Happy Valentine's Day ☺

Who is my valentine today, you ask?

Just kidding.  Slenderman's my sister's valentine.

I don't have one—unless my dog counts. XD

I love that little baby<3 :)

♥

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!  Have a good week. :)

You know, a lot of people are like, "I hate Valentine's Day 'cause liking it is too mainstream," which is funny, since now THAT'S becoming mainstream.  I don't absolutely love it, and I don't absolutely hate it.  I look at Valentine's Day as my golden opportunity to get more chocolate. XD

That's it for this post—I finished another album, and Mom's gonna help me write Hunter's letter tomorrow.  YAY!!!! :D

Thanks for reading, and have one heck of a week! :)

~Naomi

Hot Chocolate

Who wishes to hear the harrowing tale, "The First Time I Made Hot Chocolate from Scratch by Myself?"

It's terrifying, I assure you.

Okay, enough of that. XD
Quite a while ago, my mom found this AWESOME hot chocolate recipe online.  The problem was...it was eight-hundred calories. XD

However, she found managed to make a three-hundred calorie recipe from it instead. XD It's really, really awesome...

I think it was Thursday night, and Mom was pretty sick.  She was in her room watching a movie.  After dinner, I decided to make hot chocolate to make her feel better. 

I seemed to have forgotten I was making a double batch...and the little pot wasn't the one Mom used.  I forgot there was a bigger pot.

I did what I was supposed to do—I put in a pound of chocolate chips and four cups of milk (this was the double batch, so that's why there's so much of everything XD I'll put up the recipe at the end of this post ;)).  When I poured in the last cup, the solid/liquid/whatever the heck it was at the moment was nearly at the top of the pot.

I started freaking out.  I watched Mom do this a million times, how was this going so wrong?

Thinking it'll go down once it's all melted, I turned on the stove.  I had to add a cup of sugar and four tablespoons of vanilla (which actually isn't really necessary; I'll explain at the end). 

By the time these ingredients were added, it was about to spill.  I turned the heat down and looked in the cabinet.

Sure enough, there was a much bigger pot.

After scolding myself several times for not bothering to check, I managed to get the substance into the other pot.  It wasn't easy; it was really tricky.

I got out two measuring cups, one big one and one small one.  I used the small one to slowly put the sort of melting liquid but not exactly solid into the other pot; I used the big cup to catch any drops that spilled.

When the half-melted hot chocolate was in the other pot, I realized most of the unmelted chocolate chips were sticking to the sides of the smaller pot.

After about five minutes of chocolate-scraping, I had everything together in the bigger pot on the stove.  I had a lot of crap to clean up, but the hot chocolate turned out really well; Mom loved it.

I practiced making it again last night (for some reason, I love drinking hot chocolate while watching The Walking Dead, which is strange 'cause of all the gross scenes...but there weren't as many last night), and it was A LOT better than Thursday, thank goodness.  Actually, I found the vanilla isn't really necessary; I didn't add any last night because we were out.  It tasted the same to us.  We'd have to make a batch with vanilla and one without to really see if there's a huge difference. 

You know, let me just sum up the experience with these pictures:

One: Hot Chocolate Starts Overflowing

Two: Transferring the Hot Chocolate to the Other Pot and Dealing with the Unmelted Chocolate

Three: Finally Getting Everything Together and Not Having the Kitchen on Fire

:)

If you wanna make it, you'll need (this is the three-hundred calorie recipe, by the way XD):

*2 cups of milk

*1/2 cup of sugar

*8 ounces of chocolate chips

*2 tablespoons of vanilla (although, as I said before, I didn't add any and it didn't make a huge difference)

I suggest putting the chocolate chips in, and THEN the milk; the other way around might result in milk everywhere. XD I also suggest using a big pot if you make a double batch...like I forgot. XD After you have the milk and chocolate chips in, turn on the stove—the heat should be between low and medium.  After you put in half a cup of sugar, make sure you stir it evenly; whenever I make it, there are LOTS of chunks. X) You can choose whether or not you want to add the vanilla. 

When everything's finally melted (I gotta admit: the chunks are fun to eat XD it's like drinking a chocolate bar!! XD), turn off the heat and wait for it to cool down a bit before you pour it; it's gonna be pretty freakin' hot. XD

It's really good the next day, too.  It's good when it's cold. :)

If you make it, I hope you like it!  Mom got the recipe online somewhere. :)

Thank you so much for reading!  I really appreciate it<3 :) Bye!

~Naomi

The Walking Dead and the Grammys!

WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD. XD Can you tell I'm a writer? XD

First of all...holy crap. XD I just watched "The Walking Dead..." NO DARYL!!!!  DON'T LEAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dude...they can't kill him off...his fangirls will just go crazy. XD And since he looks A LOT like Blake Shelton, I'm just gonna go insane...XD

Rick's officially lost it.  And I thought for sure the Governor (anyone remember his name? XD He said it once, but I forgot...XD) was going to shoot Andrea when she was talking to everybody.  I love how they all after her speech are like, "Yeah, never mind all the crap that happened in the last twenty-four hours.  Let's all listen to Captain Obvious-who-loves-doing-it-with-every-freakin'-man-on-this-show and act like nothing is going on!  Yay!"

Also, that baby is really cute. XD I love how Daryl, the Chuck Norris of zombie killers, automatically is really awesome with her. XD

Now...moving onto the Grammys...

I never paid attention to that awards show, and since The Walking Dead was on at the same time, I didn't watch it—but it sounds like there's gonna be a lot of country there!  Taylor Swift and Hunter Hayes have three Grammy nominations, and I heard Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert, and Dierks Bentley performed (I have no idea if the show's still going or not, so that's why I'm using both past AND present tenses XD), and some others I forgot about. XD

GO HUNTER!!!!  I'm bummed I missed him tonight—but hey, everything's on YouTube.  Halfway through the CMA's the video of Brad Paisley doing Gangnam Style was online. XD

And no, I haven't written that letter to Hunter yet...Mom's been really sick, and she has to help me write it (because we're gonna make it professional and stuff, and I have NO idea how to do that...XD).  Fortunately, she felt really great today, so we're gonna work on it sometime this week...I hope...XD

It's been one month, and I've already missed three choir rehearsals—I missed two because I was sick, then Mom got too sick to drive me. (You'd think I would practice the songs anyway while rehearsal was going on to make up for it, but instead I ate chocolate and watched Tobuscus videos...XD I'm terrible, I know. XD)

On the bright side, Hunter's song is going really well, as other songs are.  I finished Tests 100, and I'm gonna get back into the swing of things tomorrow morning (I'm currently writing at nine P.M.). 

Also, I went to Krav yesterday and partnered up with Dad; my cousin was sick.  It was...interesting. XD At the end (WHEN ALMOST EVERYONE WAS STILL IN THE ROOM), he actually picked me up off the ground.  I was so mad. XD I'm still mad. XD

So I yelled at him and may have kneed him in the thigh a couple times...XD He said his leg still hurts. XD He deserved it...XD
I have to go to sleep...bleh...XD Hey, have any of you country fans heard Kenny Chesney's "Pirate Flag," Dustin Lynch's "She Cranks My Tractor," or Miranda Lambert's "Mama's Broken Heart?" They're AMAZING songs I can't get out of my head—then again, what country song ISN'T amazing? ;)

Thanks for reading my obnoxiously long post!  XD I still haven't gotten more space (not getting space...not writing Hunter's letter...missing rehearsals...dang, I'm lazy this year, haha XD hey, I've been sick for a MONTH now...although I'm a lot better :)), so I'm just gonna put up a picture I drew/photoshopped of Hunter Hayes—you know, since he has three Grammy nominations and all. ;) (And he released his debut in 2011.  I remember the first time I heard Storm Warning—on the radio in the summer of 2011.  I knew he'd get far. :))

HOLY CRAP.

I clicked the photo button thingy to add a picture I already put up here, and I just realized I CAN UPLOAD MORE PICTURES.

You know what this means?

NEW DRAWINGS!!!! 

The Walking Dead + the Grammys = AWESOME

You know, that'd be a pretty cool combination...XD I can totally imagine a zombified Hunter Hayes performing...XD Isn't there a thing where you can take pictures of people and see them as zombies?  I dunno...XD (This is nerdy: I'm listening to "What You Gonna Do" while drawing pictures of zombified Hunter. XD It doesn't get any nerdier than that, does it? XD)

By the way, "zombify" is actually in the dictionary...XD Seriously.  Look it up. XD

Thank you so much for reading!  I am uber happy about the space...XD I thought I ran out of space, but I guess maybe Blogger just had a brief problem; it couldn't take the level of stupidity. XD

Thanks again for reading!  Oh...and who wants to see that birthday cake I mentioned earlier? ;) It's currently my profile picture, and I don't have pictures of my Hunter in a box on here yet—that will come soon.  Right now, BIRTHDAY CAKE!!!

XD I love how they're all posing, and then Justin in the corner is like, "HEEEEEYYYY!!!!!!" XD

Thank you again for reading and putting up with my weird teenage-girl-obsessions!  XD You know, last night I made hot chocolate from scratch for the very first time (my mom got this AWESOME recipe online.  I'll put it up in the next post)...by myself.  That was a harrowing experience. XD It all turned out well, but GEEZ. 

...Pictures shall be in the next post.  Beware. ;) 

Bye, and thanks for the fourth time! XD See ya later! <3

~Naomi

ZOOOMBIIIIIIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi. :D

Does anybody watch The Walking Dead?  I'm happy to say it's gonna be back on February tenth!!!!  YAY!!!!!

I felt so zombie deprived ever since the "mid-season finale." I've been watching Shaun of the Dead all the time, haha. XD

And I'm also very happy to say Hunter Hayes is writing music FOR A SECOND ALBUM!!!! JAD;SLKGJASDLKGJALSKDJTLKJS;RLKN;SUAKLGJ;TLKJ!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm happy. :)

In other words, I'm gonna be sending "Still" soon!!!! ;DJGlkDJLGKJSLKDGJ:KLDSJGKLjdgajg;jg;jg;jgaj;ag;jkla;gjgl;akdslasdk;jg;lkj$%@#$^$%^&$^@#$%3%!#%♥4♣♦♠

XD

I talked with Mom about the space problem, and if I have to pay for it, I might as well make a Facebook account for the pictures and just leave the updates here. 

Or, I could try to do this:

DO8|>* O--o <-<-(·_·)

^That would be Keith Urban smacking a clown with a banjo.

...You know, maybe I can just pay for more space. XD

I've never done this with the computer before, so I don't know if it'll be really expensive or what.  I'll have to experiment with it.

Oh, and guess who caught the flu three days after her birthday and COULDN'T GO TO THE KRAV MAGA CHRISTMAS PARTY?!?!

I don't even LIKE going to most parties. XD Dad went and said that they asked about me. <3 :)

I had to miss two weeks of Krav in a row; the first because I was sick (and I missed a choir rehearsal that week, too), and the second because of a choir performance (that was shaky, but now I'm totally fine). 

As for a choir update, be prepared for confusion. XD
Okay, so last year, I was an alto III, and then my choir director made me a II.  I had to relearn a song we were doing again from last year (I still can't get that freakin' chorus...!!), but I got the other songs down.  THIS semester, he made me a III, and when I learned most of three songs, he made me a II because more were needed.  So I had to relearn most of three songs AND a song we were doing last year...which I learned as a III the first time.

That was confusing. XD
He always says if we don't feel comfortable where we are, he'll switch us around; he says that's more important than the parts being evened out.

Even though I loved being a III, and being a bordering II is NOT an easy part, still, I don't care; if I'm a I, THEN I'll have to be changed. XD

I have a few tracks for my seventh album—around five.  I'm still working on my sixth, actually; I don't have all the completed lyrics!  That's going pretty well, though.  A nice thing about being sick is that I got to work on some of my music a lot more. :D

And I have Test 100 next week...yippee. (O.O)

Thanks for reading!  You all are awesome. <3 :)

~Naomi

Dang it, dang it, dang it...

Well, I've got bad news: I think I ran out of picture space.

So, I can't put up any silly pictures.

JADS;LKGJASDLKGJL;!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On the bright side, there IS a way to get new space—however, I may have to pay for it. 

Funny how this pops up—I was just thinking of getting a Facebook account for my blog.  I'm pretty sure I have unlimited space for pictures on it; maybe I could just have musical updates here and silly pictures on the page.

I'm not sure.  I still have to get it figured out with Mom later on. 

As for a musical update...

I finished another song, "Turning Twenty," that was verse-less for a while.  It's one of my favorites—right up there with "Waiting in Tennessee."

I have choir later on today, and Test 100 is coming up in a few lessons, so I'm gonna be really busy this week and the next one.  I might even make a Twitter page for American Songwriter 99...oh jeez.  Just Facebook, never mind, haha!

I'm sure I'll find a way to get more space.  I'm gonna do a test with one of my blog pictures today, and if it works, then I won't have to make a Facebook page or get more space.  If it doesn't...crap.

Thanks for reading! <3 :)

~Naomi

I'M FOURTEEN!!! YEAHHHH!!!!!!!

I had a pretty nice birthday last Saturday. ☺

It started off with Krav, which was really fun, as usual.  A few people said happy birthday to me. :D (Also, my aunt and cousin made me wear a huge birthday hat. XD No, I didn't wear it in class—it'd go flying off and I'd have to go get it. XD)

In the afternoon, we went to my grandparents' house.  My grandparents on my mom's side came with us, and it was really fun!  I got Carrie Underwood's "Blown Away" from Mom, Dad, and Megan, and Kenny Chesney's "Welcome to the Fishbowl" from my grandparents. 

Also, you know what my cousin made me?

She asked, "Are you ready to see your 'Hunter in a Box?'"

"What?"

She pulled out a really small cardboard box (I'll have to take a picture of it—it's awesome) with pictures of Hunter Hayes all over it.

It got even better when I opened it.  Inside, there was a little picture of him standing up (along with even more pictures on the inside of the box), and when you removed the sixty-one hearts (yes, we counted), there was one more on the bottom.

It's the best thing ever. 

I'll put a picture of it up here soon—now, moving on to the cake...

When I was turning twelve, my mom was able to put the cover of Fellowship of the Ring on the cake.  This year, however, she got country singers on the cake.

Okay, something weird is happening with Blogger—it's not letting me upload any pictures.  I don't know why, but when I click the "Insert image" button, it says "You can upload JPG, GIF, or PNG files," but it doesn't actually let me look for the pictures.

I don't know if it means I'm out of space or what, or maybe Blogger's just having problems, but for right now, I'm afraid I can't post any pictures.  I'll get it straighted out eventually; it's probably just some weird problem.

I'll just describe it.  From upper-left to lower-right, Blake Shelton, Hunter Hayes, Brad Paisley, Eric Church, Justin Moore, and Keith Urban were on the cake.  Mom said she was gonna put on Kenny Chesney, Chris Young, and Dierks Bentley, but it was too small.

Anyway, back to the cake—I got Hunter, and Megan got Justin.  I'm pretty sure my aunt got Eric, and Dad got Keith—although he didn't want the picture, so he gave it to me, like he did with Gandalf from two years ago.  Also, I think my cousin got a third of Brad.

I had Blake the next morning, and Brad was somewhere in the fridge, but we devoured him pretty quickly.

XD

It was awesome.  I'm getting songwriting done; I think I finished my fifth album, and I'm nearly done with my sixth. :)

Thank you for reading!  I really appreciate it. :)

~Naomi

2013!

Happy New Year, everybody!  Let's hear it for all the crazy crap from 2012!

Thank all of you SO MUCH for reading my blog!  I have done the victory dance several times after looking at the views. :) I hope you had a great 2012 and will have an even better 2013! <3

~Naomi