Pumpkin carving!

Hey guys!

So today I carved pumpkins with my boyfriends family and it was super fun, frustrating and tiring all at the same time. So I thought I would tell you guys how to carve pumpkins and maybe give a few tips to make it easier for you.

The first thing you need to do is get the supplies. You can get these usually at like a walmart or a target. You will need plastic to lay on your floor or table, newspaper would work just as well. Then you need the carving kits usually they have these that come with a book of designs to put on the pumpkin. The carving knives, pokers, and scoop to scoop out the pumpkins insides.

The next thing you will need to do is pick a pumpkin. You can get these from almost any grocery store or you can go to a pumpkin farm. You want to pick a pumpkin that will best fit your design, if you already have it picked out. If its a big design or like words you might want a taller pumpkin with a flater side or if its small you could do a smaller, rounder one.

After you have the perfect pumpkins picked out the next thing to do is to take a big strong knife and cut a lid around the handle. You want it big enough to dig out the insides but not to big. Then you half to do the worst part in my opinion, scrape and dig out the insides. Once you have it empty enough to your liking you tape on your paper with the design. Because a pumpkin is never going to fit perfectly to your paper you just have to kind of mold the paper on there as best you can. It is okay if its not perfect.

Then you use the poker and poke little dots all around your design. Once you have all the design traced you then cut along the dots and pop out the pieces. You might have to do little touch ups at the end. Once it is to your liking you can take one or two candles, according to how bright you want it and put them in your pumpkin. Then when you have it in the right spot outside, you can stand back and watch your beautiful creation glow.

Hope you enjoy carving pumpkins as much as I did.(408)

Ardeeemilla :)

Halloween soon! :)

Hello fellow bloggers

Since it is getting really close to Halloween I thought I would tell you guys about one of my favorite scary movies and give a little summary.

One of my favorite older scary movies is When a Stranger Calls. Its not your typical gory movie. It actually has a little more action. It is about a girl who is probably around like 17. She goes to babysit for a rich family in this gigantic house. When she gets there, they show her around a little and then set the alarm and leave. She is left in the house alone with the kids who are upstairs sleeping. The phone rings and she answers, but no one responds. Then her friend calls and stops by at the house because she wants them to go to the school bonfire together. But the girl says no and that she has to stay and babysit. So the friend leaves. The girl then keeps getting phone calls from a unknown number but when she answers it, all she hears is breathing on the other end. She then sees lights going on and off at the guest house and thinks that it is either the parents oldest son or their maid. She runs to the guest house not knowing what could be out there and its no one. But while she is there, she gets another call. She then relizes the person must be watching her because the gust house is a different number. She goes back to the main house, locks the door, sets the alarm and calls 911. The operator told her that the next time she gets the call, to try to keep them on the phone for more than 60 seconds and he would try to trace the call. The guy calls again and asks if she has checked on he children and hangs up. She runs upstairs to check and they were fine. Then she hears a noise from where the maid stays. She goes to the maids quarters and while there. she gets another call. She answers and screams for him to stop calling her but this time it's actually a cop. He says that he has traced the call...its from inside of the house (my favorite line of the whole movie).

She runs to the kids room and finds empty beds. She looks up to find the man who has been calling her hiding up on the rafters. She runs into the kids play room. He jumps down and tries to attack but she closes the door fast enough, locking it behind her. She finds the children hiding in a toy chest. She gets them out they climb out the window, walk along the roof and climb back into the house through another window that has like an indoor pond and bird sanctuary. She hides the kids behind a plant. Then she hides herself under a bridge that is over the water. But it doesnt work. He findes her. The kids see what is happening and they run out of the room with her as she locks the door and the guy inside of the pond/sanctuary room. The cops are on the way so they are waiting for them to get there when she notices a bird fly through the room. She realizes that he must have gotten out of the room because that is where the bird cam from. He's out and finds her again. She fights him again and is finally able to over come him. The police arive just in time to take him away.

This is one of my all time favorite movies because I don,t really think the fake monster gory stuff is scary. I think real life stuff that could actually happen is really scary. Some fake things can be scary as well, but real life things sometimes haunt me for days....

Happy soon to be Halloween!

Talk later!(660)

Ardeeemilla :)

Getting close to Graduating :(

Hello!

As you get to the later years in highschool, questions come up. Like, What do I want to be when I'm older? How do I get there? What do I do now as a junior to get on the right track for what I want to be when I am older?

It has offically hit me that I should probably start thinking about this. So... I have been freaking out thinking that I needed to know where I am going and what I want to be. I made an appointment with my counselor thinking I haven't taken the classes I need for what I want to be and all that (just completely blowing things out of proportion).When I went to talk to my counseler she asured me that all I that is really important is that I do well and graduate from highschool and that it didnt really make a huge deal exactly what classes I take in highschool. She did tell me though that now would be a good time to start thinking about where I want to go to college and what I want to be. Also because I want to go to a community college in Florida for the first two years and then transfer to a university I need to research what classes I nee; to take in order to transfer to the school I want.

I am hoping to go to medical school and become a Pediatrician or an Obstetrician-Gynecologist; I cant decide ...but the great thing is that I dont have to yet.

So if you're in the same boat as me, don't worry, you have time.(276)

Ardeeemilla :)

Corrupt Television

Hello Fellow bloggers...
Think about the shows that you watched when you were younger and why you like themor why you are now to cool to watch them?
I do..
I wonder why it was funny that the wolf couldn't catch the road runner or that he like almost died everytime. I wounder why am I to cool to watch disney channel. Honestly those are the best shows I think they are hilarious and not in the inappropriate dramatic, drunk, dummies, cheating and being whores, Jersey Shore kind of way or the highschool drama all about sex, Akward kind of way. But they are the real down to earth funny shows.
Personally I look at all the show on tv now a days even some kid show and wonder what the world is coming to. I mean should there really be sex, drama amd drugs all over shows that middle school kids mostly watch. All that is teaching them is that maybe everyone is doing it and if my favorite character is doing it on my favorite show than maybe I should be doing it to. Why are there honestly so many teen pregnancy shows also...all that is doing is making kids think if they can do it then maybe I can to, or that if there on Television for getting pregnant at sixteen maybe I could to. Well honestly you probably wont.
So many people talk about how there are so many teen pregnancies and drugs and fights and drama. Well maybe if the whold worl stopped incouraging it then there wouldnt be as much.
I honestly elieve televisionis corrupt and if we want a good future for generations to come how about we start with fixing that.(299)
Ardeeemilla :)

Lepard Gecko

Hello again...

So I was talking to a friend at work on friday and she has two lepard geckos. She was telling me about how one of her geckos had dropped its tail which is when there tail falls off they do this when they get scarred as a defense meckanism...dont ask me whay lol because im not sure. I asked her why he had dropped his tail and she told me that her boyfriend had him sitting on top of his ipad and they were watching titanic together. I stopped her for a second confused. I said to her, “ so your telling me your boyfriend was watching titanic with your gecko”. She laughed and continued to tell me how her boyfriend dropped the ipad on accident which scared the gecko enough to drop its tail.

This started my want of a lepard gecko they are so cute and tiny.

So....

even though im pretty sure my parents would say no I have been researching how to take care of them. So I thought I would share what I have learned.

Some beginning facts that I have learned

• the lepord gecko stores its nutrients in its tail so you can tell if it is being fed well is its tail is fat
• always be creful with there tail because if you pull on it it will pop right off
• it it is attact and its tail falls off but thepreditor doesnt eat its tail, the gecko will come back and eat its own tail to gain all of it nutrients back
• when purchasing a lepord gecko you want to make sure that it doesnt have black around its mouth or in its mouth because that shows it has been infected

What do geckos eat?

• Live super worms/ mealworms
• Live crickets
• Coat food in calcium so they absorb uv light better

What do they live in?

• They should live in an aquarium that suits how many geckos you have or how big your gecko is
• It is very important to have a water dish for them in there cage
• They should also have other dishes for their food so it doesnt escape
• One of the very important things to have is a cave for them to shed in otherwise they wont and it could cut off their circulation, it should have moss or even moist paper towel inside for it
• They ned a hot side and a cool side, the hot side having his heat light
• uv light over his whole tank
• For baby gekos dont put sand or rocks in the bottom because they might eat it and they could get sick.
  So this is so far what ive learned so far.(471)
  Ardeeemilla :)

The Hunger Games

Hello fellow blogger...

I watched The Hunger Games again today, for like the 10^th time so I decided to let you guys know what I think.

I think that The Hunger Games is an amazing well put together story and movie. Not only is the movie very good at getting the story almost exactly right from the book but also I think they made very good choices for scenes and characters to play the parts.

I love how they chose the perfect place for Katniss's home it shows how poor they really were. I also like how the people cast from each district portrayed there attitudes to match how they lived like if they were rich or poor.

My favorite part that the movie showed, to me, just right was the paryt when they were presenting each pair from each district and how they got them ready. The movie pulls you in throughout the frendships and the betrayals, the deths and the heros. When I saw I could not stop watch the love story is one of the best I have seen, because it goes from them not even likeing eachother or trusting each other to them falling in love or so you think. It does get a little confusing though with if they really love eachother or if they are just doing it to help them servive but yoyu can tell they grow feelings for eachother and love eachother by the end.

I think that Jennifer Lawrance does an amazing job at playing Katniss. She shows how strong katniss is and how she will do anything to protect and take care of her family. She shows Katniss's firey personality, her love of hunting and skill with arrows. Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson do an amazing job of showing the chemistry between Katniss and Peeta.

The movie left much to be desired. It dropped the immediate threats of the Capital and even the heaviness in each of the districts because of the government control. I am interested in seeing how the second film will pan out since everything the second movie should be based on was left out of the first movie. I cant wait to watch the second one. Ill be at the midnight premier... whose with me? :) (382)

Ardeeemilla :)

College (Scary...)

Fellow Bloggers

I know that as a junior in high school, it's time that we start to think about colleges and what we want to be when we grow up. But in all actuality, it's a pretty big and scary decision. I have an older brother and sister and the decision for them was not easy either, Let me share what my concerns are.

I'll use my sister first as one examble. From the time she was little, she always knew that she wanted to go to school to be a doctor. When she was little, she had a toy doctors kit. Every weekend my parents had different ailments that she would cure. She definitely had an imagination. When she was in 6^th grade, she went to College for Kids at Coe College over the summer. All of the classes that she took were biology classes which made her know even more that she wanted to be in the medical field. Then the summer of her 8^th grade year, she took classes through the Belin Blank program at the University of Iowa. She stayed there for 3 weeks. This made her know that she definitely wanted to go to college. Her favorite classes in high school were Biology and Chemistry. The summer of her sophomore year of highschool, she did an internship for 2 weeks with our family doctor. She LOVED it.

She decided that she would take her general education classes at Kirkwood and then transfer out to a 4 year college. So, that's what she did. She graduated form Kennedy, and then went to Kirkwood. However, she didn't really enjoy it there. So after one year, she transferred to Iowa State. After two more years of schooling there, she ran into a road block. She wa about to enter her senior year of college, but had no clue what she wanted to be. She new medical, but couldn't decide on a career. She was majoring in Bio-Chemistry with a minor in genetics, but had no clue what she was going to do with that. So she decided to get some practical experience in the work field and take a short break from school. She started working at an assisted living center and really likes is. So much so that she has not yet gone back to school she plans to, but I think it scares her a little becaues she can't decide on a field.

My brother on the other hand is the opposite. He has been all over the board. When he was young, he was always burrying and digging up things in the yard. Can you guess what he wanted to be? Yep, an archeologist! That's all he could think of. He loved dinosaurs and history. Then as he got older, he learned that our grandfather was in the Army. So then he wanted to join the Army. Then he would go with my grandfather and uncles to work sometimes. They are in construction. My grandfather has always built houses and my uncles are archetectural engineers. So that's where he went next...engineering. But he found out how much math was involved in that and soon changed his mind. Math isn't his best subject.

One day he was at school watching Chanteurs practice their program and there were some boys that were struggling. He went up on stage and started helping them our. DING, DING, DING!!! That wasw it! He wanted to be a teacher! His entire life, he has always watched the History channel and the Discovery Channel. He would read books on history and could tell you anything about any of the wars. He now attends Mount Mercy University and is majoring in secondary education with a focus on history and music. It took him a while, but he figured it out!

So now it's my turn...and it's scary! It's a juge decision that impacts your entire life. I need to decide...what will it be. I've got one year to come up with something...time to go think.(674)

Talk later...

Ardeeemilla :)

Let kids be kids

Hello Friends!

Here is an item up for debate today...grade school playground equipment and games. Are they dangerous. My mom tells me that she she was a kid, they had monkey bars, teeter totters, swings, really high slides and merry-go-rouds on their play ground. When they went to phyed class and sometimes for recess, they played four square, dodgeball, king on the mountain and red robin. Some of these items are no longer seen on play grounds and some games have been removed as school activities. Are they dangerous?

Sure kids occasionally get hurt playing some of these games, or playing on these playground equipment. But do people automatically assume that if one or two people get hurt doing something that they should be banned from school? Are they too protective? Why do we still have stores that sell bicycles then. Plenty of kids have gotten hurt riding their bicycles. Now you are asked to wear a helmet, but why didn't they consider this when they banned dodgeball?

Kids have fallen off of of skateboard, pogo sticks, roller skates and scooters, all of which are still 'legal' and sold in stores. But dodge ball is a came that we can no longer play, merry-go-rouds and teeter totters are mostly non existent on play grounds and we can't buy soda in school any longer.

Safety measures? Or are we listening to parents who will never allow their kids to be kids. You decide for yourself, but for me...I like to have fun!(251)

Ardeeemilla :)

Fresh Fear

Hello fellow bloggers...

High school is the scariest thing when your an 8th grader. This is especially true if you go to a middle school where only maybe 10 kids decide to go to the high school you are going to go to. That means that fery few friends or people you have been with for the last three years are going with you. It's all going to be new. You walk in your first day not knowing where to go, and if you are really like me, you find yourself standing in the corner waiting for someone to talk to you. The 'best' moments of a first day of highschool:

• walking into the wrong class and everyone looks at you
• going around the corner and running right into someone
• when all the juniors and seniors yell freshies at you
• being late to class
• sitting in someone elses seat
• calling your teacher by the wrong name

Well here is what I have to say to all incoming freshmen, dont be afraid. Upper classmen are not that mean, and they have been in your same position. Plus, we all make it through it. Almost everyone is very nice and if you ask for help they would be happy to help you. I would hurry to class and at all costs try to avoid the foyer. If you need to, write down all your teachers names in your agenda. If you forget your seat just ask, its not a big deal.

As for homework. And always do it, even if your teacher doesn't collect it. It helps a lot to improve test scores and you never know when your teacher will suprise you and have you turn it in. Study in advance. Don't cram the night before. Your best bet is to study for a little while each night for like a week before your test. Pay attention and take lots of notes and always take your time on tests and quizes.

Highschool is not that scary million s of people do it and if you try hard and stay focused you will make it through no problem.(362)

 

Ardeeemilla :)

Tie Blankets

Blogger friends...

Last year for Christmas was the year of making tied blankets. We live in the Mid West where as we all know, winters are very cold. My family are big NFL football lovers – Go Packer! Sunday afternoons, we go to church, come home and then make several different kinds of snack foods, and then migrate to the living room to watch football. BUT, we are always looking for blankets to stay warm under. So for Christmas, I made everyone their own blanket.

The first thing we did was go to the fabric store and picked out material for the blankets. That's the best part. I love looking through all the different patterns and colors of materials. People love it when you personalize there blankets with there favorite colors or sports team or pattern. For these blankets you need fleece which is a nice soft cuddly material. You need to purchase enough of each material to cover the person that you are making it for. You need two pieces so you can pick different colors, one for the front and one for the back. For instance, for my mom, I picked Packer material for one side and Badger material for the other. Our family is from Wisconsin so that should help you understand the material choice.

Next, you lay the two materials out on the table, one on top of the other. Then with a very sharp scissors, you make two inch cuts all away around the material about one inch apart. But only do one side at a time. This leaves a little strips around the material. When you are done making the cuts, you then start to tie the blanket. You tie the top layer and the bottom layer strip together. Make sure to tiem them well so the do not come apart. Tie all the way around the material. Once you are done tying, the blanket is done. It's as simple as that and you have a cute, warm and snuggly blanket. (337)

Ardeeemilla :)

The Real Housewives

Hello fellow bloggers!

Do you ever watch reality TV? I'm hooked on The Real Housewives of New Jersey. It a show about women living in the New Jersey area who are rich and what their lives are like. Here is a quick discription of each character. Teresa is kind of crazy. She is loud and does know when she is telling the truth or not, but you can't help but feel sorry for her because everyone is against her. She has a hard time taking accuntability for her actions. She has several different business ventures including books that she has written and wines. She also loves being in or on the covers of magazines. Cathy is quiet and plays both sides. She is just getting into a baking business. Caroline is the oldest in the group but can be very rude. She trys to be everyone's mom and tell hem what to do and how to live. Some people call her a bully and sometimes I would have to agree. Jacqueline is the cry baby baby. When something little happens she tends to turn it into something big. I feel like she secretly likes all the attention on her. Melissa is my favorite. She tells things the way they are and she doesn't play two sides. She is working hard to have a singing career and shre is the kind of person who is like if someone has a problem with her she is like good for them, she doesnt really care.

I don't really know why I'm so addicted to watching this show but one thing I know for sure is that I wouldn't ever be like any of them. There is way too much drama and back stabbing for me, but it kind of intersting to see how the richer side lives. Everyone on the show cares so much about how they look and what labels they are wearing and then later you find out they have dug themselves into debt. Is this really how it is? It makes me wonder how their children will all turn out. Will they live the same way? All of their husbands have jobs but they seem like they aren't really running them on the up and up. Seems kind of shady to me.

Last week, we watched part one of the finale. It was difficult to watch because there was so much yelling and screaming that you could not understand what one was saying over the other. At times it gets really funny how immature these adult women get. They are worse then children. These women's lives are so different from the normal that its difficult to relate to at times. (450)

Ardeeemilla :)

Show choir

Hello fellow bloggers!

Most people say that show choir isn't a sport... but whats the difference Do football or baseball players work harder then show choir kids? Are they more passionate? What are the differences...

Personally I dont think that sports are harder than showchoir. Before practices, we have a warm up and stretch period that everyone has to partake in. Our practices are run just like a sports practice and we work extensive hours and get few brakes. You need to have a high stamina to get through a whole show of dancing and singing. Most sports practices are a couple hours long and so are show choir practices, however, most sports practices aren't constant running. Show choir is constant dancing with singing at the same time. You need to be able to sing, dance and count so you know what to do when. In sports a lot of time there are certain spotlight positions that sometimes have to work harder than others, or the starting team works out more than the second time. However, in show choir the whole groups works out the same. One big difference is when they are competing. When baseball teams have a game, it usually lasts a couple hours. Likewise for a football game. When a show choir group goes to perform it sometimes is a twenty four hour time frame from the time they leave until they get home. In baseball and football, they play against one other team. Baseball sometimes has tournaments where there are more than one team playing, but in show choir there are several groups competing. The amount of players it takes in most sports is much less than in show choir where it takes forty eight to fifty two performers to put on a show.

Similartities are that you can get scholarships in both show choir and in sports, but sports scholarships tend to be better and offer more money or full rides. Both have a coach but in show choir is called a Director. Both require you to be in good shape and have a high stamina. They both require strong commitment and desire to succeed. They both allow for the team members to build bonds with each other that are very strong and create life long friendships and feel like a family. So there are some differences but not many or big differences so why...why do people say sports are harder and why is showchoir considered not a sport. (414)

ardeeemilla :)