Archive for the 'How coolio is THAT?' Category

November 24, 2009 | How coolio is THAT?,Random Thoughts

I love doing these things. The first time, when my niece sent it to me, I did it all wrong. I didn’t pay attention to the rules. LOL. Oops! My bad. I got it right this time, though. It really is harder than it looks. Here’s the thing: THEY HAVE TO BE REAL PLACES, NAMES, THINGS. NOTHING MADE UP! If you want to play, simply copy/paste the questions into the COMMENTS section and change the answers to fit you. If you don’t want to show your last name, just put the first initial. Have fun! Interested to see what you guys come up with.

1. What is your last name? Downs

2. A 4 Letter Word: Dunk

3. A Boys Name: Darren

4. A Girls name: Dawn

5. An Occupation: Director

6. A Color: Dark Blue

7. Something you wear: Dress shoes

8. A beverage: Daiquri

9. A Food: Dumplings

10. Something found in the bathroom: Drain

11. A place: Disneyland

12. A Reason for being late: Dead

13. Something you shout: Dammit!

October 26, 2009 | "Whoa whoa I gotta go...back to schoooool...again",Book Stuff,Book Three,Draven Atreides,Draven Atreides, Teenage Informant Series,Family Portrait,How coolio is THAT?,Life in General,School Daze,The 4-1-1 on Me,The Family Jewels,Weekend Wrap-Up,Writer Moment,Writing Movements

On this Saturday morning’s episode of The Gurl House: paint and shaving cream. Yes, it’s as messy as it sounds. Mr. Maul spent some time with his BF, but when he got home that afternoon, we went to look for more stuff for his Halloween costume. We hit up Savers, where he found a nightgown and then Bubbles of Joy to pick up some claw gloves. And no, I’m not gonna tell you what his costume is. You’ll just have to wait and see when I report back next week. On Sunday, we had a late, late breakfast (we’re talkin’ late morning, early afternoon) at our favorite place, Original Pancake House and then we hit up the mall. For the past few years I’ve been Storm for Halloween, but took a break a couple of times. In 2004, I left the cape in the closet and wore a trench coat as Niobe (THE MATRIX): CLICK FOR BIGGER VIEW

And in 2005, I “grew” some horns as Darth Maul’s wife. If the Sith are allowed to mate, I imagine she would look something like this: CLICK FOR BIGGER VIEW

Great make-up job, yes? The hubby’s real good at that. For the record, breathing was not an option in that corset. This year, I’m only doing Storm at work. I’ve decided to be something else this year for the actual event (again, you’ll see next week). And it involved buying these sexy heels that I will probably only wear once:

I found these puppies at Hot Topic and had one helluva time trying to get them closed. They didn’t buckle—or snap—because really, that would’ve been too easy. Instead they button. Yes, button. Revolutionary, I know, but I’ve come to discover that only shirts and jeans are allowed to have buttons. Not shoes. I’ll be breaking them in this week, a little at a time, because my feet are already protesting at being crammed inside these babies for hours on end.

At this store called Shiek (I’m really hoping this was spelled wrong on purpose), I picked up a pair of Dereon’s:

Yes, Dereon as in Beyonce’s clothing line. Now, I can wear the shoes with the jeans. LOL. I may want to hurl every time I hear “Single Ladies”, but I like the design of some her jeans. And these are the only pair of shoes from her line that I would wear in public and not feel like a complete and utter dorkus.

School Daze – Working on my research paper this week for my EIS class: The Art of Healing: The Benefits of Art Therapy for Young People. I get to read books like The Freedom Writers Diary by teacher Erin Gruwell as research. By choice, not by requirement. If you’re a writer, you need to see this movie. And read this book. If you’re an aspiring teen writer, or you write for teens, then you really need to see this movie. And then read this book. I had an English teacher like Erin when I was in high school—Mrs. Smith—and she is the very reason I stuck with the writing. Not that I was ever thinking about quitting, but the encouragement was always positive and consistent. The rough draft of my paper is due this Sunday, so wish me luck. I haven’t done a research paper since college.

Writing Movement – I’ve been preparing for NaNoWriMo. Last week, I got two more chapters outlined. Altogether, I now have 6 chapters. At this point, I’m going to stop. On the blogs I’ve been reading lately, there’s been some posts about preparation for this challenge. On one blog I was reading (can’t remember for the life of me which blog it was) about the tips for getting through it. Turning off the editing mechanism won’t be hard for me. I tend to write the first draft all the way through without editing anyway. However, the “no time for getting stuck” part (a.k.a. writer’s block) may trip me up. As I mentioned in last week’s Weekend Wrap-Up, I’m a pantser by nature.

When I have a story in mind, the only thing I have is the title, the names of the characters, and a vague idea of the plot. The story itself emerges as I write. For this challenge, I decided to outline first and I’ve discovered that it’s really, really, hard. And I don’t like it. You have to know how the story is going to play out ahead of time and it was difficult for me to picture that. In regards to the “no time for getting stuck” tip, I’ve decided to stop the outlining process at Chapter 6. I’ve got a good start. I think I’m just going to wing it from that chapter on. If you’re looking for a writing buddy, look me up at DravensMom.

So, how was your weekend?

Technorati Tags: Savers, Bubbles of Joy, Original Pancake House, Niobe, THE MATRIX, Hot Topic, Shiek, Dereon, Beyonce, Single Ladies, The Freedom Writers Diary, Erin Gruwell, NaNoWriMo

September 15, 2009 | Family Portrait,How coolio is THAT?,Life in General,The 4-1-1 on Me,Weekend Wrap-Up

To celebrate our 3yr anniversary, Mr. Maul and I went to Las Vegas . We took Friday off, drove down and came back Sunday. So here’s what we did:

FRIDAY –

We stopped at the Hoover Dam. TRANSFORMERS was filmed there, y’know.

Got to Vegas a little after 3, checked into our hotel, Excalibur, then explored our surroundings a little bit, trying to get ideas for what we wanted to do. That night, we went to dinner at Cathouse in the Luxor:

This restaurant was designed to look like a bordello. The setting was very intimate and it was where I had my very first real alcoholic drink. I say real because I am not a drinker. I don’t like the taste of hard alcohol, wine, beer, wine coolers, etc. The only alcoholic drink I’ve ever really liked is sangria. And Olive Garden makes the best ones. The only reason I can drink that is because the taste of the alcohol is heavily masked by additional stuff. Taking that into consideration, the bartender gave me a couple of choices that I could handle without gagging, so I tried a Strawberry Blonde (Ketel One vodka, strawberry puree and something else). It wasn’t too bad.

I had a few good sips before I started to feel tired. Thank goodness we had coffee with dessert (little red velvet cupcakes, btw). I had sauteed garlic shrimp pasta for dinner and Mr. Maul had grilled tuna, seared raw (ewww, gross!).

After dinner we walked over to New York, New York Hotel where I encountered show girls:

a little touristy kiosk that had this funky headpiece:

and Gallagher’s Steakhouse, which, according to Mr. Maul, has the best steaks he’s ever eaten:

On the way back to the hotel, we got some good shots of the Statue of Liberty:

and the special memorial for the firefighters and police officers who lost their lives at 9/11:

There were plaques placed at certain intervals, of quotes made by famous people, and I had Mr. Maul take a picture of two of them. This first one is by Martin Luther King, Jr.:

And it says:

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in the moment of comfort, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy.”

The other quote is by Nelson Mandela:

and it says:

“There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.”

We also got some night shots of the, well, nightlife:

and our hotel:

But wait, there’s more (more…)

Technorati Tags: Las Vegas, Hoover Dam, TRANSFORMERS, Excalibur, Cathouse, Luxor, Olive Garden, New York, New York Hotel, Gallagher’s Steakhouse, Statue of Liberty, Martin Luther King, Jr, Nelson Mandela

August 10, 2009 | "Whoa whoa I gotta go...back to schoooool...again",A Royale Pain,Book One,Book Stuff,Draven Atreides,Draven Atreides, Teenage Informant Series,How coolio is THAT?,Life in General,Movie Queue,Music Queue,School Daze,The 4-1-1 on Me,Weekend Wrap-Up,Writing Movements

Saturday morning, I spent the better part of the day with my BF. I’d received some info from Prescott College last week. Even though I’m not jumping into my chosen subject right away, they’re already asking you to come up with a tentative course title and flesh out your first mentored class. I was feeling a little anxious about that, so she did a reading. It was very positive. After that, we were able to come up with some ideas. So, first semester will be Math and that Interdisciplinary course (which will basically introduce me to the program), but I guess for second semester, my tentative course title is “Non-Profit Exploration”: Through research, hands-on projects, and interviews I’ll learn what a non-profit is, how to start an NP, and why people go into the NP sector.

Part of the class will be the process of sharing my findings and my wonderful BF suggested a blog. Well, duh. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that first. So, later on that day, I created a blog (Non-Profitation) that will chronicle my journey in getting my degree. I’ll be talking about school a little bit on here, but the bulk of it will be on this new blog. Feel free to follow along if you like. I’ll be posting the link to it in my posts here, whenever I talk about school. Right now, there’s only an introduction, but the real posts will start this weekend (when I attend a volunteer orientation at a local NP) and move forward with college orientation at the end of the month.

Saturday night, Mr. Maul and I attended a surprise going away party for one of our DSG guys. He enlisted in the Army and will be gone for 5 months starting Sept 1st. We had a blast. I didn’t get in the pool, though. Spent most of my time on land, talking about TRUEBLOOD. One of our Biker Scout dudes is a big fan like we are. I think he’s going to be Eric for Halloween this year. He told me I should be Tara. LOL. Apparently, the HBO store has shirts that say Merlotte’s and he thinks I should get one. LOL. I don’t know if I’m going to have my braids then, but it’s an idea. I don’t think I want to be Storm again.

Mr. Maul and I went to see G.I. JOE on Sunday. The best thing about that movie was the shirtless shot of Channing Tatum. Seriously. It didn’t help that the auditorium we were in had projector issues during the first few minutes of a new Denzel Washington movie. It had that post-apocalyptic, Mad Max feel to it. If you saw it, hit me up in the comments section and gimme the deets on that. It looked interesting. Anyhoo, the mgr came in and said they were having projector issues and that it would be a few minutes. He came back 5 mins later and said the issue was beyond their control and we were being moved into another auditorium. It was smaller, and, major disappointment of disappointments, they didn’t show the same previews! Which I totally didn’t get.

Do they show different previews in different auditoriums? If you work at movie theater and know the answer to this question, hit me up in the comments, because I’d seriously like to know. The hubby and I were a little miffed that we didn’t get to see that Denzel preview. And that we had to sit a few seats down from two teenage boys who reeked of smoke. Blech!

In the end, we got a free popcorn coupon for our trouble. Mr. Maul wanted to get a ticket refund and go another time, but I talked him into staying. Now that I think about it, we should have. We could’ve gone after I got back from Volunteer orientation and seen that preview. Not that I’m bitter about that, mind you.

(more…)

Technorati Tags: Prescott College, TRUEBLOOD, HBO, G.I. JOE, Channing Tatum, Denzel Washington, Mad Max

May 21, 2009 | contests,How coolio is THAT?,Life in General,Reading is FUNdamental

Diana Peterfreund is giving away copies of Dull Boy by Sarah Cross. As part of the contest, you have the opportunity to create your own superhero.

HOW FUN WAS THIS???

Here’s mine:

I could’ve played with this thing forever. Go on over and enter the contest and create your own.

Technorati Tags: Diana Peterfreund, Dull Boy, Sarah Cross