Computer Woes :(

My laptop is sick right now, so I won't be posting for a time. It won't even start up. (I'm using my dad's computer right now). Apparently my hard drive went bad. I'm worried that I won't be able to save my files. We took it to the Apple store Genius Bar, but they couldn't do anything there. They've recommended me to another place, but it isn't guaranteed that they'll be able to rescue my stuff, either. 

I'm REALLY glad that I backed up most of my novels and stories to Google Docs, but I didn't back up the edited version of my latest novel, which is a little scary to me, because I worked really hard on that. And most of my 8,000+ photos are not backed up anywhere... yikes.

I've learned a tough lesson: don't put too much trust in your computer. ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR STUFF! Believe me, this isn't a fun situation to be in. As soon as I get my computer up and running, I'll back up my photos and the edited version of my novel.

So bear with me... I'll be back as soon as I can. 

County Fair Project #2- Photography

I turned in all my open class pictures today. *Gulp* It was a lot of work to select, print, mat, and enter all 29 photographs. And the fair registration website wasn't working right, so I had to fill out almost all the entry labels at the fairgrounds! But it was worth it, because I love it so much.

I'm only entering one picture in 4-H. It's of some seed-pods that grew by our pond. Here it is:

I'm hoping to go to the State Fair with photography this year, but there's a LOT of competition. I'll have to wait to see if I get picked. In previous years I've gone to State with performing arts (piano), self-determined (a display about writing a novel), and fine arts (a large-scale digital collage I made in Photoshop). Now I'm shooting for photography.

County Fair Project #1- Photo Book

I thought I'd give you a sneak peek at my projects for the county fair! This is my photo book "A Jaunt into the City: Exploring Minneapolis with a Camera." I'm going to enter it in 4-H photography.

Click here to view this photo book larger

It's Done!

We turned in our finished movie today! Yay!

It's titled "Imagine That!" and it is 4 minutes and 52 seconds long, credits and all. We don't have it up on the web yet, but we're hoping to sometime in the next few weeks.

I haven't posted in a while because I was crazy busy writing the music for our movie. It was my first official scorewriting experience, and though it was a bit stressful as the deadline approached, I had fun and learned a lot. And I had the joy of writing it on my new keyboard!

I've been saving for a LOOOONG time to get it, and when we realized that I needed to have something in order to make music for our movie, I finally had my chance. Here it is in its new home under my loft bed (which was built with this in mind!):

It's a Korg M50-88 music workstation for those of you in the know. And I love it. Right now I don't have any really great programs on my computer, just GarageBand. It was enough for our movie project, but I've got my eye on Logic Studio.... *drool*

Now I need to get back to work. Our movie may be done, but the County Fair is coming up next week, and I have a bunch of 4-H projects to work on!

Making a Movie!

The mystery project is revealed-- We're making a movie!

I mentioned it a few months ago, but now we're actually doing it. My family is entering a short film contest at the library called "Quiet on the Set!" We started filming on Saturday, and we got lots of great footage at the library.  My mom is the main character in our film, and a friend from church agreed to be the dreamy librarian, who imagines my mom as characters in the books she checks out. So my mom got to be a scientist (hence the chemistry), a detective (wearing a trench coat), a cowgirl, and a spacewoman (what the white gloves were for)! We made the books shown in the last post, one for each of the aforementioned characters. 

We had to have one scene where all of these characters are in the same shot, so we needed a few stand-ins to pretend to be my mom. I ended up being the scientist for that scene. I don't know if I'll show up at all in the film, but it was fun anyway. :)

Honest Abe watched us the whole time. I believe he thought we were quite entertaining.

We spent four and a half hours at the library, but we still have a lot of filming to do. The finished product has to be less than five minutes, including credits and such. And the deadline to enter is July 15th, so we have less than a month to finish it. *Gulp*

Here's a picture of the cast and crew:

The Mystery Project...

Here are some snapshots of what my family is doing today:

Spray painting a pair of gloves white-ish...

...a little chemistry...

...and some light reading!

How are all these things connected?  For mystery like this, I had to break out my trusty trench coat. (Which is also related to the other things, by the way)

So, what do you think we're doing? 

Cute Chicks (the fuzzy kind)

My mom's new chickens arrived yesterday! They're only about three days old, but they already know everything a chicken needs to survive- it's embedded in their fuzzy brains. Isn't God amazing? His handiwork is evident in even the tiniest birdies.

No, we're NOT going to eat them.