Book Review: Phoenix Rising

Hello friends!

This week we are discussing the book Phoenix Rising by Karen Hesse. The first thing you should know is that this novel is not fantasy, which is what we were initially expecting based on the title. Rather, it is set in the modern day, with a realistic premise. The story is about a girl named Nyle and her grandmother, and how their lives are affected by an accident at a nearby nuclear power plant. 

Sarah's opinions: I found this book to be thought-provoking, but it was too depressing to be called enjoyable. Granted, this is not the measure by which books should be judged; I think I may have been in the wrong frame of mind to read it. In addition, I never really felt a strong attachment to any of the characters. However, there are things to be said in its favor: the writing was well done, and it was clear that the author had done her research. All in all, it was a decent read, and it brings an important issue to light.

Katie's opinions: I too felt that I never developed strong attachments to any of the characters. I'm not quite sure why I experienced this disconnect, because the events of the story definitely felt real. That said, I did end up liking the book, especially as it drew to a close. Though it was set amidst depressing circumstances, I think the overall tone was one of love, hope, and personal growth. Upon reading the inside cover, I discovered that Karen Hesse is also the author of a book I read several years ago called Letters from Rifka. I now plan to revisit it and see how it compares to Phoenix Rising.

Thanks to Alyssa for the recommendation! Have you read Phoenix Rising? Share your thoughts with us in the comments, and feel free to give us your recommendations for future book reviews!

Christmas Movies

Christmas is coming! The goose is getting fat. Except I think we're having turkey, and it's already dead, so it's not currently gaining weight. But you get the point.

Our dad has asked us to make a list of Christmas movies to watch this year, so we decided to share that list on our blog. Obviously, we won't watch every single one of these this year - we don't want to spend our entire Christmas break in front of the television - but we should be able to get through all the priority movies plus a few extra.

Movies to watch:
(Underlined titles get the highest priority. Titles in bold are movies most or all of us have never seen before.)

• It's a Wonderful Life (If our family watches only one movie on any given Christmas, it'll be this one! Add it to your own "to be watched" list if it's not there already.)
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas (animated version)
• The Nativity Story
• National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
• A Charlie Brown Christmas
• Veggie Tales Christmas
• The Muppet Christmas Carol
• The Santa Clause
• The Nightmare Before Christmas
• Eloise at Christmastime
• The Little Drummer Boy
• A Christmas Story
• Home Alone
• Holiday Inn
• STAR WARS: The Force Awakens (!!!)

If you are unfamiliar with these titles, give them a try, and let us know what you think. There are probably a lot of good movies we didn't include here, so please give us recommendations in the comments section! Happy movie watching, everyone!  

Acorns and Pilgrim Hats

We've been a bit short on time this past week, but Sarah found some cute, simple Thanksgiving treats that we were able to assemble in short order. We're probably not the only ones with full schedules during this time of year, so you may want to whip these up yourselves!

Ingredients

 Links for the ideas:

• Pilgrim hat cookies
• Acorn treats

We adapted the acorns slightly: instead of piping melted chocolate on for the stem, we used the melted chocolate to attach a small chocolate chip.

Also, we couldn't find chiclets at the store, so our pilgrim hats are without buckles. (Our little sister was happy, though - she hates gum.)

Hats and Acorns

Both treats are easy to assemble, but a lot of our hats looked sloppy whereas all the acorns turned out well. We're going to make more acorns to take to our relatives next week.

Let us know in the comments what sort of treats you're making and/or eating. Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy your holiday!

And enjoy this random picture of our cat.

Guess what today's topic is?

It's November, guys. You know we're gonna talk about NaNo.

Unless you don't know what that is...

Okay, we'll start with a brief explanation. NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month is an event that takes place every November in which writers and aspiring writers from all around the world set forth to complete a challenge of epic proportions: writing a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. If you'd like to know more about this craziness, visit nanowrimo.org.

Now here's some advice for you current and future NaNo'ers:

• Firstly, get involved in the online and/or local NaNoWriMo community, if you haven't already. You need people who understand what you're doing, and who better than people who are doing the same thing? A lot of people in your life who aren't writers won't really "get" NaNoWriMo. Fellow writers who are attempting the same challenge will be better able to encourage, commiserate, and give advice or feedback. That said, it also helps to tell people who you see frequently in real life about your undertaking so that they can hold you accountable.
• Get some rough ideas figured out before you start writing. Even you "pantsers" (people who write by the seat of their pants rather than having a detailed plan) will benefit from having some basic things figured out, in your head if not on paper. It'll save a lot of time and frustration. If you start out totally directionless, you will end up with random spastic scenes, wooden characters, and cheesy dialogue. This advice comes from previous experience, so... just trust us.
• Do writing prompts to get creative juices flowing. Search Google, Pinterest, the NaNoWriMo forums... there are billions of inspiring prompts out there.
• Participate in word wars (in which you write as much as possible in a designated amount of time) and word sprints (in which you write a specified number of words). These help you stay on track and bump up your word count.
• Listen to music while you write. We often go for instrumental tracks since lyrics can be distracting, but it all depends on who you are, the scene you're working on, and your current state of mind. (Katie wrote her most recent words to Porcupine Tree's Deadwing album.) In the same vein, the music you listen to can really affect what comes out on the page. Basically, what we're trying to tell you is that if you're going for a lighter tone, you probably don't want to listen to metal.
• Find a roleplaying thread on the NaNo forums, or roleplay elsewhere. It may sound like a silly or nerdy thing to do, but it can actually be very helpful for character development.
• Take breaks to walk around, eat, and just do other things. You don't want to feel like you've been sucked into a spinning vortex of words.
• Let go of any perfectionist tendencies you might have. It's a first draft. It's gonna suck, and that's okay. Wait with the editing, and don't get so worked up about writing something awesome that you never write anything because it won't be good enough. Once it exists, you can mold it, shape it, fix it. If you never write that crappy first draft, you'll never have anything to improve on.
• Just keep writing! Don't get hung up on a scene with which you're having trouble. If you need to, skip ahead to a different scene. You can write your novel forwards backwards, upside-down - do whatever works for you. Just don't give up, even if you get so far behind on your word count that you have no hope of catching up. The real point of NaNoWriMo isn't reaching 50K, it's writing. So grab your laptop or college-ruled notebook or typewriter or other writing tool of choice and get cracking.
• Since you don't want all that hard work to be for nothing, please, please, back up your novel. E-mail it to yourself, upload it to the cloud, put it on a flashdrive - whatever works for you. Sarah was really glad she did this last year, because her computer went screwy halfway through the month.
• And finally, if you're having trouble writing your novel, go and write a blog post giving advice to other people on how to write theirs. *laughs nervously and hides*

Happy NaNo-ing! 

Beautifical (-ish) Bookmarks

Here's a project for crafters and readers alike: paint chip bookmarks! We made these together yesterday, along with our little sister.

All you need for this craft are paint chips (or other colorful paper), scissors, and sharpies and/or rubber stamps. Optional supplies include contact paper (for laminating your masterpieces), a hole-punch, and ribbon.

Unfortunately for us, our rubber stamps have either been lost or given away, which meant we had to rely on our drawing abilities to make these bookmarks. This wouldn't be so bad if our drawing abilities didn't leave quite a bit to be desired. 

With that said, here are our finished bookmarks: 

All the bookmarks

A closer look at some of our favorites
(left 2 are Sarah's, middle 2 are Katie's, right 2 are Angie's)

Although we wish we were more artistic, we're still happy with the results of this craft - and, as always, we enjoyed having some sister time!

Since this project is so quick and easy, we encourage you to go to your nearest home improvement store and abscond with all their paint samples. ;) If you'd like to share your finished craft with us, please comment below or e-mail us at sisterprojects.ks@gmail.com!

Children's Books

As we've mentioned in a previous post, we believe that truly good children's literature must appeal to all age groups. The same person who loved The Chronicles of Narnia at age ten can re-read the series at age thirty and come away with an even deeper understanding of these beloved stories.

The main quality that makes a book rise to this level is intelligent content and writing. An author need not write in such a way as to make their story too difficult for a child to comprehend, but children don't need their stories dumbed down, either. Not only are kids smarter than we often like to think, they will also be encouraged to grow even further if challenged by sophisticated narratives.

We've already used C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia as an example of this sort of sophisticated literature. Other examples include Roald Dahl's various books and A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. Though the books by these authors are very easy to read, they are also full of deeper content that you might not expect from books written for kids. Dark humor abounds, and many parallels can be drawn between the exaggerated characters portrayed in the books and people in real life. 

Other gems to be found in the children's section of the library include Beverly Cleary's ever-relatable Ramona and her sister "Beezus", E. B. White's tales of friendship and loyalty, A. A. Milne's beloved stories of Winnie the Pooh, (who, for a bear stuffed with fluff, is extraordinarily wise) and L. M. Montgomery's beautifully written Anne of Green Gables series.

What we are illustrating here is that you should never judge a book by what section of the library it's shelved in - even if it's a picture book. After all, Dr. Seuss's books are marvelous examples of great children's literature, full of fantastical illustrations, funny characters, and sound life lessons. Some of Seuss's best include: Horton Hears a Who, The Sneetches and Other Stories, and Oh the Places You'll Go.

In the end, all literature, no matter what age it was written for, should work to expand the imagination through such tools as multi-faceted characters with complex emotions, as well as compelling story lines. Too often children's books are overlooked, or thought to be beneath anyone over the age of twelve. But the fact is, these books can be learned from and taken to heart, no matter who you are, and no matter what stage of life you are in. 

Blog Award

Our friend The Diva nominated us for a blogging award! Thank you, Diva! You can check out her blog over at https://momsprincesspari.wordpress.com/. 

Here are the award rules, copied from her blog (and with occasional commentary from us in parentheses):
1. Thank the blogger who nominated you and link to their blog.
2. Answer the questions that the blogger who nominated you has provided. (Diva, our answers are at the very end of this post!)
3. Nominate four other bloggers.
4. Create ten questions for your nominees and notify them of their nomination. (We're breaking this rule a bit - we'll ask just three questions rather than ten.)

(EDIT: If anyone doesn't understand the concept of this whole award thing, check out this very helpful and detailed explanation.)

Award nominees, we understand that your lives are busy. Please don't feel obligated to participate if you'd rather not. That said, we enjoy your blogs and want to give you some recognition! Therefore, we nominate:

http://thehoneydroppost.blogspot.com/

https://freckledmermaids.wordpress.com/

https://catmooselane.wordpress.com/

http://touchesofeuphoria.blogspot.com/

These blogs each have their own unique flavor. Take a minute to check them out, and if you like what you see, let them know!

Our questions for the nominees:
1. Who inspires you? You can name anyone - someone you know personally, a historical or literary figure, a world leader, a celebrity... absolutely anyone that pops into your head.
2. What hobby would you like to try with which you have little to no previous experience?
3. What book do you recommend we read to discuss in a future Sister Projects blog post?

The Diva's questions for us:

A. Who would you love to be, if you had a chance to be someone else?

B. One food you need to taste before the world ends...

C. Your dream job?

Sarah's answers:

A. Well, as long as this is just a short-term sort of thing, I would choose to be someone from an important time in history, such as Laura Ingalls Wilder.

B. I like to think I'm a pretty adventurous person, but I cringe at the thought of exotic dishes such as squid, escargot, or even sushi. Maybe someday I'll get over myself and seek out opportunities to try these foods. For now though, I'm just going to stick with my goal of trying gelato. It doesn't sound weird or scary. It just sounds fabulous.

C. Given my stage of life, this is something I think about a lot. I'm still weighing lots of options that sound really great, such as writing, teaching, or pretty much anything theater-related.

Katie's answers:

A. Hmm... I'm going to cheat and say I'd like to be a better version of myself. ;)

B. There are a bunch of foods I'd like to try, ranging from eggplant to escargot to fried calamari. However, if I had to pick just one food I've never had before, I think I'd pick poutine. That's right, the famous Canadian dish - fries topped with cheese curds and gravy. A strange choice, perhaps, but that's my answer.

C. I don't know! I ask myself this question all the time. What should I do with my life? What career should I pursue? I'm at a loss. If I have to give an answer, I think I'd like to be an editor.

Thanks to everyone who supports us. We appreciate you guys so much. :)

Bonus Post: Follow-Up

We'd like to give you a run-down of what's going on with the goals we've set for ourselves in past posts.

First, the mighty checklist:

We can check off the following:

• clean room
• go to a museum
• go to an Old English country dance - We went twice, actually!
• participate in Camp NaNoWriMo - Results are discussed in part two of this post.
• attend the two Shakespeare plays that are happening near us this summer
• surprise our little sister with a tea party - see here
• kool-aid dip-dye our hair - see here
• plan some birthday hoopla for our best friend
• go swimming - Just once, unfortunately... we need to work on making this one happen a lot more often.
• watch "Sherlock" and "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood" - We've gotten about halfway through both of these.

These items have not yet been accomplished:

• go on a picnic
• visit the farmer's market
• grow a plant
• exercise
• work on drama stuff
• go to the zoo
• play flute and piano together
• practice harmonizing
• attend the outdoor jazz concert that happens near us
• write a story together
• read "Go Set a Watchmen" by Harper Lee and discuss it together - Katie finished the book a couple of weeks ago, but it can't count as a completed "Sister Project" until Sarah has read it, too.
• put together a time capsule
• organize pictures and possibly make scrapbooks
• make t-shirts for the Taylor Swift concert we'll be seeing in the fall!

Second, our NaNoWriMo results:

Neither of us did well word-count-wise; we each made it about half-way. But writing was accomplished, ideas were formed and expanded, lessons were learned, and new goals were set. Since these results are the true point of NaNoWriMo, we're counting this past camp session as a success, even if we didn't reach our word-count goals.

In closing:

One of our NaNoWriMo friends, whom we know simply as "The Diva" was kind enough to nominate us for an award on her blog, which you can check out here: https://momsprincesspari.wordpress.com/. We're going to devote yet another bonus post to passing this award on to others this Sunday.

Disney Cult Classics

There are dozens of great animated Disney movies, many of which are enduring classics known to all. These popular films are held as iconic entertainment, and rightly so. However, we would like to bring to light a few of the cinematic gems you may have missed in your Disney adventures. The list you're about to read contains some of those masterpieces which sustain a devoted underground following, but never received the promotion that they deserve. We grew up with most of these movies, just as we grew up with Snow White, Aladdin, The Lion King, and many other well-known Disney classics.

The Rescuers (1977), The Rescuers Down Under (1990)
The Rescuers and its sequel, The Rescuers Down Under, feature a group of mice in an organization called the Rescue Aid Society. In both films, two mice from this organization, Bernard and Bianca, are sent on missions to rescue kidnapped children. These movies present one of the rare cases where a sequel is as good as its predecessor. (Hm...maybe it helped that they didn't try to crank out a direct-to-TV sequel right away?) 

The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
This movie is an adaptation of Sherlock Holmes - sort of. Basil, the Great Mouse Detective, and Dawson, his compatriot, are clearly based on Sherlock and Watson, but Basil also happens to live underneath 221B, where Sherlock Holmes resides. At a couple different points in the film, silhouettes can be seen and voices can be heard which are clearly those of the human Sherlock and Watson. The case this story centers around involves a young mouse named Olivia, who seeks Basil's help in finding her kidnapped ("fathernapped?") father. Basil is originally uninterested in the case, until he learns that Ratigan, his arch-nemesis, may be involved. 

Oliver and Company (1988)
Oliver and Company is very loosely based on Dickens' "Oliver Twist." It's set in New York City, and Oliver, as well as Dodger's gang, are represented by animals. Oliver is an unwanted kitten who gets lost in the city and is taken in by a man named Fagan and his dogs, of whom Dodger is the ringleader. Fagan is living in poverty, trying to repay a large sum of money to an evil man called Sykes. Oliver is swept up in the misadventures of his friends as they attempt to get the money by any means necessary. For us, one of the highlights of this movie is that Billy Joel voices Dodger and sings one of the featured songs. 

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
This movie is an example of the darker side of Disney (though it's not nearly as dark as the novel on which it's based). It tells the tragic story of Quasimodo, a bell-ringer who is cruelly treated by those in authority because of his disfigurement. The film follows his efforts to overcome this mistreatment in order to help a gypsy friend named Esmerelda who is also undergoing the persecution of society. Incidentally, Esmerelda is one of Disney's greatest female role models, though she has received little attention for it. She possesses qualities and a personality that we don't often get to see in the film industry, which is extremely refreshing. In addition, she sings one of the best Disney songs of all time (God Help the Outcasts). In fact, the music in this film is fantastic overall, and the villain is both intriguing and highly disturbing.

The Emperor's New Groove (2000)
The narcissistic Emperor Kuzco learns some valuable life lessons when he is turned into a llama by his recently-fired advisor, Yzma, who wants to take over the throne. To regain his original form, his dignity, and his leadership, he is forced to enlist the help of a peasant named Pacha, while being deterred at every turn by Yzma and her hilarious sidekick, Kronk. This film is filled with a brand of strange, self-aware humor that is atypical in Disney movies. We also enjoy the frequent use of one of our favorite cinematic devices: the shattering of the fourth wall.

Lilo & Stitch (2002)
This is the story of a girl who adopts a "dog" who turns out to be an alien from outer space. Yes, you read that correctly. There are many awesome things about this movie, not the least of which is the relationship between the titular character Lilo and her sister Nani. (Katie would here like to say: while I love Elsa and Anna as much as the next Disney fanatic, my vote for best Disney sisters goes to Lilo and Nani, hands down. I could write an entire blog post on just this subject, and perhaps someday I will.) The concepts of family, being different, and seeking acceptance are big themes in this film. A Hawaiian setting, unusual plot, kooky characters, and the very realistic problems they face make this one of the most unique Disney films ever made.

If you haven't seen these movies, watch them! If you have seen them, let us know your own opinions! If you notice gaps in our list, enlighten us!

In closing, we just want to give you a heads-up that there will be a bonus post next week. Among other things, we want to let you know how our list of projects has been progressing. Thanks for reading!

Adventures in Cleaning

   We share a room with each other and our little sister. The three of us all have tendencies to let stuff accumulate, and with all three of us living in one room, it's almost like we feed off each other's bad habits in this regard. As a result, our room is messy far more often than it's clean. It can be quite embarrassing at times, and can make it very difficult to have friends over. We kind of have hermit tendencies anyway - it's not that we don't like being social, it's just that our personalities make it hard for us to be the instigators of planning social events - so the last thing we need is a messy room constantly discouraging us even further from inviting our friends over.

Therefore, this weekend we've been working on what we refer to as a "deep clean," which involves not only dusting, vacuuming, and putting things in their places, but also going through every single one of our belongings and GETTING RID OF STUFF. It's the kind of task that's an interesting insight into our minds. There are always those items which make us ask ourselves, "Why the heck did I keep this useless piece of garbage for so long?" In a similar vein, there are items we still kind of want to keep, but deep down inside our souls, we know they also belong to the family of useless pieces of junk. These things should probably join their brothers and sisters in the trash, but for some crazy reason, that helpful little voice in our minds insists on contributing it's rationale. "What if you need that eventually? What if someday you find yourself raging and cursing because you didn't keep that random scrap of paper with the ramblings of your ten-year-old self?" Or, even worse, there are those items that you've never used, but for some reason you think you will someday. Like, "I've never had any interest in ____, but who knows? Shouldn't I be prepared for any hobby I want to try on a whim?" or "It was a gift!" or "It seems so wasteful to just get rid of it."

Now, we should clarify: we're not hoarders. We'd rather not have large amounts of stuff - it just somehow seems to collect. We genuinely would like to cut down on our personal belongings, free up some closet space, and make the task of moving out someday far less daunting than it is currently.

This brings us to the fundamental question: Are we insane, or do others share our problems? Furthermore, how should we determine which items to actually keep? These aren't hypothetical questions - if you have advice or answers, please share with us! Most of you have more than one way to contact us, and you can always leave a comment here. This weekend room-cleaning venture is our last big project before school starts - yes, we both ended up with weirdly late starts this year - so we'd really like it to be successful.

Tea Party

Our little sister loves having pretend tea parties, so we decided to surprise her with a real one - although it's difficult to surprise someone when they're constantly asking you what you're doing and if they can have a muffin. However, we managed to keep our secret, and she was surprised after all. We made mini egg salad sandwiches, baked chocolate chip muffins and peanut butter chocolate chip scones (recipes linked here and here respectively), and arranged a vegetable tray. And of course, we brewed tea, which we served with an option of milk and sugar. For an extra special touch, we used the china, which is usually taken out only on holidays. We snapped some pictures of the setup, which you can see below.

Egg salad sandwiches

Peppers, cucumbers, radishes, and ranch dressing

Peanut butter chocolate chip scones

Chocolate chip muffins

Madagascar vanilla tea

Our little tea party was a lot of fun to plan and execute, though the cleanup wasn't exactly a blast. ;) Our sister (and our mom!) enjoyed it as well, so we hope to do it again sometime.

We apologize that this is up a day late! We were leaving town yesterday to see family, and in the confusion of traveling, this Friday's post was temporarily forgotten.

Our Hair Smells Like Kool-Aid

Last night, we dip-dyed our hair in kool-aid. It might sound kind of strange, but it really does work. The great things about dyeing your hair with kool-aid are as follows: 1) it's super inexpensive 2) it's easy to do and 3) it will eventually wash out on its own. The downside is that there's no way to know going into it how the color will turn out. That said, if you absolutely hate your new look, all you have to do is trim off the ends of your hair. (Soaking your hair in a hot water / baking soda mixture is supposed to lighten the color, so that could be another option if you'd rather not go for the scissors.) With that in mind, maybe you'll be brave enough to try it.

If you'd like to know how, here's what we did:

Mix a kool-aid powder of your choice in boiling water. If you want the color to be stronger, don't dilute it too much. We used a mug as opposed to a bowl for a more concentrated mixture (plus, the handle made it easier to maneuver the steaming-hot liquid without scorching our hands). This time around, we each used one packet of kool-aid, but you can use two or three if you'd like. (More on that later.)

Sarah: Since my hair is shorter and thicker, we decided to tie it off into three sections and dye them one at a time to make the color more even. I used the berry blue flavored kool-aid, which showed up as a blue-green since my hair is a kind of wheat color. As you can see from the photo below, the color took better in some parts than it did in others, making it more like blue highlights. Katie speculates that this has to do with the thickness of my hair. We dipped each section in the dye for about 3-4 minutes total. We found that it's best to try to keep the mixture at a very hot temperature for the entire process. If it starts cooling down, just reheat it in the microwave for about a minute and do the next section.

Sarah's hair

Katie: My hair is long and thin, so I didn't feel the need to divide it into sections like we did for Sarah. I put all my hair in a low ponytail and Sarah dipped the end into the mug of dye for five minutes. I was going for a purple color (using grape flavored kool-aid), but the effect ended up being very subtle. I'm guessing that if I had used two packets of kool-aid, the results may have been more pronounced. I do know from the one other time I kool-aid dyed the ends of my hair (about a year and a half ago) that cherry red shows up really well even in brown hair. However, I did use two packets that time. Comparing the results from then and now, I would suggest using two packets, unless your hair is very light in color.

Katie's hair 

Since we like fun hair colors but we're not bold enough at this point to dye all our hair, kool-aid dye is a great way to go for us. Plus, we can check another item off our summer to-do list!

P.S. To our one e-mail subscriber: Sorry for the double notifications on this post. We accidentally hit the publish button before we were ready. Love you! Thanks for subscribing! :)

Roonerisms Spock

We love silly humor. Puns, wordplay, goofy memes, weird inside jokes... all these things are right up our alley. But the silly game we engage in most frequently together consists of swapping sounds around in pairs of words, particularly the beginning consonant sounds.

Some examples: 

• squeaky pencil becomes peaky squencil 
• chapped lips becomes lapped chips
• blue shorts becomes shue blorts

If one of the words in the pair begins with a vowel, you just move the consonant from the word that has one to the word without one. Example: itchy legs becomes litchy egs.

You get the idea. We come up with these all the time, and occasionally, we drive our family crazy with them (inadvertently, of course). Though we've enjoyed doing this for about as far back as we can remember, the frequency with which we spew out these mixed up pairs of words has increased recently, especially since we found out that there is actually a term for them. They're called spoonerisms.

Some of our all-time favorite spoonerisms we've come up with include:

• buttermilk scones ---> scuttermilk bones
• my phone is buzzing ---> my bone is phuzzing
• digging into my shoulder ---> shigging into my doulder
• jiggling belly ---> biggling jelly

To clarify, the pronunciations of the consonants in question are never changed when they're shifted, even if phonics would dictate otherwise with the new letter combinations.

A word of caution: Thinking before you speak is always wise, and coming up with spoonerisms is no exception. When you're constantly mixing up letters in words, it's inevitable that at some point, you're going to stumble across something that doesn't fall under the PG rating/something that you don't want coming out of your mouth. ;)

Now that we've given you a little insight into just how weird we really are, tell us what sort of silly things you like to do for laughs!

Bonus Post: What I've Learned From NaNoWriMo

Hello, Sarah here.

Katie told you all about Camp NaNoWriMo last week, so for our bonus post I will be giving you some advice on making the most of your NaNo experience. 

Last July was my first experience with Camp NaNo. Despite my good intentions, it did not turn out well. On the first day, my ego was enormous and my energy levels were high. Over the course of the month, all of that leaked out of me gradually like helium out of a balloon. I began to hate my writing, and had I not been typing on a computer, I might have flown into a passion and ripped apart the pages with my teeth, or burned them and danced around them like a maniac. (Luckily, that's a little bit harder to accomplish with Microsoft Word documents.) :)  
The lesson I learned that month was that if you're going to write, you cannot rely on circumstances. Things will not go as planned. Emotions will fluctuate. You might hate what you are writing. That doesn't matter. In the end, how you felt at the time won't be as important as how you dealt with it. Sometimes your best work may come from fatigue, frustration, even depression, as proved by countless artists of all kinds through the ages who turned their hardships into beauty. In retrospect, I realized that.  

With fresh resolve, I decided to try again in November. That was when things got real. This time, my goal wasn't just a measly 10,000 words or so. I wrote 50,000 words that month. Probably more than I usually write in a year. I did fall off track several times, but I was able to write an enormous amount over Thanksgiving break, which I can tell you was a pretty bad time to decide to pick up my slack and write like a fiend. Nonetheless, I finished shortly before midnight on the 30th, barely in time for the deadline. Truth be told, there's never going to be a good time to buckle down and write. You'll always have excuses. Great things can happen when you decide to set aside those excuses and do a thing that most people only daydream about.

This year, with even the tiny bit of experience I have gained, I feel stronger and wiser. I know I still have a lot to learn, which is why I am trying to expand my horizons. My projects this month include short stories, poetry, and possibly a work of nonfiction. In November I plan to attempt a novel again. I have a long way to go to get where I want to be, but the journey, though full of frustrations, may yet prove to be the best part of the experience.

Camp NaNoWriMo: July, 2015

Hey guys, Katie here. I'm posting solo this Friday, but Sarah will be writing the next entry to make up for missing out on this one. :)

It's July, which means it's time for another session of Camp NaNoWriMo! What is NaNoWriMo, you ask?

The main event of NaNoWriMo (which stands for National Novel Writing Month), takes place every November. The goal is to write 50,000 words of a novel in just one month. It's a massive undertaking, but I'm here to tell you from first-hand experience that it can be done! 

The Camp sessions, which occur in the months of April and July, are a little more flexible than the November event. You can set your own word count goal, and you can work on a writing project other than a novel (such as short stories, a script, or your memoir) if you so choose. Technically, you can do these things during November too, as long as you're okay with breaking the rules and thus falling into the "rebel" category.

The challenge presented by NaNoWriMo is a great incentive to move beyond simply thinking about your story idea and actually get a first draft down on paper (or in a word document). If you'd like to know more about NaNoWriMo and and why or how one participates...
Here's a link to the main website: nanowrimo.org
And the camp website: campnanowrimo.org 

For the current Camp session, Sarah and I have each set our goal at 15,000 words. This target requires an average of just 484 words per day, as compared to the 1667 average needed to complete the November goal. We like to reserve that sort of crazy all-out NaNo-ing for the main event.

My own current project (and Sarah's too, I believe) is short stories. I'm planning to write one to three of them a day, depending on the lengths of the entries in question. I chose short stories because they give me a chance to play with the multiple ideas that have been bouncing around in my head rather than being forced to pick just one. Also, I'm getting practice for outlining longer works of fiction by planning shorter ones. I don't naturally tend towards such planning, but I've found that when I don't have at least a basic outline for a novel-length story, I tend to just meander through the plot. Such an approach does not make for interesting reading or a pleasant revision process.

That pretty much sums up my personal writing objectives for this July. Sarah will discuss her own project in our next post, so stay tuned! Happy writing!

Reading Recommendation: Manga Edition

We recently finished reading Hiromu Arakawa's popular manga series, Fullmetal Alchemist, and enjoyed it so much that we are dedicating this post to talking about it. It has a great setting, interesting and realistic characters, intriguing plot lines, tough decisions, moral dilemmas... basically, everything that makes a great story. As aspiring writers, we feel that we have a lot to learn from Arakawa.

Many people are already familiar with this series, but there are also many who have yet to enter the world of Japanese manga. Fullmetal Alchemist is a great place to start. For those new to manga, it does take a minute to get the hang of reading right to left, but it starts to feel natural sooner than you might expect. Also, these are very quick reads, so don't be daunted by the 27 volumes.

Synopsis:
The story is centered around two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, both of whom possess alchemic abilities. The brothers have a secret in their past: they committed one of alchemy's taboos - human transmutation - and they paid the price. Ed lost two limbs, which have been replaced by metal prosthetics (automail). Al lost his entire body; his soul is bonded to a suit of armor, anchoring him in the real world. Edward has signed on to work for the government as a state alchemist, with the hopes that through his position he will gain access to information that will help him and his brother get their original bodies back. Throughout the story, the two brothers atone for their crime and search for a way to achieve their goal. At the same time, they must deal with the unrest going on around them as trouble brews in the government and strange new enemies appear.

Ed and Al are wonderful protagonists, and their supporting cast is equally well-thought-out. Our favorite thing about the story is that the characters and their relationships are always developing, to the point where you have a vested interest in everyone, including minor characters and villains.

Shortly after finishing the manga, we started watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - one of two anime series based on the manga. (It's supposed to be the more faithful adaptation, and we're extremely satisfied with it. Eventually, we might watch the other one too, just to see what it's like.) Katie has already seen FMA Brotherhood, but certainly doesn't mind re-watching it! If you decide to watch it too, we recommend finding it with subtitles first, as opposed to watching it dubbed over in English. Hearing the original language is an amazing way to experience a part of Japanese culture, plus it's fun to watch for words that sound like their English counterparts, while also picking up on some Japanese words. That being said, we've heard that the English-dubbed version is very well done, so if you have an aversion to subtitles, you can definitely take the dubbed route.

Let us know what you think of our recommendation, and give us your own recommendations in exchange!

Summer Approacheth

Another Friday, another late-night post hits the web. Our excuses? Well, there's the mad end-of-the-school-year rush, house cleaning, company... you get the idea. Hopefully these opening apologies won't become a habit with us - although they do make a handy beginning to our posts. Hm... ;) Anyway, let's get on to one of our most favorite things ever, the fount from which ideas flow - the mighty list!

Spring is drawing to a close, which means it's time to look back over our spring bucket list and put together a summer one. We can check off the following items from our spring list:

• start a blog :)
• craft and cook - examples can be found here and here
• go to a movie - see our review here
• make brunch on Mother's Day - see more here
• dye Easter eggs
• make music playlists

We can put partial checkmarks by these:

• participate in Camp NaNoWriMo in April - We didn't do all that well, but we plan to try again in the July session.
• practice harmonizing - We worked on this a couple times.
• clean our room - We started, but we still have lots to do. Yes, part of it is that we are extremely messy, but in our defense, we're going through practically everything we own so that we can have a garage sale. 

The things that didn't get done at all or that were just partially done are now shifting over to our summer list, as are certain ongoing projects (like crafting and cooking). Plus, we're adding a few new things:

• attend the two Shakespeare plays that are happening near us this summer
• attend the outdoor jazz concert that also happens near us
• go swimming
• watch "Sherlock" and "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood" - Katie has already seen both of these, but they'll be new for Sarah!
• write a story together
• read "Go Set a Watchmen" by Harper Lee, discuss it together, and then maybe write a blog post about it
• put together a time capsule - We've done this before, and it was cool - and hilarious - to open it up a few years later.
• organize pictures and possibly make scrapbooks
• surprise our little sister with a tea party
• kool-aid dip-dye our hair
• plan some birthday hoopla for our best friend
• make t-shirts for the Taylor Swift concert we'll be seeing in the fall (!!!!)

In case you hadn't noticed, we tend to be a little over-ambitious while making these lists. Still, we'll prioritize and try to get as much done as we possibly can. We'd also love to hear from you guys about the things that you want to accomplish this summer!

We have some fun ideas for our future posts, some of which you may be able to guess from the above list, so we hope you'll keep reading. Thank you so much for your support! In light of the fact that this blog has probably moved you incredibly and added a touch of radiance to your hum-drum life, we feel that it's only fair to allow you to express your heart-felt gratitude by making cash donations... no, just kidding. All we want you to do is keep coming back here. Now, go make a list!

Scones for Mother's Day

Hello, loyal readers! These past couple of weeks have been super busy, so we're putting our post up kind of late in the evening... but it's still technically Friday! Still, we apologize for the lateness of the hour.

As planned on our Spring Bucket List, we made our mom breakfast for dinner on Mother's day. Katie made turkey bacon and scrambled eggs, and Sarah baked three varieties of breakfast food, all of them chocolate. (We're linking to some recipes further down in the post.)

The baked goods were huge hits. Our family managed to polish off all of them within less than two days, if you can believe it. The chocolate chip muffins even received the compliment of being "better than Panera's." Click through for some amazing recipes:  scones  donuts  muffins 
They are all relatively easy to make, even for the inexperienced baker. Take Sarah's word for it, baked donuts are infinitely easier than fried, and way less mess. The only special equipment needed is a donut pan, which is cheap and worth the investment.

In addition to the food, we gave our dear mother some small gifts, which are pictured below.

Flowers from Angie (our little sister)

Tea from Katie

Card from Sarah

Our mom is a fantastic human being, and it was wonderful to spend some quality time with her on Mother's day. How she put up with us all these years we'll never know. =) Tell us in the comments what you did with your mothers (or children).

Happy belated Mother's day to all you moms! We sincerely congratulate you on your patience and perseverance. 

Schedules and Clothespins

Hello, lovely people! Today we're going to be showing you a fairly easy craft you can make to help organize your schedule. All you need are clothespins, paint, and a sharpie!

Here's the finished product:

Sarah's ↑

Possibly you have a family calendar at your house, with everybody's basic work hours, appointments, etc. We have one of those, but having a place to map out your personal schedule is incredibly useful, especially if you don't want to call your family's attention to the fact that you're setting aside time to watch Gilmore Girls and write your novel. :)

We've tried planners and the like, but these attempts ended in failure. For some reason, we have a hard time actually putting plans into action unless they're right up there on the wall staring us in the face. Also, we find it helpful to focus on just a few days at a time, otherwise we start going crazy and trying to plan out every minute of our lives for the next five years. (Yeah, we've got issues.) Anyway, when we saw this craft on Pinterest, we thought it might be perfect for us.

Katie's ↑

Going into the project, we were feeling a little bit cocky, thinking that we'd whip through it in, oh, half an hour or so. It ended up taking a little less than two hours to complete. Granted, a lot of that time was spent trying to get our paint colors mixed exactly right.

That being said, this craft is very straightforward. In a nutshell, the directions are: Paint clothespins and write the days of the week on them in sharpie. However, if you read these instructions, you'll get some useful tips for how to go about the painting process.

Our own procedure deviated a bit from the original. We were slackers in that we didn't bother to sand our clothespins as the directions suggest, and we were overachievers in that we painted the entire clothespin rather than just the side where the day of the week is displayed. This all could have been avoided had we actually... uh... read the instructions beforehand. However, we think it's for the best; this way, we can flip the clothespins around to the blank side if we ever want to use them for something else, like story outlining, recipes, etc. Also, it was a bit of an exercise in patience for those of us (aka Sarah) who do not have the longest of attention spans when it comes to crafts. (There have been a lot of unfinished knitting projects and Christmas ornaments over the years.)

Our completed clothespins:

Sarah's ↑

Katie's ↑

Side note: The schedules pictured were thrown together on the spot so we could take the pictures. Our actual schedules look a bit different. ;)


We're pretty happy with how this craft turned out, and we're hopeful that it will help us make better use of our time. Will they be more successful for us than the planners were? Only time will tell. But for the moment, at least, we're feeling enthusiastic about this new idea. Let us know in the comments about your own crafting and scheduling endeavors! And on that note: happy organizing!

Peeps!

Hi, everyone! Though our previous posts were written by both me (Katie) and Sarah together, today's post is divided into sections. I'm doing the intro and Sarah will be taking care of the rest. After all, she is the chef and this post has to do with baking!

Peeps in a blanket!

Last week, we made these adorable little brownies, which Sarah found on Pinterest. I've linked to the recipe here. Sarah did the actual baking, but she was gracious enough to let me and our little sister join in the decorating fun (and of course the eating, which is the best part). Now I'll pass this post off to Sarah so that she can tell you about the recipe.


Sarah here! For future reference, purple is my favorite color, so if the text is purple, it's probably me writing. As seen above, Katie's writing will typically be green.

Peeps without their blankets

First, I should probably explain why we're posting an Easter recipe almost two weeks after the fact. For one thing, it's never too late for Peeps. Also, our mom gave up sweets for Lent, so I basically gave up baking for Lent. This took some reining in on my part, since I have been a baking machine for the past few holidays. Since I didn't want all the cute spring recipes I had pinned to be rendered useless, I decided to do some post-Easter baking instead. So, the only thing I made in time for Easter Sunday itself were cupcakes to be given away. (They were super cute too. Here's a link.)  

Brownie (and Katie's hand)

Anyway, on to the brownies: They are homemade, but they mix up quickly. The texture was somewhat similar to the boxed mixes - very rich and dense. In other words, these are real brownies, not cake masquerading as brownies.

The decorating was also easy, and something little kids could take part in. Since the brownies hold together well, dipping them in the almond bark was much less difficult than dipping candies. The sprinkles are optional, but why would you forgo sprinkles? All in all, a good recipe that I would make again. The cuteness factor alone makes it worthwhile.

Finished product!

We'd like to thank you all for reading our blog! We hope you've enjoyed it thus far and that you'll be back on May 1st when our next post goes up.