HELP ME!

Sorry there was no story Sunday, but i had a LOT of homework to do and didn't have time. I wanted your input on what photo I should send in for a photography contest at school. Leave your answer in the comments with the number (or numbers) of your favorite photo. For good measure, put in what you don't like too. Remember, I can zoom in on the photo, and make it black&white, antique, whatever. Thanks!

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How nice, to end on a good even number :) I REALLY NEED YOUR HELP WITH THIS! Please comment. I'm hopeless with makeing a desicion, I really want your input. Ask your moms what they think and put that down too, ok? Thanks so much!

¬Rachael»◊

Product Review!!

Some stuff worth buying. Or not.

• John Frieda - Frizz-Ease     Four Stars

A little purple bottle containing a clear fluid with a syrup-like consistency. This product works really well when you straighten your hair, wet or dry. It makes it shiny, and silky smooth. "Touchably smooth" says my girl Jessica. Here comes the beef: After you put this in your wet hair, you cannot let it dry at all in a bun or ponytail. The product with make your hair feel greasy, and not good.

• Madison Street: Champagne Dill Mustard     Four Stars

Some of you know that I am a mustard queen. I don't like mayonnaise or ketchup, just mustard. Anyway, I have tried quite a few types of mustards from regular Yellow to the schmancy Grey Poupon, and I have to say, this one isnt bad. I'll have it on my sandwiches sometimes (although I personally prefer Yellow on sandwiches) but mostly on wraps.

• Shower Soothers      Five Stars

Large tablets of a blue powder-cake that come individually packaged. Before taking a show, place an unwrapped tablet by the drain, then shower away! The water breaks up the tablet and releases a pungent sent that clears your sinus'. Not the most appealing smell, but while your taking a shower (and for a while afterwards) your nose is clear.

• Special K Low Fat Granola     One Star

You might have heard the commercials for granola, with people saying somethings about granola tasting like cardboard. Well, it's easy to see why they thought that, because this granola tastes rather bland. I usually buy store brand granola, and that tastes better than this. Maybe its the "low fat" thing, but this stuff is nasty.

Rachael

Two Minute Mysteries! part 2: the Sequel

It made you laugh, it made you cry, it made you beat up Ashlee for getting it right! Now, what you have all been waiting for, The second installment of Two Minute Mysteries!

Please, please, hold your applause! Ok, ok, you can stop now. No really, stop clapping. Soooo.....

the case of

The Suicide Room

Sir Cecil Brookfield pulled back a massive door that opened off one of the arched corridors in his six hundred year old castle in Whales .
Dr. Haledjian, a weekend guest, peered down into the darkness.
"A room with four walls- and no floor," said Sir Cecil. "Or rather, a floor 100 feet below the threshold. The room was designed to dispose in secret of troublesome vassals," explained Sir Cecil. "Later, when the beautiful wife of the first Lord Brookefield died in the plague, a grief stricken young forester hurled himself to his doom here.
"A nasty legend developed from the foresters death," added Sir Cecil slowly. "It is that a young man will jump in the reign of every fourth baron. I am the fourth since the last suicide." Sir Cecil shoved the heavy door shut. "I've ordered a mason from the village. He'll be here tomorrow to seal off the door."
Haledjian's bedroom was three doors from the "suicide room." As he was retiring for the night,he heard an eerie, dull thud. It could only mean one thing. He hastened to the corridor.
Sir Cecil was running toward the "suicide room." Together the two men swung open the massive door. Sir Cecil played a flashlight down into the dark pit.
The beam revealed the body of a young man.
"Ritchie, my wife's solicitor!" gasped Sir Cecil. "Why should he take his own life?"
"He didn't," corrected Haledjian. "He was pushed!"

How did Haledjian know?

 Post your answer in the comments! Do it now!

STORY SUNDAY #5!!

The Queen of Winter

A story about parenting

The Queen of Winter looks out her bedroom window on the tallest spiral of her Ice castle onto the rolling hills of snow. In the distance she can see the the skating rink where the people of the land of Winter (also called Winterites) enjoy themselves on the sleek ice. But the Queen does not share the joy of the Winterites, and she fears she never will feel joy again. You see, the Queen of Winter's first born child, Glaciea, was the victim of an untimely death.

The Queen of Winter had been married to the King Of Winter (called the Prince of Evergreens before the marriage) for quite some time before Glaciea came. Glaciea's birth was celebrated with a grand feast in the Ice Castle, quite an occasion. Glaciea was a very special child, as she was made entirely of ice. Neither the Queen or King was made of ice (both are human), so a child made of ice was very special.

But alas, the Queen was not thinking on that one fateful day at the Hot Springs. The Hot Springs are one of the few natural places in the land of Winter where a person can warm themselves. It is rarely ever closed, and always had many Winterites bathing there. Because the area is so often frequented, the royale family had decided many years ago to charge a small free of one Pence to use the springs. So, on this horrible day, the Queen had taken the Royal Carrige to the Hot Springs to collect the weeks earnings. She has brought Glaciea along because she was still too young to be away from her mother. The Queen thought it ok to leave Glaciea in the carriage while she was in the Hot Springs building, and besides, the driver was there, and the windows were open a sliver. While in the Hot Springs building, the Queen stumbled upon an old friend she hadn't seen in a long time. She got to talking with the friend, and before she knew it a whole hour had gone by. The Queen rushed to get the earnings, but unfortunately there was quite a line to the fee box. She had waited a half hour to get to the box, but the fates were not on her side that day, for the lock was sticking. she tried to open the box y herself, but was unable to. A Winterite eventually came over and helped her open the box. The Queen finally gathered the coins into her collection bag, and hurried off to the carriage.

Attempting to still appear calm, cool, and collected, the Queen speed-walked to the carriage, unhelpfully waiting in the far end of the rode. The Queen briefly wonders why the driver had parked way back there when she realizes something; there is so driver! She scans the evergreen trees on the side of the rode, but still does not see the driver. Shocked that her child lay unprotected, the Queen ran to the carriage The Queen quickly opened the side door and sat in the cabin. She subconciously noticed how abnormally warm it was in the cabin, especially for the land of Winter.

Sensing something wrong, the Queen slowly and cauciously reaches for the blanket that covers Glaciea's carrier. Except, under the blanket, there isn't an ice child. There is nothing at all. At first, the Queen is schocked, who dare take a royal child, the Princess of Winter? The Queen leans over the carrier to look out the window for Glaciea's captor. The Queen puts her hand in the carrier, to stabalize herself. The Queen freezes, then very slowly, moves back into her seat, raises her hand that was in the carrier, and examines the droplets of cold water that rest there.

Moral of the story: Don't leave your Kids in the car.

⋲∫Rachael~á

ps. I MADE THE VOLLEYBALL TEAM!!

Update on my Life: In NY!

Hi everyone! This past pre-Thanksgiving weekend I was visiting relatives in New York. Not the city, as many of you will think, by the countryside. Visiting was very fun, seeing my dad's side of the family, and my mom's side. Stories of my parents childhood were passed around like candy at Halloween, most of them humorous. The highlight of my trip though, was seeing Woodstock.

Yeah, that's right, Woodstock. Not the little bird that followed Snoopy around, but the place. As in "3 days of peace and music", the '69 hippie festival Woodstock.

Woodstock is also known for it's guitars and wind chimes in case you didn't know. Coincidentally, Woodstock chimes were in the middle of their huge bi-yearly clearance sale. We bought some stuff, including 3 wooden ducks, a couple chimes, and a lollipop drum thing. At the warehouse in which the sale was located, there was this big gong for sale. People would randomly come up and give the gong a whack, just for kicks and giggles. My sister and I both rang the gong, and I confess, I felt like a rebel.



Excuse the crappyness, i took this w/ my cell



After my family was through with the sale, we entered the small town of Woodstock. We entered several stores, a few of which were clearly capitalizing on the history of Woodstock. The shops were basically forests of tie-dye t-shirts and glass pot holders (a.k.a. bongs). Several shops sold pins with peace signs on them, and almost every shop had some from of reggae playing. Some shops were neat, like the candle shop.

The candle shop was (as it should be) filled with candles. There were plain candles, and some beautifully decorated candles. there was even a tower of wax made from the leavings of drip candles. The tower was almost to the ceiling, ad was nicely colored, looking like an overgrown willow tree. A willow tree with a lifetime's worth of gum stuck to it.
We also went to a nice shop with mainly glass. I believe the type of glass was called Venetian glass, a kind of colored glass that is very smooth. There was also a mirror with a kid of Mosaic for a border. It was a pretty pricey store, so we didn't hang around for long.

We also went into a store that was pretty similar to the others when looking at merchandise. The really neat this about this store though, was some of the furniture. The first picture is of a light brite lamp. You remember light brite right (tongue twister, huh?)? It was the box that lit up, and you would put colored pegs in the holes to make a picture? Anyways, t struck me as a really neat lamp. I had wandered over to the children's section of the store just to, you know, check it out, and there it was. The retro lamp just sitting there, waiting to be found and blogged about. Wish granted lamp, wish granted.

The next cool thing I found in that store was a cardboard peace sign. Inside a few of the holes of the peace sign were colored strips of paper. On the paper, customers had written words of encouragement, hope, sayings, and sometimes wishes. I remember reading one that said "please let my mom win a lot of money so we con stay in our house". Just reading it made my face drop. The rest that I got to read were pretty stale, saying things like "never give up :)".  I must confess though, I too wrote a generic saying; "You are loved." Still, i thought it was an excellent idea!

But, the absolute best store i went into was definitely the toy store. Toy stores are always the best, aren't they? This one had a small section on a shelf for bandages. They were different shapes, the most memorable of which was the bacon ones. I know, I know, bacon bandages have been around for a while now. But to see one in person, to touch it, that is a different story. I also bought a pen with a lambs head when the end is. When you push down on the head it lights up and goes "BAAAAA!!". I have dubbed it my test-taking pen, and it was christened this morning in German class. I also bought a ghost key chain to go with my collection. When you push a button on the back of the ghost the eyes flicker a blue light and the ghost goes "OOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOooooooo" all creepy like. Its pretty neat.

Well that's all i have for this edition of Update On My Life. See you next time!

Rachael

ps. if i have any grammatical/spelling errors on any of my posts LET ME KNOW. Rachael hate being grammatically bad!

5 minutes of people doing awesome things

Check out this great MSN video: 5 minutes of people doing awesome things

In other news; Madison (aka, Kitten) fell off my desk today! But before i tell you the details of this event, i must launch into a back story to help explain. Madison was lying on my desk because she has recently discovered the joys of playing with my computer screen. I know what your thinking, "this can't end well," but you are wrong! You see, she sees the words being typed, my fingers moving across the keypad, the mouse moving across the page, ads blinking and moving, etc. She will sit (usually on my right side) really close to the screen and watch, sometimes poking the screen. Then she'll lay down, with half her body on my key bored. But anyway, she was laying down, facing away from me and I touched the back of her head to pet her. Being the feisty little feline she is, she rolled over to bite my hand, but instead she rolled right off. When she got back up, she was stunned, and kind of paused for a moment, as if collecting herself. Ahh, the joys of animals...

Rachael

Story Sunday #4!!

A poem for you.

Watching National Geographic

while eating milk-less cereal,

is my idea of a fun time.

How about you?

Climbing up the rickety rope ladder

and entering the treehouse,

is my idea of scary.

How about you?

Being on the wrong side of the street

when i'm walking my dog, 

is my idea of rebellious.

how about you?

Telling the same dumb, corny joke

to everyone I meet all day,

is my idea of hilarious.

How about you?

Writing repetative rhymless poetry

for a story sunday post

is my idea of beating the sytem.

How about you?



Rachael

ps: Check  out the new series Walking Dead on amc! Its really good! not sure what time it gets on, but its on sundays. It might be 8 or 9 pm, but really! Tivo that stuff!

Questions

This isn't a list of questions about me. This is a list of life questions, or questions involving life. Questions that i have always had, that i want answered. Can you answer these questions for me?

• How old is Micky Mouse suppose to be? I don't mean how long has Disney been around, i mean Micky Mouse, how old is he shown to be?
• Whats the difference between yellow-green and green-yellow?
• Why do cats hate water?
• Why is it that some people see things as blue, and other people see it as purple?
• Why is it that people getting hurt is funny?
• When will people realize that the grass isn't greener on the other side?
• Where do all the lost things go?
• Why does the outside smell like celery?
• Why do we assume that grown-ups have all the answers, when in reality, they themselves are still growing-up too?
• Who had the idea to make sunglasses, and why?
• How does hurting another person make you feel better?
• When did cave people start to realize that they could make sounds with their mouths?
• Why do we trust perfect strangers?
• Why do we use pre-wrap (a medical wrap for injuries) as a hairband?
• What makes scary movies so appealing?
• How do sound recorders work?
• Why do people partake in expensive and painful things, all for the sake of beauty?
• Why are people so determined to loose their uniqueness?
• Who got the idea to put patterns on tissue boxes?
• Why do adults so envy the youth, and the youth so envy the adults?
• How come nobody realizes that the YOUTH are the most oppressed minority?
• What makes some people talented, and others not?
• Why do different languages develope?
• Why can't i ever match jewlery to an outfit?

If you have answers to these questions, PLEASE write the queestion number and your answer in the comments. Thanks!