SOL 6- Bored at the Store that has Everything

Bored at the Store that has Everything (literally)
We wander through the sections, looking at all of the different products, slowly making our way through. We pick up something here, get something there, but our cart is still quite empty. We finally maneuver ourselves into the section that we are looking for, and there they are, all of the bathroom sinks. We ponder and we search, we try to decide, but none of them are quite what we want. So, my sister and I both sit down, as are parents survey the possibilities.

Odd Ikea giraffe stuffed animal

Hmm... What to do? I move over to the children's game thingy that sit dotted all over the store. Before you say anything, I was extremely bored, so it was my last resort. I scroll through the options of games, and I randomly select one. Spot the difference. I pick one of the picture sets and start searching, taking in every detail, well, as many details as a child's game can have. I've found 5 out of 6, when I suddenly see an odd thing, and at first I think I'm imagining it. Out of the corner of the screen pops a vibrant giraffe who sticks his tongue out, and then pops back out of sight. I am now VERY confused. I click on it the next time it pops up, and the cheesy voice says "You found all of the differences!" In my mind I think, "You found all of the randomness we made!" I swipe through the rest of the options, and still bored I go sit next to my sister against the wall.

More examples of Ikea child-product weirdness

We talk for a time, but we both gradually turn back to our own thing. I, still being bored, start thinking about random songs, and one in particular... "shhh, don't tell your mother, fish in the cupboard..." I know they're not the real lyrics, but they're what I always hear. My sister and I laugh about it for a while. But I am still bored. I grab my dad's phone, pull up a picture of a fish, and place it in one of the cupboards near us. I whisper back to my sister, "Shh, don't tell our mother, fish in the cupboard..." We laugh again, for a time, but return to our perpetual bored state. It's amazing that Ikea has everything in the world except for young teen entertainment.

Book Blog #24, The Pearl

The Pearl                                                                                                                      by John Steinbeck
Kino has always been a pearl diver, just like his dad, and his grandfather. When his son Coyotito (yes, that is their actual child's name) was bit by a scorpion, he and Juana, his wife, don't have enough money for the doctor, and don't know when they will. After a shameful visit to the doctor that ended with being thrown out, Kino went back to dive for pearls, like he always had. This time, though, he doesn't find something quite so usual. He comes to the surface with a pearl the size of a seagull's egg, and as perfect as the moon. The pearl is worth fortunes, but good luck always has it's downsides.

This book was really good, even though it was really short, like 90 pages short. I liked that the plot remained strong throughout the entire book, and that I could always easily tell what was happening in the story. I think that the book could have been longer because there are spots that could use more details, and the characters could be more developed. The book switches settings a lot, but each one is quite detailed and I felt taken to each place. The one downside to it's location switching was that I wasn't always totally sure of the layout of each place in comparison to where the rest of the story took place. One of the other hard things about it was that I felt like the characters were all shallow as it didn't talk in great depth about each character, other than their most important relationships to other characters Overall, this was a good quick read that had an interesting story, but needed more details

WARNING!: There is a fair amount lot of violence and death that seemed unnecessary to the plot, and didn't improve the book. There are also a few confusing sections. One final point, this book is incredibly sexist, like extremely stereotypically sexist.

I would recommend this book to Gabe because I think he would like that the story is deep and a lot of it seems fairly abstract and surreal, so it is an interesting book to think about. I think he would enjoy that even though it is short there is a lot to it.
I would also recommend this to Lena because in parts it seems similar to Shakespearean writing in the way things are described, so I think she would enjoy it as she loves Shakespeare.
I would recommend it to anyone who wants a short philosophical book that they can ponder over for a while. I would also recommend this to anyone who wants to read a quirky book with a lot of plot twists.

TBR list
Unremembered          by Jessica Brody
Leap Day          by Wendy Mass
Escape          by Paul Dowsen
Locomotion          by Jacqueline Woodson
The House of Ivy and Sorrow          by Natalie Whipple

SOL 5- Puny Pangolin

Puny Pangolin
I concentrate to make the final line of the diagonal line as straight as possible. I'm almost done cutting the pattern of the scales, just one more line... dangit! my hand shook and now it is all squiggly, I guess I'll just have to do my best to fix it...          5 minutes later          ...it looks okay now, but it's a little lopsided. Oh well,  it is still adorable. Now to make the baby. I sculpt again, focusing in and start zoning out my surroundings, all while the Animaniacs, yet again, is playing in the background, although the tiny finger-work is what's on the forefront of my mind. When all of that is done, I pull up the next reference image, and start to work on the next tiny pangolin.

When the rolled up one is done after another 30 minute period of zoning out, I go to bake them and, oddly, they don't cook. The bases and small parts cook, but not either off the bodies or large sections cook. How odd. A concerned hour and a half later, out of the expected 40 minutes on the package, they are still not quite fully cooked. humf, I sigh to myself, and I take them out anyway. They're finally done. Several hours later I find myself in the same place with the Animaniacs still going, working on painting the figures. There are a few spots for improvement, but overall they aren't that bad. It's amazing what zoning out for an hour and a half can do to you, and how much you can actually get done in that time frame.

SOL 4- Frustration

Frustration

I spent 2-3 hours hand binding a book, and it didn't work, to put it frankly. I started off with folding all of the pages, arranging them into signatures, then starting to sew them together. All while Animaniacs season 4 is blaring in the background. What's wrong with watching Sound of Music spoofs while sitting in the same place for hours on end? Anyways, back to the topic at hand. I finally finish sewing together the final signature, and I look at it all put together... and the pages aren't aligned, some are far off, like REALLY far off.

UGGGHHH!

Well, lets remain serious here, how can I fix this? the paper is to thick to just cut off with scissors and make level, so I would have to do it page by page. Well, I'm not going to spend another hour on it when it's already 10 o'clock at night. So, what else can I do? OK, I'll try using an x-acto knife against a ruler. I spend 20 minutes on that and... guess what? It made it worse!
I guess I just need to finish binding it and just finish it at this point. So, I did all that, and I must say it's not to bad. Until you look at the side, which literally looks like a jagged cliff on the side of your page.

Apparently everything on YouTube doesn't work. This just goes to show that binding books is quite difficult, and that you need a lot of practice to do things right. I guess I now have a 1/9-way decent sketchbook? Eh, I'll try to find a way to salvage it.

And now, a random baby penguin

(I don't know, I can't find a suitable picture and I'm tired)

SOL 3- Anticipation

Anticipation

I stare at the screen,

waiting,

waiting for Max to post.

I feel like I've refreshed the page,

thousands of times,

an infinite amount of times.

I still stare, regardless,

Not knowing what else to do,

Until refreshing takes a bit more time,

and I know the time is ripe...

He Posted!

Hoorah!

Exactly at 10 o'clock!

It registers quick in my mind,

I try not to make haste,

I make my way to the comment section,

I have the link already set up,

ready to be first!

I get the URL in,

with the post title too,

I quietly think to myself,

I've done it, WooHoo!

I click the Publish button,

the anticipation is building,

but much to my dismay,

Someone already posted,

a minute before me today.

But how?! I say,

for I posted at ten

curses, I say to myself,

for my blogging first was foiled again.



SOL 2- The Prompt Conundrum

http://www.christikrug.net/2013/05/concerning-
dragons-by-brian-mcfarland.html

The Dragon of prompt-lessness returns

It all started an a day like any other, a peaceful day spent dwindling around. Until (bum, bum, bum...) The assignment: Write about a slice of your life. We were all put in quite a quandary, as to what to write, and any time an idea occurred it was instantly decided to not be used. The Dragon of Writer's Block seized it's opportunity and swooped in from behind the computer screen, just in time to catch me off guard. It drained my prompt storage, until it was fully depleted. No ideas, no clue what to do, I was at a loss for words. Wait! That's it! Words! I quickly started typing up a slice like no other, which created a blade of creativity. I defeated the dragon by using the sword to embed creativity into my blog, with a touch of magic added in too. He shrunk down and plopped onto the desk, needing new ideas for his next nefarious wrong-doing. The dragon crawled back into hiding, until the next SOL, where we all know he will return, and next time it will be a more epic show down. After that, all peace was returned to The Blog of Slice, and free prompts were given to all. Here is usually where I would say they lived happily ever after, but sadly, that would be an over exaggeration, and we all know he will most likely come back to haunt us tomorrow. 

I know it may be odd, but this happens in my mind, as the dragon is the twin of The Arithmetic Dragon, which comes to haunt me in math (duh.).

SOL 1- Clockwork

Clockwork

http://mikesmallwood.blogspot.com/2014/02/cogsgears-lot-4.html

Sometimes a day works like clockwork, Finish this here, return a book there, but there are the days when there is a wrench stuck in things. Saturday was one of those days. I woke up knowing that it would be a very busy and stressful day. I got up, and instantly headed into the kitchen for a very brief breakfast before starting work on the pasta. This ingredient here, Strain that over there, all of that worked fine. But the dessert for the bake sale, not quite so. It started with the wrong pan, for the wrong cake, excuse me, I mean "Bars". This was all for the youth bake sale the next day to fund our mission trip to South Dakota.

After the rush of the hectic-ness, everything seemed WAY to quiet. The rush of a moment can be amazingly strong. We dwindled away the rest of the day by going to my aunt's house for dinner and a movie. Which, in the end was quiet enjoyable and did work out well.

Maybe some saturday's gears just aren't put together right, but the machine will still work. Maybe that wrench wasn't making a mess, maybe it was making a memory.