basically. Provided the wind's not blowing...

And I'm going to make myself a felted bucket hat. I found a free pattern online, and got some green wool yarn to make it with. I think that will probably be my next knitting project. I have a sweater that I started while we were gone, but I think I may try to get the hat done while it's still winter.

I also got a new coat before we left...and boy am I glad I did! I would have been even colder if I hadn't had that nice warm coat. I was thinking about getting a wool coat, but I tried some on and they didn't look quite right on me, plus I couldn't find one that I could afford without it being a really cheapy one. I finally found a coat at TJ Maxx, for only $80. It's a faux suede with faux fur lining...not really what I was thinking of, but I like it and it's nice and toasty. Plus (big plus) it's machine-washable that way. I hate dry cleaning stuff....I avoid it completely, and I'm not sure a wool coat is something that would have held up even to my trying to hand wash it. And I'm certainly not going to pay and wait to get it cleaned! That is not in my budget!

Okay, that was a really rambling post...and to add to the randomness, I think I'll throw in a link to a song I like. I was reminded of this, because when we at the mall they were playing a Coldplay song, and my cousin started talking about them.

Green Eyes ~Coldplay

And another one I like:
The Scientist ~Coldplay
There's a video for that one, but it's kind of gloomy.

So that's all for now...I need to go get ready for church.

So put me on a highway...

....and show me a sign... or rather, on second thought, don't. I've had enough highway driving for a while! Which means I must have done a lot of driving, because that's something I like!

Okay, I think I've managed to get my thoughts collected enough for a blog post. We've been busy all day getting stuff unpacked and doing several dozen loads of laundry...well, maybe not several dozen, but quite a few.

We got home yesterday evening, around 5. We left Springfield Thursday morning and drove to Georgetown, Kentucky, which was about half-way, and stayed there overnight. We stayed at another Hilton Garden Inn there...it was a little different from the one in IL, but I would definitely recommend staying at one if you're traveling. Hilton Garden Inn. They're very reasonable too...well, there are cheaper places, but these are clean and pleasant! :)

Let's see, what all did we do while we were gone? We left Saturday and stayed in Louisville, Kentucky. We were right by a mall and it was so busy. We were driving around trying to find someplace to eat that wasn't super busy. There were a lot of nice-looking places around there, that I'm sure would have been good, but they were all packed. Eventually we ended up going to Panera (after we found it again) and they managed to mess up almost our whole order! The girl running the cash register was new, so she rang stuff up wrong, so we got the wrong sandwiches, and they charged extra for Colin's milk. Apparently, milk isn't included with the kid's meal any more, but Dad had picked up an old menu that still said it was. Luckily the manager was working, so she got it sorted out about the sandwiches (they were out of what we ordered) and gave up a refund for the milk, since it said on the menu that it was included. She also gave us a refund on the sandwiches, so we ended up getting it almost all free! I think we ended up paying for one sandwich and my coffee, maybe. My caffe mocha wasn't messed up, probably because the manager made it! Oh well...we got some food anyway.

We got to Springfield Sunday afternoon, and we went out to eat that evening with my grandma, uncle, and three aunts.

Monday, I don't think we did much...oh wait, that was the day we switched hotels... Yeah, we did that in the morning, and then went to Hobby Lobby and a knitting store. I didn't really need anything, so all I got at Hobby Lobby was a button for a purse I'm working on. Then I thought we'd be able to just look at the yarn at the knitting store, but the guy working there was very annoying, and wanted us to buy the expensive yarn, and wouldn't stop talking very loud and shrill, until we highly regretted going into the store. Dad and Colin were waiting in the car, and luckily Dad called my cell phone and asked when we were going to be done, so we had an excuse to escape! Sheesh, if I'd had any idea it was going to be that annoying I wouldn't have gone there. When Rebecca and Andrea and I went to a knitting shop in Oregon, the girl working there totally ignored us until right as we were leaving! Not helpful if you needed any help, but I preferred that to being talked at.

We went to a little restaurant called Sgt. Pepper's Cafe, which was really neat. They had pictures of the Beatles everywhere and stuff. We went there to get horseshoes. Now horseshoes are definitely an Illinois thing (unfortunately). It's a piece of toast, with a steak burger on top, fries on top of that, and then a cheese sauce on top of it all. It's really, really, really good! :) I wish they made those around here. :(

Then we went to the grocery store and looked for some stuff to take to my grandma's house for the New Year's Eve "party". We finally managed to get through the packed grocery store and get a few things. It took forever to find ginger ale though! They don't seem to sell it much in Springfield. We finally found some that was the store brand, but it was just in little 1 liter bottles! What's up with that??

So we went to my grandma's house in the evening and sat and watched something boring on PBS until my aunt got a hold of the remote and switched it to "Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve" which wasn't a whole lot better, but at least not so boring. Then it stopped (it had to be delayed on the stations in central time) so we watched the news and Seinfeld. And then when it came back on at 11:30, we watched it through midnight. So that was boring. And I thought last year was bad! Then we went back to the hotel and went to bed. Happy New Year's.

Tuesday we did some laundry, went over to my Grandma's house and sat around and talked some, and then we went to the church at four to get together with my mom's family. And that was fun! All of my second cousins were there, and we sat around and played Authors (which is basically like Go Fish, but with a bit more strategy), then we ate pizza and talked and talked and talked. Oh, and discussed Ricola cough drops among many other things. Those things are so good! They're not a whole lot of help if you have anything worse than a scratchy throat, but they taste lovely! Although not like butterscotch as far as I can tell! ;) (There was a bit of argument about that.) I can't even remember what all else we talked about...the thing was we'd get started on one subject and then get sidetracked onto another. And it's amazing how much we all had in common! I mean, they all see each other a lot, but I fit right in and agreed with them on a lot of stuff! And if I didn't agree with one on a subject, I agreed with someone else's opinion of it. That's one of the things that is so cool about relatives! All the same stuff you talk about in your family, but then you find a bunch more people who speak the same language! It's awesome!

Okay...so obviously I enjoyed that! :p

We all made plans Tuesday night to go to the mall the next morning and hang out. So my cousins came and picked me up from the hotel and we went to the mall, and wandered around looking at and making fun of stuff. And staying out of the way of the old people walking. Because, good grief, if you get in their way... I nearly got trampled at one point by an elderly gentleman walking very efficiently!

My cousin Lauren and I each got a hat. I'll have to take a picture of mine and post it on here. When we were almost done we decided to go get Chinese food for lunch (except for me because I had a huge breakfast). So were getting ready to leave when the boys decided they wanted to go to Borders...okay, that was cool, I wanted to also. So I went with them and the other girls started looking at B. Moss. Well, I didn't find anything at Borders, so I said I'd go find the girls. Which I did, and then Lauren and Ariel started trying on stuff while Jenna and I waited...which wasn't a problem, except that I kept getting called, because the guys were ready to leave!

They were leaving, they'd meet us at the restaurant. They were in the parking lot, they'd wait there for us. They'd driven around the mall and found where Lauren parked and were waiting there. Still waiting...

The guys are getting hungry and bored, I tell Lauren. She tells me they're almost done. We finally got out of there (and they did find some nice clothes, on sale too) and we went out to the car. I'd say the guys were very patient considering all the time we took! Especially when Levi warned us that he could walk around and look at things, but if someone started shopping, he couldn't stand it! So it was very nice of them to wait for us.

Then we went to the Chinese restaurant, and I ate a few bites of stuff and two fortune cookies. I was so not hungry! They all offered to share, but I really didn't need anything, especially since my grandma was going to take my family out for a late lunch! I was hardly even hungry then...I'm not used to eating so much for breakfast, I certainly don't have time to fix or eat all that most of the time!

So then all of us girls went to a candy shop, Pease's, which is apparently only an Illinois thing, because I'd never heard of it and they were all shocked and appalled that I'd never been to one! So we went there, and then they dropped me off at my grandma's house, and we all said goodbye. *sniff* :(

And then we went out to eat with Grandma and my aunts, and then went back to her house for a while, and I fell asleep on the couch because I had gotten up so early that morning, and then we said goodbye and went back to the hotel.

So, that was all of the trip...I don't think I've forgotten anything. I don't think I could live in Illinois, not in the winter time at least...I'm cold enough here, but that was just awful! And it's so dry out there, I'd have problems with that too. And if I got sick I'd probably end up coughing all winter instead of just for a month. Or rather, I'd get bronchitis, that's what my mom would get when she lived there.

And now I should probably go to bed! Wow, that was a long post, I hope it all made sense!

Mainly I wish all of my cousins lived closer to me! Closer and someplace warmer.