For my bEARTHday…

Spoiled. Yep, that’s what I am. I mean, most people get a birthday…maybe a birthday weekend. Me? I got a birthday month. :D Mm… Maybe lil bit more than a month, if you count Dad giving me the entire series of “Stargate: Atlantis” sometime last month I believe and Nana giving me a lil jacket earlier this month or late last month. :)

So, my Earth Day birthday began with a trip to Target to pick up my copy of AVATAR! :D Thank you, Daddy. Then, we went to what I think is my favorite place for breakfasts (is it Huffs Restaurant, Dad?). Fast service mixed with oh so yummy omelets and potatoes. Num! And then we went to the Dollar Tree to pick up more stuff-we-don’t-need-but-it’s-only-a-dollar-so-we-buy-it. :P And Dad bought me BALLOONS! :D I love balloons. :D The rest of the day was a nice quiet day of goofing off and messing with ringtones. :P And then there was dinner at my house. :)

Oh, did I mention I got messages from the future? Yep. Birthday wishes from the future, one day in the future. :P My friends in Aussie and Kiwi land sent me time travelling messages. :P

And Friday I got two packages. Yep, two. One from Canada! Thank you Sarah! I love my pizzookie and Dori breadfish. :D And I put them on a bit of ribbon to hang 'til I get something to put around my neck. The other package came from my friend, Gillian. :D She sent me a cute lil Mickey beanie and a Mickey magic towel. Oh and a Mickey birthday card. I’m beginning to think she has a secret stock of Mickey cards the way Issi has a stock of perfect and funny cards!

And finally, Saturday, I got an envelope from Disneyland. Yep. I couldn’t resist. I renewed my pass, taking advantage of their new monthly plans. The cost, while expensive in one chunk, is so worth it for Dis lovers who will actually make use of the pass. But ever so painful all at once, so I love that I get my pass for just under $24 a month! THAT I can handle! So, yay for renewing pass. And as I had just e-mailed the form last Tuesday, to get it that Saturday, was like WOW that’s fast! I totally didn’t expect it for weeks, which I was fine with. I figured Issi’d be supper busy with graduation plans and final projects and what not, so I didn’t need the pass soon. But here’s the cute thing, the pass design, matches the design of one of the balloons Dad bought me! How cute is that? :D

Now that I babbled enough, here are the few pics I took of the new stuff. :D

I had to tie them down cuz they kept spinning every time I tried to take a pic. Normally they're not so close to the chair. :P And Mickey, Goofy, and Donald are in that same pose on my annual pass. :D What a coinky dink!

I especially think it's cute that Mickey looks like he's ready for the rain, given it was a bit rainy off an on all that week. (or wanna be rainy :P)

And while this pic isn't great and so doesn't do them justice, here's a close up of the sculpty charms Sarah made me with her own two hands. And they're pretty darn cute! Pizzookie from BJ's and Dori breadfish! :D Right now, they're hanging on my dresser. But I know I have either longer ribbon or necklace rope or something for them. Or, heck, next stop at the Dollar Tree, I'll find some!

Dis Day Spoilings :P

I know, I know. I lied. But it was unintentional. I meant to wake up, get ready for the day, blog, and then go off to have fun with Dad on one of our Target Tuesdays. But instead I woke up late, got ready, edited my last blog (added the pics that were on my phone since I forgot to add them yesterday morning :P), then barely had time to feed cats and finish getting ready before Dad got here. And when we got home, we ate dinner and proceeded to kill A LOT of time playing with free downloadable ringtones. :P I mean, it was midnight when I finally turned to look at my computer after Dad left, and then I stupidly decided to run a full virus scan (cuz it’d been ages since the last time..) and that killed hours of time. >.<

ANYWHO…..

Saturday was all about goofing off, Doctor Who, and other geekery. Sunday… Sunday was Disneyland day! :D Since my pass was to expire Monday (April 19th), it was to be my last visit for a while. So that and the fact that my birthday was around the corner the day was mine! :D

Issi and her mom picked me up around 1pm and off we went. The day actually started with a quick stop at a shop so Issi could “return something” (:P) while her mom and I loitered around (a.k.a. Jackie keeping me away from seeing Issi :P). We came out and Issi had a big bag! I know, after all these years (of her doing similar tricks :P), I should see these things coming. But, hey, at least I’m pleasantly surprised when I don’t. :D

Me and bag o' gifts

For the record, I am well aware that I am spoiled. I’ve been spoiled a lot over the years by family and friends alike. And I am thankful. :) We sat down and I opened my presents from Issi and some from Ah Tee eM, hehe. And the following pics were taken when I got home, though some didn’t come out well and I evidently didn’t see one hiding amongst my stuff (but I realized as I was posting this, so oh well :P):

The loot (minus the bookmark that was hiding in a map)

The evil birthday card :P

(Inside it said "Say hello to 30!" :P)

I love this. He's just so cute. :P And he's sitting on my comp. tower.

Dressed in his best for my birthday, right Issi? :P

(and so squeezable too! :D)

I actually wore this ALL day. :P

Yay for embarrassing but fun and silly hats. :P

Ha ha, Ah Tee eM! :P

And I did take a close up of the earrings, cuz they were cute Oreo/Pixie like kitties with Santa hats on. :D So, I will definitely wear those for Christmas. And the button was that an employee gave me. But the shots were all blurry. There was a cool magnetic bookmark with the quote "Better a witty fool than a foolish wit!" :P And I didn't take close ups of everything, like the Angels T-shirt for the next game, the How to write hieroglyphics book, and the glowy thingie. :P

So, thank you Issi, Ah Tee eM, Jackie, and dolphin children. :P

I'm ready to celebrate! :D

Sunday before last we went on half my favorites, so this past Sunday we went on more of my favorites (tho I was tempted to ride on Space Mountain and Tower of Terror again :P). First up, Star Tours. And I forgot to whip out my Jedi Knight Passport. :P Yep, yep, it was still in my purse from last trip. :P Next up was Indiana Jones. Yeah, I never tire of that one. :) Almost lost my ears though! Yep, had to quickly take 'em off and hold on to them. :P There was of course the occassional shop stop. Gotta love shop stops, even if we never buy anything (and usually one of us does). There's so much to look at. :D

We went to the Blue Bayou to eat (thank you, Jackie). And for those of you who don't know, on the way out of the Pirates of the Carribean ride, you can see a restaurant on the "bank" under the "night sky". It's beautiful. I found a pic online (since none of us had a camera and cell phones usually lack a decent flash :P). And OMG, the food was sooooo good. From the tasty house salad to the deliscious seasoned chicken with veges and potatoes. Compliments to the chef! It was heavenly. I was stuffed. And then cuz they saw it was my birthday, they brought over a chocolate Mickey Mousse (:P). I'm not a mousse person, but this was so good I ate half of it even though I was full. :P

Mmmmm...

And since we were stuffeded.. A nice peaceful ride on the Disneyland Railroad was perfect. :)

At California Adventure we headed over to Soarin' over California, when someone stopped us. She was leaving and handed over her fast passes. Same wait as if we'd gone in line, but now we had time to go do something else! So we went on California Screamin'! This time I held my hat before the ride started. :P

Ah, the wind in our faces. :P

And since we still had some time... Toys Story Midway Mania was next. A giant Mr. PotatoHead gives a lil comedy show while we wait in line, so we took a pic in front off to the side. We were standing still for a while and then soon as we wanted to take a pic, the line started moving. :P

Our scores after the Midway Mania games. She did better than me point-wise. But look! I did better in accuracy! :D That's pretty awesome. :P Just gotta focus my accuracy on the higher point targets next time.

Anyway... As we headed back to Soarin', people were all lined up and ready to watch the second to last Electrical Parade on the west coast (again). They added a second showing for the night, but then it gets packed up and moves to Disney World. :P We hit the road.... in Golden State (land) and went to our ride. :D En route, Jackie got us glowy thingies. Battery operated with a couple settings and an off switch, so they'll last for another trip! :D

So that was Dis Day. :D

One last pic from Sunday night...

Pixie is so weird... :P

More to Come...

Okay, so I need sleep... But there's more to come... Dis Day.... Spoiled-ness.... Annual Pass... Yeah.. Real photos.... :) So yeah... More to come after sleeeeeep.... :P I know, I know, I could have just said that at the end of the last post, but I forgot.. And that one was long enough. :P

Relative Size and the Geek

Note: I apologize now for the multiple blogs that will appear today. I, once again, put off blogging and the content I wanted to blog just increased as the days went by. :P As is, I'm sure my blogs will be a tad lengthy. :P

The other day, Dad sent me an interesting forward which then piqued my interest so I did some net searching which led to the spiral into geekdom. :P Here’s the forward (or gist of it):

(The first few pics came with the forward with no mention, so I'm showing them first to help put things in perspective.)

 Antares is the 15th brightest star in the sky. It is more than 1,000 light years away.

This is a Hubble telescope ultra deep field infrared view of countless “entire” galaxies billions of light years away.

Below is a close up of one of the darkest regions of the photo above. Humbling, isn't it?

(This is the pic I found, hopefully yaa can see it. Had to cut it into two parts.)

Now how big are you? And how big are the things that upset you today? Keep life in perspective and don't sweat the small stuff!

____________________________________

Now, I found that so interesting so I went found an additional size comparison pic. And… Wow! :P You know the universe is big, but sometimes it’s hard to imagine just HOW big. Shame galactic space travel will never happen in our lifetimes. Le sigh.

While searching online for pics of all the planets and their moons, I stumbled onto a different map of space…. :P I so want one of these! The Complete and Official Map of the Verse is the map of the worlds in the Firefly (2002) / Serenity (2005) universe (or as they call it, the "Verse"). I SO want one. I am such a geek, that when I first heard Serenity was coming to theatres, I made like 10 vampires with the characters’ names. :P For a while, Mom and I watched the entire series (only one season) once a week for several weeks in a row. So, yeah… I’m a fan. :P

River Song's Journal

BindMe's leather made journal

And then, because I was on one geeky trip, I went on to the next. I remembered seeing someone had made a journal replica of one used by River Song in a Doctor Who episode(s) that looks like a TARDIS. Yeah, I want that too. But holy cow! The sucker is handmade so the maker is charging an arm and a leg! I’d have better chances buying an actual TARDIS replica. C’est la vie. So, I’ll keep an eye on that site, in case BindMe lowers their prices. Hoping to get lucky, I searched to see if anyone else came up with a similar idea. No such luck. But while perusing the sites, I found they make Sonic Screwdrivers! :o I SOOOO want one of those! And since David Tennant was my fave Doctor, I want his version of the screwdriver. It comes with sounds and lights just like on the show and yeah…. Did I mention I’m a geek?

Now as if wanting a map of a fake universe and a journal that looks like the TARDIS and a sonic screwdriver weren’t bad enough. I fully geeked out my cell phone. After thinking about it, I’ll probably stick with this phone for a while (in favor of saving funds for upcoming happy expenses). And since I’m keeping it, I personalized it up the wazoo. :D So now I have the Doctor Who (10th Doctor) theme song for the ringtone, the TARDIS sound effect for alerts, a pic of the TARDIS orbiting the Earth wallpaper, and an animated TARDIS gif for a screensaver. :D Geeks of the world, UNITE! :D

Mmmm.... Awww... Weeeee...! D'oh!

Saturday I hung out with my Dad. Pharmacy run for Mom (since she still leaves the house ONLY when she absolutely has to). Breakfast at a restaurant. A visit to the Dollar Tree again. But this time I didn't spend that much. :P Just got some candy for Mom and another Sudoku book and lil notepad. Dad got more than I did. :P What can I say, we're shop-o-holics.

I forget what time we left the store, but we stopped at the house for a bit while Dad did something and I read a few pages of my book. Costco trip for much needed staples for moi.... Bologna! :D And Sticky Pots (aka Pot Stickers... nummmy!). And Dad found the entire season of Stargate SG1! So now he has all of SG1 and SG Atlantis. He still can't find the movie that started it all though! :P After picking up nummy Cesear salads there for a late lunch, we went back to his house to watch a movie. :) Just another relaxing day, hanging out with Daddy. :D

Sunday was a big day with Issi and her mom. I went to my second baseball game ever. Angels game, of course. :) Alas, we didn't win, but it was still fun and I got a big workout there too! :P I took a couple pics of the outside of the stadium, but alas, I lost them (more on that in a bit). FYI, stadium stairs are so freakin' steep. :P I almost ate it a couple of times. :P

I think we hit Disneyland at around 4pm-ish. And as late as we got there, we made it on quite a few rides! :D Given that that Sunday and next will likely be my last for a while, we went on all the must rides, most of my favorites and a new one: Tower of Terror (I think that's what it's called), Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Carribean, Space Mountain, the Nemo submarine ride (it was a cute lil ride), and we got our free warm tortillas at the Mission Tortilla factory walk through :P .... Add shopping and dining and we packed alot into the five-six hours we were there. I took a couple pics here too, but yeah... lost those too.

And Issi's mom got me a watch and a birthday Mickey for my birthday (early gifts, wee). Pretty cool, since I wear my watches like jewelry, so now I have another. :D AND! I had set aside moola to buy two last little Mickeys at Disneyland, and the birthday one was one of the ones I was gonna grab. I'm still deciding what other one I'll get next trip. And no, I can never have too many Mickeys. :P

Mickey sits by my bed. :D And now that I've taken the pic, the watch can be worn. :P

Monday was just another day. :P Time to sleeep and relax after all the walking from Sunday. :P I sooooo need to start walking more. :P And of course... TARGET Tuesday! :D Unfortunately, the day started off kinda crappy. In my haste to unplug my cell phone, which had been charging, I dropped it. Now I drop my phone ALOT and pretty hard. But I guess this last time was the final blow or was really HARD. Cuz I broke it. The phone itself works... But the screen is totally dead. :P I had to text blind just to tell Dad I couldn't text anymore. My poor poor Razr. :( And stupid me, I forgot to forward the pics I took with the camera part to my computer. So, lost anything I took since my last uploading. Le sigh. They weren't the best of pics, but still! Anywho, for now, I'm using my old leettle Nokia phone. Unless that gets too irritating, and then I may beg Dad to bring me his old Razr. We pay our cell bill Friday, so I'll see if I can get a new phone/ cheap upgrade with contract renewal after that. We're due. Haven't gotten new phones in ages.

My cute leettle Nokia phone.... With Dori screensaver and Aqua's BarbieGirl ringtone. :P

Productive Day/Night

So, last weekend when I planned to be all productive and clean the house... I, surprise suprise, didn't. :P The only productive things I did at the beginning of this week was clean out the fridge and wash and fold ALL laundry. Of course, laundry is piled up again now. But finally, I cleaned the house. Well most of it. More tomorrow. Just one room though. The biggest mess is clean. The living room and my room got dusted and the whole house got vacu-sucked. Beds and futon (fake couch) all got new sheets (hence the piled up laundry :P). And stuff is all put away where it should be. :D Weeee for clean house!

And then, for my game, I did the whole guild hunting thing (with a lil help from a Leprichaun). One of my 'pires completed a quest and got a power. I was lucky too, cuz I'd forgotten I had a couple questing 'pires. Almost lost that 7500 coins to a failed quest. Go last minute save glitch! :D I'll move my other 'pires later maybe.

After I eat (cuz I'm finally hungry again after first meal, which was seven or so hours ago?), I'm going to write a letter for Sawah. Which reminds me, gotta look up postage prices for mail to Canada. :P And of course before bed, there'll be the usual dish washing/kitchen cleaning, litter tidying, and a 5-gallon water bottle has to go up so I can refill water bottles. Weeee....

Anywho.. off to sleslax for a leetle bit before getting back to being productive. :P

One Battle Won

We've survived the year mark. And apart from some "whatever/leave me alone" vibe I got from Mom's tone Sunday morning and yesterday, it wasn't as bad as I expected. She slept much of these past few days. Watched TV and read. There was some annoyance in her tone yesterday about the cats, but they've been real vocal lately. All in all, I think we survived the battle of the anniversary.

She seemed okay when I woke this afternoon. And when I got out of the shower, Nana had stopped by. And for once, that visit didn't leave Mom irritated or upset. Praise God, I actually think the visit was a good thing this time. I took off for Target Tuesday with Dad. :) I bought Mom a new heating pad as she sorta wore her old one out. :P Next month I'll get her another one, for back up or those really bad days. Dad got me a movie and a couple books, I know I am spoiled. :) Oh, Nana left some clothes she bought but didn't like after all. :P So Mom got some new tops to wear around the house and I got a light denim jacket. Yay! Finally a light jacket that will match all colors. :P Good timing too, cuz summer's coming and I need new clothes.

We picked up food on the way home, even though Mom didn't answer her phone.... She'd been sleeping. But when the grogginess finally wore off, she did manage to join us for din din (well join us as we finished ours). And she seemed more like her old self.. Well, new old self. Joking a bit and smiling and laughing when something was funny. Same thing when Nana was here.

I was susprised actually. So, thank God, we survived the day. Next battle... His birthday. And then Mothers' Day. If we can just make it to summer.... We may have won this year's war. Well, til the holidays that is. But I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Oh yeah... I, individually, survived okay too.

Scrambled Eggs, Anyone?

Easter, California style..... Paint eggs. Hide. Wait for earthquake. Scrambled egg surprise! :P

Today started out fairly normal. Got ready. Went to eat a deliscious breakfast with Dad. Killed an hour in the Dollar Tree buy stuff neither one of us NEEDED. But I only spent 15 bucks and Dad spent I think 25? Not too bad. :P Got new hand towels to match the bathroom. :D A couple more Suduko books (and after the break from them that I've had, I'm sure I'll be going through them fast again :P ). Red Vines for Mom. A pack of mini notepads (for when I want to take a quick note at the computer and never have anything to write on! :P). And a 3-pack of silver and gold pens, since all my colorful and metallic pens are used up. Dad got towels too (more than I did :P) and something to cover his windows (which let in ALOT of light and heat) and I forgot if he got anything else.

After that, we went to his place to watch a movie. And since he hadn't seen The Ten Commandments in a few years, we watched that. :D  Big screen. Beautiful technicolor. I'm glad I watched it at his place. :) We of course were interrupted around 340pm. I thought I'd heard the Earthquake was centered in Mexicali and was a 7.2, but the news said Baja, CA. Whatever.... Either way it was far from us, and yet we still had a lovely rolling earthquake. And it seemed pretty long to me. So long that even after it stopped, my brain was convinced the earthquake was still going. :P And it was fun to watch Dad's massive wall of DVD shelves swaying. :P

And so you all don't think I forgot how to use my camera, I am going to share some random photos and a couple I took this morning. :)

March 1st

I almost didn't see Pixie, "hiding" among my stuffed babies, until I walked closer to the bed. :P

March 3rd

Always cracks me up when I see Oreo using a pillow. He really thinks he's a people. :P

March 8th

Pixie rolled over and fell between the two big folded blankets on Mom's bed. Musta been mesmorized by the ceiling fan, cuz Mom said she'd been stuck like that for a while. :P

April 4th

All Tundra could manage in the way of a greeting was lifting his/her head, but it was too bright to open his/her eyes. :P Sleepy kitty.

April 4th

If you look real close, you can see yellow and purple/blue wannabe flowers. The closest thing to flowers our yard will ever see. :P

Anywho, that's all for now.... Now to stall until the last possible minute to do the kitchen... Mom cooked while I was out so naturally it's a disaster area that I'm dreading having to clean. :P

The Ten Will Have to Wait...

130am... Never got the movie started cuz I was too busy having fun chatting with an Issi and a Daddy and copying a soundtrack list for a TV series I love. Now off to do dishes and get in bed, so I won't be too sleepy when hanging with Dad.

Mom seemed okay tonight. :) Apart from wanting to lock up the bratty kitties. :P But even then, she didn't seem as annoyed as yesterday. I'm taking it as a good sign. She's got her stupid Top Model marathons (that she's seen a dozen times and will watch dozens more times) and books to keep herself occupied like she did today. So I am skidaddling out of here! :D That is if my DADDY gets enough sleep (in a bed and not at keyboard or anywhere else :P ).

Anywho... I'll watch The Ten Commandments tomorrow when I get home or something. :) I love that movie.

Say it isn't so!

Life as I know it is over..... I ran out of my favorite flavors of Crystal Light. ~sobs~ Now all I have to drink are orange-y drinks (which when ya have real OJ and tangerines in the house doesn't sound appealing :P) and Mom's cherry and grape flavors (way too candy tasting for me, yuck). Whatever shall I do! ~sobs some more~

Okay, enough of the dramatics. :P Time to go watch The Ten Commandments (1956). I think it's almost over on TV, but I have the VHS Tapes.... :D Nooooo commercials! Yay! :D

Tick... Tick... Tick...

So far so good, I think... That is to say, Mom seemed fine earlier, other than being annoyed by the cats who keep bugging her every 10-15 minutes. But maybe that's why they keep bugging, they know or God told them she needs to be distracted. Between that annoyance and her getting into the end of her book, she's gotten quiet. But I think that's more about the book and cats, or I'm hoping.

I'm not sure what the next few days will be like. I warned people at my RP forum, I might be MIA.... or I might not. Not sure if I'll be with Mom trying to distract or do for her as much as possible, or if I'll be trying to stay out of her way if she shuts me out or something. It's this fun little waiting game. I've already prayed for patience. So I'll try and help her in every way possible, big or little stuff... Checking on her, make sure she has what she needs/wants. That kind of thing.

Meanwhile, I feel fine-ish. Okay, I confess. The tears come a little easier when watching sad movies or shows. But otherwise... I was even thinking of being extra productive. The house needs cleaning. I've been bad and neglecting that big time, just cleaning the kitchen and the rest of the house decent even if not company ready. So I may clean the whole house this week. We'll see.

Treading lightly for the next week... Part of me wishes this month were over already....

On My Mind.....

I miss:

• our late night talks that went on for hours
• losing at video games and laughing about it
• being introduced to new music that I probably never would have heard otherwise
• the way I was teased for playing Magic
• help with all things computer related
• being lifted off the ground in a bear hug
• our games of imagination with GI Joe toys
• collecting comic character cards
• joking and laughing together

I won't miss:

• his smiling face
• the way he says Mooommm/Daaaadd when they say something funny
• his face whenever someone says something funny
• his voice saying Ha Ha
• his laugh

So much I miss. Some because we stopped playing when he went to high school. Some because he got more involved with friends and his computer games. Some because of the fact that we moved into separate households. But I've missed everything all the more since last April.

Then there are the things I won't miss. Because I still see his smiling face everyday. No, I'm not staring at his pictures for hours a day or even a week. Mostly, I see his face in varying ages whenever I close my eyes. I can't help but to smile, even for a moment, when I do. I can see him making faces at Mom or Dad and giving his typical replies whenever they teased him. And every now and then I can hear his laugh when we saw something genuinely funny or were joking around.

I miss him alot. And as the day we lost him approaches, he's on my mind more and more. But I praise God for all the glimpses of him that I do get. I thank God for the dreams depicting my brother happy and laughing. Those dreams, those glimpses, they make me think he's okay. Rather I feel it. Maybe because I want it bad enough, maybe it's God's way of telling me he's okay, or maybe Josh himself. From what we knew of where he stood with God and faith, the teachings I grew up with in church say he's not okay. But I can't help feeling he is okay. I can't say I've felt that about every family member I lost, but then none were this close to me. One glimpse of his smiling face and I stop worrying about where he is right now. I'll take the gift wherever it came from.


Here is my prayer for the coming month (and if you are a believer, I hope you pray for us too):

Dear Lord,

I ask that you give my parents the strength to get through this month. Comfort them when they are sad. Lift them up when they are low. Grant them restful nights without nightmares. Help Mom get to a healthier place. And help me, Lord, to be strong for me and for them. Grant me the patience to be there for them even when I want to forget it all.

In Your name I pray, Amen.