This evening I returned from the Land Where Internet Does Not Exist. (aka my grandma's house)

On Thursday, it snowed for the first time in this part of Texas in about six years. It also ended up being the first white Christmas Texas has seen in about 80 years, according to the weather/news people. Yep -- I had my very first (hopefully not my last!) white Christmas!!!

I can't even begin to express my excitement and joy about it. Something just felt so right Christmas Eve, coming in after having a snowball fight, making snow angles, and a snowman, and sipping hot chocolate while looking out the window at the snow-covered backyard. It was such an amazing experience. I'm glad I haven't had a white Christmas for all these years, because I don't think I could have quite appreciated it as much if it snowed every year.

My favorite Christmas present? An authentic Chinese calligraphy set, complete with six brushes, a porcelain brush holder, porcelain containers, a stamp to personalize for my own signature, and two ink blocks to make my own ink with. It's absolutely beautiful, and I never would have imagined something like it exsisted. I just learned about making ink from blocks last week while watching Shounen Onmyouji. It's definitely one of the best presents I've ever gotten. It's so pretty, I don't want to mess with it, but it would be such a waste if I didn't use it.

I also got a brand new digital camera that doesn't take blurry pictures anytime someone blinks (like my last two cameras.....), which makes me really happy, but sadly it ended up being overshadowed by the calligraphy set.

Also, anybody here read Bleach? I won't say too much in case of spoilers, but I cried my eyes out over the latest chapter.

~Neko

Sorry, I had to rant somewhere.

So I'm making my friend/roomie Amanda a plushie for Christmas, since she's obsessed with Kyouya from Ouran High School Host Club, wants a plushie, and the only plushie of him you can find online doesn't really look like him.

Anyway, I knew this wasn't gonna be easy since my only plushie-making experience was Tim a few months back and he is not human nor anywhere near human-shaped. However, I got started and managed to do a pretty good job, even with the clothes (well, the pants came out right the first time, but I had to make the jacket twice before it fit) I made most of it today - the uniform coat, the emblem on the coat, the tie, the shirt collar over the tie, and his hair. Took me the entire afternoon. And I was super happy because all that was left was to paint the face and he looked pretty good so far.

And then it happened.

I drew the outline for the first eye and things were okay. Then the next eye came. I drew the line too low. So I'm thinking "crap, crap, now what???" and so I decided to try washing it out by dabbing it with a wet towel. BAD. IDEA. All that did was create a ginormous black spot all over the left side of his face and though I thought it wasn't too bad and tried drawing the eye on anyway, after it dried, I could see just how bad it was. It didn't even look like he had a black eye. It looked like I spilled black ink over half his face.

And then it hit me. I drew the line too low. Meaning I would have just painted over it with white and the eye color anyway. So the whole mess could have been avoided. *headdesk*

But now I have to re-do the ENTIRE HEAD. Which wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the hair, which took 21 pieces of individually cut felt to make.

I was soooo close to being done. Argh.

[/rant]

In happier news, we got a Wii for Christmas (early Christmas present ) and today my mom's cousin brought us Wii Sports/Resort (I forget the exact name). It's one of the funnest things I've ever played. Ever. The archery and the swordplay are the best.

~Neko

I know this might be a bit early, but....anyone going to A-Kon 21?

~Neko

Wow, I haven't touched my journal in three months. That's gotta be a new record, ne?

I wanted to apologize for the lack of art or any word from me in general. I somehow ended up in two writing-intensive classes this semester and papers have always been the absolute bane of my existence, so I've been extremely unmotivated for a long time now (moreso than usual). I've hardly done stuff for my own story, much less anything else. >_<

I'm hoping to at least get some art up once the semester ends (especially since I want to participate in the LeeHina Club's Christmas thing). December 11th is when I finish! (On that note...I'm super excited about seeing the Princess and the Frog. )

I finally won't have anything to do once Christmas Break comes around and all of my friends and pretty much anybody I remotely talk to are going out of the country during Jan Term (I'm not because I'm too poor....), which means I'll have to find stuff to entertain myself with, so hopefully that means more art. I won't promise too much, though. I finally know better than that.

Hope everyone's doing well!

~Neko

Basically, I just wanted to put up a new journal entry that didn't have capslock of doom on it. ; (Sorry I end up using capslock so much when I'm overly excited...)

Well I'm super excited about this too, but a bit calmer now since I got this like four hours ago.

My friend Melanie found an anime store in Addison, with posters, wall scrolls, manga, anime, figurines, action figures, keychains, and pretty much any awesome anime merchandise you can fill a small store with. It's friggin' awesome.

So anyway, they had a special sale on the posters, which was 3 posters for $10, so of course I had to get some. And, of course, I went straight for the D.Gray-Man ones. I found one of Tyki, which I was gonna be thrilled about anyway, but it gets better than that. He's...

1) in human form
2) wearing his hair down
3) while his hair is like how it is when he's in hobo form, he doesn't have the funny glasses or the weird facial hair
4) in totally different, casual, modern day clothes

I just about died of happiness. I can't stop looking at it. So wonderful...

(Oh....Allen's on it too, but I tend to forget he is... )

And the awesomeness doesn't end there. When I came home and showed my mom the posters, she said Tyki was "kinda hot in an anime sort of way". That was by far one of the coolest things I've ever heard her say. I couldn't believe she said it! She's never said anything remotely close to that before. I'm so proud of her.

*joy*

Oh...the other two posters I got have a super epic-looking Renji from Bleach and then Kuro-chan and Jasdevi (on the same poster, with beautiful shading) from D.Gray-Man. That store's amazing. When I start working on campus again, I'm gonna go back and get more stuff.

Lol, I'm gonna stop sounding like an obsessed geek now....

~Neko