BethJoy.com

Kitty can borrow quite a few things from Barbie... Or "A perfect escort for Kitty Collier"

When I made a bridal gown for Kitty a few posts back I thought that she needed a groom. Friday I discovered that Ken is about the right size for Kitty and Friday night I bought two more Ken dolls. Today I opened one of them and I took some pictures of them together.

First you see the two of them rather stiffly standing next to each other. She seems a bit short for him.

Then they seem to realize, "Hmm, this could work..."

Then of course comes the proposal. I didn't edit this picture because it didn't look as good edited. Unlike Tree Beard he's quite bendable.

I'm pretty certain she said "Yes!"

Then he sweeps her off her feet.

And now it's time to call the Happily Ever After Pink Carriage Rentals :)

And that's it! For the present at any-rate.

As I did not make a movie on Thursday I made one today

And this one is quite good in my opinion:) I took a great deal of care with my shots and so forth. However I think that instead of typing more now I'll let the movie speak for itself.

So watch the Prince, Princess, Dragon Movie
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

What I did last Friday and what I did this Friday

Last Friday I went a cookout for the camera and technical people of Centeral church. After eating and talking we were all ordered out to the back yard where a strange sort of croquet game was planned, though perhaps it wasn't as strange as the Queen of Heart's croquet game and nobody lost their heads.

We were quickly divided into two teams. Five persons from each team were going to be chosen to actively participate in the game. The first person of each team to be chosen (by drawing names out of an envelope) was made into the sign holder or cheer leader.

Then there were four more players chosen to be the Holders of Croquet Mallets. With great trepidation I waited while the names were slowly pulled out of the envelopes and read. The first person wasn't there, the second person was. I think one other name might have been chosen when Bobbie(who was our team leader) read out "Joyce". Now Joyce is the first name of my mother who, when Bobbie looked at her, must have conveyed her disinclination for playing this game so Bobbie said, "You can have Elizabeth play for you." Within a few seconds I had my hands on the Croquet Mallet with the Red Stripe. I couldn't play croquet but... It looked like fun.

The game was very exciting. Especially since every so often we would have to stop when a certain player would put their ball through a certain hoop number and then sometimes there would be a contest. I was involved in two of them. The first you can see below. It involved holding a lighted candle and a water gun and trying to squirt your opponents candle flame out while they were trying to squirt yours out. I was not so good of an aim but my opponent was.

It was a very fun day and now It is time to get to what happened today.

What Happened Today

I suppose the primary accomplishment of today was that I finished 11th grade History. It is done! I do not have to worry about it. And also it marked the fifth day in a row of finishing a unit of History. That is a LOT of History. I think I went all of the way from before the Civil War to the capture of Osoma Bin Laden. And can I remember all of it? At the moment, No:) But it may come back to me eventually.

My reward for finishing history was a Blonde Tiny Kitty doll. She is very nice and, of course, she immediately had to have a new dress which I made and it turned out quite nicely.


As you can see, I was having a fun time in photo shop editing pictures this evening. I plan to make a movie tomorrow using my new Kittys.

Since I now have a wedding dress for the Kitty dolls I was wishing for a handsome groom to go with them and I was suddenly struck with an idea that maybe, just maybe, a Ken doll would work. I quickly got out one and compared the scale and guess what? It worked!!!

So this evening, since I really didn't have a "Prince" Ken doll I went to Toys R Us and bought two of them. One was on sale and one wasn't and my grand total came up to just a little over $21.00. So you can expect a new movie here soon. I already have the plot figured out and I may write the script tonight.

Just one more day... Just one more day...

This is probably the longest I've ever done everything on my to do list. Fortunately the To Do list ends on Friday and I plan to do a lot of relaxation on Saturday. Doing a whole unit of school has probably been the hardest and most exhausting part of the schedule. After all, for a years worth of school with four subjects there are forty units. So I've been doing 1/40 of a school year every single day(Or 1/10 of a years worth of a subject each day) and I'm getting a headache and my eyes are behaving strangely and refusing to read with comprehension. Fortunately I just completed Unit Nine of History today and and I just have ONE UNIT left and that one is a review unit. Now to see just how much of my school I can remember. I don't have very high expectations of my memory but this I know, I will eventually get an A on the final test, it just may require some retaking of it to get there.

Something funny I noticed in the last lesson(or actually it wasn't that funny but to a crazed mind revolting from school work any distraction is worthwhile of pausing for) which was discussing Osoma Bin Laden(I learned how to spell Sadam Hussein today) mentioned a group of Islamic Terrorist that he had belonged to which name translated into English meant more or less "Seeker". Consider all of the "Seeker" friendly churches out there... I don't think I'll say anything more. But church is NOT intended to make everybody happy with themselves. It's supposed to make lost sinners aware of their sins and their desperate need to be saved by the cleansing power of Jesus. However the church is also for the edifying of the church and primarily it is meant to bring glory and honor to God and give the people a place where they can meet and worship him.

One thing which an overview of history, accurate history, can give you is the feeling that quite a few people are idiots. Or at least, they behave in ways which, when reviewed later, can lead to the assumption that they behaved like idiots whether they were ones or not. I myself have done, and probably still do, stupid and idiotic things. It's probably just human nature and I'm very thankful that there is a God in heaven who is very patient and very loving who puts up with us. But he won't be doing it forever to those who are not saved so if you are not a Christian I would highly advise becoming one.

And now since I am rather tired and I still have a few other things left on my list to do I'm going to end this post and I hope you'll think about the previous sentence.

Today was a busy day...

And I still have a few things left on my list to do! But at least I've gotten my unit of school done. "Write Post" is what I'm about to check off and I'm rather tempted to check off "Write on Story" too by writing a short amusing story in this post. Perhaps I'll do that at the end.

Today I left to go with my parents to the chiropractor at one and then when I returned I was so sleepy I took a nap until it was just about time to go to church this evening. I've just returned from church. So this morning was pretty much all of the time I had today to do things in. And this morning I was sleepy...

So at anyrate...

Once upon a time there was a kingdom which everybody knew existed even though nobody had ever seen it in the past eight hundred years. Or perhaps I should rephrase that, no one had ever returned after seeing the kingdom. There were many myths about the kingdom which was the main reason most people knew about it, and most of the myths spoke of its eventual return and the return of prosperity to all of the lands about it which was a very pleasant thought to think.

But all of this had little interest to the main character of our tale, a very practical and down to earth young lady whose main objective at this time was to become the wife of a respectable and well to do man. Despite the fact that she did not care about age or looks most of the respectable well to do men around did and as our heroine was fairly plain looking and there were more attractive girls around she was not succeeding too well in her object. And so that things shall be clarified somewhat, the heroine's name was Agnes and unlike me, she never used run-on sentences for she was able to speak briefly and clearly and express whatever she wanted to say in word of less than three, or even two, syllables.

One day as Agnes was at a ball waiting patiently for somebody to ask her to dance it started to rain out side. As she was inside she took no notice and nobody else at the ball seemed to do so either until a stranger entered. As the stranger was soaking wet many finally took notice of the fact that it was raining outside and two very loud peals of thunder aroused the less observant to the realization that it must be raining outside.

The stranger, as Agnes and twenty other young ladies noticed, was a man but his face was hidden by his cloak. Several eyes watched him as he strode quickly across the room and then spoke in a low voice to two or three of the leading citizens of the area. Surprise and alarm instantly filled their faces and after a few minutes of whispered conference they quickly announced to everyone that an enemy army, as well as a tremendous tornado, was coming their way and that all should return to their homes and lock their houses and climb into their cellars and wait for the tornado to pass before coming out again.

This everybody quickly rushed to the doors to do. Agnes calmly walked to the cloak room and got her cloak and her umbrella which she sensibly carried with her whenever there was the faintest shadow of a cloud anywhere about. As the crowd round the exit had cleared greatly she walked towards it and was about to go out when the strange, who had been look out the door at the rain, walked up to her and asked if she was going in the direction of (insert town name). She replied that she wasn't and he seemed a bit disappointed, until suddenly a brilliant idea came to him and he said, "Good, because I'm not going there."

Agnes then opened her umbrella and was about to walk out when he asked if he could escort her home. She agreed and he walked out with her, keeping well underneath her umbrella. If Agnes had been vain or even like most of the other girls at the ball she would have assumed that the stranger went with her for the pleasure of her company, instead of the pleasure of her umbrella. If she had not been wearing her best dress she would have merely lent him the umbrella because strangers on foot without umbrellas who keep their faces hidden are very rarely respectable and well to do men. However as the wind and rain increased she did not feel sorry to have somebody with her in case of accident.

They soon arrived at her home where lights were brightly shining for all seven of her aunts, all spinsters, were waiting up for her. Some, not knowing the circumstances, were quite surprised to see their niece with an escort, for he followed her in, and the others were relieved. She told them about the approaching hurricane and they quickly hurried to lock up the house. Then the eldest of them led the way to the cellar after all the fires had been put out so that the house would not burn down.

As they were about to enter Agnes suddenly realized that the stranger was still there and seemed to be waiting for an invitation to join them. She was unsure of what to do exactly but fortunately her aunts did and he was quickly given an invitation to come down and wait for the storm to blow over.

The cellar was very big and the candles that they held only dimly lit it while casting strange shadows about it. It was certainly not the sort of place to tell spooky stories in if you did not wished to become very scared. Fortunately nobody there told any spooky stories but one of the aunts, in order to make conversation, began telling about the beautiful peach pie she had baked all by herself when she was only eight and exactly how she managed to make it to perfection.

Everyone present except the stranger had heard the tale before, but all listened politely to her until it was over. Then the stranger suggested that it would be wise to move further away from the door. They did so, with him leading. The stranger was quite surprised by the length of the cellar for they kept on walking for quite some time before they came to the end of it. At that end there was a stone door which was shut and locked. On the stranger enquiring where this led to the eldest of the aunts mentioned that it used to be a wine cellar but it was, and had been, unused for quite some time since none of their family drank wine.

As it would probably be safer down their the eldest aunt produced a key and the door opened revealing a stair case going down. They went down the spiral steps for quite some way and then they came to a passage which they assumed must lead to the wine cellar. They walked down it for quite some way without coming to anything that looked like a wine cellar. Then, in the distance, they seemed to see a slight reddish glow ahead of them. It was at that precise moment that the third eldest aunt suddenly remembered, and mentioned, that the door to the wine cellar was made of wood and not stone.

Going on from their was perhaps the bravest thing they ever did, especially since the first part of this sentance was copied almost directly from "The Hobbit" by J.R.R.Tolkien when Bilbo was about to encounter Smaug the dragon for the first time. Whether or hero and heroines are about to encounter a dragon remains to be seen.

They did, however, go on. The glow steadily increased though still they did not know quite what it was. Still, it was assumed that whatever it was it might be preferable to a tornado and invaders. Finally the came to a section of the path which kept turning in a zig zag way. At each turn the light became more and more steady until finally they turned a corner and found themselves looking at what made the light. If they had just come from Kansas they undoubtedly would have stated that they didn't think that they were there any more.

They were in a large room which was lit by hundreds of chandeliers of the crystal variety giving out a reddish light. Stone pillars supported the ceiling, which was quite high up. All around the floor of the room where open chests of rich treasure and, to their left, they saw a platform that had two thrones on it. Above the two thrones, suspended in the air it seemed, were two crowns. One a king's crown, the other a queen's.

Now if I were reading this story I would probably guess that the stranger would be revealed to be extremely handsome and probably the heir to the lost kingdom that was mentioned in the first paragraph and I would assume that he would make Agnes his queen and the place they were now in was the royal throne room of the lost kingdom and that they would all live happily ever after.

However, writing a story is somewhat different from reading a story. In reading a story you may or may not know(depending on whether or not you peak at the end) what is going to happen next but you usually have no control over it. In writing a story you may or may not know what is going to happen next but you can control things in the story.

I am inclined to end the story soon since it is quite long enough and therefore... I think I will have some things that are easily foreseen happen. So as the stranger looked about him he removed his cloak. When Agnes was able to stop looking at all of the wonders about her and turn towards him she was not struck dumb with amazement at his being so handsome since he was as plain as she was.

Then they stepped into the room. The thrones were obviously quite interesting and the stranger and Agnes walked up to them. The crowns looked very tempting so the stranger took the kings crown and Agnes took the queen's crown and then they placed them on their heads and sat down but they didn't actually become king and queen until they were married a few minutes later by an official who conveniently showed up right then to perform the ceremony.

With the seven aunts for witnesses the wedding ceremony was preformed and then they all lived happily ever after in the lost kingdom which was now found, presumably, but as they liked it so much there they never left it and so nobody else knew that it had been found so it was still considered lost.

My most humble apologies if I have bored you. However I will plead tiredness as an excuse and a great desire to say THE END

My first Tiny Kitty Bridel Gown

She looks very nice doesn't she? I designed the pattern for the dress too. I did use a Barbie Pattern for a basic idea but I changed it considerably. The original pattern was merely a bodice. The nice thing about doll clothes is that they don't use much fabric and therefore they cost only a fraction of what a dress sized for me in the same fabric would cost.

So far I've been able to keep up with my schedule. The two big things "A whole unit of school" and "Make Something" are now done for today. When I finish History I shall receive another Tiny Kitty Doll as a reward. She has blonde hair so soon she'll also be modeling my gowns.

And now I'm going to be able to check off, "Write Post" on my list :)

There is a picture of my sewing machine. It's a very good one and has served me well.

I got a lot done today, in fact, I did everything on my checklist!

Every once in a while I print out a weekly checklist of things to do each day and this week I'm trying to do one. I succeeded today and hopefully I'll be able to keep up with it all week. If I can I will be very happy, and I'll also be finished with my history:)

As one of the things on my list was "Make something" today I made a new dress for my Tiny Kitty Doll in the same style and fabric as the dress I made last Thursday.

Pretty nice in my opinion the dress is. I have a few other outfits planned so it will be interesting to see how they turn out. Today was quite full.

Announcing the Arrival of a New Cousin

Her name is Katherine Evelyn. She is now about nine days old(yes, it sometimes takes a while for me to post important things). Her parents are Dale and Robin Young. Here is the important part of the announcement email that was sent out

Introducing: Katherine Evelyn Young 
Born July 16, 2005 at 12 noon at Round Rock Hospital
She weighed 7lbs 1oz. and was either 18inches or 19.5 inches long (we are trying to straighten that one out).  She has blonde hair and deep blue eyes and loves to put her fingers in her mouth.

However that isn't all of the news on my mother's side of the family. Another of her brothers, David Young, got married recently! Remember the exact date of this important event at this time I do not. However my congratulations go out to everybody who deserves them.

I've already met my new aunt, before she was my aunt, and I'm looking forward to meeting my new cousin, Katherine Evelyn Young.

Tonight after the vigorous labors of writing and sewing I made a musical

Today was rather busy and productive. If you observe the previous post you will the story I wrote today. Most of today was spent sewing on a beautiful gown which I finished in time to make a movie with it. I wanted to do a musical and I made up the lyrics and I sung them in front of the camera with the intention of adding instrumentals in the back ground. Unfortunately for the music just as filming ceased I started feeling really sick and I did not feel like adding the instrumentals. So the musical pretty much just has singing without accompaniment. I hope you enjoy it though.

Act One
Act Two
Act Three

Here is a picture of the dress I made today. In my opinion it's a very nice dress especially when you take into consideration the fact that the total cost of the materials was about $5.00:) It took a couple of hours to make though.

My rendition of the classic story "The Frog Prince"

Once upon a time a lovely princess was walking by herself in the royal gardens. She paused for a moment by a large lilly pond and gazing down she beheld a frog. The frog gazed at her in return. The princess was well worth gazing at for no where else in the lands was there a princess as fair as she. As the princess had seen frogs before she was not dumbstruck with awe, unlike the frog, especially since she was then engaged to marry a wealthy duke who, for all his wealth and connections, might just as well be a frog as he resembled an ape of large girth and had a mind to match.

As the princess reflected on this, something about the frog drew her notice. She began thinking of the tales about frogs and remembering one in particular that she had often heard she bent down and lightly kissed the frog.

A few moments later the royal court was placed into an uproar by the princess rushing in and exclaiming in a loud voice, "I've found the one that I love and I want to marry!" The King stood up in surprise and quickly asked "Who?".

"It is he!" The princess said motioning with her hand in the general direction of the left. Three knights who happened to be standing in the direction of where her hand pointed to immediately fainted.

"Them?" the King asked puzzled. "No of course not!" the princess replied and two young lords also standing in that direction fainted. The princess began to get impatient with the wondering looks of all the court, "Don't you see?" she said.

"How can they see when you're not even pointing in my direction?" a strange voice that seemed to come out of no where said. The princess hastily turned to her right.

"Would you mind explaining clearly what is going on?" the King asked.

"Well," the princess said her eyes gleaming with either love or amusement, "I was walking by the lilly frog, I mean lilly pond, when I saw this frog!" She motioned in the direction where the voice had been heard to come from.

"You want to marry a frog?" The queen said in voice that made one uncertain as to whether or not it was a question or a horrified exclamation.

The princess, who decided to treat it as a question, replied, "Of course not. Don't you remember the fairy tale where the princess kisses the frog and he turns into a handsome prince?"

This seemed to clarify matters for most of them but since the puzzled looks were not removed from all of the faces the princess spoke again, "Only this time, it's an invisible handsome prince!"

With this explanation the matter was entirely settled for everyone, except for three or four of the scholars and philosophers who debated for three days on whether or not anybody who was invisible could be called "handsome".

So it was that the princess married the invisible handsome prince and seemed quite happy for several years, especially since the Duke of Wide Girth moved away shortly after. Several years after her marriage a handsome prince came to the land and seemed very disappointed that lovely princess was already married. However, only a week after the handsome prince arrived at the castle, a terrible(debatable) tragedy befell the princess. Her husband, the invisible handsome frog prince, died of a heart attack. This caused great sorrow in the land as might be expected. But after a month of mourning all hearts were gladdened to hear of the beautiful princess's engagement to the visiting handsome prince. Since he could be seen he was quite preferable to an invisible prince for no one in the kingdom had ever been quite sure of the previous prince's location and had lived in the fear of his walking up to them and their not bowing properly.

A short while later there was a grand wedding at which all attended who could. The princess seemed even more pleased with her second marriage than she had at her first and as the years passed she became the happy mother of many children. Once as she sat pleasantly surrounded be her family her husband asked her about the invisible handsome frog prince. With a smile she told him about her engagement with the Duke of Wide Girth and about that day on by the lilly pond. And then with a laugh she whispered into his ear a few sentences which made the handsome prince throw back his head and roar with laughter. I'm not quite sure what passed between them that was so funny for the only word I could catch was "ventriloquism"

But they all lived happily ever after.

MORAL: Never underestimate the value of a great imagination and skill at ventriloquism.

Eaten sugar recently I have. Lazy and ill it has made me.

Last weekend I had a larger amount of sugar and white flour etc. than usual and this week I've been feeling the effects of it. I haven't really done many "productive things" and I've rather neglected Bethjoy.com, though not as much as I've neglected my school work. What I have been doing is either sleeping, using my computer, riding my bicycle and eating. And I've been doing it pretty much in that order though perhaps I've been using my computer more than I've been sleeping. I've watched quite a few DVD's as I can do that while playing Neopets. If Neopets were the most important thing in the world then I would have done quite well this week but as it isn't... I'll probably need to start back on school tomorrow. At any rate I've had a pretty fun vacation. I haven't done much writing lately, though I have done a great deal of thinking. And so far in my statistics I've had over 200 visitors so far this month so that isn't too bad:)

I went to Walmart tonight and I bought nine yards worth of fabric, one pattern and a small cross stitch kit. At McDonalds I had a chicken nugget happy meal with apple dippers and a milk. I really like getting the little toys with the happy meals:)

And now I suppose I'd better go to sleep. Eventually I'm going to have to write another short story for hear, I haven't done so in quite some time.

Saturday was a very fun today and I've just made a stop action something

On Saturday I went shopping with Laura Beth. I had a grand time! We went to Target, Toys R Us, McDonalds, The Mall, and Walmart. Then we came home and after a while and two more guests arrived we had supper and Daniel brought down some fireworks and we shot those off. It was a very fun day and well worth writing about but I had a sugary something yesterday and I am rather out of it today. So writing is not particularly what I feel like doing now.

I was somewhat surprised at Andrew's opinion of my stop action movie GUNGANMAN when he said it looked like the confusing sort of stop action movie that people normally do on their first attempt. I personally disagree with him and think that the movie I made today is much more worthy of a low opinion. So without further ado, here it is! Oh, and on toy packaging when they say, "Doll does not stand alone" they mean it. Just ignore the finger tips when you see them.

Watch this Stop Action Short Film

I got a strange desire to make a Pirate Movie Trailer a couple of days ago

As I even bought a Pirate Cutlass at a dollar store in order to prepare for this event this evening I thought I'd just make something out of the ideas I'd had. As I half expected, it wasn't half as impressive as I thought, and as I've rather disappointedly noticed, it isn't very impressive but... Perhaps it's better than nothing. So here you are, a movie trailer for a movie that probably won't ever be made.

Watch Teaser

One of the interesting things about making this was that when I started filming I found that I had less than five minutes left on my camera's tape. That condensed things a lot! I ended up filming only about a minute and a half of footage and I used just about all of it. If you observed me seeming to run around in circles it is because when filming I first ran away from the camera and then I had to run back towards the camera in order to turn it off so that I wouldn't waste tape. It's interesting what you can do in the editing process... Oh, and did you like the Widescreen Format?

Beaded Gecko Indeed...

This morning Daniel played me in the LOTR TCG and... Well... Suffice it to say that I've lost every single game that I've played with my new cards. Oh well, it was a fun and challenging game and perhaps the third time I play I'll win. Maybe this time I'll play against my bedpost! And maybe (evil grin) they'll never use any of their shadow cards (cackle) and maybe they'll never use any of their other cards either (maniacally chuckles with glee) and then if I lose that game then I'll know somethings wrong!!!

But now I'm tired and at some point today I think I ought to work hard on my history so I'll have a good excuse to buy some more booster packs as a reward for finishing history. After all, I don't have an Eowyn card yet.

The Long Awaited box of Trading Cards came today

Today was the day the Lord of the Rings Trading Card Value Box I had ordered was supposed to come, and guess what? It came! I was very pleased. I had considered the terrible thought of only opening one trading card booster for each unit of school I'd gotten done and that thought lasted long enough yesterday for me to complete an entire unit of history. I JUST THOUGHT OF SOMETHING!!! I'm so very pleased! You see I have completed all ten units of language and now I've completed three units of history which makes thirteen units completed and thirteen is the exact number of trading card booster packs I opened! There, I did stick with my intention... to some extent. And now I've got an excuse for another box of trading cards to get me through History:)

There were quite a few trading cards I was hoping for specifically, and as I expected I didn't get all of them. However I did get an Arwen card and quite a few other very nice cards(in other words, cards that had pleasant pictures on them). I spent about two hours this afternoon sorting the cards and arranging the cards and deciding which cards where going to be in the deck I was building and which cards weren't. Finally it was time to commence the game. I thought I would try an easy opponent first so I pulled out my stuffed bear Polly and had her take the starter deck that had come in the value box while I played with the deck I had just built.

I quickly found out that shuffling your cards thoroughly before playing is very important because otherwise you just have a bunch of cards that are very similar and, as was my case, they might not even be playable without certain other cards that never showed up throughout the course of the game.

But I had fun, which was the main purpose behind my getting the game in the first place. Polly beat me though. I think I'll have to have an even easier opponent next time, perhaps my beaded gecko or maybe one of my brothers. And just so you understand the last sentence in the proper context, I do consider my brothers to have a higher intelligence level than my beaded gecko but my brothers have never played this game before and therefore that must put them at a disadvantage and me at an advantage. You see even though Polly was my opponent I was handling her cards and therefore our intelligence levels were pretty much equal though our luck was not.

I might just play another game tonight, but then again I might not. At any-rate I hope that your day was a pleasant one.

Oh, and another important event happened today other than the coming of UPS, Laura Beth called and arranged the details of Saturday's excursion. We are going shopping:) I am looking forward to that not only because I like going shopping very much but also because it will give me plenty of time to get to know Laura Beth and visa versa. I'll just have to remember not to talk all of the time as I often do and not be silent the whole time I often do but to both talk and listen in approximately equal amounts as I very seldom do.

And now it is time to end this post. I had a fun day today and I did not do any school.

After a very long break from this sort of thing it is my pleasure to present another Random Story!!!

Remember, this being a "Random Story" the story is not always the same and may change greatly each time the refresh button is hit for the amusement of those reading it. Enjoy!

, was when . She and frightening the who were . The a which caused such vibrations of sound waves that causing . Finally the settled the matter by everybody to . THE END

Oh, and the collective animal nouns are all quite correct and researched. So apparently, yes there is a .

Today was a day which might not be considered productive

Today, instead of designing TCG games and making movies I simply played games, read the comprehensive rule book for the Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game, and rode my bicycle. Yesterday I purchased a very on sale "Value Pack" of Lord of the Rings TCG cards so I was wanting to know what I might reasonably be able to expect. Over the past few days I've looked at just about every single card I might possibly get and I've confirmed my opinion that Orcs are exceedingly ugly but some of the cards are actually quite nice(Eowyn, Female Elves, Beautiful Scenery, and plenty of Hobbit Cards) and humorous. So hopefully I will get a nice selection of cards.

It is really remarkable how very little the amount of effort exerted has to do with the profitability of whatever it is. I played a lot of games on Neopets today and tired my arms doing so and probably used more effort than doing school for the same amount of time. And yet, if I had done school for the same amount of time that I played on Neopets today I would have considered today a very profitable day, Yes, we would have my precious(Yikes! I think I see a result of watching one of the Lord of the Rings movies last night). However, I probably would have had a greater headache at the end of the day if I had worked on school:) Eventually however I will have to get it done. September is fast approaching and with it September 26th on which monumental day I will become Seventeen years old. And I probably ought to have eleventh grade completed before turning Seventeen.

I have rambled from my original subject, In fact, I'm not quite certain what was the subject upon which I was discoursing. Oh well, I probably should go to sleep now anyway. Tomorrow I may get to go shopping and then it will probably be a profitable day for somebody.

And remember, you may be able to increase your success by lowering your expectations!

I made a quick Movie with Andrew just now

Andrew did the animating while I clicked the camera and here is the result. I hope you will look at the previous post after enjoying this movie.
Watch Movie

Introducing the Bethjoy.com TCG game, and it's FREE!(for the moment)

Yesterday I thought I would make a TCG game, so I did. Currently there are fourteen cards that I have made categorized into the three different types of cards, Heroines, Accessories, and Pixal Monsters. What are Pixal Monsters you may ask? Well, they are the strange monsters attacking the Heroines that must be defeated. The game is simple, presumably, since I really haven't figured out how to make it complicated yet but since it is still a work in progress there is hope... Now, for the cards! And yes, the most powerful heroine is me...

First of all, the Heroine Cards

Secondly, the Accessory cards. There aren't many of these yet.

And now, the Pixal Monsters!

And now that you have seen the cards it is time to go into gameplay, though I would advise you to read all of this post carefully before actually playing. And by the way, this game is very educational as it involves addition...

There are three different types of cards, Heroines, Accessories, and Pixal monsters. The heroines can equip accessories in order to increase their stats. The Pixal monsters are the enemies of the heroines and must be fought.

To play, separate all of the cards out by type. You should have at least two Pixal Monsters(in order to make the game last longer) for every Heroine and it is advisable to have plenty of weapons in your weapons stack. You may only have one copy of each Heroine card, however you may have multiple copies of the other types of cards.

Set the Heroine pile in front of you with the accessory pile to the left of it. Then, leaving a gap with room for at least three cards or more in-between set the Pixal Monster pile. Then you are ready for your first turn. First, take out a Pixal Monster card and place it face up somewhere on place you are playing that is in-between the Pixal Monster deck and the Heroine and Accessory deck. Next take a Heroine from the top of your pile and place it so that the top of the Heroine card touches the bottom of the Pixal Monster card. Then observe the stats.

Let's say that the Pixal Monster is a Weakling Dragon, Blunders: 4, Battle Terror: 4, and Repulsiveness: 4 and the Heroine is Tiny Kitty as Elizabeth Bennet whose stats are Accomplishments: 8, Battle Power: 2, and Charm: 10. Now the Accomplishments stat on a Heroine is the equivalent of a Blunders stat on a Pixal Monster as is Battle Power to Battle terror and Repulsiveness to Charm. Now, the higher stat wins the contest. In this instance the Heroine has higher stats than the Pixal monster in two out of three stats but her Battle Power is 2 which is lower than the Weakling Dragon's Battle Terror of 4 so she cannot win the contest. The stats of the Heroine must be greater than all of the stats of the Pixal monster.

Looks hopeless? Well, not really. You see the accessory deck is there and each turn you draw one accessory card which you can place, by sliding the card underneath the heroine until just the stats show on whichever heroine you chose. And this is where the educational addition comes in because you add the stats of the accessory to the heroines stats.

Let's say you draw a Suitcases card. It adds 2 to all stats which means that the heroine's battle power stat is now equal to the Pixal monster's. It's a tie there but because her other stats are higher she wins the contest as she would if all her stats were greater than the Pixal Monsters. And now it is time to observe the Stamina stat. Each point of Stamina shows how many turns it will take to defeat the Pixal Monster once the Heroine's stats are higher than the Pixal Monsters. When the Pixal Monster is defeated you start a new pile of cards by placing the Pixal Monster face up beside your Pixal monster draw deck. When all of the Pixal Monsters are in this stack you win the game!

On each turn you draw one Pixal Monster, then one Heroine, and lastly an accessory card which you can equip on any heroine. When you run out of a type of card you simply don't draw it any more but you keep on drawing the others.

Now at some point in the game you are either going to have more Pixal Monsters than Heroines or more Heroines than Pixal monsters. When you have more Pixal Monsters than Heroines you merely set them down just as you would normally do. When you draw a Heroine you can chose which of the Pixal Monsters that do not have a challenger yet that she will challenge. Also, these Pixal Monsters can be challenged by a Heroine that has just defeated another Pixal monster though she must wait a turn before beginning another battle.

When there are more Heroines than Pixal Monsters the Heroines just stay where they are and wait for either more Pixal Monsters or the end of the game. However, if you run out of equipment cards and one of your heroine's cannot defeat the Pixal Monster she is facing then an idle Heroine can join her in that fight.

And now that you have read the rules and you want to play the game it is probably time to print out the cards. If you have a printer this should be easy, if you don't... Sorry but I don't have an online version of this game yet. Printing this page might the easiest way to print but if you have a picture editor program then save the pictures to your hard drive, import them into your picture program(Like Photoshop) and then you can fit six cards to one page. This saves paper. Then you just cut out the cards and there you have it!

I think I've covered everything now. I may have forgotten something since I've only played this game once myself and I only started making it yesterday and this is the first time I've written the rules down. But the main point of the game is, have fun! If you desire to make your own rules of the game by all means do so. And if you want to you can take of each card and pull one of every type of card out and then place them face down then try to figure out if it was Arwen Evenstar with the Hand Cross Stitched Sword fighting the Tooth Monster:) I'm referring to the game of Clue in case you are wondering.

There probably will be more cards for this game on here in the future, and who knows? I might make some new types of cards eventually. And perhaps I'll even explain why the Pixal Monsters are attacking the Heroines in the first place.

Oh, and case you weren't able to tell, all of the outfits worn by the heroines were made by me, Elizabeth Von Fange. And I did make the lightsaber and the sword as well as doing the graphics work on the Pixal Monsters. Indeed, I put all of the cards together and took most of the pictures.

A movie for the fans of Jar Jar Binks

Today, in between long bouts of listening to Jane Austin while finishing a job I had to do, I made a movie. This movie I made with Lego's using my digital camera to take the pictures and then my video editing program to make them into frames. I recorded dialogue, selected music, and I am very pleased with the result. It is very funny! I think I like Lego stop action better than photoshop animation.

I did not make credits for this movie but credit should probably go where it is due. I borrowed liberally from George Lucas, Superman, and Tchaikovsky. I hope this bit of information makes you more eager to watch the movie and so that you will have the earliest opportunity of doing so I am going to post this at once:)

Watch Gunganman!

The result of my listening to an audio recording of Pride and Prejudice while working

I made a new dress for my doll today in case you can't tell. It's in the regency style of dresses that were worn around the time of Jane Austin's heroines. The sleeves are principally made of "pearl" beads. The whole outfit actually took only about a movie and a half to make! I think it turned out well.

I saw some fireworks today!

This morning we got up and went to church. I sat in the control room
and adjusted the light levels for the cameras on this board. It's quite challenging to do it properly and requires a great deal of concentration. I did well this morning, probably because I prayed beforehand asked for the ability to do so. When one is tired and sleepy praying beforehand is very necessary. Not that praying isn't necessary when you aren't tired and sleepy...

After church we went to eat at Salsa's. We had a great water. I order a milk as I usually did and towards the end of the meal he brought out a milk shake that had ice cream and oreo's in it and asked me to try this milk. I took a sip and it was sooooooo good... Andrew and Daddy finished it for me because the sugar content of it was much too high for me. It was very nice of the waiter to bring it to me though, it was complimentary you see.

I took a long nap this afternoon(in order to reduce side effects) and then it was time to proceed to church. After church we went out to eat at Jason's Deli and as usual I had a grilled cheese sandwich, though this time I didn't get a side salad. After the dinner, which was very enjoyable since the parents and sister of a friend of ours were there and obligingly told stories about his early youth, I rode home with Andrew. Riding with Andrew in Andrew's Porsche is very enjoyable. And tonight it was especially fun because we rode by Carowinds(an amusement park) where they had a fireworks display, and that was quite fun to see.

So I had a good day. I'm a little bit behind though on my news because Saturday had some very important events but I'll probably write about that Monday. Providing I remember that is:)

Oh, and I've switched which purse I'm usuing. I went from my smaller and compact purse to my large navy blue purse so that I can carry my camera with me, as well as just about anything else that I want to lug around providing it's smaller than a bread-box. It's a rather large purse... So now I'm taking a few more pictures because the camera is handy. It's just I'm still not used to thinking about taking pictures so I forgot to take a picture of the milk shake... Oh well, I did take a picture of my desert at Buca de Bepo's from Daniel's birthday party. Delicious it was.

And now the time has come for sleep!