Songs of the day: 2Eyes - Shooting Star

Guess who made more cookies yesterday? And guess whose family are devouring her cookies at an unparalleled pace? That's right, me! I benefitted from experience, since a) I let the butter soften enough this time before beating and b) I scopped smaller scoops, resulting in smaller cookies so I have more to share! Although I did confuse wax paper for parchment paper... I hope people don't think they taste like Crayolas!

Overall, I had a day yesterday that was at the same time pretty productive yet not overwhelming, leaving time for relaxing, and was just generally not stressful. This has been quite a good weekend! I got all my homework done by the early afternoon yesterday after having started in the mid-late morning, and I baked and did other stuff for the rest of the day. And then today, I worked on my site the most that I've done in a little bit, including starting on a Girls' Generation fan page/webshrine/whatever you want to say. I don't have many ideas for exciting new things for the site, though, other than writing more reviews and articles/drabbles/whatever. I want to do something to reinvigorate the site, you know? It just came to me now that I ought to redo my hyper-links page, so I could always do that, although I'm not sure if that'd fully reinvigorate it. A fresh coat of paint and a dusting-off for the links page could certainly do for now, though.

Beyond that, I've been playing quite a bit of Minecraft lately on my shiny new iPad (did I mention that? My mum bought me a new iPad 9th generation as a gift a couple of weeks ago and it's working really well so far!) and it's really fun! Although I tend to prefer the older versions. I quite like the Cliffs of the recent Caves and Cliffs update---it brings me back to the old days of super-cool world generation!---but the Deep Dark and all that ironically makes cave exploration less fun for me. But I suppose I just sound like a grumpy grandma now.

And now to that ever-recurring topic of college! My dad's working on some final financial aid forms for that university whose extension for me is today. I just really hope he gets it all done in time, although I'm sure the financial aid people would understand if not. I'd really like to go to this college so I really hope I can get everything done in time and get it all in! And I have some final supplemental essays to write this week. I hope those go well as well. But that's all for now. I'll talk to all y'all later---toodles!

P.S. - Guess who gets to play Mrs. Bennet in a few scenes of Pride and Prejudice in my acting class? That's right, me!!! I'm so excited!!

Published on Sunday, January 28, 2024, at 7:25 PM.

Songs of the day: Shinee - 1 Of 1

Hey y'all---guess who had a three-day weekend? It's already the end of January (wow!) and we haven't had a single full week of school! :p But this time, it wasn't snow or Yukon-esque temperatures, it was freezing rain---switching it up a little! I did have a bit of a stressful morning, though. I was sitting, having some nice morning tea and reading a book about colleges when I came across one that really appealed to me that I had previously (and now, I found out, mistakenly) written off because I thought it cost too much. I put my tea down and dashed over to the computer, really happy that I had found this college that seemed like such a great fit, and I hoped against hope as I opened an e-search tab that the deadline was still open. And then I found out that the admissions deadline had passed over a week earlier.

So my hopes were a little cratered, and I was a mopey, stressed mess for part of the morning until my mother made me watch her favourite episode of her favourite TV show, Due South. That cheered me up, and I promised myself not to think about college or do any schoolwork whatsoever for the rest of the day, which made it for once a good snow day! All my snow days so far I spent at least partially on homework, which ruined the snow-day atmosphere. Now, of course, the mood whiplash and doom-and-gloom fear about college did ruin the snow day for part of it, but ignoring school totally at least preserved the feeling for most of the day! It felt a whole lot more like a snow day than my prior snow days, which is ironic, since it was actually an ice day. But I viewed the day as a bit of a "cheat day" in general, which was good! I don't get nearly enough of those.

And then I got back to school yesterday. Thank the Lord, the admissions counsellor from that college gave me an extension until Sunday to get everything in! Which should, God willing, be enough time. And so yesterday and today, I finished my application pretty much. I just really hope I can get all the supporting stuff in on time! And, thank God, I didn't have any homework to do tonight---I finished everything already, somehow! Thanks to my English teacher not giving us homework---although we are going to have to write an on-demand FRQ tomorrow, which will be annoying. We also started planning with the whole group today for my school's annual Pre-Spring Break Fun Week, which, being seniors, my classmates and I are planning this year. Blue and I got put in an artisan-inspired group, but Green got stuck in a group that sounds... a bit chaotic so far, from what he's said. But thankfully, we got a mostly great group for ours, and I'm excited to see what we can do!

Today we had a counselling lesson about how people today are more closed-minded. I really see that as a problem, but some of my friends disagreed, and we got into a bit of an interesting discussion for about two minutes before we all had to leave school. I think there is a fine line to walk between free speech and hate speech, and I'll confess I don't know exactly what it is, but I think it's important to try and be as balanced as possible. And there ends my vague approach to talking about The Issues (tm) on the blog. I try not to do that generally, largely to keep controversial topics in general off the blog, and admittedly occasionally because even on Neocities, though it's not as bad, I've noticed some people retaining social media-esque tendencies to harrass those they disagree with (having experienced it myself once on another site---not even over some end of the world issue, but one with little effect in the grand scheme of things). But I digress---here ends Lizzie's rambling of the day. Now I'm going to go make myself some supper---it's getting late. Toodles!

Published on Wednesday, January 24, 2024, at 8:37 PM.

Songs of the day: Yena - Good Morning

So, I think I mentioned this last month, but... guess who's the assistant stage manager for my school's play this semester? My friends from my performing arts class convinced me last month during our final period when we were all waiting to get picked up to be the assistant to my good friend who's the stage manager, to lift her workload a little bit. There was a readthrough Wednesday that I couldn't attend, so today was my first practice. I think it's gone pretty well so far---besides one thing.

We ran the first two scenes after our director blocked them, and I, being the humble assistant stage manager, went backstage to do curtains, and as I was waiting for my cue (which I should've known better, probably, but hey, it was only my first day) I decided to lean against a little ledge between the stage and the lowered ramp next to it which goes up to backstage. Only I didn't realize that there was a caddy chock full of crayons there, which promptly crashed down onto the floor, making everyone (since the curtains were closed, they couldn't see me) think I had fallen over. And I had remembered there being some sort of fancy speaker there, so I was instantly dreading having broken hundreds of dollars of equipment, so when I looked over and realized that it was only crayons, I was relieved and also guilty because it had to be cleaned up. So yeah, it was a bit of an exciting first day on the job!

Besides that, my old iPad 3 stopped opening any third-party app, including note-taking, etc., and I thought I could use an iPad for note-taking for school, etc.. Specifically, I was thinking of the iPad 9, since it's currently on sale for $250 on Amazon---they're probably going to discontinue it soon, so I'd reckon they're clearing out stock---and since I like having a headphone jack (!!!) and a home button. To my surprise, my mother just up and bought me one right off! With the stipulation, of course, that I share it with her for some games, but still. Now, it's rather justified, at least, since it's a tool for school, but it was still quite shocking. And I managed to find a cute purple case for it!

The only thing recently is that since I have so much homework, and especially since this year I'm suddenly in all the extracurriculars, I don't have a lot of free time anymore, especially not to work on this site that much except on the weekends, and on Monday, which, with the play, is going to be my only free evening for a while, unless I skip some Fridays of the play practices. (Notice, if you will, that Mondays and Fridays have been when I've blogged the most this month.) I'll try to work more on the site now, but no promises. I'll talk to y'all later. Toodles!

Published on Friday, January 19, 2024, at 8:37 PM.

Songs of the day: Verivery - Ring Ring Ring

Hey y'all! I've had a nice few days! Firstly, on Friday, everyone had thought that it would be a snow day, since the weather was going to go to crap and all the surrounding schools had cancelled, but no dice. But then starting around third period, everybody started leaving because the weather had already started going towards crap, and everyone wanted to get home before the roads started getting slick---and believe me, they ended up getting slick! I wanted to stay for lunch---Bosco sticks, so of course I wanted them!---and I was glad I did so, but then a little bit into fifth period my mum picked me up and we went home. And I was pretty glad I did, for one because I got to relax more and for two because it did get pretty bad, apparently. But anyways, because of that and MLK Day today, I ended up having a three-and-a-half-ish day weekend!

Anyways, I've surfed the Net quite a bit this weekend, etc., etc., but the most exciting part came today. My dad and I went to the grocery store this morning (thankfully, the roads were at least good enough that we could go to the store) and bought a tonne of ingredients for cooking and baking. I had also meant to cook supper tonight, but my dad said he wasn't hungry enough for a big supper, so I just baked my cookies. I made about thirty cookies, using the recipe on the back of the chocolate chip package, and they turned out pretty good! Although, probably due to my over-glopping tendency with the dough balls, I got significantly less than the five dozen cookie estimate that the recipe had. I really look forward to making some more and making the pasta and potato wedges that I had planned to make for supper---I really want to cook more!

Anyways, besides that, I haven't really done a whole tonne besides some organizing and this and that. I really want to work on my site some more soon, but I don't really know what to do. Also, I've started turning the Internet off on my computer except for sometimes, in hopes that I can make going on-line more of an "event" and not the default---I'm pretty tired of that being the default! So I'll report on how that works later. But now I'm going to go have supper and clean the fish tank---the poor fishies have a little too much algae in their place. Toodles!

Published on Monday, January 15, 2024, at 7:18 PM.

Songs of the day: Verivery - Ring Ring Ring

Hey y'all! So yesterday was a (veri)very special day for two reasons. Firstly, it was Verivery's fifth debut anniversary! It feels weird that they've been around for a half a friggin' decade, and that a couple months from now, I'll have been a Verrer for half a decade! I didn't become a fan of theirs until March 2019, but still, that's a long time ago. I'm verivery glad to be a fan of theirs, and I hope that all seven members can continue growing and releasing new music as a group! Verivery fighting!

Secondly, it was a snow day! Across basically half of America, there were massive storms, and my town so happened to get quite a lot of snow Monday into Tuesday, so---at ten or so, even, unlike their normal 6AM announcements---my school got called off! I was not, indeed, humbled---at least not yet. I spent some of the day on homework, and part of the morning stressing over the unreasonable cost of college, but besides that, it was overall quite a nice snow day, although I probably could've done snow day-ier activities. Oh well---it was a needed break! The roads were still pretty bad last night, and it got below zero so much of what had melted during the day refroze, so everyone was pretty sure that we were going to at least have a late start, but no dice. Humbled indeed! :(

But today was a pretty ho-hum day, at least---nothing terribly annoying happened. And, because I hadn't had class Monday or Tuesday, I didn't have very much homework! Although I still kind of wish I had more time in the afternoon, but I think part of that is just because of my long nighttime routine. Anyways, speaking of said routine, I had better get started on it, so I'll talk to all y'all soon. Toodles!

Published on Wednesday, January 10, 2024, at 8:46 PM.

Songs of the day: Marie Serneholt - I Need A House

Howdy y'all! Sorry that it's been so long without a blog post, but I've had a bit of a hectic first week back to school. I feel like I kind of just got smacked with a bloody tonne of work at once! :( But I was able to do pretty much all my homework on Saturday---save a little bit that I'm going to do tonight and tomorrow---although it did take me all day and tire me out. I spent a lot of yesterday in a bit of a cleaning frenzy, although I did have a little bit of absent-mindedly, frantically going hither and thither that led me to put all my keychains in a specific place where I would put all my keychains henceforth, only to absolutely forget it only a couple hours later, which drove me nuts until my eyes happened upon the place where I put them. Oy.

But I'm going to start doing one little task a day to clean up, to keep me organized! For example, tonight, I'm going to tidy up the cabinet in my desk and find something to do with all the old product boxes in it. Yesterday, I rounded up all the newspapers in my room, as well as some yearbooks and my school's literary journal from last year, and boxed them up and numbered it, and then I put in a spreadsheet the number and a description of its contents, inspired by Pam Young and Peggy Jones' storage technique, so I know what's where. I think this could work out really well!

Anyways, in other news, you may have noticed some changes around the site! I decided to shift from the haphazard organization that the sidebar, and thence the rest of the site, had which grew out of its very early days (I just realized I missed doing a post on the third anniversary of when I started working on this site back on the 3rd! So I guess the 4th anniversary of my creating the account, on the 26th, will have to do. Anyways, I decided to reorganize the sitemap, so some pages got added to the sidebar and some new category pages (misc. hobbies, about this site and graphics) got created, plus quiz results, pet peeves, etc. are now about me subpages, and I rearranged some articles pages as well. Also, the Verivery hyperlink now just goes to the webshrine/fan page, because the previous Verivery page was basically just a clone of my Verrerdise site. I hope y'all like this new redesign---I certainly feel a lot better about it!

Beyond that, today we seniors got out of classes! My school has the seniors decorate their graduation stoles however they like them, and they get a whole day early in the second semester of their senior year to decorate them, plan their senior trip, etc. Firstly, we got talked to briefly about leadership and all that, and then we each got given our stoles one-by-one as the college counsellor said a little bit about each of us and we took a photo with the headmistress. I was kind of focused on getting a good photo, but I do remember the counsellor complimenting my love of all things retro (or, as she said, "analogue and not of the 21st century) and talked about how unique I am! Which warmed my heart a lot, as people saying those things about you tends to do---I'm surprised I didn't cry!

And then we decorated (although I basically just picked out stuff to go on my stole---I haven't ironed anything on or any of that yet) and then got some time to go out and pick stuff up. Blue, Green and I went to Green's house to get a sewing kit, and then to my house to get some gift cards for a craft store (which we didn't end up using) and we ended up dawdling, because I was showing them around my room, which they had never seen before. Anyways, all we got were some memories and some chips and guac that nobody ate, but it was alright. Then we had lunch---the principal and college counsellor ordered out from Panera for us! I had a chicken avocado panini melt type thing, which was really good! And I also asked for a smoothie, which I didn't end up getting, but oh well. Anyways, after that, we booked the house we're going to stay at for our senior trip, and finalized the schedule of when we'll be going on it!

And then we were done for the day! We picked up, and were allowed to leave. I got picked up a bit later, but still early, because the roads were starting to get bad since it's snowing/slushing/whatever tonight! They haven't decided whether or not they'll cancel school yet, but I think they ought to just make it official already, you know? I mean, the weather forecast has said since last night that travel is going to be hazardous. I just hope this isn't arrogant hubris, me saying all this, that's going to get humbled when I sludge to school tomorrow morning. Let's pray for a snow day---I sure could use it!! Toodles!

Published on Monday, January 8, 2024, at 6:16 PM.

Songs of the day: Britt Nicole - Stand; Twice - Likey

Hey y'all! Today, I went to the library with my mother, and, like I did yesterday, and all weekend, spent a lot of time for some reason delving into Reddit threads on theology. I feel like I'm maybe entering a season, or perhaps have just been in a very short season, of change and growth in my faith. I don't know. But yeah, I digress. We went to my favourite Mexican place for lunch, and my burrito was a lot, as usual---my burritos are finally bigger than my mother's these days! Unlike that one time years ago when my burrito was so small that the cashier just charged it as two orders of extra meat instead of a full burrito. But of course, the size means I'm stuffed when I'm finished.

Also, I'm baking cinnamon rolls! Now, the yeast is years old and it's not risen very much at all (I haven't even started preparing anything beyond the dough yet), and we ran out of all-purpose flour so I had to partially use whole-wheat flour, and the plastic wrap has unilaterally refused to stick to the bowl, so we'll see how it turns out, but I have hope. And that's about all notable that's happened the past couple of days. I'll talk to all y'all later---toodles!

Published on Tuesday, January 2, 2024, at 3:48 PM.