2nd Mandie Movie

So yesterday I watched that 2nd Mandie movie. Something about the Cherokee Treasure I think. It was awful just awful. The first movie was alright, really, but the 2nd one had nothing to do with the book! It was silly, it was over the top, and it was just bad. While I might have recommended a Mandie fan watch the 1st movie I don't recommend anyone watch the 2nd.
Spoilers ahead.

General Life Update

So I decided it would be good to post a general update of things.

1. I was very sick the other day and decided that I wanted a comfort book so I started re-reading The Secret Garden. I had a hardback children's edition a long time ago and loved it. So far I'm 148/284 pages into it. Obviously I'm not posting a review of it since I think almost everyone knows what it's about.

2. My days have pretty much been like this lately: Sick. Better. Sick. Sick. Great! Sick! Good. Sick. Good. Good. Sick. Sick. etc. I've thrown up so many times this month I can't remember them all. I'm even at the point where when I threw up day before yesterday I had to set things asides and go to the bucket! Normally I just spew with only a few seconds warning. And lately with the nausea comes exhaustion. I tried to take a nap several times the other day but it just wasn't happening. Isn't this supposed to stop at some point? January was alright, the nausea came and went. But this month... It's hit me hard and some days I spend in a state of constant nausea. Sometimes I can't eat much in one sitting before I feel sick. Sometimes there are no foods that look good. None! Except for things I don't have, like the other day I wanted a blueberry/banana honey vanilla yogurt smoothie. The dinner I wound up with was very distasteful, I don't even remember what it was.

3. I'm disdainful of my stomach and instinctively find it revolting because of how fat it looks. I find it hard to believe any of it is baby. Though surely some of it must be. I googled up pics of women at 12 weeks and I guess I look about average, but that's not entirely helpful seeing as a recent article I read claimed the average size for women is a 14, which I find hard to believe actually. I'm an 8 normally and surely I'm about average. I'm certainly not skinny. Either way, until it looks obviously baby-sized I'll continue to be disdainful.

4. I made potato dumplings tonight. I made a cheesy, chicken broth, and cream sauce for it. The dumplings were undercooked and made me feel sick after a time. Otherwise I think they turned out pretty good.

5. I decided to get on with my organizing of the house today. I had a few boxes upstairs in my food corner that weren't food so I brought them down (well, Victor brought one cause it was heavy) and went through them. One was easy and I went through it quickly, leaving out things we wanted, putting stuff in a crate, and leaving misc stuff behind in the box. The 2nd had two picture frames I put in the crate but otherwise was full of my sewing books! Yay!!! Oh I'd missed them! That one is still packed, it's off to the side till I can get to them. The third was all sorts of stuff that used to be around my computer. ugh. That one's taking a while and I'm still not done yet.  After I get that third box done I can organize food into the corner upstairs properly. I'll organize the cans up there. I had been using one of the shelves on my kitchen bookshelf for cans but it's sagging so I'll take those cans upstairs and use that shelf for things like tea and milk powder. Everything else is going upstairs. Then there'll be two more boxes gone from down here. So after that's done I'll be able to get at the bookshelves easier. Then I'll figure out how to arrange things to fit my sewing books in.

6. I've been trying off and on to crochet some baby socks. omg. Ok,  apparently they're supposed to be 3 1/2" long. My first attempt was 2". So after some research and signing up on a board that has a stupid "your post will be posted after a moderator has approved it" setup that hasn't let my last two posts go through I think I have finally figured out my problem. First, is tension. But that's worked out now, with the help if a bigger hook than my pattern wanted. Second, was row height. Apparently for a double crochet when you chain 3 to start the row off that is how high you must aim to make all your DC! Mine were coming out 2ch high, not 3. So I'm giving them a little tug and now they're the right height. Last night I don't know what my problem was but all my stitch counts were wrong. I'll try again probably tomorrow since I have other things I want to do tonight.

7.Apparently Daily Dare is coming up on Neopets next month! ooo... Last year there were only 2 games I didn't complete on release day. Anyone who played last year's Daily Dare can probably guess what those were! Kou-Jong and Nova Defender. Oh, yes. Kou-Jong I got the next day (and have since gotten that score 3 or 4 times over), Nova Defender took about two weeks and I squealed like a little girl when I finally beat the score with something like 800,000. It's one of those games where you do a lot of memorization, there's combo bonuses, and you can't beat the 4th level unless you die at least once on the 3rd, though twice isn't a bad idea if you wanna go for easier points. I'm looking forward to this year! Hopefully all the games will run well on my netbook. If not I'll be pulling out my desktop. Though I don't see there being any problems since almost all the games run just fine on medium quality. For the Altador Cup I couldn't play Make Some Noise even on low quality, but eh. We'll see.

8. I made a delicious desert last night. Oatmeal. Honey. Vanilla flavor. Almond flavor. Sugar. Cocoa powder. Milk. Marshmallow whip. I didn't use measurements I just added what felt right.It was really good. Victor didn't like the amount of almond in it. I made it again for lunch this morning and did two things different. I left out the almond and used some of a bag of vanilla pudding.I don't think it was as good as it was last night though.

hm. I guess I just don't have any more updates right now.

Ewok Snowman

So today I decided I needed fresh air so I went outside in my snowsuit and gloves. After a bit I decided to make a snowman. I had my pieces together and assembled, then I knelt back and said, "All my snowmen are so short, I make midget snowmen!" To which Victor replied, "So make it an Ewok snowman." Therefore I give you.... my Ewok snowman! Right click and open in new tab to enlarge! In case you're curious, yes, the hole between the legs does go all the way through. and I used a stick to help me dig it out. The right arm is supported by a stick and it was a pain to get to stay on right. The ears a tad mis-matched but you try to make matching ears. That is a Smith's grocery bag over his head! Which I thought was brilliant since I was thinking and thinking the whole time what was I going to use for a head-cover. This was perfect. A bit light, so the wind was moving it and nearly blowing it off. I held it down with the scissors while I packed snow around the base of most of it and then cut ear and face holes. I used miniature (baby?) pinecones for the eyes.

Weird book but fun read

The other day I picked a handful of books at near random and the one I decided to read of the bunch was Shadow Walkers by Nina Romberg, which we'd gotten at the used book sale at some point. It sounded interesting. Run-away children camping out together at an abandoned mental health institute but they start turning on each other and the only one who can help them is the star of the book, a lone 11-year-old girl.

My non-spoiler review is that it was a fast and easy read, I read all 302 pages in 5 hours, which for me is really fast. It was written in easily understood language (almost as though an 11-year-old is the one who wrote it) and moved really fast. However that doesn't necessarily mean it was a good book. It was an interesting read, something you might wanna take with you on a long plane trip or pack to the park or beach on a lazy, bored summer day, or curl up with on a bored, lazy winter day. But it's nothing special. I would never have paid full price for it. (at the used book sale it's 1.50 per inch of stacked books, so I reckon the book cost about 35 cents? I'm bad at math and measurements) The story takes a turn you would have never thought about. You think insane asylum, you think like Silent Hill type stuff (I forget which game it is but one of them is in a hospital or something), but no. No. It was fun but not what I expected.

Now on to the review with spoilers.

What I'd call a companion to a book

So last night while browsing Netflix I caught sight of a title that made me do a double-take. It was a Mandie movie! I don't really know why or how but I'd forgotten all about Mandie! Mandie is a Christian book series for girls. It takes place between 1899 and, like, 1904 or something. I believe I had about 30 of them? I don't actually remember but I looked at cover pictures and I recognize most of them up till about 33-35. But I was certain I hadn't read more than 25 of them. hm. They were really good, but I was starting to lose interest towards the end of where I dropped off. But I had to have been about 15-16 by that time.

Anyway, today I went ahead and watched the movie. It was good. I liked who they got to play Mandie, she looked perfect. Absolutely perfect! I know the guy the got for Uncle Ned is supposed to look like he does in the movie but I always pictured him as looking like a dark-skinned version of my Grandpa. I'm not actually very happy with how he looks in the movie. For some reason the estate manager guy was actually pretty awesome. Was he like that in the book and I just didn't notice? I mean, if you go on just what you see in the movie I think the estate manager guy tops Uncle Ned in my favorite character's list! And that's hard to do. As for Joe? He, well, frankly he's a bit too pretty. Sorry. And his teeth are too perfect. Dunno, that just struck me about him. Hopefully they man him up a bit as he gets older if they keep making these movies. ...and hopefully that kid takes some acting lessons... Sometimes I almost felt like someone was off camera holding up a sign with his lines on it.

Since it has been just so long since I read the first book (something like 13 years?) I didn't remember as much of it as I think was needed to fully understand the movie. If you watch the movie I definitely recommend reading the book first. They tried, they really did, but it just wasn't good enough. Things were a bit incoherent at times. The bit about Mandie's discovery about Elizabeth was particularly stressed. They could have cut out the song earlier to focus more on that. Another thing they didn't really say was exactly why Polly was there, who she is, and stuff. I don't even remember! Best I can come up with, from memory, is that Polly's mom was so busy with the other kids she didn't mind having her out from under foot??? Polly's hair should have been curly. They also should have included the awesome candle trick of that one room (John's study?), where you light one candle and they wind up lighting each other all around the room. Or maybe she finds that out in a later book? I also don't remember the Indian Princess story, but that could just be me not remembering, remember there ARE something like 40 books. The house was not really what I had imagined, but considering the standard architecture of the times I guess I'm not surprised. The shack at the beginning looked just like I imagined anyway.

I went and looked and there's a series that follows her through college, and a "young mandie" series! And a two-book thing that follows a side character I don't remember. I guess I've just been way out of touch with things. Also apparently the author died in 2008. There are three movies, though only two are available on Netflix currently, and they were made in 2009, 2010, and 2011, so it is my assumption that a 4th will be released this year? The 3rd movie is not attached to a book that I am aware of, it is a Christmas special. So I don't really know what their plans are.

Would I go back and re-read the books to follow the movies? Possibly. They're fairly short books (the standard just over 100 pages most tween books are, or were, since I don't know if they still do that). I don't have the books anymore, so unless my mom happens to have them then they must have been left behind one of the times we moved. I don't think I care enough to order them unless I have a girl, then it would be good to have them. On Amazon each individual book can be got for a penny used and the boxed sets of 5 can be had for about 4.00-8.00 used.  I'll keep it in the back of my head, but I probably won't order them unless I do happen to have a girl. Or unless we have them laying around somewhere in a crate or box. Anyway, I don't care enough to put a lot of effort into tracking them down, but if they happen to fall into my hands I'd probably go ahead and re-read the first book at least, and probably the 2nd because like I say, there's two book movies out.

All in all? Good try guys. But it's really more of a companion to the book and not something that stands on it's own really well. Too rushed in the wrong places and too drawn out in lesser scenes. Towards the end especially it's like someone told them "Hey, guys, you know we have to fit this into 100 minutes right?" I believe it would appeal more to girls 10-14 who have recently read the books. Strangers to the books, yeah, go ahead and watch it, it might intrigue you enough to make you wanna know more, but if you don't get it don't worry, the movie wasn't as clear on some points as it should have been.

Fried Biscuits

On Tuesday I made fried biscuits. Here they are in the pan.

And here are the finished ones. They tasted really good at first but quickly got to be too much. I think they soaked up too much oil. I used peanut oil and just flipped them when they started looking done on one side. When they're baked normally they taste really, really good. I've made them a lot, but this is the first time I've ever fried them.

Here's my recipe:

2 Cups Flour
2 tbsp Baking Powder
1 tablespoon Sugar
3/4 tsp Salt
1/4 Cup Butter
1 Cup Milk

Mix flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Cut in butter till it looks like crumbs. Stir in milk until just moist. Knead. Roll. Cut. Place on ungreased sheet and bake at 450 for 10-12 minutes.

Finished Skyward Sword

It was sunny today so I was able to finish playing Skyward Sword (finally). Mild spoilers, but nothing big. For those who don't wanna read this (fear of spoilers or just don't care) it was a really good game, not the best, really, but not bad. Link's looks grew on me, and I think he actually changed over the course of the game.

Valentine's Nails

I did my nails for Valentine's Day.

Jar Jar's Grand Adventure

I saw TPM in 3D yesterday! It was amazing!

Baby is doctor confirmed

Went to the health department today and got this. I'll be looking into getting a midwife, I have a high recommendation for one that I'll be calling and setting up an appointment with sometime. This makes it all feel more real.