Pages to Read and to Fold

I've been enjoying some wonderful pages lately: the pages of a new book I discovered. I found it while at Barnes and Noble (I love that place; it always has that new book smell.) and I absolutely loved it. I recommend it to everyone with the capability to read it and understand it who is over thirteen years old. There are a few parts that our younger generation probably doesn't need to read, though they've probably seen worse.

I have to say, this is the best book I've read in a very long time. It had wonderful use of language and imagery, personification, and characterization. I absolutely loved the characters. I was thrown into the stories and felt the emotions of the characters, and by the time the book was over, I was sorry that it had ended. I felt like I knew the characters and I would definitely buy and read any future books by this author. With such an enjoyable writing style and such fantastic characters, why wouldn't I?

Also, here is Lev AC Rosen's website, where you can preview the first two chapters and read them over and over to your heart's content.

Do you remember my fan-girl post about Artemis Fowl? Well, I'm sure you can guess what else I bought while at Barnes and Noble: the new book. Artemis, fifteen year old criminal mastermind, having seen fairies, demons, and more, finally goes insane. It certainly took him long enough.

In other news, I've gained a new mini-hobby: paper-folding. You can read more about it and see pictures on my deviantART. I would post them here as well, but I prefer to avoid double posting things where I can.

I'm afraid I haven't been posting anything of much quality lately near as often as I would like, and I'm sorry about that. School has officially eaten my life for the time being, so until I graduate, this is how it will be the majority of the time. One of these days, I'll catch back up.

Stretched paper thin,

Shansie

Kodak Moment

Only problem is that I don't have a Kodak camera. It's definitely a Nikon. Anyways, here are some pictures. Enjoy!

Wooden pagoda thing. And trees. And a lamp.
Ooh, look, spiderwebs!

Flowers and grass and shadows!

Did your parents ever tell you not to stare at the sun?
Mine did. Hey, look. A tree!

On an unrelated note, I've gotten a little braver lately. I stopped worrying about someone judging me for doing something I wanted to and just trying to have fun instead. So guess what I did? I cooked breakfast with my mom. We made pancakes, and when we took them out of the pan, we flipped them in the air and caught them with the plates. My dad was so worried that we would drop them on the floor, but we kept flipping them anyways. We caught most of them. I was pretty proud of us, and I decided that a photo-shoot was in order, so I made the perfect pancake stack, took lots of pictures, and then gave it to my brother. He said they were delicious.

Omnomnom pancakes.

Get. In. Mah. Belleh. (I couldn't resist.)

Feeling immature today,

Shansie

Dynamic Views

Sleep: that happens?

I decided to play around with the new template, Dynamic Views, a little bit. At first glance, I had a moment of "What even is this?" Upon further scrolling, I decided it was interesting. It was sleek, modern, and very snippet-oriented on every mode except for the classic. I guess that's fine, since that's pretty much what people want - small blobs of information or pictures here and there. I can't help but wonder though, as I look at it, where did my blog go?

Now, maybe it's just me, but I like my quilt background. I'm kind of attached to it, be that a good or bad thing. This thing was white. Not just part of it - the whole thing. Now, once I played around with the design editor a little more, I discovered that you can, in fact use a background on the very top bar, which looks nice, but doesn't quite work with my background. (The crossword background, however, looks pretty spiffy like this.)

It's sleek, modern, and pretty, but it doesn't look like a blog. Maybe that's the point. It doesn't look like a blog. Maybe it isn't supposed to. If you're going for that, it makes sense. Personally, I'm fine with my rough-around-the-edges blog the way it is, but if that's the look you're going for, it's a sleek, modern, and easily navigable template.

All in all? It's a nice addition. It has all sorts of fun features. You could use it for just about anything, from a portfolio-style site to an online magazine. I tip my hat to you, blogger. I like this idea, even if I won't be using it on this blog.

I'm sure there are other cool things you can do with it, but I didn't take the time to find all the quirks of it. I finally started to feel a little tired - and I'm taking that chance to go to bed. And with that, good night.

I keep forgetting to sign these,

Shansie