My First Video!

...on the new channel...

I wanted to go ahead and post my first video here on my blog since it's about books and the reading goal I've mentioned before. The other videos I post to the new channel probably won't be posted here...so if you want to keep up with them then please go subscribe on youTube. Hope you like the first video and forgive that I ramble on a little too long :)

I tube...do youTube

My first youTube channel started out as a means of sharing school video projects and random videos I had...somehow through a Video Productions II final it evolved into Whitney Sews. It was completely unexpected and wasn't even what I had planned on my project being.

Since then I have gained around 675 subscribers! So I've been apprehensive about uploading videos that aren't related to Whitney Sews. Because of that I have created a new youTube account. It is going to just be me and whatever I want to make videos about. My first video is going to be a book haul and it will be going up in the next few days.

So if you are interested then go check out my new channel and I hope you have a great day :)

Just Noticed This is My 400th Post!

Which has nothing to do with what I'm actually writing...

I had a goal last year to read 50 books...which I did, plus 2 extra. This year I plan on being busier, so I've set the goal at 35. So far I haven't finished a single book, but am currently reading 3. So anyway, since my goal is lower this year I put a few footnotes on it. Instead of just reading any 35 books I'm challenging myself to read more nonfiction and some larger books, because lets face it I still enjoy a good Hardy Boys book once in a while. So I'm working on a little list of books I'm going to try and read as a part of my 35.

-My Utmost for His Highest (a reread)
-Made in America -Sam Walton
-The Story of Silver Dollar City
-We Americans- National Geographic (it's a beautiful book of text and photographs outlining the history of our nation)
-The Lovely Bones (I've owned this for a few years and have only made it a few pages in)
-At least one Harry Potter Book
-Love and War in the Apennines (One of my favorite Hallmark movies is based on this memoir!)
-The Red Badge of Courage

Yeah!

My mom and I finally busted out of the house today! Ok...it wasn't really that dramatic...but since I hadn't gone anywhere in 11 days I think I'm allowed to be a little dramatic about this.

Anyway, we got out and went to the thrift store, JoAnns, and the library and also ran a few errands. I found some new records at the thrift store! I used to buy records all the time (I had found a place where vinyls were 20 for $1! but sadly that place closed) then I stopped buying them because I didn't have my own record player...but mom and dad got me a new record player for my birthday!! I'll put up pictures soon. So I'm going to start buying records again...wow that was a lot of rambling about how much of a nerd I am... ;)

At JoAnns I got some more panty elastic so I can make more panties! Tutorial in case you haven't seen it. I also picked up presents for a couple of friends (a birthday and a pre-wedding gift) and I was finally able to get supplies for the Micheal Jackson/Military jacket project! I'm so excited about it! Now that I have the supplies I'm able to actually visualize the project and it has evolved a little and I think it's going to turn out even better then I first thought! *If you're not sure what I'm talking about for this jacket, go check out the jackets on the Forever21 website- they have a TON in this style*

I just wanted to make a quick shout out...I love JoAnns Fabric Store! If there is one near you then please go in and sign up for their catelogue. It will come to you in the mail and it always has coupons in it. Then today the check out lady even gave me an extra coupon to use on top of the 40% off one I was already using! So basically JoAnns is my favorite place to buy sewing supplies. *Was my second fav but the fabric outlet in Ada is closing :( *


One last thing...I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I read my 50 books for the year. I finished up the year with 52! Could have been more but I got lazy this last week :) I'm hoping to read 35 in 2010. I know that's a step down...but I have big plans for '10 that may not leave much time for reading! Anyway, that's about all I have. Hope everyone has a great weekend and an awesome new year!



*If there are typos/weird sentences in this post I blame it on the fact that it's nearly 2:30 a.m.

Blogging- FAIL

Ok just kidding...a little.

Update-
I went to Branson this past weekend! Fun as always. It even snowed some while we were at Silver Dollar City which made it even better!

While I was away I read my 50th book of the year, reaching my goal for the year! I would have reached it sooner because I tend to read 4-5 books at a time, but I was determined to have my 50th book be a fairly large book so I got to where I was only ready one book last week. So my 50th book of the year was Child Star the autobiography of Shirley Temple Black. I would love to year what other people have been reading lately.

A couple of weeks ago I found an etsy store I really like and I wanted to share it. It is Porshes Place, she sells custom made clothing using vintage patterns! I just love looking through the store and wishing I had all the dresses.

I hit the 500+ subscriber mark on my youTube channel this week which is really neat! YouTube has even contacted me about placing revenue sharing ads on one of my videos. So hopefully I'll get approved for that.

This week's Whitney Sews will probably be just an update type video because I'm so busy getting ready for Christmas...but I will try to include some of my videos from my trip because it's easier to add them there instead of in this blog post.

Another Challenge...

Awhile back I challenged myself to read 50 books during 2009. I have read 38 thus far and am currently reading Swiss Family Robinson and Close Harmony- A History of Southern Gospel. I took on another challenge today...it's called NaNoWriMo. It's a challenge to write 50,000 words of a fictional novel during the month of November. I have never written a novel...or even come close to writing one, but I'm going to try. My friend Sarah and I came up with a great story premise this past summer and I think now (well November) is as good a time as ever to try and write it!

I'm not really writing this on here because I care for anyone to know that I'll be writing...but I'm turning this blog into my accountability partner. If I write it on here and know that people read it then I'll be less likely to give up during the second week of November and the writing gets tough. It's actually suggested to tell a lot of people about participating in NaNoWriMo for that very reason.

So now I've told about it and will be working on some outlines and things and the actual writing will commence on Nov. 1, 2009.

Uhhg...I'm so bad at blogging...

My whole point of even signing in to blogger was to say...I get to go to the post office tomorrow! I love mailing things and I get to mail out two things and check the shipping cost for another. To a lot of people going to the post office is a chore, but for me it's a chance to get out of the house. I think mom and I are going thrifting too which should be a lot of fun :)

I have been watching youTube videos almost nonstop this past week. I discovered the five awesome girls! I started back at their very first video and have now almost watched them all. Through them I discovered the five awesome gays...I've only watched three of their videos so far, but it's funny.

Last year Monday from the five awesome girls challenged herself to read 50 books in a year. So I started thinking... During my freshman year of college I read 4 plays...ONLY 4 PLAYS and no books...at all. I'm so ashamed and feel like I wasted a lot of time on facebook when I could have been reading. So I consulted my 'Books I've Read' list and I have read 32 books so far this year! So much better then 4. (Some of them were audio books and two were plays, but that totally counts.) So I'm going to see if I can get to 50 books by New Year's Eve. BTW I busted out the ol' graphing calculator and did the math and I am about 7% behind schedule...but I'm still going to try.

Anyway that is a lot of rambling and updating...

Oh and I'm still doing the getting dressed thing, but haven't been taking photos because it's been raining a lot here and it's cloudy all the time...almost feels like I live in Forks, WA! (Some of you will get that reference...most won't.) I had a really cute outfit on today and some new cowboy boots I thrifted but alas no photos...I will try to get some photos taken this week and maybe wear that outfit again because it was a lot of fun.

**Edit**
Photo of the boots!

Books...

I've recently gotten attached to audio books. I started out getting them as downloads from my local library's website, but I've also done books-on-tape, cd, and the new playway (book on mp3). My latest project is the 24 book Tarzan series. I finished the first 4 books and was checking wikipedia to figure out what the next book in the series is and stumbled across something really cool. Free online audio books! I knew the Tarzan books were copy write free because they are so old and I've read along to most of them on classic reader but I had no idea that there would be copy write free audio versions. This is great because my library only has the first 6 books.

So all that rambling and storytelling to say that there are lots of great resources out there on the internet. I wanted to share some of them. These can be really helpful for homeschooling, college, or if you're just wanting to read some classics.

Classic Reader - you can search by title, author, type, etc.
Full Books - categorized by title
Book-a-Minute - just for fun :)
The Literature Network - I haven't used this one yet, but I found it the other day
LibriVox - tons and tons of audio books

That's all the links I've got for now, I hope these come in handy for someone! :)

Nerd Alert!

I had no idea how big of a nerd I was until I started checking out audio books. I can get them online from my local library. I check them out, download them and can listen to them for 7 days, then the files will no longer work. I've listened to over a dozen audio books this way. The files can be put on mp3 players so you can listen to them away from the computer, but I don't own an mp3 player so I have listened to countless hours of books while vegging at my computer. The latest two are Confessions of a Jane Austin Addict that was over 7 hours long and currently The Prestige which is over 12 hours long. I've just sat here and listened to almost 6 hours of The Prestige in the last few days...mostly while doing other things like filming Whitney Sews...in fact I'm having to mute most of my video footage on the past two episodes because of the audio books playing in the background... *couNERDgh**

Rook and Shadow Photoshoot

This is one of the possible cover photos for my friend Angela's book Rook and Shadow that she's writing. The photo was taken and edited (hair was darkened and the forest/river was given a greener look) by Angela. I was the model...the dress I was wearing was an 80's prom dress worn backwards (it really was that brilliant of a red). As always you can click the photo to view larger.

A Little Reading

On Friday Angela, Alex, and I road tripped to the Medieval Faire. Then Saturday we headed off to McAlester to spend the rest of the weekend at Angela's house. It was a fun weekend full of pirates, photo shoot, pets, pie, and phun...ok, just trying to go with the "p" thing. Anyway, it was a really fun weekend and we got in a lot of much needed girl time.

Since the three of us are kind of nerds we spent a good portion of the time in McA reading or talking about books. We hit wikipedia and found out that J.K. Rowling (who truly has no middle name) and Stephenie Myers were both 31 when their first popular book came out. Random I know... I didn't take along a book so I ended up reading the rough edit manuscript to the book Angela is writing. (Angela is my partner in crime from the costume shop who can be seen here). I knew it would be good just because I know Angela's style...but I was amazed at how good it was! It's titled Rook and Shadow and it's a great story that has a fairy, princess, bandits, and all the things a good story should. During the car ride Angela talked about a couple of music videos we're about to start working on and we came up with the cover art for Rook and Shadow! We are going to be shooting some of it in the next week or two...I'll try to get a preliminary shot to put on here. So yeah, be prepared because in a year or two Rook and Shadow will be the next big thing.

After I read Angela's manuscript I got all nostalgic and started reading a Henry Reed book :)

There are pics of the Medieval Faire coming soon and some from the photo shoot will be up as soon as I get them from Angela.

Reading and Sewing

Since it's Spring Break I've been relaxing and doing some sewing, reading, and rewatching project runway on youTube. I had planned on spending all of Spring Break catching up on the Twilight hype...but forgot my book at school. Instead I read the third part book of the My Side of the Mountain trilogy, the first book the Shadow Children series, and I started reading Free Stallion, a book of poetry by Amber Tamblyn. I'm also working on the book Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.

For school I have three more video projects, a resume'- both written and a resume' tape, and I have to read Hamlet and design costumes and make-up for at least three of the characters. Oh and I have to finish the dress I've been working on all week. I'm using a pattern from the 60s and the assignment is to make a garment that fits me, but I have to alter the pattern in some way...so I made the waist an inch larger to fit me and changed the positioning of the zipper. All I have left is to hem it, but I'm waiting to do that until I make a petticoat to go under it to hold the skirt out. I'm waiting to hem it because I don't want to have to re-hem it later if it looks the wrong length after the petticoat is done. People keep asking for a photo...but I really want to wait until it's down to take a photo of it.

To Read Tuesday

Since 2006 I've been keeping a list of all the books I've read and a list of books I want to read, which is significantly longer. For some reason while I was sitting here at my computer a few minutes ago I decided to share some of the books from my "to read" list. If you've read any of these books please let me know what you thought of them...but please don't spoil the story for me...

1. Love and War in the Apennines- one of my favorite Hallmark movies In Love in War is based on this book
2. All 15 of the M*A*S*H books- I've read the first one so far.
3. Three Weeks with My Brother- can't go wrong with Nicholas Sparks
4. The Twilight series- I'm saving that for Spring break because I here that once you start reading them you can't put them down.
5. The Cherokee Trail- by Louis L'Amour
6. The Hank Zipzer series- written by Henry Winkler
7. The Lovely Bones
8. The Cowboy Culprit- my former acting teacher wrote it
9. The Red Badge of Courage
10. Still Me
11. Walt Disney- by Neal Gabler
12. Every Janette Oke book I can get my hands on.
13. Laughing Matters: on writing M*A*S*H...
14. All the Anne books by L.M. Montgomery
15. Swiss Family Robinson
16. T-Shirt Style
17. Take the Walk- Hanson
18. Remarkable Changes- Jane Seymour's autobiography
19. Bernstein Bears- Haunted Lighthouse
20. All of the Bride books by Barbour Publishing- they are historical fiction Christian romances. Yes, I know that is a lot to cram into one book...but there are actually 3 or 4 novellas in each book and all the ones I've read so far are really good!

I need your help!

Here's the deal, I've decided to write a book. What, you might ask is my inspiration...

I was walking to class on Friday when I overheard a guy saying "I feel like Bob Marley in it." I just had to look back and see why the guy felt like Bob Marley. He was wearing a black and orange stripped stocking cap which he must have thought looked like the classic Bob Marley hat.

On the rest of the way to class I thought about what the guy had said and about some of the other crazy, random things I've heard around campus. I decided to start writing them down as I hear them and see if I get enough for a book.

So here's where you come in...I want to have a title thought up so if/when I talk to people about it I will have a good name to tell them. Here's some of the title options I've come up with. Please tell me what you think and/or suggest new ones because I don't think mine are very good. So now it's up to you :)

Title Options So Far:
Things I Overheard on Campus
Snippets Heard on Campus
Campus Talk: Sayings One Student Overheard
The Word Around Campus
"I Feel Like Bob Marley in it" - and other things I heard on campus

(Like I said, they're a little lame)

<--a picture of my lovely university campus...which I took :)

Books to read...