Tornado Season

He was dozing in and out of consciousness in his backyard hammock one afternoon, drinking some iced tea and breathing in the hot thick air. He lazily swatted at a fly buzzing around his face, the slight annoyance making him feel jittery for some reason... He couldn't quite put his finger on it. He kicked off his flip flops, one of them knocking over a yard flamingo and attempted to doze off again.
That's when She appeared out of nowhere. She stormed in through the front door with the key she knew was under the mat waiting for her, and propped the door open. To add insult to injury, she pleasurably let a chilly wind blow in behind her.
      The commotion caused Him to get tangled in the hammock, scrambling to get back to the house. He came rushing in from the back door yelling, "Oy! What gives??" and slowly paled when he saw who it was. "Ooooh no. Not this time doll! You saw what happened last March when I took over the joint. Do you really want to relive that little humiliation of yours all over again?"
     Her cheeks grew a scarlet red and her eyes flashed. He observed several leaves falling outside through his living room window. She began to stalk towards him. "You've gotten pudgy!" She exclaimed, nursing her injured pride by dishing some back. "What happened to that Romanesque figure? It's been a hard life with all that lazing around, yes?? Eating all that ice cream? Napping by poolside? You'll need a rest from all that rest! " With each exclamation segments of the bushes outside were stripped of their green and replaced with the identical color of her heated cheeks against her very pale face.
     He rubbed his bare, chubby arms. "What's it to you? You never stick around when 'Big Daddy' comes back! Can't handle the heat, eh?. Where do you go and hide, princess? Just who do you think you are?? You know the kids like me more than you anyway, you cold-hearted witch! You can't just come in here uninvited!" He was gibbering by now, nervously trying to humiliate without provocation and clutching at any hope in which She might be too ashamed to do what she came to do. He wasn't doing a very good job of it, because with each insult the temperature dropped several degrees.
   She straightened to Her full height, which was reasonably tall especially with her austere bun piled high on top of Her head. She replied with a snap as she straightened her jacket. "It doesn't matter who they like. I'm taking them anyway! They need to be at school getting their education, not playing outside all day!" She shuddered, more at the thought than at the decreasing temperature.
    He was thinking fast, and desperately. He glanced at her, and noticed She was looking more and more at home with each leaf that fell and each flower that died. Then the window caught the corner of his eye. He shoved Her aside and stomped to His wide open front door. "What the hell are you doing to my yard?!?"
    A gale of wind forcefully knocked Him on his back. Furiously, He tripped her and pretty soon they were scrambling about the room, kicking and shoving, throwing punches and scratching. The wind surged against the house, rattling the windows threateningly. They fought on and on, more and more dangerously, too enraged to hear the mournful siren from somewhere in town; too absorbed in the great fight to pay attention to the booming thunder that literally shook the entire house. Trees were being uprooted here and there, one particularly large one happened to fall smartly on His car causing the alarm to go off. The sound competed to be heard through the deadly storm.
    He fought courageously, but He was no match. He had gotten out of shape during the last 6 months and 'fighting' Her was almost humorous. She was there to kill. Desperately, He hit her on the head with a poker he grabbed from the now roaring fire, causing Her to stumble back and bolted out the door.
    The ground was blanketed in snow, and the trees were mournfully bare. Not a single lovely bird was singing, not a single annoying insect rushed to get inside. He heard some jingling and searched hopefully for the ice cream truck, but was disappointed to see it was a sleigh with bells coming down the neighboring hill. He limped down the pathway without making foot prints. He knew He had been defeated.
To be continued...

I wanna win! :-)

http://www.lukasvandyke.com/?p=5400

10 tips to becoming a Reader.

If you're like me, a college student bogged down with many reading assignments, just the thought of reading for pleasure turns you away. When you finally do get around to being inspired to delve into great novel, simply the act of picking a book is a great task. How do you know what will be good? And when you finally get a book that is seemingly interesting, when do you actually have time to read it? Something so sad for me to see is that most of my friends aren't 'Readers'. So I have tips on "How to gain a book in 10 days."

I took the liberty of adding this image... NOT because I was trying to "Make it work", or because I couldn't think of another picture to put up, or because I thought messing up the original poster from the movie would be funny to myself and my readers, but because... Umm....I think Matthew McConaughy reads books when he's not too busy being shirtless or being a Grade A Douchebag. He's a great example to us all. Seriously.

Uh... I mean 10 tips to becoming a reader :-)

1. Establish what your favorite genre is, so the search will be a little easier.
Examples: Fiction, Mystery, Sci Fi, etc.

2. You CAN judge a book by its cover. Obviously if you're looking for a thriller, you're not going to reach for the pink book covered with glitter. 

3. After reading the back of a book, open it up and randomly read an excerpt. You never know if a book is unreadable due to complicated sentence structure. There's a difference
between reading for pleasure and reading to impress people because you read complicated/deep/(boring) books.

4. Be aware that you're going to catch attention, and probably a conversation. People reading in public is becoming more and more uncommon, books having been replaced with iPods or texting. Be ready to explain what you're reading...And to back up that pink glitter book that you secretly chose. ;-)

5. Find time to read. If you're a girl, take your book in your purse. A guy can put a small book in his pocket, or a larger one in his laptop bag or car. Read your book when waiting in line, on your lunch break, or at the DMV in the valley.

6. Don't be discouraged if your book turns out to be boring, inappropriate, or slow. Get another one! Remember, you can never have too many library cards. (I myself have 4, in two different states)

7. After establishing your favorite genre, play around with others. If you don't know where to start, get recommendations from any Reader friends you have.

8. You CAN read more than one book at a time. Sometimes you're just in the mood for something else.

9. Try reading various series. Knowing there's more than one book with the characters you've grown to love is awesome!!

10. Read a book that a movie you like is based on, and compare with how sucky the movie is now that you know better.


Have fun with your new hobby! You now have the power to recommend great literature to others, encouraging them to become Readers as well. You have become subliminally smarter in grammar, spelling, and writing.  Your texts and IMs will become readable, as " t!yp!ng lyk3 dihs " is loathsome to the Reader.

Lianna's recommendations: (limited to fiction and slightly feminine, as that's my favorite category and I AM a girl)
-The Princess Bride (Yes, the book is every bit as good as the movie)
- The Belgariad
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, with a second helping of Through the Looking Glass
- Arabian Nights
- The Lord of the Rings (Yes, they ARE that good)
-Anything Jane Austen

Because my mind refuses to conform...

I was at work mopping the floor. One of my least favorite duties; since like, forever. Seriously.
However, my spirits will not be dampened! (Wow, no pun intended) I manage to change the channel "up there", letting my mind stray where it will.

It landed on the actual action of Mopping... (back, forth, back forth) A co-worker came by and asked me if I was stressed. Then came the retort: "Why would I be stressed? I'm mopping a floor."
The repetitive strokes on the floor set the tempo of the amount of disinterested questions coming to my attention. Who discovered the act of mopping? What is the first thing that was ever mopped up? And more importantly, did anyone care enough? I was fading as it is... And after skimming over a very informative "DUH"! Wikipedia article about the Art of Mopping (Said sarcastically, mind you!), I still hate doing it! :-P
So, to laugh in the face of mopping, here are a couple strips. Enjoy laughing at my expense. :-)

Congratulations, babe :-)

My Sweet Sixteen

My very dear friend Rebecca Bausum (Soon to be 'Marshall'!) is getting married today. She is my oldest friend... we went to elementary school together! I remember my first encounter with her: We would both wear Princess Leah buns on our heads, and fight over who was the real Princess Leah. (Oh and Becca, TOTALLY me. Just sayin' :-)
After we got over our "differences", we became best of friends! We'd have special weekends where she'd come over on Friday night to sleep over, and (What the heck!) my mom would let her stay Saturday night as well! Which was a HUGE deal, by the way. We had so much fun, squeezing ourselves in my closet with the Mini TV, eating ice cream with Indiana Jones. We'd also go on bike rides and pass cute neighbor boys that we named Nigel Pinopscott. Mid-afternoon we'd usually kick each other's butt on the Super Nintendo, or go exploring in the fields. We'd end our days playing ping pong in the project room, while listening to Gretchen Wilson's 'Redneck Woman' over and over and over again. Other weekends I'd go over to her house, playing hide and seek in the dark at the church her dad pastored and getting in trouble for locking the younger tag-along neighbor's daughter out :-/. We so wanted to be like our older sisters Laura and Suzy (Who were best friends as well) and decided to take up our own language...Which meant substituting various names so we could talk freely. Our favorite people to talk about were 'Banana', 'Eyeshadow', 'Chalk', 'JD' and 'Eddy'. 
Then, when I was a freshman in high school, she moved to Germany...which was heartbreaking. We lost communication for 4 years... But last year, my mom went to her older sister's wedding and called me. I answered, and it was Becca! Apparently, we both haven't changed a bit ;-)

Mom and Becca

Over 12 years we've known each other, and we've laughed together, cried together, mused together, planned together, and sighed together. Rebecca, congratulations on your marriage! I'm so extremely blessed to witness God giving you such a marvelous gift and calling. I pray that you both serve each other with love and patience, and that I will soon have some 'nieces or nephews'!!! :-D

Summary of our Friendship :-)

Monkey see, monkey do

This morning on my way to my 'work-through-school' job (El Pollo Loco) I heard on the radio about a flight attendant that got hit in the head with a passenger's luggage. The attendant then demanded an apology, but the passenger thought telling him to "Eff off" was a better response. The attendant then decided to cope with his anger by blowing up the emergency slide, taking a ride with a couple stolen beers, and drove off. The police found him back at his house.

I entered work fantasizing about my escape (A little early as I usually schedule my fantasized escapes later on in the morning)  and ended up having a terrible morning. You see, I came to Atlanta hoping only to pick up a couple shifts until I could get something else, but got roped into training to be a manager. I am (or was) very very close to getting certified; but there was still a LOT to learn. I realized that I was beating around the bush with these people, and by the time I would finally be certified I would be going back to life and school in California... And there is NO WAY I am working full time along with school! God granted me the courage and I realized I need to be more active in trusting HIM in everything! So now i'm "stepping down". But I still have a job! :-)

Compliments

Have you ever felt that some things deserve a compliment? Let me put out a disclaimer that I am not an attention seeker, and 85% of the time I'm horrible at graciously accepting a compliment... But doggone it, sometimes things just need to be acknowledged! Example: my new necklace charms. My oldest sister and I discovered this area of booths by a theater and found an artist that soldered glass to make charms. I actually ignored the price tags (rare) and got some. These were appropriate in representing the classic Lianna, as music is a God-given talent and Reading Railroad was my favorite property on Monopoly (Due to the fact that it had "Reading" in it ;-) I haven't gotten a single compliment on them. C'mon people, they're super cool!! 

It does put things into perspective when it comes to preference... The saying "One man's trash is another man's treasure" couldn't be more accurate. The root of a true compliment is the granter's desire to share approval and appreciation with the receiver. It's a bonding technique that is extremely special when sincere. 

It's a tragedy that compliments can so easily become cheapened...The Automatic Smile N' Nod tends to be the generic. I'm not saying that I haven't done it... As a matter of fact, I've caught myself several times (Yikes). I've even gone as far as to catch myself and take a second look (really paying attention) and turned the insincere to a genuine remark and appreciation. Whether the recipient can tell or not, it still makes me feel as though I may have brightened the day of someone else. :-)

Welcome! Fáilte! Welkom!

Hi!!!

So I broke down and got a blog. I say "break down", because I've overcome many barriers that were preventing me in the first place. I hope you enjoy and are able to keep up with me, as I tend to be in many different places throughout a "normal" year!