Top 8 Reasons Why I'm Excited for the Fall:

1) The wonderful feeling you get when the season changes. I just love fall. I love it. I love the smell of the air, the crisp leaves under your feet, the colors of those left on the trees...it fills me up with energy and I can't control it and I just happy-shift all over the place. Seriously, I've had some of my best shifts in the fall - the best by far occuring when I was running cross country and I started shifting because I was running in the woods. :)

2) Marching band! I actually love football now because of it. Hell, I never know what's going on, but it's enjoyable because I get to play tuba at half-time, and now the band has after-game parties at my friend Tom's house. Last night was our first game (we won 45-20!), and we all headed over to his house to play a mad round of DDR and to eat hot dogs. X3

3) The clothes. I love being able to wear t-shirts with sweaters and jeans and sneakers. It's not so hot that you're burning up, but it's not so cold that you're freezing. It's the perfect combo of warm-cool.

4) All the new TV shows! I'm especially looking forward to Flash Forward, Modern Families, and this new doctor show on NBC. I'm also excited for the final season of LOST, and the next chapters in HOUSE, Heroes, and Ugly Betty. Hopefully Daniel hooks up with Mark finally. XD

I KID I KID.

5) Food tastes much better in fall, for some reason. <3

6) Books! I don't know why, but I read so many more books in the fall than any other time of year. I'm looking forward for the next Shugo Chara!  and Lucky Star! volumes. I also might start buying Fruits Basket, since it's over and all the volumes are out. *proceeds to shovel money outside her window*

I'm also exposing myself to this vampire series called House of Night. It's slowly becoming the new Twilight with kids at my school. Even my classmate Jeremy is reading it. XD I actually don't mind it - the style of writing kind of irritates me, as do some of the characters and certain aspects of the plot, but hell, it beats Sir Sparkle Pants and his cronies of marble stone men who apparently can still inseminate despite the lack of blood flow and the fact that they're undead. ((That was a reference to Breaking Dawn.))
It actually makes several references to Cherokee legends and such, and the main character actually makes me smile sometimes, so that's a plus.

7) I also draw and write more. I feel really, really inspired to work on my fanfiction, which has been stewing quietly in my brain and has now finally started simmering and hissing and screaming "EAT-ER, WRITE ME!!!"

8) ...I might have found someone who I actually think might be interested in me, and me in him. ////


I've been overloading my systems on Lucky Star!. I freaking adore Konata, and her cousins. Kagami is another favorite simply because she puts up with Konata's otaku-ness on a daily basis. XDD 

*stretches* Yaaaawwn...
Working on summer Psychology homework is very difficult without a textbook. I found the answer to one question, but the rest are a bit harder. ;_;

So, anyways, birthday stuff.
On Monday (my actual birthday), I was scheduled to take my senior pictures, which I did around 1:00. I had about five outfits for the pictures (one of them being a super-cute sundress that I adore like CRAZY now. It's a pink-and-white plaid pattern, and it's very very comfy. ///) and I ended up taking my dog, Riley (who was my greatest, birthday present EVER. ^_^) and my cat JoJo.
I also had another nice dress, a t-shirt and jeans outfit, a nice sweater for yearbook, and a skirt and polo set.

The man who took my pictures was very, very friendly. He's been a long-standing family friend, and I actually found out about a year ago that he's married to my English teacher, Ms. Dahlin (!). He was very cooperative with both my pets, especially Jojo, who accidentally squirmed out of my grip and got behind an expensive silk backdrop. XD God, in my pictures, he looks so fat. He IS very fat, and the way I'm holding him in the pics make him look like a round ball of fur. XDD
Riley was very well behaved, being a bit older and used to photographing. Mr. Dahlin actually took his pictures when he was just a wee thing, so I think that might be why he was so good. His pictures are just AWWW so adorable. ♥

My favorite picture thus far has got to be this one in the pink sundress; the picture is black and white, but there are these bright red rose petals scattered all around me. It looks SO cool and has this awesome noir feel to it. I am SO buying that one.

I actually have access to all the pictures he took, but I haven't paid for the order yet, and if I wanted to have them all I would need to buy a CD of them. So sadly no pictures yet.

After the pictures were done, my friend Mandy came over to wish me a happy birthday. She made me this adorable Shugo Chara!-themed birthday card, and she told me she ordered me a present: The Swan Princess Special Edition DVD!
Okay you guys, you have no idea how much I love that movie. I seriously grew up with that as I did with The Lion King, and gawd I love it. And the fact that Mandy ordered it online (since her mother is hyper-paranoid about ordering things from Amazon and other online websites because she's worried about identity theft) and went to all that trouble seriously made me feel so loved.

We actually ended up baking my birthday cake together We ate half the frosting. XD
So then we all went out to eat (Mandy included) at Sakura's, which is basically the most AMAZING Japanese restaurant in town. We always eat at the tables with the hibachi grill built in. Mandy had never been to a Japanese restaurant before either, because her mom hates Asian food, so I was happy I got to share that with her.
She had sushi and ginger salad for the first time and loved it. Which was a relief because when she was eating a Hot Babe roll (Tuna sushi with some kind of sauce) she looked like she was gonna hurl. X3

So then the next day I had a few more senior pictures to take, and we took them at my horseback riding barn. I posed with Tammy, the mare I ride, and omg you guys she was so so adorable. She seriously was posing for these pictures, and she was perfectly calm about the whole ordeal. She even tried blocking me from the view of the cameragirl. XD Tammy I love you. ♥ ♥ ♥

So after that, I had to go to Leadership for Band. Basically that's for all the upperclassmen (Jrs. and Srs.) in band, where we talk about leading the various sections, setting good examples, and planning things for Band Camp. (Bum Bum BUUUUM.) Since I play tuba, I'm the low Brass section leader, and omg you guys WE HAVE 3 TUBAS NOW. One of them is a freshman, the other's a sophomore, and then there's me, but srsly guys this makes me so happy.
AND WE HAVE 66 MEMBERS IN THE BAND. 66 OMFG WE USED TO ONLY HAVE, WHAT, 17.

*faints from happy*
Then my sissy hooxeii took me to the mall for birthday shopping!! Here's what we bought (we ended up splurging and buying around $109 worth of stuff XP):
+ volumes 5 & 6 of Shugo Chara!
+ Utada Hikaru's new CD, This is the One. It's incredible, really - very jazzy and soothing. There's no Japanese, though.
+ The Cat Returns. Another great Studio Ghibli movie!
+ O Jerusalem by Laurie R. King. It's the fifth book in the <I>Mary Russell</I> series, which is a spin-off from Sherlock Holmes. It's terrific.

The rest of the week I've had band rehearsals. I've basically been doing all the teaching in the Low Brass section, because the other senior had a family reunion yesterday and a busted blood vessal in her head Thursday. (It made her eye all bloodshot and gross. D:)
Though my only complaint is that the stupid kids NEVER BRING WATER. Srsly, we're marching out there in the sun for two hours and no one bothers to bring a water bottle to stay hydrated. And Amp and Kool-aid do NOT constitute as good substitutes. And worst of all, this annoying girl in my section (a junior who switched to baritone) who has poor health anyway only drank Kool-Aid and felt like she was gonna pass out. Guess who she asked to carry her into the building via piggy-back? ><;

Last night hooxeii and I babysat my baby cousin Max. Max is the cutest baby, but he has a hole in his heart and is recovering from stomach problems. He has to be fed through a tube in his stomach, but he's getting better about eating on his own, which is a relief since before he couldn't have anyting without throwing up. He also has a helmet for his head, which apparently wasn't shaped right but looked fine to me. Whatev.
He was such a good baby! We watched Baby Einstein with him, and then Stuart Little. He was really into the movie, and there was this one part where a cat jumped out of nowhere and scared the crap outta him, but he didn't cry.
He avoided me for the first half of the night, but he started getting fussy and wanted to sit with me only. He was so cute, burying his head in my shoulder. But then when we put him down in his crib (since we thought he should go to sleep), he started crying really badly, and when he gets real upset, he involuntarily gags. But we managed to calm him down by reading some stories and singing nursery rhymes, and then the rest of the night went smoothly.

He has surgery next week to cover the hole in his heart, so I'm praying it goes well.

And today my aunt took me out to breakfast. We share the same birthday, and she turned 50 this year, so this warranted a celebratory breakfast. I was very stuffed.
I also had Thai food for the first time last night, and it was interesting. Curry tastes very good.
...

...long post is long. I'm going to the fair today, so YAY! ^_^