Taking a breather...

Well, the holidays are over, and I have to say, I had quite a good one…How ‘bout you?

The snow finally came. It came, and came, and came. The roads were terrible and it was/is horribly cold—outside anyway. The old cat doesn’t like the snow…

I have spent this time working on my novel and drawing practice. For Christmas I received a sketchbook and I am working on filling that. So far I have a picture of Sai and Jiraiya…both of which are from Naruto. I am planning to draw Ken-chan and Kaoru next. They are from a manga called Rurouni Kenshin. -->

--I have recently gotten into reading that…And now I have been pretty much in a place between that and Naruto. Those, along with books like Yellowfang’s Secret by Erin Hunter, and Eldest by Christopher Paolini. I finished Eragon, and I have to say, that was one of the best books I have read all year…Really inspiring.

Anyway, that’s about it. I haven’t got much else to do. The New Year is almost upon us…which means…NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS! I don’t know how long they are supposed to last…The whole year maybe? Mine usually last a most, a couple weeks. BUT NOT THIS YEAR! No! I am working on my willpower this year! Yes. I have quite a few resolutions…But I won’t drag those into the picture at this time.

What I will be doing is listing my favorite posts of this year. Wednesday was the first year anniversary of Inside A Camo Bag. It’s really exciting! I honestly can’t believe it has been a year!! So I will do that…Hopefully before January 1st…

I shall go. But I will be back.

~Natsu~

Update 28-12- Fixed the typo ^.^

R.E.M.-2012

 Ah, hello. Seems the world failed to end...Good thing, too. I didn't return my Library books. The fine for eternity would have been impossibly huge.

  Last night on the news, they were playing this SONG . That is IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT (AND I FEEL FINE) BY R.E.M. It worked for today...This song was also on Chicken Little (2005), when the aliens were attacking...

 On the plus side, Christmas is almost here...and it IS SNOWING!!! ~Cue Mike Keaton dance from Jack Frost~  I really thought that it wasn't going to snow this year. It had been so warm and muddy...But HAZAH! We are going to have a white Christmas after all! That is, if the snow doesn't melt. Meh.

 Well, on a totally different subject, I saw Tron Legacy the other day. It was pretty ridiculous. IT WAS AWESOME!! When Sam was standing on the top of the building in the beginning, it had a Spiderman feel to it, but it was SO AWESOME after that.

Yup. That's all I have to say about it. The glowing was cool. The story was neat. I stated that I was going as one of the girls like this: 

--for Halloween next year, and my brother looks at me and says, "Please don't." So I won't.

That was somewhat funny...

Meh. Hope that the day goes well.

~Natsu~

Something I thought was funny.

 For some reason, I found myself reading this children's book. It was some sort of comic book that included the Muppets. I guess that's why I said, "Give it here, lemme read it."

 I was just flipping through pages because there where so many words...And I found this here:

 

I laughed my bloody guts out...Call me crazy. I don't understand what happened, but this "all-mime production of 'Death of a Salesman'" was extremely enjoyable. Thumbs up. Heh.

 

On a less strange note, turns out, we did win something from the Ginger-Bread house contest. THIRD prize in our category!! I was so so so surprised that we actually won something! Huh. I guess they couldn't resist the Mystery Machine. LOL.

 

Today I had some Peanut Brittle...Goooood. Very sweet.

 

Natsu~

GIF JOY!

Alright! So! My tech-freak brother helped me make this gif of Korra Water-Bending. I was so excited when he told me that he found a way to do it! The quality is a little fuzzy, but the original was so small, you couldn't even see it. Yay!

 

 

Well, Jeopardy will be on soon...I just wanted to blog it. Yay!

 

~Natsu

10:17 pm...*WHY?*

 Sooooooooooooo.

This has been an unbelievably long, exhausting day. Working most of the day, and then babysitting the rest of the day. Was there an upside? Yes! I saw the music video for Somebody's Heartbreak by Hunter Hayes just a couple minutes earlier. Yeah, so that will do it for today I guess...But I won't go on about that today.

 What I really wanted to scream to the world was that I got The Art of Brave from the library earlier this week! And I bloody love it. I have never actually been inside of an Art book besides the Art of Howl's Moving Castle--which was awesome by the way--and needless to say, I was amazed!


 From what I understand, it seems as though they actually started Brave in 2006. After Cars... if I remember correctly...I honestly did not know that it took that long! But then again, there is a lot that goes into those movies. The pictures from the Research Trip were amazing, if I might add...Totally a book that I would recommend.

 I have been seeing recently that Finding Nemo is now on DVD. I remember when that came out on VHS back a couple years ago. ~Insert chuckle~ My family got it for Christmas and we watched it countless times. Back when you could actually buy VHS tapes at the store. I really don't know for sure if you can't nowadays, but I haven't seen any. Unless you count thrift stores...but I don't think so...I just thought it was interesting...

 ~Yawn~

I have decided that I need a kitten. That has been an idea for quite a while...We'll see. Tee hee.

Goodnight world. I need a sandwich because I skipped dinner.
I know. I complain and complain. Again, Tee Hee.

~~~~Natsu~~~~

Dragons and Christmas Lights.

Recently I was able to see Dreamwork's How to Train your Dragon when it premiered on the FX channel the day after Thanksgiving. 

 It was actually really, really good! I hadn’t expected to it to be as good as it was. I had however, heard some things about it. Like it was a lot like Brave and all this stuff. But to me, it really wasn’t like Brave at all!

 The only things that I thought were similar would have been Hiccup’s father design and the point that they did have the accents...But other than that, I got nothing.

All in all, it was amazing. I liked the story, and the humor was good. The character design was awesome when it came to Toothless, ( Toothless was SO INCREDIBLY CUTE!) and they picked the perfect actor for Hiccup. He would be Jay Baruchel.

 Jay was on The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, (a movie that I had seen before Dragons...I was watching it and thinking, “Oh man, he sounds so familiar…Kind of like Hiccup from the Dragon show. (However, I had only seen commercials for the Cartoon Network series, that’s the only way I really knew the voice. Does that make sense? ;) ) That sentence kind of drifted away into its own creation. Moving on…

  The reason that this all came to mind is first, I wanted to post about it anyway because it was so cool, and second, because last night I began reading a book called Eragon.

Eragon so far, reminded me of How to Train your Dragon. I think it was because he had found a dragon egg and was keeping it a secret. Much like Hiccup did…But Eragon is so cool so far. More to come, more to come…

 Anyway! Now for the light portion of this…Heh. (Hope I have the right video here.)

 I am kind of actually really excited about this up and coming holiday! Christmas! And to top of the Christmas music the minute Thanksgiving is over, we have Christmas lights!

 My favorite part would have to be the glowing green cactus…There are some parts where it is just blinking alone. One day I am going to do this with my Christmas lights...It will be stupendous…

 Well. Other than that, we have moved on to Season 1, volume 2 of Naruto. In the Manga, however, we are somewhere in the middle of book 33. It has been cool, if not cooler, than the first part of Naruto. But that’s all I talk about these days…That or I am obsessing over writing Dialogue…

 ~~~Natsu~~~

Ah, so you didn't get my joke.

 Well! Yesterday night I was spinning around on an office chair while watching Episode V of Star Wars. I was talking to the television saying, "Vader, just say, 'I am your father' and then I can go to bed!"  So, long story short, Vader and Luke were fighting and Vader was breathing really hard.

 So of course, it's my place to make a lame joke. I turn to my sister and say, "Hey, you know what? He's breathing so hard. He's hyperVADERlating!"

 I get dead silence. Then I'm like, "COME ON THAT WAS GREAT!!"
Then I get, "dude, that was insulting." And I'm like, "NO WAY THAT WAS GENIUS!!"

My dad thought it was funny anyway. Or was it more of a pity laugh....Aw Man...

 Sorry for not posting in so long. I made a promise to myself to not turn on the computer until I finished all my writing books...Eh....Still not there. I broke my oath. What a terrible girl-scout I would make. Lol.

 But my real reason for writing, is that I found a picture on the internet that I thought was awesome and totally true. I could rant on about how I am a terrible artist and I have 3 blank canvases up in my room--Yeh...Let's get that picture, shall we?

Pic link because copying it didn't work.

That about summons it up I think. ^.^

 Well, to update a different post...We lost the Gingerbread contest. It was pathetic and whiny...Yeah...It was kinda depressing, but now that I look back at the thing...It wasn't very well executed....

 Ah. It socked.

CHRISTMAS IS COMING!!! ♥

 -Updated a few minutes later-

I thought this was awesome for some reason...


OK. I am tired apparently. BUT I HAVE THE CAFFEINE PATCH! I HAVEN'T SLEPT IN EIGHT DAYS!  (To those who hear the words "Meet the Robinsons" and scream, "BAKE THOSE COOKIES LUCILLE!" For I am one of you. :) )

~Natsu~

I'll write anyway.

 So, I spent most of my afternoon talking a walk through a forest, digging through a pile of broken glass--and finding cool bottles that really were inspiring if you look at them through the eyes of a writer--then took some time to walk across the yard with my eyes closed. And it is true. You cannot walk in a straight line when you are blind-folded!

 At the moment now, however, I am trying to find ways to create creative Fantasy names for stories I am currently working on/starting. I saw a huge tree today and a whole bunch of ideas started streaming into my mind.

 Other than that,  it seems as though I am watching Christmas movies, and I will be making Spaghetti for dinner later in the hour.

 What I really wanted to post was this HERE. Pachelbel Bedtime I think it's called. I saw this a couple years ago and it was really cool. But I saw it again today and decided to blog about it. :)

 Well, I must go, my hands need lotion and a break from typing.

 See ya'll later in the new week.

~~Natsu~~

Mystery Machine Ya'll!

Ugh. I have the theme song to “Full House” stuck in my head. I don’t even really/ watch/like that show. But it seems they have started the season over on Nick and I am in an unfortunate position. That being I have no choice but to acknowledge that it’s on. The theme isn’t even fun! And now it bugs me that I don’t know the words! ~tear~

 So, the project this week has been tedious/fun/belly rotting deliciousness. My sister and I made a Gingerbread Mystery Machine for a Gingerbread contest at our Library. Fun right? Yeah, I thought that the idea was totally original until we looked it up on the computer. There are a few, yes, but ours is ours. It’s a good thing that the contest rules stated that professional entries would not be allowed… ^.^

 It started out with a sketch and a Gingerbread recipe from Foodnetwork.com. Very good recipe, the bread turned out deliciously spiced and it’s pretty sturdy! Then we used the Royal icing recipe that came with the Gingerbread House recipe and colored them with “groovy” colors. Hehe. We spent the evening—had to break the process down into three days because it was something we never did before—and frosted all the pieces. Using a little bag with scissor holes because a tip would have been too big (that or we really couldn’t find a frosting tip, whatever sounds better) we frosted Oreos as well. The Oreos were used as the wheels and the spare wheel on the front. 

THEN we assembled it.

It took a long, long time. Grunts, groans and eye rolling. But, a few hours, three batches of frosting, powdered sugar, two sick stomachs and THEN two more sugar comas later….IT WAS DONE. It turned out pretty cool I think ^.^ The judge who carried up to the display room said it was good anyway…Yay.

 

This is what it turned out like in the end.

 

I was told this morning the there were 6 days until Thanksgiving! I had forgotten...But the great part is, I may be able to Brine a turkey again. Last year I did one like that, using Alton Brown's Brine Recipe. I watched two weeks of Food Network Thanksgiving specials and had bad dreams about brine and such. Then finally, I DID IT! I wasn't aware however, that the turkey had to soak in the stuff for days. Ended up putting everything on the recipe in a pot, boiling it, and then letting the turkey sit in it overnight....

 

 Everyone said it was great. I thought it was really good even though I didn't do it just right. :) It was really tender and had just enough salt, it was awesome. 

 So hopefully I will be doing that again this year. 

I can't wait for Thanksgiving! I love the pies, the turkey, the cuts you get when trying to open the can of cranberry sauce with an old can-opener...Okay, maybe not that....And just the feeling of it. The best part would have to be the next morning when there is just so much pie left that you get to have some for breakfast. YUMMMMM.

 The "aw man" part of it though is that the next day is Friday so no turkey the next day...But mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce or really, anything else will work. Lol.

 ♫Natsuuuuuuu♪

Believe it!

  Not to go ranting about Naruto again...but really, that’s what’s been happening. Finally at Volume 29 of the Naruto manga, we (brother and sister and I) moved on to watching the Naruto anime. Me being a freak about scheduling and spoilers, we agreed to read all of the original manga, and when we got to—what is called Shippuden in the anime, technically Part 2—in the book, we would begin to watch Part 1 of Naruto. So I collected from the libraries, 20 hours and two seasons of Naruto. Part 1!

   To break that down, we do an hour a day, which would equal to two episodes every evening…after Jeopardy of course. Earlier last year, I was basically introduced to Naruto from one of my buddies. So I tried to get into it, ya know, to see what it was like. I hadn't however, been able to get it until earlier this summer.
 

   So I pretty much enjoy it. There are some things that ya maybe could do without…Like Jiriaya’s hobby—if you watch/read it, you know what I mean—and some jutsu that Naruto does sometimes. But other than that, I like the story, and more importantly, for me, the characters. I like it when you get a bunch of characters that are, “complex “is the word I use. Characters that have an important place in the story, a back-story, reasons for what they feel, etc…My list could go on and on. Anyway, back to the point -you’re not stuck with 5 main characters and then you’re done.

  For me, I spend more time watching the lighting change, or how certain things are shadowed, or how Masashi Kishimoto does bridges of noses and sides of faces. Because I can’t do that! That’s why it’s so fascinating to me! It is something that I have always wanted to do! So I spend more time looking and taking mental notes at how everything is drawn than actually watching the show. Of course then, I have to go back and look at what I missed while scribbling down notes.

While I was typing this, I realized that I did draw the side of Orochimaru’s face. Let me see. 

  Yeah, so I upped the contrast and took the brightness down a peg. It was too light to see in the picture. (I took it with the computer web-cam, so it wasn’t that great in the first place. But it does look dramatic now. Haha.) It is actually facing the other way in real life, but again, the camera angle. I can’t draw in the right direction anyway. I don’t know why though…only left…I thought it was pretty good though. LOL. But there is ALWAYS room for improvement. :)

  Well, I think I am pretty much done with my Naruto rant…Really, besides that; I have been working on my Dialogue in my writing. Turns out that Dialogue can be used for many things besides just having a conversation. Like, it can be used to describe things, the setting, it can be used to move the story along, and all kinds of things! Dialogue by Gloria Kempton, is the book I am reading.

  Am I the only one who has “Like a Surgeon” by Weird Al Yankovic stuck in my head? It only takes one word to trigger that song…SO thumbs up to the Weird Al fans. Hehe.

Until I can think of cool things to write about,

~~Natsu~~

PS: Naruto says “BELIEVE IT” at least 5 times in each episode. Figured it would make a good title ^.^

Pumpin' up the jams...

"Rapunzel: So mother, earlier I was saying tomorrow is a really big day, and you didn't really respond, so I'm just gonna tell you: IT'S MY BIRTHDAY! Tada!  

Mother Gothel: No no no, can't be. I distinctly remember, your birthday was last year.  

Rapunzel: That's the funny thing about birthdays, they're kind of an annual thing."

  I just finished a huge Ice Cream Sundae and now I am watching the CMA's. An awesome way to end a birthday day!! I am super excited for some reason though. (Could be the ice cream... ;) )  I don't even know if I can post anything intelligible at this point...

OMG!!! Right now at this point, as I am writing this...Hunter Hayes just won NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR AWARD!!!! Wow, now I am pumped. Except, I have to say, (he performed  Wanted earlier) and--like many others--didn't sound the same live. I think the best part of that performance was when he fist-bumped some random guy near the end. That was EPIC!

 Lolz. Goodnight Ya'll.

~~Natsu~~