Two Awards + Two Teenagers = One Post!

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The ever-thoughtful and oh-so-nice Akelamalu from Everything and Nothing was nice enough to award me with this cool little "splat" award! She gave it to me for being "basically a fantastic wordsmith", which I think means I write too much! Either way I think it's just the sweetest thing ever from the sweetest lady ever!

Speaking of sweetest things ever, I am hideously behind in mentioning this other award that was given to me a long, long time ago by two of my other favorite bloggers - Jean-Luc himself of Captain Picard's Journal and Morgen of It's A Blog Eat Blog World. Thank you ever so much, gentlemen, you both make me smile, too, and I sincerely apologize for the delay in getting this posted!
Amanda has been pestering me to write about the fun she had this past weekend with new friend Cate so on to that next. Being teenage girls they, of course, wanted to have a sleepover so I brought Amanda over to Jason & Amy's later on Saturday evening armed with three types of pizza and all of Amanda's plushie making materials. After pizza consumption and a bit of "Dodge Ball" on the TV, the girls broke out Guitar Hero II where Cate has already progressed up to the medium level and will no doubt be playing at hard before too much longer.

After a rousing discussion about politics and the horrors awaiting us in the 2008 Presidential Election of all things (by the by, Jason does one of the best Bill Clinton impressions ever!), I took my leave and came home to an empty house devoid of all children - something that hasn't happened in a very long time. I'd like to say that I treated myself like I was spending a great night at a lovely Bed & Breakfast but alas, I had to be at work the next morning so it was merely off to bed for me.

Meanwhile, over at Jason & Amy's, the girls went back to playing Guitar Hero II and overdosing on all things MCR & MSI until somewhere around 2:00 in the morning. I'm going to guess that Jason & Amy donned earplugs and retired to their room for the night, which is generally the smart thing to do when teenage girls engage in a sleepover!

One of the other things the girls did was work on a couple of new plushie dolls. Cate is making a new version of the famous JimJamz (who took to the stage with Mindless Self Indulgence in Chicago and Colorado) whom she has named JimZy and who I'm sure is going to be a work of art in felt once he's completed. Amanda, in the meantime, is still working on Steve, Righ?, the plushie she has had under construction for awhile now. She wasn't sure how she was going to do his orange hair but after looking at a Cabbage Patch doll in Cate's room she hit upon an idea and this is what she's come up with so far:

For now, Steve remains pantless but hopefully Amanda will get motivated enough to get him further clothed soon though it sometimes takes her even longer to do things than it takes me, if that's possible!

The girls apparently had a great time this weekend and Amy has mentioned that they'd like to take Amanda to the Big E this coming weekend with them. The Big E is New England's largest fall fair that is held annually in Springfield, Massachusetts and runs for 17 days. I haven't been in years and years myself and though I've been invited to go along I'm weighing my options between a nice quiet day at home or a chance to go eat some of the finest "fair food" around. Mmmm, fried dough and clamcakes ....

That's going to be a hard choice!

Off to the Black Parade

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The long-awaited anticipation is almost over as My Chemical Romance takes over the DCU Center in Worcester, Massachusetts tonight at 7:30 p.m. I believe that Amanda has lived and breathed nothing but MCR for the past several months and I just hope that the actual concert finally gives me a little relief, though I have the sneaky feeling that there will be over-excited recounts over and over and over again.

It's times like these, when I am going to a sure to be ear-splittingly loud rock concert with three teenagers (one who has taken to squeeing like the ultimate fan-girl lately) that I really have to question my sanity. Seriously question my sanity!

I was just sitting here trying to picture either of my parents ever taking me to a rock concert when I was a teenager and that's an image that I just can't conjure up at all! Of course, my parents were listeners of country music back when Johnny Cash, Slim Whitman, Jim Reeves, and the like were considered the "kings" so even The Beatles were over the top for them. For them to have taken me to see my favorite band when I was a teenager (I think it was Electric Light Orchestra at the time), would have been a major miracle and you can bet I would have been eternally grateful and helped out as much around the house as possible until I felt I had paid them back for such a totally awesome thing (Amanda, you getting all this??).

I'm sure we'll be getting back at some ridiculous hour so I suspect that my Wordless Wednesday post will be late but I took the day off from work (see, I'm not totally crazy!) and can spend the day looking at everyone's pictures while the ringing in my ears subsides and Amanda continues to squee.

In the meantime, here's a picture of three really happy teenagers (if Dan looks confused it's because he's trying to figure out his new camera) and I'm sure that there will be more to post after the concert. Lots, lots more to post ...

Dan, Amanda, and Nicole looking forward to The Black Parade

So you wanna be a rock star?

Things to do on a Sunday afternoon when you're bored ...

Amanda decided that she was going to spend some time this afternoon taking some new pictures for her MySpace page but before she posted them a friend mentioned that she never posts any in which she's actually smiling but that they were all rather serious. I've noticed this myself but when you're going for the misunderstood-teenage-wanna-be-artist type I suppose that smiling is out of the question!

Not wanting people to think she had bad teeth or anything, and in an effort to appease her friends, Amanda decided to take a picture or two complete with a smile. The way the pictures came out, it was easy to see that she wasn't exactly comfortable smiling for the camera - especially when she was taking the pictures herself!

Before posting the pictures on MySpace, she IM'd a copy off to her friend in Michigan with the disclaimer of "I look stoopid, that's why I don't smile!" Her friend immediately IM'd her back with the response, "wow, you look like Gerard!"* Amanda didn't believe her so Shelby sent her a picture of Gerard she had found on Deviant Art** to show her the comparison.

At that point I was called over to the computer for my expert opinion on the matter and all I can say is ... well ... I guess there is some similarity though I don't think Amanda looks quite as distressed as Gerard does!

Folks? Anyone want to weigh in on this one? Oh, and just for the record, Mom, Amanda knows I'm posting this and was curious what everyone else thought, too!


*for those who haven't been following this blog, that would be Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, Amanda's favorite band
**picture of Gerard with "akward" misspelling taken from the video "I Don't Love You" and deviated by myanimatedromance