She's Crafty! AKA: Duck... Duck... Duct Tape Wallet!

Hey! I just made a wallet… a duct tape wallet!

Here’s the back story: Rob’s wallet was looking gnarly, REALLY gnarly and he’s needed a new one for quite some time. So something made me say, “Hey honey, I’m gonna make you a duct tape wallet!” I was really just joking, but Rob thought it was a good idea but decided to make it himself because he had “ideas”. We went to Michael’s on Saturday to get the supplies. When we got home, I started looking up directions for it but didn’t find anything that was really good. On Sunday, Rob attempted to bring his ideas to fruition. He hit some snags and needed to go to work so he gave up on it.

Today, when we got home from going to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf after work, I decided that I wanted to take a stab at making a wallet. So I told Rob that I was going to do it and he mentioned a cool video on YouTube that he saw. He said it was the best tutorial that he’s seen so far so I decided to check it out. Well, it was pretty nifty! So I decided to use that as the basis for my wallet but of course, I made some adjustments.

Here are pics of my wallet, well, Rob’s wallet. He loves it! I was already in the middle of working on the pockets before I decided that I should’ve taken step by step pics for a blog post, but oh well. I think the few pics that I do have are awesome! 

...well, as awesome as they can be using a camera phone and not having the most optimum lighting conditions. 

This is the front.

This is the back... which pretty much looks like the front.

Ooh! Fancy innards!

Rob had this plastic photo thing in the old wallet that he wanted put in the new one. Voila! I attached it like a BOSS! Eventually, once I find my clear tape, I'm gonna patch that sucker up!

This is Rob, taking his stuff out of his old, bajankity wallet and putting it in his awesome, new, duct tape wallet!

Tears Of A Clown

Today was very odd. I didn’t feel well most of the day but I knew I had to buck it up because I had to get a biopsy (in my breast) today. Thankfully, I felt a little better after a late breakfast.  

So to get to the meat of the story: I was in the hospital gown waiting to be called for the biopsy and I found myself crying. The odd bit was that I wasn’t crying about having to have the procedure. What happened was, the place where I had to wait was a narrow hallway and I had to scoot my feet back a bit so no one would trip over them and it tweaked my knee enough to hurt a bit. This got me to thinking about how bad my quality of life has been since I had the accident around 10 years ago and how it sucked that I was never able to see a doctor about it to get my knees seen to.  And now it’s too late because all doctors see my knee pain as is a weight issue but I’m like, 

“No, I injured them. There must be something that can be done.”

“Lose some weight and things should get better.”

“Well, I did lose some weight, quite a bit in fact, and there was absolutely no change in my knees.”

Actually, that last sentence, I haven’t had the chance to say to any doctor yet. But I don’t feel hopeful that it’ll make any difference. I really wish I had been taken to the emergency room even if I had no money to pay for it. I would gladly be up to my eyeballs in debt right now if it meant that walking, sitting and generally anything knee-related didn't hurt like a motherfucker.

So yeah, that’s why I was crying at my biopsy appointment. I had to tell the nurse why I was crying so that she didn't think she had a hysterical, needle-fearing patient who was freaked out about possibly having cancer.

The biopsy itself went rather well… well, on my end because I didn’t have any pain at all except for in my arm for having to hold it up for so long. The doctor did have to go pretty deep with a long thick needle that made weird sounds and an even weirder thumping. Even now, I feel okay though they said I might have some pain and bruising and that I’ll have to take it easy for a couple of days.

I think I can manage that.

P.S. I know it's been a horribly long time since I've made any blog posts. I guess I'll talk more about that later. Maybe. 

Day Eighty-Nine -- Saturday In The Park

Today was pretty nice. Rob and I have started a new tradition of having Saturday breakfast in the park. It’s usually soup (or chili) and bread and orange juice. Also, it’s usually after 12 pm when we do it. All the prep and getting ready and shopping for the food takes up much of the morning. Rob usually brings along his tablet and his shinai. I usually bring a big purse filled with at least one book, at least one notebook, pens and a beading project so I have plenty of activity to choose from.

After spending an hour or two at the park, we then go to either Starbucks or The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf for coffee, or as I had today, tea. There I usually do beadwork and Rob plays games or reads on his tablet. There might be an errand or two run, but we usually stay at the coffeehouse for the rest of the afternoon. Today, we went home a bit earlier than usual because we wanted to catch the earlier, east coast feed showing of Doctor Who.

We’ve been so excited waiting for this episode! Unfortunately, I calculated wrong and we got home in time to see that the early feed was already half way through. We decided not to watch it because we wanted to see the whole thing in sequence. Luckily, on the west coast feed, they were playing the last few episodes from before the break. We watched the last half of one then had to change the channel because I couldn’t bear to watch the final Amy and Rory episode. It was so sad and I loved those characters. During that time, I decided to check out Orphan Black. It was pretty suspenseful but I’m not too sure I really vibed with it. I might give it one more episode before deciding whether I’ll keep watching it or not.

Afterwards, we started watching the Christmas special which was terrific and the second episode that had the new companion in it, before actually being a companion, and towards the end, the channel started getting all wonky. It was glitching up mad like and we were hoping that it would right itself before the new episode. It didn’t. ARGGGGGHHHHH! Luckily, they were replaying it again on the eastern feed channel so we were able to see it unglitched. Of course, it was after I cursed the TV like you wouldn’t believe.

Tonight’s episode was SO fantastic and I was very right about a few things including the identity of the villain. That didn’t dampen my enjoyment of the episode one bit because there was still a whole load of the unexpected! That’s all I’ll say about the episode since it’s possible that this will be read by people who haven’t seen it yet. 

Day Eighty-Eight -- Last Night's WEC Meeting

Tonight we went to the WEC (Writer's Emporium Club)  meeting and it was so fun, I laughed so hard that I thought I would die from an embarrassing fart. Thankfully, no passing of gas happened. One thing I wrote last night that I’m really proud of was this exercise where Rob gave everyone a quote off of his Nexus 7 tablet and we would write a story or what have you from that. This is what I wrote. The quote, by Elizabeth I is in bold:

I know I am but mortal and so there wilst prepare myself for death whensoever it shall please god to send it.

And it is this I tell myself every time I don my armor and prepare for battle. As god decides when to deal my death, Goddess guides my hand in battle. Each time I lay my hand upon my sword, I feel her hand atop mine. It is she who gives me strength as I cut through flesh. Her fury blazes through my eyes and I am baptized by each drop of blod that splatters my face. The hot sweet blood of my adversaries rains upon my land, washing away the scourge they have placed upon it.

God may someday send death my way, but my Goddess will ensure that my body will rest atop a mountain of my slain enemies.

*   *   *

Even thought that was short, I really like how it turned out. I think I'll probably post some more things that I have written from past WEC meetings. It's too late right now and I'm so sleepy, so unfortunately, there's no fancy song lyrics/title in the title. Maybe next time...

Day Eighty-Seven -- CoolWay Flat Iron Review

7 am: I didn’t end up flat ironing my hair yesterday. I’m going to try to get that in. I really need to do something with my hair. It’s starting to look bajankety. I really want to get braids in but I don’t really have the time or the money at the moment (though I have something currently in the works towards making that happen).  I didn’t do a blog post yesterday either because what I did was either mind-numbingly boring or something that I can’t talk about just yet. Rob and I met up with some friends for a sort of planning meeting. That’s all I’ll say about that.  Oh, and about the “time stamp” at the beginning of this, I’m doing things a bit different today. I’m starting this blog in the morning and when things happen later on today, I’ll time stamp it as I write about it. We’ve got Writer’s Emporium Club tonight and so I’ll probably be home pretty late. Hmm, I don’t think I ever explained what that is before… that’s something to do for later today. I gotta go now because I have stuff to do.

Later, around 4-ish: So it took almost all day for me to flat iron my hair. Oh, and I washed it using my new ColorProof shampoo and Conditioner. I didn't use the leave in, because I wanted to see my results using the cream and spray that came with the flat iron. The new Coolway flat iron wasn’t quite hot enough for my extra course hair. I think what I’ll end up doing is using it for smoothing after pressing. I also need to try it out with more oil in my hair. Using just the shine oil, which is more like silicone than an actual oil, leaves my hair puffy and not as straight as good ol’ “grease”.  Here are some pictures:

This was taken after I dried my hair with the hair dryer. There was a cream and spray that came with the flat iron that's supposed to prime your hair for ironing with low heat. I didn't like the results, it made my hair feel dry and crispy. Even though this is often the case when I blow dry my hair, I was hoping that with this stuff it wouldn't be. Next time, I may use the spray but I'll also use a leave in conditioner of some sort. Also, I'm thinking I may do what I've been doing recently which is just twisting or braiding my hair to stretch it out and just let it dry on its own  how ever long it takes or overnight

. 

This one is after I flat ironed it. As you can see, my hair isn't as straight as it could be. I've just resigned myself to the fact that my hair is just too coarse and that if I want my hair to look sleek and straight, I'm going to need high heat. I might continue to use the Coolway flat iron for smoothing after using a pressing comb, or for styling. 

This is another view of my hair after using the flat iron. here you can really see that it doesn't really smooth my hair at all and all the shine oil treatment in the world couldn't make it look shiny in this case. 

 This is my hair after using the pressing comb. I couldn't find the hair grease so that it is not as silky straight as I'd like. And by this time, I had been working all day on my hair and frankly, I was pretty sick of it. I will probably go back over it with a quick comb tomorrow or Saturday, depending on how I feel. 

This last one is a pic of me once I had gone outside under better light. We were on our way to my eye exam appointment. Rob likes that it's so pink. I prefer a richer red.  That may be neither here nor there though because I got my mom to agree to do my hair for my birthday! I'm getting braids thankfully. I think my hair needs a rest. I think I'll keep them in at least a year. By that, I don't mean the same braids but as soon as I take one set out, I'll put another in. Nothing helps me keep my length more than putting it up in braids. It also helps getting ready to go out be much quicker. Now I just gotta decide how long I want the braids to be. At the same time, I'm thinking about researching different styles and maybe get something different this time.

Day Eighty-Five -- Too Bootylicious For Ya Babe...

So I haven’t posted in a few weeks huh?

I was ill for a while but then when I was feeling well enough to write, I felt daunted by a duty to properly recap all the time I had missed. Of course, the more I put that off, the more I had to catch up on. I never had a very good memory, so the longer I put it off, the harder I knew it would become.

So today I decided to say “screw all of that” and just write about today. Today I went to see a taping of The Talk with my mother-in-law. It was a pretty good show. Wayne Brady sat in as a cohost for the entire show and he was pretty funny. The guests were Angela Bassett, Diane Ladd, and some guy from some gossip show/site who spent his whole segment talking about Tiger Woods… meh.

The really cool part was at the end. We wound up there during a day they were showcasing beauty products. Of course, that means we got a load of free stuff! We got a $100 gift certificate to a place that makes personalized products (this was actually not a part of the beauty segment but for Easter baskets they showed earlier in the show). We got a two-season subscription to fabfitfun.com (at least $200 worth of stuff), also a Coolway flat iron starter kit that is worth about $130 (with shipping and tax I’d have to pay, worth over $150). That was awesome because the last flat iron I bought was probably 20 bucks. I know it was less than 30.  I can’t wait to use it. Maybe I will tomorrow…

Here’s a list of the other products we got:

Hair care products from ColorProof: Shampoo, conditioner, leave-in smoothing treatment and shine treatment oil estimated at about $100 for the set, maybe more, I’m just guessing from what I saw on Amazon. The retail price is probably more.

Murad Advanced Active Radiance Serum $89

StriVectin-AR Advanced Retinol Night Treatment $109

Oil Free Sunscreen Broad Spectrum SPF 30 | PA+++  $32

Too Faced Products:

Boudoir Eyes Shadow Collection $36

Sun Bunny Natural Bronzer $30

3*Way Lash Lining Tool $22 (this stuff is awesome)

Shadow Insurance Anti-Crease Eye Shadow Primer $20

All in all, that adds up to more than $888 worth of stuff just for sitting through a talk show. That’s pretty awesome. On the one hand, I’m glad the guys didn’t come because they would’ve been disappointed in getting nothing but girly stuff, but on the other hand, that would’ve meant double stuff for the ladies, like the last time we went.

Don't whine about my wine lips

The rest of the day wasn’t so hot. I’m having um, monthly issues that have me feeling drained and a little blah. So Rob took me out to Starbucks for iced tea with a quick stop at CVS for some medicine, i.e. chocolate and a lip gloss to make me feel pretty. Just kidding, I bought it because I *needed* it. Seriously, I did. I needed a wine colored lip gloss because I only have red, nude and fuchsia. That reminds me, I need a pink one now.

So there you have it. That was today. I’ll get back to my daily posts now. Maybe on days that I don’t have much to talk about, I’ll try to remember some of the days I didn’t get to talk about, like the time we went to go see Rachel Maddow speak. That was an awesome night!

Day Sixty-Four -- Come Again Some Other Day...

Well, hmm, yesterday there was no blog. I was pretty much sick all day… nausea, headache, toothache, pretty much the whole ball of wax. And despite all that, I managed to make a very lovely bracelet that I had posted pictures on Instagram and Facebook. I’ve used pantone colors again, this time, African Violet, Linen and Tender Shoots on a bed of matte white. I fixed the coloring in GIMP so it looks much better here than it did on Instagram. 

Today, I did more bead organization.  I still need more room for everything. Just having a big table alone would be a BIG help. Actually, I might be able to finagle space for my smaller black table from my booth in the room by moving a couple things over a bit and just placing it over the bookshelf that’s at the other end of the wall where I have all my stuff. I just don’t know if that would make everything feel kinda crowded. Also, I can’t spare it from use in by booth right now. Even though the booth is only once a month (hopefully twice, as I am looking into another location that has a monthly craft fair) if I got too comfortable, it would be very cumbersome to get all the stuff off of it every time I need it for the booth. I’ll figure something out. But man, I would love to have a dedicated studio. One day…

While I feel like today was pretty productive, and I did feel MUCH better than I did yesterday. I still wish I could have done more; only because the night seemed to go by so fast. I got my nails done today. Hmm, strange way to put that considering I did them myself. I believe this is one of the colors I got from Stephanie. I almost didn’t wear it but I’m glad I did because the color puts me in a good mood. I need to redo two fingers though because I decided to get busy a lot sooner than I should’ve.

Tonight I started working on a bow necklace. I’m going to make a few for sale on Saturday… which reminds me: Saturday I’ll be in Silver Lake again selling my wares. It looks like it might rain this weekend, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it’s just very overcast. 

Day Sixty-Two -- We'll Go To Very Distant Lands

 I got to bed at 5am. Just goofing off on the computer and stuff. Though mainly, it was because the headaches and nausea, which had recently subsided has returned… with a toothache in tow. Ugh.

No bother though because today was bead shopping day! All beads were 20% off at San Gabriel Bead Co.! It was me, Kristine and Liz, plus Rob, which is extra awesome because it meant that I could get a bit more beads than I would’ve been able to. Still, I didn’t go crazy. Here are pics of my stash.

Got some twin beads,
though that one on the left looks a bit wonky

I decided that the Pantone challenges that I do can be a great way to increase my bead supply without going overboard or having such a hard time choosing that I just don’t choose anything. There’s a bead show at the end of April. I’m going to look for some of the Fall colors then.

The rest of the day was pretty nice too. We had lunch at SouPlantation. I haven’t been there in years. Then we went back to Kristine’s and watched some Adventure Time and then Surf’s Up while ogling each other’s purchases of the day. Before the movie was over, Rob and I needed to go home. He needed to get some medicine in him but mainly, the nausea was creeping back up on me and I have been feeling miserable with it all night. I’m going to go to bed WAY earlier than 5am tonight and hopefully I’ll have some nice pictures tomorrow of some things I have made.

Day Sixty-one -- It Might As Well Be Spring

Today was a really rough day. I had a bad tooth/headache for most of the day and that had me flat out on my butt. Rob didn’t fair to well either. He had to go to urgent care because he had a sinus infection or something due to bad allergies. In my case, staying up until 3:30 the night before didn’t help.

Yes, that’s how late I stayed up working on the bracelet I was talking about last night; the one that I didn’t tear apart in frustration, oddly enough. I really like how it came out. Rob says it looks very springy. I used 4 (kinda) of the Pantone forecast colors, Emerald, Linen, Dusk Blue and Monaco Blue (that one is where the “kinda” comes in…close enough, I say). Tomorrow, when we go to the bead store, I plan to get some 6’s and 8’s in more of the spring colors, and whatever else strikes my fancy. I’d like to try another one of these bracelets. I think the larger beads and how fast it sort of works up is why I was able to bear with the double-needle work. I haven’t put a clasp on it yet because I want to get a special clasp for it. I’m thinking something flowery. There’s no flowers on it but it does have a flowery feeling about it. 

Day Sixty -- Here We Go (All Night Long)

These earlier, boring entries are done so that later on, when I’m rich and famous, people can read these posts and think, “Hey, she’s really come a long way…” Yeah. That’s gonna happen.

So I’ve been telling myself that I’m going to stay away from bracelets for a while because I’ve done so many lately. Also, I really hate double-needle beading projects. I don’t think I’ve ever done one where I didn’t end up ripping the project apart in frustration and moving on to something new. All that being said, I am undoubtedly about to be up very late working on a double-needle bracelet project. I know. Crazy. But I guess that’s me. Ooh, on top of all that, I’m using colors that I doubt they will work together well but I want to see anyway. Apparently, wild hairs like to creep up my butt late at night. At least I tried to go with some Pantone challenge colors. Rob says he really likes the 2013 Spring forecast colors. I’m more like, “Eh.” [insert shrug] It’s okay though because what I make is going to be FABULOUS!

I’m thinking that maybe I’m going to be up late doing this to make up for the lack of productivity during today’s bead day at Kristine’s house. Maybe productivity isn’t the word and it should be “success”. I did a lot of work, but then I did a lot of undoing that work as well. Nothing was quite working out and in the end, all I came home with was a 1 ¼” by 3/8” strip of peyote beadwork of a questionable color combination. It was supposed to be one of those bead tubes, but I don’t know if I’m going to finish it or just take it apart.

So now I’m going to go work on this bracelet until I can’t go on and finish it tomorrow. Don’t quite know what tomorrow has in store, but I know that Sunday is going to include bead shopping so it’s gonna be a good weekend.  

Day Fifty-Nine -- Bind My Dreams Up In Your Tangled Hair

So I decided that it’s okay for me to skip a day now and then, but I’m really going to try to not skip more than one day at a time. I’ve been trying to make this not all about jewelry, but it’s hard because that’s the main thing in my life right now. And really, it should be even more in my life. I get too caught up in trying to clean and organize and then there’s moments where I feel scattered and just drift off to space or when I feel ill, also causing me to drift off into space. I really am not making as much as I’d like. There  are a lot of things that I’m not doing as much as I’d like.

I was wondering why I was so out of it all day and now I’m like, duh, I didn’t sleep much last night. I went to bed at a reasonable time (for me) but I just couldn't sleep. Part of the reason was listening to Rob breath while he sleeps. I should’ve rolled him over onto his side. Maybe that would've helped. Another part was because I had a processing cap over my head as a part of an experiment to see how my hair would look the next day.  Not a successful experiment but I know what to do next time.

Today I plugged in my old external hard drive which is 1.5 Terabytes (it’ll never be full), and I saw some old pics of me that makes me want to cut my hair and get bangs. Then again, I think of how long it takes for my hair to grow and I think maybe not. And then I think of how my ends are probably all damaged and cutting my hair might do it some good. I’m going to have to straighten it to figure that out. I don’t know. I just wish I could find the right combination of products to make my hair look its best.

Here's an old pic of me with bangs and a pirate hat!  :-D

Anyway, I’m gonna go to bed now and see if I can get some good sleep tonight. Fingers crossed…

Day Fifty Seven -- Despite All My Rage...

So pretty much all of my day today was wasted trying to figure out how to get my printer to print using refurbished ink cartridges. I searched all over the internet for solutions to my problem to find nothing. So, fuck you HP for giving people no choice but to use your over-priced ink. Yeah, I'm pretty upset about it and left a couple of comments on their site telling them so. I hope a real person gets it and gets back to me.

I think this is going to be a really short blog post tonight. Not much happened today unless you want to hear all about how Rob and I went to H. Salt Fish n’ Chips today. It was pretty good but not as good as I remembered or hoped. I think maybe it’s just that my taste has changed a bit and it is just as good as it always was.

I’ve decided that tomorrow is going to be Pantone day. I am going to forget the fiasco which is my printer and get some work done, all day. I’m going to try to get in all the Pantone colors into jewelry in one day. Most likely it’ll be mainly earrings. That’s the easiest way. Okay, change that. Earrings would be the easy way but I’ll probably go a different direction. We’ll see. I hope I’m feeling much better today because that whole printer thing really got me down. Tomorrow, I’ll be sure to have some coffee early. I haven’t had coffee in a few days so it should help a lot. I’m even going to bed early tonight in hopes of being up fresh and early tomorrow. 

Day Fifty-Six -- Ain't she sweet?

I have a bit of exciting news today. Today I woke up to four text messages from a friend I invited to the movies on the 10^th of March. She was telling me that she wasn’t going to be able to make it because she was going to be out of town but said that she needed Rob and I to go with her to see Rachel Maddow on the 14^th. I had to immediately text Rob to let him know. He probably loves Rachel more than I do… well, we’re about even. We’re both very excited about it.

So far, March looks like it’s going to be a pretty cool month. On the third, I’m going to a back and shoulder release workshop given by a friend of ours, The next weekend we have the silver Lake market, a birthday party that night and we’re going to see Oz the Great and Powerful the next day. Then of course, there’s Rachel Maddow the next week. She will be talking about her book “Drift”. The month hasn't even started yet and I’ve got some pretty cool plans. I feel like it’s only the beginning too. Let’s see what happens. As long as it doesn't cost a lot of money, I’m up for it :-D

I had a bit of special me-time today and did my nails. I used some of the nail polish I got from Stephanie for xmas plus another color on top of it for a cool effect. Sometimes it looks sort of lavender, sometimes green and sometimes gold, depending on the lighting and the angle at which you are looking at it. 

Then Rob and I went to CBTL once he got off work. I perused the latest FMG catalog, circling the beads and such that I want to get in the future. We stopped by Fry’s to get some ink for my printer and then made a couple of other runs. Altogether it was a nice night… until a bit after I got home, but I do NOT want to talk about that. (You don't really want to hear about it either...)

Oh, one last thing. I forgot to share this pic from Friday night. This car is so cute. I’ve wanted an Fiat 500 (especially the Abarth) since they came out with them, and this makes me want one even more! 

Isn't she precious?

Day Fifty-Five -- TV Party Tonight!

So I’m pretty much going to stop mentioning how I start and end my days nauseous and/or headachy. Just assume that that is the case unless otherwise noted. In between time, I’m usually okay. Like there are a few hours in the middle of the day where I feel, just peachy… or almost and that’s good enough for me considering how I feel the rest of the time.

Today, we went to our friend Kristen’s house where we watched the Oscars as well as a few other things, mainly YouTube videos. We got to meet her guy that we’re going to England to visit in 4 weeks. I’m pretty excited for her and want to stow away in her luggage. I would really love to visit there someday. It was so funny because before going there, we specifically went to Ralphs to try to find Cheesy Garlic Bread flavored Lays Potato Chips and we had discussed how the Chicken and Waffles flavor sounded gross. We didn’t find them so we got the old standby, Tomato and Basil flavor to take to Kristen’s. When we got there, sitting on her dining table was a bag of both the CGB and the C&W chips sitting on her table. To tell you the truth, the C&W chips are quite tasty and actually taste like chicken AND waffles.  The CGB was good too.

The Oscars were pretty good, I haven’t seen any of the movies really, but it was still fun to watch with Rob and Kristen, especially because Kristen is so into them. But as I don’t really know much about the movies up for rewards, I can’t really be a judge of whom or what will win anything, but I still occasionally made guesses. I thought Seth McFarland as the host was pretty good though some people were really bashing him on FaceBook. Don’t get me started on people who act so hoity-toity like they are so much better than other people just because they don’t know pop culture references. “You don’t have a TV? Oh! Aren’t you SO special!” …hey! I said don’t get me started. Don’t you ever listen to me? Oh well, to each their own. Afterwards, we chatted a bit and then watched some YouTube videos and laughed so much. I think that exacerbated the headache that I came home with.

On that note, I bid you adieu. I’ll go to bed early and try to have a nice productive day tomorrow.

Oh, I forgot to say that I had planned to make another Oscar Bracelet like I did last year, but I wound up making a few more of the beaded beads I made last week. I have an interesting idea of what to do with them. Stay tuned!

Day Fifty-Four -- Down With The Sickness

Ugh, I think I might be sick. Tonight I’m coughing a lot and my nose is runny. And I have headaches. Luckily, no nausea tonight, but I had it bad today. I finally broke down and asked Rob for some of his anti-nausea medicine that they gave him. I usually try to hold off as long as I can before I take medicine for something. I have to take enough pills that I have no choice in taking. I try not to take any more if I don’t have to. Right now I’m sucking on a Cold-Eeze lozenge. I hate them especially because they make everything else taste weird for HOURS. I wonder how bad the new quick-dissolve ones are. Any way to lessen the misery is great in my book.

I don’t really feel like saying much more since I was feeling yucky most of the day and there’s nothing much to talk about. I’m hoping for a much better tomorrow. Maybe a good night's rest will help.

Day Fifty-Three -- In The Light You Will Find The Road*

So the day started out lovely. Rob woke me up with a kiss before leaving to work. He does this every single morning but I don’t always wake up for it. Today was extra awesome because after, well, in between kisses, he informed me that he went to Starbucks and I have a cup of Blonde Roast waiting for me! (COFFEE!!!) I told him to put it in the fridge and I went back to sleep for a bit. When I woke back up is when things took a turn for the worse.

When I got up to reheat my coffee, a wave of nausea came over me and stayed with me all morning until the afternoon when I was finally not nauseous enough to eat something. It’s like I would get nauseous, it would ease up a bit and then I’d think about eating something and at that point, it would rise up again. Ugh.

The rest of the day was spent trying to complete my to-do list between bouts of nausea. I got 6 out of 11 things done. The eleventh item was added so that I can have another thing to check off, to be honest. Most things weren’t dire anyway so I’m fine with that. We had a baby shower to go to that night and so I made a recipe that I found called Pecan Pretzel delights, but after seeing the price of pecan halves, I decided to make Walnut Pretzel delights.  When we got to the party, they were a big hit. I think this is going to be my potluck dish of the year. A couple of years ago it was the acorns, basically Hershey’s kisses, chocolate-glued to bite-sized nutterbutters with a chocolate chip, chocolate-glued to the other end. They were very cute and very tasty. Everyone loved them. The Whatever-nut Pretzel Delights are much faster and neater even. I take small, traditional-shaped pretzels, place them on a parchment covered cookie sheet, put a Rolo on top of that and place it in a 360 degree oven for about 3 minutes. When I take them out of the oven, I smush a nut down onto the softened Rolo and voila! A tasty treat!

The baby shower was awesome! We got to see friends that we haven’t seen in a long time, had great conversations ate very interesting, tasty food and we did a ritual to bestow blessings upon the baby. I was so happy to take part in that. The parents were so in love with their new adopted baby. They are going to make great parents. They were also surrounded by a wonderfully loving extended family of friends. A very lucky baby indeed!

Unfortunately, we forgot to bring good coats so Rob and I were freezing on the way home. And we come full circle as, on the way home, the nausea crept up again. I am going to put a trashcan by the bed so I won’t have a repeat of what happened a couple of weeks ago.  

*The one of the baby's names means "light"

Day Fifty-two -- Off To Never Never Land

So today was acupuncture day which is cool. I’m really feeling the improvements. I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a lower back spasm (and by lower back, I mean upper butt) and I have been able to bend my knee a bit further than I’ve been able to in a very long time. Although, I was afraid that it might have been re-injured last night when while trying to position the covers with my foot, Rob yanked at the covers, thereby yanking my foot back. I had to yelp from the knee pain that caused. Fortunately, by the morning, I was doing just fine. We worked on my shoulder which had been giving me a lot of trouble recently and that trouble was exacerbated by the fall I took a last month. She told me that shoulders were stubborn. Boy do I know it! Another issue is that my back muscles are pretty tense, as well as the ones in my legs. I don’t know why, but I do notice now and then that I really tense my muscles all over when I should be relaxing. Relaxing is hard.

Speaking of relaxing, I won’t be doing any of that tomorrow! LOL I am  trying to make tomorrow a SUPER-productive day. In fact, I’m going to force myself to go to bed early tonight. Granted, early for me is going to be like 12:30 maybe 1 am (I got to bed at 3:30 last night! I should be spanked!). But I do want to get a lot done tomorrow. Mainly stuff like cleaning and organizing but also making a few things. I’ll probably be finishing a bunch of necklaces that have been waiting to be completed. This will add to my goal to have a certain number of necklaces to add to my collection for the next Silver Lake market which is March 9^th.  I also just realized that I have exactly one month left to do my Pantone collection before Spring starts; that’s another goal of mine. It’s a goal that I have no doubt I’ll meet. Taking the time out to take great pictures of it all is another story. But I’m going to do it this year!

To end this post, I must say all of yesterday’s work to put my hair into twists was in vain because they are coming out tomorrow. I have a baby shower to go to tomorrow evening and I want to look presentable. I’m going to go now and work on a to-do list and a schedule... and try to be done with that before 1am without getting too caught up into watching Kinky Boots, which is coming on in a few.

Day fifty-one -- Give Me Down To There Hair

Sooo…. 1:30 am is a reasonable hour isn’t it? Because that’s when I got to bed last night. I got side-tracked by a Facebook page that had hundreds of great Muse pictures. I found one that I’m using as my cover picture. It looks like they are all looking down at my profile picture. Awesome!

Me in my twisties

Today I was perusing YouTube watching natural hair videos and I found a couple of tubers that looked like they have similar hair texture to mine, which is cool because the ones I had been following before, their hair is so long and gorgeous that I sometimes despair  that my hair will never be anything like that. I’m kinda cool with that though, because I do pretty fun things with my hair with the colors and the few styling tricks that I know. Oh, and the hair scarves; I like those a lot. I discovered that there are several things that I absolutely MUST add to my arsenal. There’s Curlformers, for when I want big bouncy curls and to stretch my hair without the use of heat. I learned that this curl activator gel that I have is part of a line of products, a few of which I would like to try… Who am I kidding? If I could afford it, I’d try it all. Actually, they are so affordable that I’m sure eventually I will try them all. Curlformers, on the other hand, are expensive as fizzuck. It might take me quite a while to get all I need.  Lastly, I’d like to try this brush called the tangle teaser. It’s supposed to be really great at detangling natural hair. I’ve seen quite a few videos with different hair textures and everyone seems to like it a lot. Some even call it a miracle worker.

For now, I have put my hair up in little twists as a protective style. I think I’ll probably wear it like this for at least a week or so, just to give my hair a bit of a rest. In the meantime, I’ll probably be wearing scarves and hats, or just wear it as is if it’s not too cold out. 

Day Fifty -- Living After Midnight

Man, I need to stop going to bed at 4 am. I know why I’m doing it. It’s because daylight savings time is coming in a few weeks and my sleep always goes a little wonky when it’s near.  Almost this whole week I’ve been getting to bed at around 3 or later. That doesn't make for a very productive day. Well, except for when I made all those beaded beads a couple days ago.

Speaking of that, remember last month when I said I was trying to make some earrings but I just wasn’t feeling it? Well, I feel like now I’m going to go back at it. I’ve recently got other beads that I think were the missing ingredients. Now I just need to get some new ear wires and eye and head pins. I’m going to start using silver-filled findings in all of my wares now. Luckily, I found a site where I can order everything form Fire Mountain Gems at their 200+ discount level. 

I’m cutting this short tonight to see if I can actually get to bed at a more reasonable hour…

Day Forty-Nine -- You can do magic

Today was a rather nice day. It started pretty late as it was after 4am that I went to bed the night before. We went to the IHOP in Fallbrook for breakfast/lunch/whatever. It was pretty good and fun to be out. Before going home, I took a quick spin around Trader Joes. I wish I had more money on me but I did get a couple of things I needed… and a bag of TJ’s World’s Puffiest White Cheddar Corn Puffs that I didn’t need. :-D

Later today we went to my mom’s place to pick up a few things. Rob’s coworker picked up a treadmill that my mom was giving away and we grabbed my old bike so that Rob can start using it for going to work. I brought my bag of corn puffs because I knew my mom would like them. Who knew she’d go after them like it was crack. We also got some chicken wings and watched Hubris on MSNBC. While Rob and my mom went to go get the wings, I went into my mom’s workout room to mess with stuff. She has a big hoop and I put it together to try it out. Man I am bad at hula hooping. But then, I’ve always been bad at it. I don’t know why and now the whole hooping trend is going on and it looks fun and like something I’d like to try, but I could hardly get the thing to rotate once before falling to the ground. Maybe one day I’ll borrow it from my mom and really practice with it to see if I can get good. There are plenty of videos online I can watch for tips and stuff.

One thing I did borrow from her is this thing called a Magic Circle by Danskin Now. Apparently, it’s some kind of pilates prop but I think it’ll help a lot with some exercises I need to do. Especially the ones for my inner thigh muscles that are supposed to eventually help my knees. There’s even exercises printed on it for ideas of how to use it, but I’m creative enough to figure it out on my own. I also borrowed some Tazo Tea but she doesn’t know about that… hehehe

Day Forty-Eight -- Up All Night, Sleep (and bead) All Day

So I didn’t get to bed until almost 3:30 last night. The bracelet turned out really nice. Most of the day seemed to shift between me napping and me beading. Rob’s back is still hurting him really bad.  I hope he feels much better by the end of Monday or he’s going to be trashed for work on Tuesday. I don’t have a ton to say so I’m just going to post pictures of some of the work I’ve done today.

Oh yeah! See, I follow this one beader on YouTube, well more than one really, and today she put up a project for decorating earbud cords. I thought they would be really nice as stand-alone beads for earrings, then I expanded it as a pendant/larger bead for a necklace. That got me to thinking that I should make more of the smaller ones to go with the larger one and then transpose the colors… well, here are the pictures:

First, this is the bracelet I worked on last night

These are the first beads I made today,
then I decided that I needed a larger bead to accompany them

This is the larger bead I made from expanding the design

Lastly, here is the completed set of beads that I made today.
I now have to figure out how I'm going to work them into a necklace and earring set

I copied the pictures from where I posted them on Facebook. I think eventually, I'm going to go in and just upload the photos, in case anything ever happens to my FB page.

Day Forty-Seven -- I can see for miles and mile

Tonight, I’ve decided to tackle the double spiral bangle so I’m going to keep this short to see if I can finish it tonight. It was going to be a single but then I started feeling adventurous!

Today wasn’t the most exciting day, although I have to say it was quite beautiful. The sky was so clear that I could practically see individual trees on the hills in the distance.  I discovered this as I went out to get food for me and Rob since he was laid out on his back. The temperature was also quite pleasant though I wouldn’t have minded a little nip in the air.

Rob came home from a day at traffic school with a really bad back. He didn’t know why but I think it was due to all the sneezing he had been doing because of a bad allergy attack that he’s been going through the past few days. So I spent the day taking care of him when he needed it and goofing off on the computer in the meantime. Oh, and a bit of bead tinkering that turned into the double spiral that I’m working on tonight. Hopefully, I’ll have a picture to share tomorrow. Maybe I’ll also include a hair picture. I tried to take one today but the sun was so bright that I was squinty-faced in all of them. 

Day Forty-Six -- Can You See The Real Me

So I missed another day, but then yesterday was so bad that I intended to not blog about it after it was all through.

I think just this picture alone would've worked as yesterday's post.

I went back to red hair today. It’s really more me than anything else, and I wasn’t really feeling the purple. It didn’t look awful, I didn’t hate it. It just wasn’t me. Hell, the green hair was more me than the purple. As for Rob, he LOVED the green hair on me. And he always loves the red. He liked the purple too but he wasn’t very enthusiastic about it. I’ll have to post a pic tomorrow. I washed the purple out as much as I could but the ends look a bit fuchsia. Come to think of it, if the purple came out more fuchsia, I would've loved it.

One of the reasons for the change is that part of what sucked about yesterday is coming to terms with aspects of how I have been living my life has been, to be honest, fucked up and I need to change some things. (What can I say? One’s hair color is easy to control… it’s a start anyway) I can only hope that I am strong enough to make the necessary changes and part of me is very afraid that I’m not. That fear, and a lot of other fears that I have let run my life are a lot of what I need to change. Being hormonal at the time of this revelation is certainly NOT helping. A lot of times, balling up in a corner and crying seems like a perfectly appropriate option, but it’s not really. It also makes me think right now that I really don’t want to hear anyone say things like, “It’s all going to be okay!” “You’re awesome and you’ll get through it” blah blah blah. No disrespect to anyone who feels that way, and any other time, I might really appreciate it… but maybe right now I need to feel sad and maybe a bit angry for a while. That’s enough for tonight.

Day Forty-Four -- Wrapped Around Your Finger

Today was Laundry/Cleaning/Organizing day so not much exciting happened. Oh, except I DID get through the night without taking any pain pills. That was awesome!  On the not-so-good side, I think I'm coming down with something. I can hear it in my voice.

So while I go make new and exciting plans for tomorrow before bed, here's a cute picture courtesy of the IFLS page again:

This is the pygmy marmoset (Cebuella pygmaea), the smallest known monkey in the world.
They're found in western Brazil, southeastern Colombia, eastern Ecuador, eastern Peru, and northern Bolivia and they typically live in the understory of the rain forest near rivers. Males weigh around 140 grams (4.9 oz), and females only 120 grams (4.2 oz).

They might be completely adorable, but you do NOT want one as a pet. They have very tiny, very sharp teeth and they bite.

Day Forty-Three -- Tea When The Weathers Fine

So as I'm still feeling a bit under the weather, mainly, I have a horrible headache at the moment, this post will be mainly pics... but you'll enjoy them.

Because I said so.

A sip of tea after the first  course of scones. Yes, I did do the pinky thing... just for the photo.

IT was a lovely day for a tea party. The first course was scones. The scones were served with Devonshire (um, I could be wrong about that name) Cream, a nice jam and lemon curd. I didn't taste the lemon curd... I should've.

The menu -- well, the front anyway.

I think I tried 4 different teas. They were all very tasty.

This was my place setting. my cup was beautiful

I just realized that I didn't get pics of the scones nor the desserts. That's a pity because it was all very nicely presented. At least I got the finger sandwich course.

It all tasted as good as it looked, if not better!

reading the menu

One of our lovely hostesses/servers

Enjoying a fruity tea

More tea party guests

Not everyone wore a hat. 

This was taken before we left for the party, but it seemed weird sticking it in anywhere else.

My kick-ass outfit.

Day Forty-Two -- And I Don't Mean Ill Like Cool/Awesome

Yes, forty-two. There is no forty-one no matter how I tried.

So I missed a post yesterday and I almost missed one tonight. But I figured, if I let myself slip for more than a day, it's going to be a downward slope that leads to posts once a month and then a couple times a year.

The tea party was wonderful and I'll post pics of that tomorrow, but tonight I'm so tired that I simply must go to bed and I'm typing this with a bad headache. For the last week or so, maybe longer, I've been feeling pretty ill at night. During the day, I've been okay except for being out of it from lack of sleep at night. The lack of sleep comes from the horrible pain in my shoulder that bugs me every night until I decide to down a pain pill or two (did two once... BAD idea. I write about it in the blog entry that I've warned people against reading) to get a few hours (if I'm lucky) before getting up and starting the whole miserable cycle over again. I'm going to make an appointment with my doctor son to see if anything can be done about either the pain or the general malaise that I have been feeling. Even right now, rubbing my upper arms (because I'm cold!) hurts. At the same time though, it feels good to rub them. I know. Weird, isn't it?

Day Forty - For Those About To ROCK!!!

I feel horrible right now and at first I thought it was due to my girly time coming on the horizon because I’ve been feeling a bit down in the dumps, but now I think I may be getting sick. That’s the last thing I want and I hope it’s just a weird fluke and I’ll feel better tomorrow.. I really wouldn’t want to miss the tea party, especially after I picked out an awesome outfit for it. Rob says I look smoking hot in it.

Even though it was a slow day and I made little money, it was still a good day. Now that I look back on it, maybe I’m just feeling wonky due to lack of sleep. I didn’t get to bed until after 2 am and had a hard time getting to sleep. Then, at about 4:26 am (I think that’s what the clock said) I was suddenly wide awake. It was not in an “OMG I can’t sleep!” frustrated kind of way. It was more like, “hmm, I’m wide awake. Oh well…” I’m sure it was because I was overworking my brain thinking about today, not worrying much, just thinking. I set my alarm to wake me up at 6:10 but well before that, I gave up on getting anymore sleep and just went to bed.

We had some delays, like the side door of the van being frozen shut, but I wasn’t really feeling as stressed out about it as I should have been. All I know is that I wanted to leave more than thirty minutes earlier than we left so I can pick out the spot I wanted to be my permanent spot for the year. When we got to the market, there was no waiting and I got the exact spot I wanted. I took a photo of my booth, especially because it was set up a bit different from the last time. It’s going to be interesting seeing the evolution of my booth. I’ve even thought of a different way I want to do it the next time. I’ll blog about that on the other blog for sure. Another cool thing is that I actually made something while I was manning my booth!

I need to make more of these since I sold ALL of the ones I had before.

Our tear-down by the end of the day was a lot faster than usual, and it was nice to do it in daylight for a change. Oh, forgot to mention how beautiful the day was after last night’s rain but it was so cold ALL day, I hardly ever took off that warm jacket I bought. It did its job well!

The sun finally came out so I posed for this pic, sans jacket.

Now we've come full circle to the beginning of this blog post. I came home feeling like a wreck, but this is the funny way my brain works: I decided to search for what I’m going to wear tomorrow earlier tonight even though I felt miserable just in case what I picked out made me look SO good that I felt better as a result.  It did work a little bit, but not long after, I was back to feeling bad. I decided to lie down for a bit before writing this blog, but now I’ve done it so I’m going to bed.

But before I do, I want all of you who take the time out to read my blog to know that you rock. You really do.