Spring.

I love spring. <3

I'm not dead!

In fact, I'm alive! I just haven't posted in a while... sorry!

SCHOOL. TOMORROW.

Well, I suppose I'm going back to school tomorrow, so I should say something about it.

...

I'M SOOOO EXCITED TO BE IN VARSITY CHOIR. OH MY GOSH. IT'S FIRST PERIOD, AND IT'LL BE THE BEST CLASS EVERRRRR. AHHHH!

Well, got that part out of the way. :)

That's pretty much the best part of my schedule. The rest is quite boring, to be honest. Geometry, LEAP English, Speech... blah. But I love going back to school with all my new clothes and supplies anld stuff.

Not to mention CHOIR!

Speaking of choir, I've got All Region Choir auditions comming up again pretty soon. *SCARY*. Somehow I made it last year, and I've got my music WAAY ahead of time this year, so I'm way more prepared. Hopefully I'll make it again! Wish me luck!

I suppose I'll post more about school when the first day is over and through.

(:

Iron Chef Texas!

--Last Summer--

IRON CHEF TEXAS, BATTLE STRAWBERRY!

The three judges! (My mom, my friend Eric, and Ashley!)

Lizzey's very lemony strawberry smoothie

Lizzey's strawberry s'mores... with feta cheese?

My layered strawberry fudge sunade... with shortcake on top.

My strawberry almond salad grilled chicken sandwich!

Eric eating his food, my mom judging.

This was last summer's I.C.T.- Battle Strawberry! Lizzey won by one point. So, of course, we HAD to do a re-match. (Plus, it was just too dang fun!)

...

A couple weeks ago, Lizzey and I did our second annual Iron Chef Texas! (Second formal I.C.T., I should say. We did one 3 years ago -battle chocolate- yet it didn't go too well...)

Anyway, with my defeat in last year's battle, I was determined to win this year!

Unfortunatley, however, we didn't manage to get as many pictures this year as we did last year... :( So, I'll use what we've got and explain what's going on the best I can!

IRON CHEF TEXAS, BATTLE CITRUS!

Not sure what Lizzey's doing here. I think she's making her ice cream. We didn't get any pictures of it, though, but it was really good- like an orange dream-cicle, but in the form of ice cream. Fabulous.

...

Oh wait, she's zesting her lemon.

Not sure what I'm doing here either. But note the Harry Potter Clue in the background. Best game ever. We played after I.C.T. - Lizzey won as Luna Lovegood.

Lizzey's AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING lemon alfredo pasta. SOO good. Oh my goodness, I'm hungry just looking at it.

The one picture we got of my lemon cupcakes... I also put lemon whipped cream on top. It was super tasty.

OVEN MITS!

My orange chicken stir fry. It looks really lame here. But it was good, I promise. (: I plated it pretty too, but no pictures of that, either! If you look in the cupcake picture, though, you'll see me putting rice on plates. That was for the stir fry.

It stinks that we didn't get as many pictures as last year... trust me, I would have posted a LOT more. But it's all right.

Anyway, if you didn't catch it, Lizzey made orange ice cream and lemon alfredo pasta; I made orange chicken stir fry and lemon cupcakes.

And the winner was...

LIZZEY! ... again! This time by two points. Two dang points! (But her food was simply amazing, I must say.)

And I'm pretty sure I won battle chocolate. Trust me, the food there was no good (chocolate eggs...). Putting a single piece of Hershey's chocolate on plain old toast scored an easy victory for me there.

Ah well, there's always next year! And there shall be a next year! So much fun!

Hilarious Hogwarts song.

My new phone is awesome.

Please. Tip. Please.

So, whenever you see those banners up for Sonic Fundraisers for organizations of some sort- band, choir, churches, etc... Perhaps you think something along the lines of the following, "Oh dear. Those dang, un-trained kids are working there today. I will DEFINITELY not be stopping at Sonic."

Or, if you do stop there, you don't tip the kids car-hopping you. "All they're doing is just bringing us our food. How hard is THAT? I'm not going to tip them. And besides. It takes them FOREVER to get our change."

Well... I worked at Sonic yesterday for a Choir fundraiser. Car-hopping is not at all as easy as it sounds. (We didn't actually cook the food, though. The Sonic employees did that. I figure it's a health-code thing.) The job description DOES seem easy -I mean how HARD could it be??- but by the time I was done with my 3 hour shift, I was sweaty, exhausted, and achy.

Let me explain. I was on my feet for three entire hours, waiting for orders to be completed, drinks to be poured, and receipts to print in a hot, crowded, noisy kitchen.

And that's not all. After that, I had to juggle mints, straws, drinks, and bags of food on heavy trays that I carried it to the cars; give the customer what they ordered, collect their money, run back inside to collect change, and deliver the change to the customer (and hope that they give a tip!)... Of course, all this happens when you're supposed to be "bubbly" and "smiley". *harder than it looks!*

Needless to say, it was a lot of running around and lifting - espicially when I had to give the guy in the monster truck his meal. As for the change, there was one lady making the change in the kitchen, and the only reason it takes "forever" is because kids are throwing money and recipits at her left and right... it could get very busy.

Phew. I'm tired just thinking about this!

So, please, please, please. Tip the poor volunteering childeren. Now that I've "been there, done that," I know that it's not just a silly "buy cookie dough", easy kind of fundraiser. It's actually hard work. Give an extra dollar, or even a few cents next time you see a fundraiser going on at Sonic. It's the least you can do.

Looking back, though, it was really fun. But I'm DEFINETLY not looking to work at Sonic anytime soon!