This is it.

We all knew this day would come. I know you're sad that it's ending, but all good things must come to an end. That's just life.


(Insert big booming voice here)


LUCKY FOR YOU IT'S NOT OVER. NOT FOR ME ANYWAY.


(Lowered, yet still booming voice)

Remember the advent calendar my sister got me? Well, I intend to post a picture of every gift, every day. That means 24 more wonderful days of consistent (AAAaaaaaaa) The Beginning of Something Great posts!

I don't know what you guys did, but karma has come back around.

In short, your welcome.

My nose still won't stop running . . .

. . . and it's because it's so cold. I don't know how much more of this I can take. I wonder if I can go everywhere with tissue stuffed up my nose? I feel like in the winter time that should be some sort of fashion. Like scarves and mittens.




See? The world would/ could be a better place. Who's with me?!

My nose won't stop running . . .

. . . and it's driving me crazy. It's also causing sneeze attacks, which is only unpleasant because it constantly feels like I have to sneeze, then when I finally do it feels great, but the feeling returns quickly.

I'm not sick, not sick at all. Thanks to my healthy eating ( aside from all the candy and sugar I can't seem to stop eating), regular exercise and most importantly the 8 - 10 hours of sleep I get almost every night, I have a great immune system (knock on wood). It's just really dry up here.

Other than that, I decided what my next tattoo will be . . . they are addicting you know. Tell me what you think.




I started rereading the first Harry Potter book, so that's where I got such an awesome idea. Some people ( The Beast) say you shouldn't tattoo your face, but I say " What if it's something really cool . . . and Harry Potter related?"

Really, it's still November?

Today I was suppose to work, but didn't.

Today I spent a lot of money at Best Buy.

Today I finally found a free program that enabled me to transfer all the songs on my ipod to my computer. So family, scratch that off my Christmas list.

I've been trying to do this for a year and a half now because ever since I got my new macbook I haven't been able to
transfer the songs that were on my old computer onto my new computer.

Today I discovered a new song I like from an album I've had for a few months now, but didn't really care for, so I never really listened to it.


But enough about today, let me entertain you with a crappy drawing.



Oh, I'm sorry, did I say crappy? I meant AWESOME!

9 Crimes

Today I committed 9 crimes.

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Okay, no I didn't, but I couldn't think of a title for this post that is going to be mostly nonsense, so I picked a song from itunes and made that the title of my post.

If you're interested in the song, it's by Damien Rice. I think it's a great song, very depressing though . . . which is sort of my thing.


Now, prepare to be impressed with my amazing paintbrush drawing skills.




Today I bought Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone so I could start rereading all of them. It was $8.99. I wonder how much it cost when it first came out and nobody knew what they were buying?

This drawing is kind of what's on the front cover.

I know, it's impressive.

I don't think I can make this post any better now that you've seen the drawing, so I'll stop there.

Did you know?

Did you know, that when you're a vegetarian you can't eat Turkey. Not even on Thanksgiving!

I was okay with not eating meat the other 364 days of the year, but this is getting a little ridiculous.

Oh well, more room for pie I guess.

Think of me while you're doing this:

I'm having a bad day

and I just don't feel like it.

Budget fit for a Beast

Today I got yet another package from my Beastly sister. Now, don't get me wrong, I love getting packages . . . even if they may be filled with hippopotamus paraphernalia, but it really made me think about my sister's budget. After thinking about it for what must have been at least 10 seconds, I think I figured out what her budget consists of every month. To illustrate, I drew this pie chart.



As for the contents of the package, I am both excited and frustrated at the same time. She made me an advent calendar, but with GIFTS. There are 24 gifts, but I can't start opening them until December 1st. Really Beast, really?

Here's a little look inside the package.




Was all this really necessary?



I want to open all of them now!

Random Thoughts

1.) Does anyone else get irritated when public restrooms don't flush automatically? It bothers me when they don't . . . ESPECIALLY when they have automatic faucets and soap dispensers. It's 2010 people and I don't want to flush the toilet anymore! ( I can see that this leaves me wide open for jokes from my siblings about how I never flushed the toilet when I was a little kid, so go ahead.)

2.) Has anyone seen "Punch Drunk Love"? I watched about 20 minutes of it before I couldn't take it anymore.

3.) I can't find my debit card. Apparently having a purse and a wallet isn't enough to keep me from losing it.

4.) Only 32 days until Christmas! What's on your Christmas list?

5.) Only a Beast would do this:



6.) I tried out Pandora after reading Cofo's blog post a while back. I am not impressed. I put in "No More Kings" and it keeps playing Barenaked Ladies, a band which I can no longer stand.

7.) Hey look, it's me as a baby:



8.) Remember my chair?



It was a good chair and I miss it. I got rid of it when I moved because my apartment was attacked by bird mites and I was afraid they might be on the chair. I didn't want to risk infesting my new place with bird mites. Damn you bird mites!

9.) I just started watching Glee. I'm currently waiting for disc 2 from Netflix. So far, it's pretty good.

10.) Speaking of Netflix, did anyone else who has it get an e-mail saying the price was going up 1 dollar?

I'm pretty sure this is against my new religion

I was doing some online window shopping, when I came across this.



Of course I would never eat it because a.) I'm a vegetarian and b.) it must be against The Unicorn Code even though it doesn't technically say so.

However, if you should so desire to purchase a can, it's $11.99 at thinkgeek.com.

Just so we're clear

Those of you who have met me in person know that I rarely smile. It's not something I consciously think about, it's just my face. Every person I meet, and I mean EVERYONE I meet usually asks me a variation of the same thing: "Why don't you smile more?"

I'm telling you right now, I don't know. I DON'T FREAKING KNOW!

This has been the case for me for as long as I can remember. Although, I visited my parents back in August and my mother and I were going through a lot of old pictures. Of course there were very few pictures of me because I'm the youngest, and, well, who cares about the fourth kid you have, they had already seen all the cute things kids do with the first three, right?

Anyway, I noticed that in every picture I always had the biggest smile on my face. We're talking ear to ear grinning here.

I guess I met my smile quota for my entire life when I was 10 or so.

But just so we're clear, when I look like this:




I usually feel AND think that I look like this:




I swear.

Yeah, I already saw it

If you don't know what this is then you probably don't know what I'm talking about. If you do know what this is . . . I already saw it, be jealous.

Let's get something straight here

Every time I go to the gym, I see this:



It drives me nuts. You can't hold on like that when you're suppose to be going uphill, it defeats the purpose.


I want to slap these stupid chicks.

Slipper Socks

Yesterday I bought some slipper socks.



I love them.

City Lights

I wanted to make today's post a tribute to the city I live in, by taking a picture of the awesome view from a place I came across a while back. Unfortunately, my camera phone was not up to the task, because this was all I got.





I was hoping for this:




If only I had that camera my brother just spent a fortune on . . .




Hey Jon, can I borrow your new camera?

Tiny ear syndrome

Tiny ear syndrome. I have it. God forgot to take into account ipods when he designed my ears.

Most headphones don't stay in my ears . . . well, I guess I should say earbuds, rather than headphones.

This is mostly a problem when I run.

I remember when I first started exercising at a gym. I was 18, I had a discman and these kind of headphones:



They would also fall off my head during rigorous activity, plus they would bleed black ink onto my shirts (from sweating and whatnot).

Plus, my discman would skip with every step I took (while running that is). But that's not what we're talking about here.

I think ipods were already available at this time, but they were mostly for the rich and famous.

I purchased my first ipod when I was 21. I had just transferred to San Diego State and I wanted to fit in with all the ipod wearing students. They were so cool.

It was worth every penny. But I didn't spend a whole lot of time exercising back then, so it didn't really matter.

I feel like I'm getting off track here. What I'm trying to say is that earbuds are made for giant people ears.

I went looking for a new pair of headphones today, I wanted some that hang over your ears. That way they won't fall out when I run . . . which is my main problem.

I used to have a good pair, but I took them for granted. I threw them out when my apartment was attacked with bird mites because at one point they were crawling all over them and I didn't want to have bird mites crawl into my brain through my ears. You understand.

I thought I would just be able to go buy another pair when I needed them. I can't find them anymore.

DAMN MY TINY EARS . . . no wait . . . DAMN THOSE EARBUD ENGINEERS AND THEIR NOT TAKING INTO ACCOUNT PEOPLE WITH SMALL EARS!

Some of you might be thinking "What about those headphones with squishy covers that shape to your ear?"

(pardon my language) Those are bullshit, and they don't work.

Okay, I'm done venting.

Paper weight

My sister must have known that I constantly have papers flying all over the place for lack of a paper weight to hold them down.

Another Hippo gem.



Now all my papers stay put, Thanks Beast.

Stained Glass

People will make anything out of stained glass these days.

I know it's rude to ask, but I want to know how much you paid for this Beast.





I wonder where I should hang this. ( does that seem like a question to you? I can't decide.)

Thanks again Beast.

Introducing . . .

. . . The Pengopotamus ladies and gentlemen.

For those of you who read the comments from my last post, you may remember what Syar had to say. What if a Penguin and a hippopotamus mated and successfully procreated?

She also came up with some good names for the possible hybrid, pengippo . . . hippenguin . . . but ultimately I decided pengopotamus rolled off the tongue a little better.

As for your visual of what said creature would look like . . . well, of course I'm going to illustrate.



As you can see, this unusual creature inherited the body of a penguin, and the head and feet of a hippopotamus. I know what you're thinking, "What kind of scientific research have you done for this?" but I assure you, there has been absolutely none whatsoever, which is why it must be an accurate depiction.

Like most penguins, the Pengopotamus lives in Antarctica, but it doesn't eat fish. It is a strict vegetarian ( it must have also watched Food Inc.). It can swim, but not very well due to the lack of feet fins (yeah, that's a thing). It mostly just likes to lounge in the water, with it's body completely immersed while it's head bobs just above it.

It's not a violent creature, but it will attack if it feels in danger. Unfortunately, it's only weapon is it's teeth. It can neither run fast nor grasp anything (penguin arms, what are you going to do?) so it's not hard to get away if you accidentally make it angry.

That is all we know about the Pengopotamus, because that is all I feel like making up right now. I encourage all of you reading this today, to educate the masses about the Pengopotamus so I can become rich for inventing him (Don't worry Syar, I'll give you the usual 5% founders fee).

It's so cold

This last week has been really cold. It's kind of annoying.

The thing I hate the most about the cold is going to the gym in it. Sometimes my feet are pretty much frozen, which makes it harder to get warmed up. Plus there's the walking to my car in exercise pants, which only go down to my knee, and then getting out of the car and walking into the gym. I dread it everyday.

I think bears have the right idea, we should all just be sleeping right now, all the way until spring. WHO'S WITH ME!?!?!

Other than that, I would like to thank my friend T.R.D. (same one who made the cupcakes) for this sweet little bag.



IT HAS A PENGUIN ON IT!

And also for my little wind up friend.



His name is Pablo . . . Pablo Penguin.

THANK YOU T.R.D.!

It's not all Hippo's

Today I would like to thank my beast sister for what I consider her "real" birthday gift to me.

I was too lazy to take a picture of it, plug my phone into my computer, upload the image, and then restart my computer so I could upload it for this post, so here's the link.

It's a pretty sweet jacket and I've gotten several compliments while wearing it.

What you can't see, however, is the hippopotamus she stitched onto the inside of the left pocket.

Okay, so she didn't really, but that would have been pretty awesome. Thanks again Beast.

Don't "leave" me

When I lived in California, every day was almost the same. It was sunny. The most exciting weather we ever got was rain.

During the winter I used to pray for snow. My parents would tell me it had to be at least 30 degrees for it to snow, so I would monitor the temperature everyday.

A few times it did get into the thirties, but there wasn't going to be any snow. I didn't understand this at the time, so I just kept hoping.

WHY DID YOU LIE TO ME PARENTS . . . WHYYYYYYY?!?!?!?!

Anyway, I love living in a place where the seasons change.

Don't get me wrong, it has it's drawbacks. For instance, it's starting to get cold, really cold, and I'm already over it. Snow is fun to look at and play in, and for the most part I don't mind it, but leaving an extra half hour early to go to work simply so you can shovel your car out of the snow, and drive 25 mph the whole way there isn't exactly my idea of a good time. Good exercise though.

But this time of year is my favorite. It's only the second time I've witnessed it, but it's magical . . . sort of like my smile.

I think most of you know what I'm talking about . . . you know . . . when your neighborhood has these:

Where does she find these things?

My Beast sister (formerly known as older older sister, or something like that) knows I like bowling. So she must have assumed I also like golfing as well, because she got me this:






I think she might have access to some sort of "All Things Hippo" store, because she's way better at finding things than me.

It's time to come clean . . . again. . . about something different though . . .

I was going to wait until Christmas to reveal this startling news to my family, but then I thought . . . "No, better to do it via my blog, where no one can hurt me."

This post just got interesting didn't it?

I want you to think for a minute. What could Madelyn do that might want to make family members hurt her?


(insert Final Jeopardy music here)


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. . . . . . . . . . . . Okay! . . . Actually . . . nope, you're not ready yet.


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Okay, enough already. I'm just going to show you.




No, that's not a stamp. That is a tattoo.

It's a copyright tattoo to be exact. In a way, I don't think my Dad should be mad at me because basically I just branded myself with his name. And really, my mom shouldn't be mad at me either . . . I just copyrighted THEIR work.

So parents, YOU'RE WELCOME!

Besides, if you're going to be mad at somebody, you should be mad at Jon, he knew about it and didn't say anything (sorry brother, every person for themselves).

Seat Belts

In 2008 I got a birthday present I would have never asked for in a million years. A purse. I never saw myself as a purse girl. They just always seemed like something for old people.

Unfortunately for me, I was constantly losing my wallet, which by the way, was also something I didn't really like having. For a very long time I would just carry around my license and debit card. I thought the wallet would help, but when I first got that, it turned out that instead of just losing my license, or just losing my debit card, I would lose them all at once.

While living with my San Diego sister she would constantly tell me that I needed to get a purse. I'm pretty sure she got sick of me constantly asking her if she had seen my wallet or my keys.

I never listened though. I was okay with my system . . . which consisted of putting my stuff wherever and hopefully remembering later where that wherever was, but if I couldn't remember, ten minutes of searching was just the price I had to pay.

Was it annoying? A little, and when I say a little, I mean very. Especially when I was running late for school or work. (Luckily, my version of running late was being less than ten minutes early.)

So anyway, in 2008 I received this for my birthday:



Pretty cool right? This purse is made entirely out of seat belts.

This is the only purse I have ever used.

Fast forward to present birthday. San Diego sister got me this:





Yup, a wallet made entirely out of seat belts. And I definitely needed it, because for the last 3 years I had been using a magic wallet . . . which, while extremely cool due to it's magical abilities, is not as efficient as one might think. There was no room for cash, limited room for various cards, and definitely no room for receipts.

Plus, it matches my purse, same brand and everything.

Thank You San Diego sister, formerly know as Older younger sister, but currently changed to San Diego sister because the other name was too confusing.

I likes it, I likes it a lot.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering where to pick up some of these bad ass seat belt items, the wallet came with these:



Don't be confused by knockoffs, Harvey's is the best . . . and the original. (I wonder if they'll give me money for this?)

We interrupt these birthday thank you's . . .

With a quick look at how awesome my pumpkin was this year.

My roommate S, her boyfriend M and I, carved pumpkins a little prematurely this year, but somehow they still made it to halloween looking only slightly moldy.

You should be able to tell which one is mine because it's the best looking one . . . as my mother grew it herself in her very own garden. You can't get much more organic than that.



In case there were any doubts, it's this one . . .




On a scale of 1 to 10 how obsessed have I been with superman lately?

I think the pumpkin says it all.

Bowling Shoes

Since tonight is the night of my bowling league I think I'll share what my parents gave me for my birthday.






Everybody knows style is everything when you bowl, which is why I asked for these babies. Do you see the gold bling? Very necessary.

Thank You Mom and Dad, you've now contributed to my bowling greatness.

On a related note, my team is currently in third place and we won three out of four games tonight. My high score was a 195.

We also got one new team member to replace two people that found it necessary to ditch the team and move to Utah. Where are their priorities?

Luckily the new guy is awesome. His average is about 220, so he doesn't bring a handicap to the team, but that's okay with me. I'm still the best/ only girl on the team though.

Go TooToo's! (That's our teams name . . . it's a short story I don't feel like telling.)

Cupcakes

Today I'd like to thank my good friend T.R.D for taking the time to make me these birthday cupcakes. They're a little rough, but her efforts are greatly appreciated.





That is ten bowling pins, and 1 bowling ball. She used regular cupcakes as the base, then a mini pumpkin muffin on top of that, and finally a donut hole on top of the mini pumpkin muffin. The stripes are fruit rollups.

Before she unveiled them I thought they were going to look like penguins, so I was caught a little off guard.

They were delicious though. Thank You T.R.D.!

This post has been rated PG-13

Everyone knows what a Barbie doll is, right?

Well did you also know, that there are also dolls out there that closely resemble the beloved Barbie doll, but with one significantly disturbing difference?


Prepare yourself for what you're about to see . . .


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. . . . . . . . . . . . careful, you don't want to jump into this too quickly.

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I got this for my birthday from my oldest sister.

I'm not sure if thank you is the right word, but I'll say it anyway . . . only with a question mark afterwards.

Thank You?

Stay tuned tomorrow for some interesting looking cupcakes a friend made for me.

NaBloPoMo/ Multitasking

I've decided to use NaBloPoMo to multitask. I know my last post stated that there would be Thank You's. Which means it's time to stop the laziness.

I will thank each person, for one gift, one day at a time, that way I will have a blog post for at least (thanks to my oldest sister) 25 days. I'll just have to wing it on the other 5.

Today I will be thanking my good friend T.R. for one of the most awesome beanies on this planet.



Yes, that is a penguin, and no, you cannot have it.

Thank You once again T.R., I love it forever and always.

Stay tuned tomorrow for a picture of a doll you'll wish you never saw.