Friday I'm In Love

(Photo credit: M.I.L.K.)

It's here, the weekend is here!

I, for one, am about to embark on an adventure known as a Women of Westside retreat! That's right, a fun weekend spent with amazing women who encourage me and push me to greatness! Did I mention that I got the chance to write the skits for this year AND I get to ham it up on the drama team?? My 7th grade Theater Arts teacher would be so proud!

So yeah, I'm embarking on a wonderful weekend away (okay okay, so maybe it's only 2 days long, throw me a bone!) and I'm not going to be online much. I'm going to try to spend as much time just being surrounded by these inspiring women as I can. I'll probably still tweet (which will update my Facebook as well) sporadically, but I won't be checking comments and surfing the web until I get home or unless one of the other girls wants to show me something online. Other than that, none of the interweebz for me! Just a whole lot of fun and refreshing!

Then, on Saturday, after the retreat is over, I'm going to do something new and fun to celebrate one of my friends. My friend Heather is having her bachelorette party Saturday night and we are going to be attending Belly Dancing lessons as part of the party! Crazy, eh? I'll try not to break anything or get too outta control with my ever-loving latin hips. ;p

And after the belly dancing has commenced, we're going to go to Sea-Tac for Karaoke!!! Guys, do you know how much i LOVE Karaoke??? Do you need a reminder??



No really, I'm a SUCKER for Karaoke!

This weekend is gonna be
SO FREAKIN' AMAZING!!!!! :D

The Lights and Buzz

I'm finally done editing my photos from the Jack's Mannequin show!

Okay so for reference, music is my football . . . and seeing Jack's Mannequin in concert is like the Super Bowl! I had SO much fun rocking out with a bunch of JM fans :D

Also, I got to meet Andrew McMahon and I got to talk to him about music and inspiration and his passion for writing and it was just sooooo cool! He is one of my all-time favorite song writers. He truly has a gift for song writing and I glean from his stuff all the time! He also encouraged me as a writer and gave me some words of wisdom to keep me focused and grounded so that I could keep pursuing my passion. Needless to say, (but I'll say it anyway) getting to meet one of my musical heroes was just soooo amazing!

It was great to go to a show and support this music I love and dance and shout and sing along with all the songs that have helped me get from various Point A's to various Point B's in my life. Andrew said this during his little talk during La La Lie, but truly, music connects us—at least it does for me.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the show and 2 videos I recorded. After that are 2 other videos taken by other people, but they were just too great not to share! He has so much passion and energy and his showmanship and charisma are just so wonderful to me! I love to see when artists really get into what they're doing and don't care how crazy they look or may seem. :D

That's right folks, I was THAT close!! :D

I love when he dances on his piano!

I also love when he jumps off his piano! so fun!

Not only is Andrew tons of fun, his BAND is tons of fun. This is Dr. J's (his bass player) amp. He brings the figurines with him to EVERY show and they get to 'join him' on stage, just chillin' on his amp. So fun!

Me and Andrew McMahon!

VIDEOS FROM THE SHOW:

(disclaimer: some of these are obnoxiously loud. consider yourself warned)

DARK BLUE


LA LA LIE


BLOODSHOT


INTO THE AIRWAVES

Lisztomania

It's a Lisztomania!

People Awake This Morning At 5 a.m. Seattle Time:
1.
2.
3.
4. The driver of Metro Transit bus #41 (barely)
5. Me

Songs I Can't Wait To Hear Tomorrow Night At The Jack's Mannequin Concert:
1. Into The Airwaves
2. Swim
3. Spinning
4. Dark Blue
5. Only Ashes (cover of Something Corporate) . . . i HOPE they play it!

Thoughts Running Through My Mind Today:
1. I'm glad I'm not God because I'd give up being everyone's miracle worker way too easy.
2. No more Twizzlers. Okay one more. Okay just ONE more. Gah. Is that seriously the whole bag? Jeeze.
3. I need coffee. Coffee. Coff coff cah coffeeeeeeeee.
4. I love the manacle musings of artists
5. What am I forgetting to do today?

Places I Visited In My Head Today:
1 Madrid
2. New York
3. my bed
4. Charlie's Chocolate Factory
5. a hot tub

Thoughts Running Through My Mind When Confronted With Rude, Snarky Barista This Morning:
1. I wish I hadn't already PAID for my coffee.
2. I wish I could form a full sentence to tell you how barely awake I am.
3. Is that really necessary?
4. Please never work for Hallmark
5. Thanks for the snark, I was running out

That's What Friends Are For

My old housemate, Geizel, was on the bus this morning on my ride in to downtown. :D She and I had planned this summer to go to New York together, but due to her needing to take medication not covered by her health care plan, she's not going to be able to.
javascript:void(0)
But not to worry, this change of plans just makes things EVEN BETTER!

I talked to my best friend, Sarah, this morning. She is originally from Baltimore, Maryland but now she and her husband live in West Virginia. So, in our talking, the loose game plan right now is to fly into Baltimore, and meet up with her there and stay the night with her folks, who just bought a swanky new townhouse. Did I mention that this townhouse has a game room? With board games and video games and all other types of gaming goodness??? I'm SO stoked!

From there, we'll spend some time in Baltimore with the family and then she and I will road trip it up to The Big Apple and check out some fun stuff together! I'm super duper excited!

Then we are gonna head back to Baltimore and spend some more time enjoying each other's company.

I'm really excited to see what kind of silly goodness we can add to our time together!

The last time we saw each other was over a year and a half ago. This visit is LONG overdue!

Connected

I've now added a Tumblr site to my growing list of social networking sites! I don't know if this makes me really really ridiculously cool or really really ridiculously insane. In any event, it should be fun. For the time being, I'll be posting to both. I'll be promoting this as my main site on twitter—trying to do one post a day here to keep up with the good writing habits, but I'll also be posting to my tumblr randomly with little to no notification. So if you would like to bookmark my tumblr, please feel free to do so.

Here's the link: amosays.tumblr.com

I hope everyone is having a GREAT day!

Girl Can't Help It

Once upon a time there was a trickster named Amanda. Most of her friends knew how much of a ruthless schemer she was. One day, her friend Kellie left her Facebook logged on while she went to run an errand. Now, Amanda, being the schemer she is, decided it was a prime opportunity to change Kellie's personal information on her account—you know, little things . . . like her relationship status and her birthdate.

The funny thing is that the next day, when Kellie checked her Facebook, she was flooded with Happy Birthday wishes. She frustratedly changed her information back and cursed Amanda for having changed the information. Amanda was very proud of herself, but in true trickster fashion, was not satisfied. She proceeded to clue everyone in on a great joke that everyone should wish Kellie a Happy Birthday EVERY DAY! Most everyone who knew, participated as they remembered, taking random moments each day to flood her with Birthday wishes—even on missions trips and travel trips!

Fast forward 2 years and the fun still rolls on! Amanda tries really hard to remember as often as possible to continue to remind Kellie that birthdays should be very happy, especially hers. The thing that's REALLY funny is that Kellie still reacts to it the same way, thus feeding the sneaky little trickster flame burning inside of Amanda. In fact, Kellie once claimed that she wasn't going to give it any attention—this ended in a 50+ back and forth comment thread on a Facebook photo. The fun just never ends!

Here is some recent goodness:




But the best one EVER is this one:



I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a huge, proud grin spread across my face from ear to ear ;)

PS: If you are a friend of Kellie's on Facebook, you should definitely wish her a Happy Birthday today . . . and the next day . . . and the next day . . . mwahahahahaha ;D

In Smithereens, The Search For Affinity

Amanda here, reporting live from the Apple Store in University Village (U Village) . . .

I JUST BOUGHT SNOW LEOPARD!

woo hoo! I'm soooo stoked! A more efficient operating system for my beloved beauty of a laptop? Don't mind if I do! :D I've heard mixed reviews about it today so after I do all the install stuff, I'll let ya know how it all goes.

Wow!

So many things to report as of late.

1. I bought a plaid shirt!


I know what you're thinking, "don't they wear plaid in Texas?" Yes. yes they do. They also wear huge belt buckles, but that doesn't appeal to me either. And most of the time when they're wearing plaid, it's tucked into jeans so as not to defer the attention away from said belt buckle. It's so different wearing plaid up here in Seattle. There's such a hip vibe from the various stylings of the plaid top combo here. I've been wanting one for a while, and now i have one! And I REALLY like it! I've been on a yellow shirt kick as of late, so it's grand :D


2. Reading Rainbow is no more. :(


And my world slowly crumbles, as I can no longer roll over in my bed on Saturday mornings, turn on the TV and hope to stumble across a new episode that encourages me to

TAKE A LOOK, IT'S IN A BOOK, THE READING RAINBOW . . .

My voracious appetite for reading can be traced back to many episodes of Reading Rainbow. I can still hear the voice of the man narrating KNOTS ON A COUNTING ROPE. Alas, I shall simply have to make up for it by buying more books. . . so maybe it's not such a terrible thing after all.

Though I must add, having been a 'teacher' in various capacities and reading over essays with ATROCIOUS grammar and spelling, it does sadden me that an already crumbling education system doesn't have the outsourcing that is Reading Rainbow. Heck, I know some 25 year olds who could benefit from a few hours with Lavar Burton.


3. Snow Leopard is mine!


That's right, it's mine!! And I can't wait to install it! My Friday evening will consist of cleaning up (thanks to Don for sharing THIS article) and revamping my laptop and installing SNOW LEOPARD! I love my Mac! And I love all that my Mac can do! And if my Mac was a guy, I'd marry him! Alas, I shall simply have to hunt down a suitor who is as madly in love with Macs as I am. . .

4. My niece started Pre-K!

my 'babycakes' is growin' up *sigh*

For a while her parents weren't sure if they were going to "bother" with enrolling her in school and OH HAPPY DAY—they DID!! I cannot tell you how much I value education. Even if it is at a ghetto school in the projects. . . we'll work to get her to a better school soon! But for Pre-K, I'm pretty alright with it. :D

5. TV Premieres are just around the corner!!

Which ones have made my "TV Show Schedule?"
These ones:

(Bones)


(Lie To Me)


(One Tree Hill)


(CSI:NY)

Fantasy

Shout out to all the LADIES out there! I am pleased and proud to announce the girly counterpart to FANTASY FOOTBALL!

May I introduce you to CELEBRITY FANTASY BOY DRAFT 2009!

CLICK HERE to go to the website (fantasyboydraft.weebly.com)

Show of Hands

Well hello everyone!

I just wanted to share some more photos and some stories from the Jack's Mannequin/The Fray concert the other night. I would have posted sooner, but my internet has kinda been here and there and so finally I got a good connection after resetting things last night.

So Thursday after I got off of work, I headed to the Paramount to go to the show. And I should just let you know that the Paramount is so gorgeous inside! It's got such intricate decorations and little chandeliers and such, I was so surprised that it was a venue for a rock concert like this. It wasn't until the show actually started that I kinda got why. The crowd was not so active. Seriously I was like, "Are you guys listening to the same guitar riffs and drum solos I am? These guys are all rocking out and you're just standing there like dead fish? Lame." But at least I got to rock out and have fun. And I got to stand next to some other enthusiastic fans. I met Chris, who was so fun to talk to and just rock out with. He's a super huge Jack's Mannequin fan too, so we talked for a long time about that before the show. And there was this other girl in front of us who never gave us her name, but went on and on about how many shows she's been to. We all had such a fun time. Then there was this 15 year old girl who was really short and I kept an eye on her all night, keeping her company and making sure no ginormously tall people planted themselves in front of her.

Oh, and PS: IF you are tall and decide to wear a huge hat to a rock concert. . . GO STAND IN THE BACK, NOT FRONT AND CENTER. I swear that kid was the hardest obstacle to maneuver around for photos (end rant)

There was actually an opening band for Jack's Mannequin and The Fray, which we weren't expecting. And the poor girl leading the band was talking way too closely into the mic that we couldn't hear any of the lyrics and couldn't even hear the band name when she said it. It's Vedera, by the way. Great melodies and sound, poor concert form. It was funny cause I asked this chick behind me if she knew who the band was and she was like, "I think it's Jack Mannequin?" And I was like, "Hmm. No. That's not Jack's Mannequin. Andrew McMahon is the lead singer of Jack's Mannequin and he doesn't sound like that." :D She was OBVIOUSLY there for The Fray ;)

Overall, awesome show! I loved when Andrew jumped up on his piano and serenaded us with such passionate songs. They played all my favorites and I was just so super excited to experience them live. The Fray rocked it out too and at the end, they sang HAPPINESS and all the band came together at the end to join the chorus. Both JM and The Fray had great stage presence and it was such a wonderful experience :D

Here are some more photos:

JACK'S MANNEQUIN

THE FRAY

Stay

I feel like lately Seattle is having a love/hate relationship with the sun. Cause just when the sun starts to show some lovin' to the Seattleites, Seattle gives the sun the boot and then they kiss and make up and it's this never-ending cycle.

Now that the vacations are over, it's nice to get back into a normal schedule. . . or at least one I can mildly control. Gosh. I'm realizing how much of a control freak I am. Sad. :( Gotta work on that.

I love that things are starting to mellow out. :D Things are going really well with the Junior High Students as well. I fall more and more in love with them every day. They really do have a special place in my heart.

Two days ago I spent some crazy quality time mapping out curriculum and events all the way through December for the Student Ministries and man oh man—that was madness. . . but a fun madness that was actually quite fulfilling.

What's also quite awesome is the concerts that I'm going to go to this summer! Parachute (touring w/ The Script) and Jack's Mannequin + The Fray! Woo hoo!! And what's extra awesome is that the DAY BEFORE the Parachute concert, they are doing an In-Store acoustic set and signing at Easy Street Records, which is 4 blocks from my work! :D These guys are seriously awesome and talented, and quite hilarious! Every Friday they post a fun video and here are some so you can kind of see the hilarity that ensues :D





You should also check out their music! I love their sound!




I'm still waiting for Jack's Mannequin to release their music video for SWIM to see if my artwork made it into the video (fingers crossed!). But I'm so excited to go see them with The Fray! It's like freakin' Christmas in the Summertime here! :D

Also some new music, if you haven't heard or downloaded it yet is Paramore's new single: IGNORANCE . . . it's uh-mazing!


Now if only Seattle would let the sun and cool breeze hang out together here :D

Long Journey

Day 3 Report from the "4th on the 5 Adventures"

i apologize that i haven't learned how to open my eyes yet. ;)

After we got back from Karaoke (around 2:30 a.m.) me and Joy had a long and productive conversation about our respective attitudes and differences and miscommunications. Though there is debate about it, I do believe that time has changed us, and that who we thought we each were is not the same. This isn't a bad thing though, just an interesting thing that brings new challenges and opens new insights. I don't remember what time we got to bed but I'm assuming it was close to 5 or 6 am. I could be wrong though.

In any event, we woke up around noon and began our long drive to Forks, Washington—The Twilight Zone. :D

When we were first planning the trip, Joy's big thing that she wanted us to be sure to do was to go to Forks to check out the roots of the movie "Twilight." Joy and I are BIG fans of Twilight, so I was pretty excited to go as well. Patsy enjoyed the movie but wasn't nearly as besotted as we were. We got lost a few times, but we made our way. :D

Joy and Patsy really wanted to stay the night, so we found a hotel (by some major miracle) and got to catch the fireworks show in Forks! It was amazing!

Here are some photos and videos of our time there:

taken from the ferry :D

patsy loved the ferry

car shot of the scenery around Olympic National Park

taking in the beautiful scenery

jacob black's house on the Quileute Rez!

we ate here twice—yummy food!

I went out on a limb (quite literally) to get this shot and it was SO worth it!

our hotel in Forks

Fireworks on the Fourth in Forks

Joy in front of our motel door