Endless Twilight

Last month I finished reading Eclipse, the third book in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Series. I am not only obsessed with these books, I'm POSSESSED!!!

Here's how it all got started:

My friend Kim and I are hopeless romantics. We just LOVE all the same types of things. I'd heard about the Twilight series by another friend, Jessica (who, again, is another romantic) but was trying to finish some other books I'd started so I thought that I might delve into the series later. However, my friend Kim called me one day ECSTATIC telling me to get on Amazon RIGHT NOW and order all three books!!! So as I was accessing the site she read to me the meadow scene from Twilight. And it goes a little something like this:

Wait, let me first set this up - Edward is a forever 17-year-old vampire. Bella is a 17-year-old human girl. They like each other, she knows he's a vampire, but she also knows he's a little dangerous because he craves her blood more than any other he's ever come into contact with in all his 90+ years as a vampire. Mrs. Meyers vampires don't burst into flames under the sun, in fact all those legends about the garlic and holy water are just merely rumors in her world. Edward is beautiful, a vegetarian vampire (meaning he only drinks animal blood), and very romantic. This scene is when Bella (the narrorator) first sees Edward in the sun...

"Edward in the sunlight was shocking. I couldn't get used to it, though I'd been staring at him all afternoon. His skin, white despite the faint flush from yesterday's hunting trip, literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface. He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare. His glistening, pale lavendar lids were shut, though of course he didn't sleep. A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal."


With THAT FIRST PARAGRAPH IN THAT CHAPTER I WAS HOOKED!!!! A gorgeous god of a VAMPIRE lying in a meadow with a girl and SPARKLING LIKE DIAMONDS?? WHOO-HA-HA!!!!

That was it.

The fat lady sang.

And I've been singing choir in the church of Twilight ever since! I read all 3 books in a week flat and have spent most of the last month downloading songs, youtube vids, pictures, rereading, and spending my time on Twilight Moms (a myspace group and now a website).

And our theory on vampires sparkling in the sun? They are reflecting it!

Above is my little Halloween shrine to Twilight - complete with miniature vampire gargoyles and bat lantern. Mom calls it "The Alter".


You see, after you visit http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/ you will be hooked too! She has a music playlist of songs that inspired each book, and if you go to "Twilight Series" and then "Movie News" you can see all the actors Stephenie sees as her characters, although, sadley, she does not have any say in who plays who in the movie. Movie will be up in either 2009 or 2010, shooting begins this February.

The story is set in the real-life town of Forks, WA, which is the one place in the U.S. that gets the most rain - convenient place for vampires, who would attract too much attention in the sun, to live. The rain forests in this place are soooo ethereal looking - I had no idea places like this existed in the U.S.!!

This is where the vampires roam -

I love it and now have Forks, WA in the top 5 places on earth I will visit someday.

So Stephenie Meyer's number one pick for Edward is Henry Cavill so I made a little remix full of pics of him from his different movies and photo shoots and why each pic is soooooo Edward Cullen. Plus he sorta looks like my Andy when he was young :9

Enjoy!

Feather's Blogaversary

My good friend Heather who I've known for years is the celebrity gossip blogger for the Fresno Bee. My kids have always called her "Feather". She is Hil-a-rious!!!

Go check her out. It's her 1 year anniverary of blogging for the bee and doing what she does best - making everyone laugh!

Click here if you want to laugh your socks off

Oh! The cleverness of you, Feather! Love you!

Halloween Party

So we had a little Halloween party for my church friends from my old ward. Here's the pics of it and the pumpkin patch in a little slide show:

Sorry a few people's heads got cut off and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. But hey, cute background, huh?

Pottery Barn Can Stick It

While I love its plethora of design ideas and classic appeal, Pottery Barn lacks the quaint coziness and character of a room that I desire. I mean, lets just get real people - If your house constantly could pass for a Stepford Wife model home, there's something very wrong with you. See my boycott of conformity evident in my new chalkboard labels from said store:

Halloween Night is Approaching...

Entry way and kitchen table top...

The Mantle

I have fake tealights in all the milk glass. They have a real eerie glow to them with the lights off.

Soundtrack Of My Life

If your life was a movie, what would the soundtrack be?

So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, etc).
2. Put it on shuffle.
3. Press Play.
4. For every question, type the song that's playing.
5. When you go to a new question, press the Next button.
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool.
7. Don't skip songs.

Here's mine....

Opening credits:
In Paradisium – Sarah Brightman (perfect!!)

Waking up:
The Houses of Healing – Lord of the Rings

First day at school:
Beautiful Disaster – Kelly Clarkson (ain’t that the truth?)

First Love:
Sweet Emotion – Arrowsmith (This is sorta freaky....hmm)

Breaking up:
Taxi Ride – Tori Amos (heh – she sings, “I’m glad you’re on my side.”)

Happiness:
A Sorta Fairytale – Tori Amos (No JOKE!!)

Life's okay:
A Case of You – Tori Amos

Mental breakdown:
Anakin’s Theme – John Williams (Not kidding!!!!)

Driving:
Never Ending Story – Klaus Doldinger (I’m sooo not making this up!)

Flashback:
Any Other Way – Tim McGraw (Scarey!)

Getting back together:
Everything – Alanis Morissette (well, this is why you would get back together-perfect!)

Wedding:
Arc – Pearl Jam (a bunch of Native Americans chanting – cool!)

Birth of a child:
In My Tree – Pearl Jam (okay, this one is random)

Final battle:
Take On Me – A-ha (Ha!)

Death scene:
You Are – Pearl Jam (Sweeeet!)

Funeral song:
Dance With You – Live (Oh! That’s Beautiful! It even says, " I see a world where people live and die with grace.)

End credits:
Let Go – Frou Frou (DOOODE! This is JUST what I would want!!)

Ya'll need to try this...

A Fabulous Discovery!

Those of you who know me well know that I love to make handmade gifts. Well, I just found this site that is a compilation of a whole bunch of artists selling their handmade goods like art, jewlery, figurines, etc.

A really cool aspect of the site is all the cool ways to search for that perfect gift. You can search items by color - just click on one of many dots in every color of the rainbow and out will pop a couple pics of things for sale that color! It's nifty! Or you can go into the Time Machine and see the item most recently posted.

You have to create an account to buy anything but it's great cuz then you can tag your favorite sellers for future reference from the THOUSANDS of sellers on the site. I already have a good list going.

I couldn't resist and bought two things already - a really elegant ring and some graphic art for Halloween! Here's the link. Happy Shopping!

More Decor

This is what's on top of the entertainment center. That's a Wendy Froud Faery on the page of the open book which looks similar to my witch-faery costume this year. *cackle*

Nostalgia

Wore this same dress when I was her age...

Zanessa!

Can I just say that these two are sooooooo cute together! I could tell when I watched the first High School Musical that there must be some sort of spark between them and then when I saw High School Musical 2 I KNEW IT!!! Just the way he looked at her with fire in his eyes - WOW! Call it intuition, but I knew they must have a thing for each other in real life. So I wenting hunting the net for stuff about her and stuff about him and found a youtube video of all these pictures of them together in Hawaii that are just the most adorable things you've ever seen! That next week People magazine came out with them as a couple on the cover... way ahead of ya'll there....

And here you can view a music video of Vanessa's song "Say Ok" with her and Zac in it. Sooooooo cute! Not to mention her music, this song in particular, is catchy! I bought her debut album V and I love it! I got it going on with the teeny-boppers.

And here's another lovey-dovey video of them. Vanessa is definitely "the music in Zac". Zanessa Forever!!!!

p.s. I created this blog shortly after HSM2 aired and before the leak of Vanessa's nude pictures.Please know my love for Zanessa in NO WAY hinders my dissaproval of Vanessa's total lack of brainpower or premeditated career boost. I haven't read a whole lot about those pics so I'm not sure what's up there except that it makes me very sad and hugely dissapointed in her. I'm trying to keep that stuff seperate from the cuteness that is Zanessa. I'm trying desperately, like Disney, to pretend it didn't happen and live in my little fantasy world of believing there are real-life Hollywood couples out there who aren't tainted yet by the wicked ways of that life. I'm broken hearted - reality check, this girl's a slut. Or maybe she was just stupid then and this is now and if she could go back and change things she would -it could happen. I believe in repentance. If it weren't for the apple-pie sweetie Zac Efron to balance things out I wouldn't have posted this at all. His charisma alone could redeem the lowliest gutter rat.

-B

All Hallow's Eve

I will be posting pics of my Halloween decor a couple times a week until Halloween. Enjoy!

Trick or Treat

So we got a kitten. Kaiya has been kitten-obsessed since she was about 3 months old. Andy so badly wanted Kaiya to experience raising a kitten since Cleo was already a big cat when Kaiya was born. I listed off names that would be cute and creative for an orange cat and my kids picked "Trick or Treat". I was trying to stay within our Star Wars pet name theme. When we adopted our other black dog her name was already "Camie" and just as soon as I was planning on changing her name to "Padme" I found out that in some deleted scenes from A New Hope, Luke actually goes to meet his friends at the Toshie station (read this with a whiney voice) and one of those friends is a girl named "Camie". Great! That works! So I thought of naming the kitten"Chewie" but we all agreed very quickly we couldn't name the cat that since the new kid across the street has "Chewie" as his nickname. It's cool....it's common around our house to find Trooper, Chewie and Vader playing outside.

Anyway, upon further creative thinking of orange Star Wars names I came up with "3PO" and "Rogue 2" (think orange space jumpers). Too bad the kids didn't like "Rogue 2" cuz Andy and I really dig that one. We secretly call her that when the kids aren't looking.

But "Trick or Treat" is cool as far as names go too and it is very fitting to this litle kitten because once minute she gives you a sweet treat by purring loudly in your arms and the next minute she's pulling her tricks and taking a flying, all-claws splayed leap at your leg.

-Britten

Pigtails

I can finally put Ari's hair into these cute pigtails. I love it!

First Day of School '07

First Day of School '06

Kaiya's first day of school in the second grade (last year....I'm a little behind) In her cute little Naartjie outfit.

My babies!

Look how small they were!

Fire in the Sky

Taken last year about this time.

Listeners Wanted...

My lovely Aunt Lisa and her friend have started a group called Lifesong and just finished these two demos to submit to their local label for new music ideas for Deseret Book. They need a total of 500 opinions from different ages and genders and they are only at 350 right now. It would be ever so kind of you, my readers, to click on the mp3 links and listen and give your honest opinion in the comments section. I sent back like a 5 page critique on what I did and didn't like and which instruments would have worked better, which words would have worked better, blah, blah, blah. Then she told me that they are only singing to minus tracks and these are songs that other groups have done before.

Heh, heh....so I went a little over the top and don't normally listen to this kind of music. She still got a down right honest opinion and that's what counts!

Real Me

God Bless the Broken Road

Thanks!

-Britten

Stardust

I knew I would love it. Fallen stars, unicorns, a shining Claire Danes, a dashing hero disguised as a dork, evil, conniving, witty witches, a gaggle of dryly comedic dead princes, and a cross dressing, can-can dancing Robert DeNiro. Who could ask for more?

Well, I can.

I did love it - absolutely loved it! It's a "Princess Bride" for the 21st century, a kooky faery tale - which really are the best kind. One of my favorite lines says something like, "When you start to fit in there's something wrong", or "Be very afraid of normal"....just go see it. But I have just one quibble...where was the red-leaved talking tree modeled after Tori Amos, I ask you?

A bit of trivia: The movie is based on the novella Stardust by Neil Gaiman, a personal friend of Tori. The same "Neil" she refers to in some of her songs, i.e. "Tear In Your Hand": "If you need me, me and Neil'll be hangin' out with the dream king" (Neil also wrote a graphic novel series about dreams called The Sandman) and "Neil said 'Hi' by the way".

Neil loves Tori so much he wrote her as a talking tree in Stardust. She references this in the song "Horses" on her album Boys For Pele. She sings "And if there is a way to find you I will find you/but will you find me if Neil makes me a tree?" Now this I would have LOVED to see especially since I haven't read the book yet. I imagine this tree would have spoke (or sang?) in symbolic riddles steeped in mythology and history causing our heroes to relish the richness and depth of her message which would have warned of betrayal, basked in the complexities of love, preached of woman-power or demonstrated how to kill a waitress. Either way it would have been a revelation!!!

Perhaps they had Tori as a tree all planned for the movie, but she was too busy writing the brilliant Digital Ghost.

Here's to an almost complete movie.

*cheers*

And here's to my red-leaved talking Tori. Gah! I love her!

-Britten

This Little, Black Cloud

So Andy had to get another surgery. (What number are we at now?) I'm not refering to the one he had 3 weeks ago to get his morphine pump inserted. Nope. Out of all the pumps that Medtronics has made in the last 10-15 years, Andy's is the only one to break and go haywire. This would be his luck. I knew there was something screwy with it when he wouldn't feel any morphine go into his spine for an 8-hour span at night when it supposedly pumps the morphine in on a periodic basis, but the doctor just thought he should keep upping the doseage.

Andy started beeping (and by this I mean the pump) last Sunday and then we knew something *was* really up. The doctor just thought the pump was almost out of medicine. I said they were probably going to have to reprogram him at least. No. Another surgery to replace the broken pump (which is inserted behind the skin on his stomach). Someone hand me my medical liscense and get this over with already.

My poor, poor husband. We just can't get out from under this little, black cloud that's been over his head for about the last half of his life now. The stream of medical bad luck this guy has could make a good book at least. He said, "It's sad when you no longer freak out before a surgery. It's just like getting blood drawn - after about the 6th time it's no big deal." He's a real-live pin cushion and his body is starting to resemble Frankenstein's monster. We've started calling him "Bionic Man" since he has his mechanical stimulator, the two screws in his spine and now the pump. Maybe this half explains why I'm subconsciously captivated by Darth Vader? Maybe not...

However, he seems to be doing well right now. They will activate the pump with morphine on Monday and hopefully we'll see good times roll. (knock on wood, spin three times and do a little jig for good luck.) And pray too - don't forget that. He needs all the good vibes he can get.

-Britten

Viva Las Vegas

So I met up with some of my colorguard friends from high school at Kristal's parents house in Las Vegas a few weeks ago (minus our lovely Rachel who got stuck in San Fran with her sick cat - we love you Rachel!). Just like old times when we would hang out at Kristal's, laugh, watch movies, eat good food and chill and her parents would be there to chit chat with (if you could keep up with Jim's mile-a-minute little comments every now and then - heh!) Jim and Sheila are still cool as ever, and hey, so are we! It was amazing how tons of time can pass by, but when we get together again it's like nothing has changed. May it always be that way...

Sorry, there's a few inside jokes on here, but it's smokin'!

Vegas Remix

And no, we didn't see my favorite part of Vegas - the Bellagio fountains. Errr... That's about the third time I've been there and missed them for some dumb reason or another. One can not miss the spiritual experience of it all! It's blasphemous! Next time I'm there I'm going to stand and watch them all dag-nab day!


-Britten

Observations...

Two things I gather from this picture:

1.) Ari's a total ham.

2.) It's a shame my boobs are only this big when I'm overweight.

Size 10-18? A Recommendation...

So I have this friend whom I finally met in person at Celebration 4 this year. Her name is Mary Jo but she goes by many an alias, i.e. lazypadawan, MissPadme, and greenfaerie. We have been posting on some of the same Star Wars related threads on theforce.net . I also follow her Star Wars fan fiction (she is the best when it comes to filling in the blanks between scenes and episodes, IMO!) and her live journal (scroll down to "Silly Fic: Maury Povich's "The Empire Strikes Back" - you'll laugh your socks off, even if you aren't a Star Wars fan!).

She started a new blog on blogger not too far back that I know many of my friends and family who frequent my blog (and may not frequent enough *cough*) would love! It's for all of us size 10-18ers that have a hard time finding afordable, up-to-date clothing that doesn't end up making us all look like walking boxes. She scopes out the stores and fashion sites and reports on anything that may be a hidden treasure to anyone who needs more info and ideas on where to look. So far, I have found it extremely helpful in that she and I seem to share similar taste in clothing (see us in our Star Wars duds below). I started to get into a serious rut only shopping at NY&Co and it's starting to make my wardrobe go blah, so this is great for me! (and so far, I'm the only one commenting, so share the love!) You can view it here .

Happy shopping!