8 Things "Friday"

1. Yes, I know it's Thursday. But I'll be busy busy busy tomorrow from the time I wake up until after midnight, since I'm staying up to start my NaNo novel at the stroke of 12 when it's officially November 1st. And this actually might turn into more of a "what I need to get done" list, but we'll see how it goes.

2. Mom's coming up tomorrow to go to the party at the hippie/vintage place with me! She's going to be Cruella deVille (sp?).



Not sure what, exactly, that will entail, but I think she's going to spray half of her hair white and wear the black dress and red heels. I was Audrey Hepburn's character in Breakfast at Tiffany's for Halloween a few years ago; wonder if I could find my fake long cigarette holder....

3. Gotta vote today! This is the second-to-last day of early voting, and I DON'T want to stand in line for five hours on election day. Although in '04 I don't remember it being too bad. They have enough places open that there aren't too many people at one voting center.

4. After voting I need to run to the store, drop off the rent check, and NOT go to the library like I thought I did! Whew, one less thing to do. I forgot I'd renewed the book I'm still reading so I have it for another week. (By the way, I really like it! Who would've thought I'd be such a Louisa May Alcott fan? I'm still reading Little Men on Project Gutenburg while I knit, too.)

5. Once I'm home, I need to cook the chicken I intend to put on my salad for supper (along with black beans, a little grated cheese, and Ceasar dressing--yum!). After THAT, I need to go to work--and close. *SIGH* Better get to drinking my coffee!

6. Last Friday was, well, just a bad day all around. Won't go into details, but suffice it to say that I hate money--or rather, not having any--and was bummed about it. To try and cheer myself up, I started messing with some ribbon I got on clearance after last Halloween, and made hair bows. It worked, to some extent! Both the bows and the cheering-up.



I know I look like Cousin It, but it's hard to take a picture of the side of your own head. Also, this is in my bathroom. It's Pirates of the Caribbean-themed. I should give you a tour sometime...



I made the bow and sewed it onto the ribbon "tails," then stitched it all onto a little bitty clippy. You know those silver ones that snap closed? Doesn't do much to actually hold my hair out of my face, but it looks cute! I have two matching ones, as well as some lengths of the same ribbons I just tied around my throat for a choker. I'll wear it all to work again today.

7. I apologize in advance for this, but... well... I've found myself, against my will, kinda... liking this song. This song that's... by the Pussycat Dolls. *Wince* I know, I know! But it's just so catchy!

(Warning: Scantily-clad chicks, bad lyrics, and worse fashion below. Click at your own peril)



I have the chorus memorized....

8. Enjoy any festivities you might take part in tomorrow, whether it's pumpkin-carving, trick-or-treating, partying, or just eating candy. And post costume pictures the next day!

Don't be scared

It's just me! I'm practicing my makeup for my ghost costume on Halloween.



What do you think?



I'm thinking it should be a little darker above my eyes, from about the eyelid crease to the eyebrow, like Edward Scissorhands. Of course my ears will be painted as well, and further down my neck. I'll be wearing this whole outfit to be, specifically, Anne Boleyn's ghost. (I suppose I could be just a random Renaissance lady, or another of Henry's wives, but I think Anne is the most easily recognizable due to the books, tv shows, and movies out recently.)

Any suggestions or tips? Anyone who's done theater makeup, or similar, before? Help welcomed!

Gahhhhhhhh my face is itching already and I can't touch it! How will I stand this for more than 7 hours on Friday? I really hope I win the costume contest at work!

*Flails*

1887 fashion plate

This makes me so happy! It's so ridiculous and awesome!

Three more days til Halloween!

8 Things Friday

1. I don't know if I'll do this every Friday, because when I decide to do something like this, I do it for a few weeks and then forget about it or lose interest. But it's a good way to update on all the random little things going on, and putting exactly eight things in the list is an interesting exercise.

2. The tattoo is still pretty dang itchy. I guess that's just what stuff does when it's healing up! I'm getting rather sick of smearing Aquaphor on it multiple times a day, though. There are no raised lines or peely bits anymore, nothing feels flaky or scabby. And it's not the "goo" i mind so much, it's the whole wearing a tank top under everything to keep the goo from getting on my nice clothes that's getting obnoxious. So I think I might try just regular lotion that actually rubs in, and see how that goes. Any thoughts? Anyone else that has tattoos and can give me advice? (Jenna and Jen, I'm looking at you!)

3. I volunteer to work in the nursery at my church every other Sunday, and also put down my name as a possible babysitter. About a month ago I got a call from someone who got my name that way, and she wanted me to help with childcare for an event at her church. Well, that's tomorrow, and when I talked to her about it a week ago, she said they still hadn't heard if any kids were even coming. (Apparently this church is mainly populated by elderly people, or people with grown-up kids.) So I really hope I didn't give up a night of working at my real job, where I would make more money, and not even have any kids to look after....

4. I bonked my hand against the counter at work, and hurt my knuckle so it bled. Knuckle wounds are so annoying! Ow!

5. ONE MORE WEEK TIL NANOWRIMO STARTS!!! I've just wanted to WRITE the thing for a couple of weeks, now, and at last, it's almost here! I can't wait to see where the story goes, what Bernice "sounds" like, and everything else. And I'm eager to see how I do when I'm actually writing for an audience, since each day I'll post what I've written onto Miss Greenwater's blog, as her diary entries. Do I even know anyone that will read 1,667+ words every day for a month? And will I like it enough to continue with the story it even after November's over (though on a slightly more sane schedule)?

6. (I just typed "7" here because I wasn't paying attention. It's been a long day.) I'm on Twitter, as you can see in my sidebar. Add me there if you want! Also in the sidebar is a poll; not sure how fun that's going to be, but I was bored and looking at the Blogger "toys" and thought "why not?"

7. I made another pair of bloomers yesterday! It SHOULD have taken me about an hour and a half, maybe two hours, but I had to screw with the waistband because I made it too wide to begin with, then, as usual, the stupid buttonhole function on my machine frustrated me to death and I ended up sort of fudging the buttonhole and doing part of it by hand, part on the machine. Rawr. But! They are high-waisted, since many of my skirts seem to be high-waisted, and instead of an elastic waist, they have an opening on the right side about six inches long, and they fasten with a button at the waist. The pattern is sort of my own design, though I used an actual pattern to cut the leg pieces, and was inspired by something on a steampunk forum I belong to. But I'm very proud of myself for doing the waistband and the side placket all by myself! :) Oh, and they're flannel, so nice and warm!



The elastic gathering at the knee didn't turn out quite how I wanted it, but it's fine how it is. And I like the black and purple bows on the sides!

Okay, part of me can hardly believe I'm about to showcase my backside on the internet, but I'm rather proud of the "butt pleats" I put in. The pattern I used for the bloomers is a modern one and is meant to sit on the hips. Well, my hips are wider than my waist, so for the circumfrrence of the hips to fit into the circumference of the waistband, it had to be gathered or pleated. Hence the butt pleats:



The flash kinda washed them out, but they're there. I think it looks very old-fashioned, "saloon girl!"

These will be lovely to wear under my long skirts this Fall and Winter to keep warm. I have lots of knee socks! But above those, my legs get a little chilly sometimes when I'm walking. Yay bloomers! (Feel free to roll your eyes at me now.)

8. I won a contest at work last week and my prize was a ten dollar gift card! I used $5 of it to buy Sleepy Hollow. Yay, something to watch on Halloween! (I'm also thinking I need to Netflix The Nightmare Before Christmas soon, too, though you can watch that any time from October 1st to December 25th, in my opinion.)

I need to adjust my meds

I'm kidding, I'm not on any meds. Besides Claritin. But geeze, what's the matter with me? I'm all weepy today, the littlest thing could set me off.

First I watched a video of a friend's baby



and started crying.

Then I got emotional over a really neat write-up another friend did about going to see Obama speak in Virginia.

I read a news article and had to concentrate on not tearing up.

Even a Post Secret got me veclempt. (Part of it fell off, but I still think it's lovely, or could be.)

I'm gonna blame sleep-deprivation, and go to the mall for some distraction. Window-shopping for Halloween stuff!

P.S. Matt's stupid stupid car is broken again: $500. This is the LAST TIME we're fixing that piece of junk.

Crazy dancing

Every time this song comes on the radio, I turn it up almost painfully loud and scream along to the chorus. I'm not sure what it is, but I just LOVE it. The lyrics of the verses are kind of lame, I'll admit that. But something about the beat or the guy's voice or the guitar or... something... just gets me. And it's so catchy! I don't know any other songs by this band, and normally I listen to slightly mellower stuff than this, but every once in a while, you just need to headbang, ya know?



I love the dancers in the video, the way they seem to come out of nowhere and how they twist and roll and bend. It reminds me of something, I just can't think what.

But yes. Majorly cool.

8 Things Friday

1. The tattoo is feeling better. Still sore, still don't really want to touch it, but I think the colours are pretty much what they're going to be. I'm keeping Aquaphor on it constantly, washing and lotioning the area three times a day to keep it clean and moist, lest it scab over. (Ick.) Some of it's still kind of raised, especially the darker parts of the branches. Anyway, it's getting better, slowly but surely. And thanks for all the nice comments about it in my last post!

2. My Aunt Jane has always said that if "Mom and Dad's" (my great-grandma and great-grandad--my mom's mother's parents) old farm ever went up for sale, she was buying it, and guess what! It did, and she did! They sold the place eight or so years before I was born, so I never saw it, but they all have memories of Easter egg hunts and family dinners and who got slapped in what room for talking back to Mamo (which is what everyone called her, I think due to some baby's mispronunciation of a form of "grandma.") Jane and two other great-aunts are staying with my grandma and driving out about 15-20 minutes every day to scrape and paint and clean and rake at the farm. And actually, it's not a farm anymore, just the house and about eleventy-thousand sheds, as well as an overgrown garden and a lot of dirt. They sold off the fields around it years before. But Jane, who lives in California, wants to get as much done as she can this week, then maybe come back after Christmas for more, and have a big family reunion at Easter.


So cute! The previous owners just let all the grass die, I guess...


An old chair in the now-empty chicken coop. Don't ask me why!


The trees there are massive! It's really awesome.

3. I'm getting excited for NaNoWriMo! I really need to post a bit more on Miss Greenwater's blog before November starts. Is anyone checking it? If so, sorry I haven't put more stuff up. I should do that before work. But I'm dressing as Bernice for the evening Halloween party I'm going to. Not sure what, exactly, that will entail yet. I might do her mid-story after... well, I won't spoil it for you. But once I post costume pictures, maybe that will give you a hint.
EDIT: New post on Miss Greenwater's blog!

4. My daytime, wear-to-work costume will be Anne Boleyn's ghost! (Have I mentioned this already? I can't remember what I've told people and what I've posted here. Sorry if I've said it twice now.) I'll wear my grey/silver Ren Faire outfit and paint my face and hands white. I thought about doing fake blood all over my neck since she did get her head chopped off, but a) I don't want to deal with it because it'll probably make a mess and I'd have a fit if anything stained that outfit and b) I'm just not into the yucky gorey side of Halloween. I prefer the fun sparkly side, like cute bat and cat cutouts in the window, pretty jack o' lanterns, and lovely dressy costumes.

5. I didn't make it to the NaNo meet-up yesterday, which we have every Thursday at 7 at a bookstore cafe. So of course, four other people showed up! The last few weeks it's just been me and one other guy who was dedicated last year, so of course the one week I don't show up, lots of other people come. *SIGH* Supposedly a couple of them will come next week, though. I hope we have a good group like last year! We got in a local paper toward the end of last November, and had 12 or so people at the most, coming to weekly write-ins at various bookstore cafes. If you live near me and want to write a novel next month, let me know and I'll add you onto my email list!

6. I miss you, friend! (You know who you are.) I know we're both busy and a lot's been going on lately, but that's no excuse! We should find time to hang out, even if it's just to whip out the laptops and write for an hour, or something. I literally haven't seen you for over a month, and every time we make plans, something happens to blow it up. I hope you have internet now and can read this, but if not, I'll send "Call me" vibes to you and hope you get them. I don't work this coming Tuesday til 4pm....

7. I miss you too, other friend! (You know who you are.) I'm glad we got to talk on the phone last night, and I wish you luck in all your endeavors. Maybe one of the weekends you have off, I can manage to get a few days off too and come see you.... maybe....

8. Nothing terribly exciting has been happening, craft-wise, lately. I sewed two fabric shopping bags the other day, so I can feel less guilty about using up plastic ones at the store. Now I just need to remember to take them into the store with me when I go, and not leave them in the car! But so far, so good. I want a couple more eventually for when I do big grocery shopping visits. I'm also working on a scarf, which is... not terribly exciting. First it looked like a swatch, then a washcloth, and now it's maybe a foot and a half long. Pictures when it's done, probably.

Self Esteem (and new tattoo!)

You know how you have those days when you notice every flaw? Every little zit, every piece of hair that sticks up wrong, every bump of fat that shows through your shirt. Ugh.

But then there are days when everything seems to look great, and you feel like a model! I've had a few of the latter recently!

First, I FINALLY got my eyebrows waxed, yay. (No pics of that!)

Then I dyed my hair! I just put bright purple on top of my regular brown. I knew it wouldn't turn out purple since I hadn't bleached my hair first (and I couldn't have a job with purple-purple hair, either) but it did turn my hair almost black, and in the sunlight there's a sheen of purple to it. I love it!


It's getting long, too!

Then yesterday, I got what has to be the prettiest tattoo ever!


Here I am thinking "Ow, ow, ow, are we done yet, please? Ow."

It hurt a lot more than I remembered from my last one! Honestly, it doesn't feel like needles in your skin at all. It feels more like someone's carving into you with a knife! Sort of a little of a burn, too, like a sunburn. And last night after it was done, and today too, it's felt like a really really bad sunburn. (Ibuprophin is helping quite a bit, though.)


Almost done! Just the leaves and colour in the petals to go.


Ta-da! Red and swollen and possibly bleeding a little bit.

The part on the edge of my stomach hurt the worst. Ohhhh man! When he was doing that part, especially near the end when it had already been "carved" on for two hours, I almost could've just got up and said "Okay, I'll come back in a few months for the rest of it, I can't stand it anymore!" But I kept telling myself that it would only hurt (really badly!) for a little while longer, then I never had to go through it again, and it would be sooo pretty when it was done! And I made it. (The part on my side wasn't too bad, and neither was the top part on my ribs--comparatively, at least.)


I like how it goes with my quill and ink pot!


Love the curve of it up my side.


I like how some of the flowers are blowing in the breeze, and that a few petals have fallen off.

Oh oh oh! I love it sooooooooo much! Last night the petals were really red, but it's calmed down to a dark/hot pink now. I love the shading on everything, especially the branches. And it's so great that I can actually see part of this one without twisting around backwards and looking in the mirror!

So today I'm taking pain pills and resting. At least it's on my left side! (I'm right-handed.) Hopefully it won't be too bad when I go to work tomorrow afternoon. And if it is, I can just tell the people I work with that I can't bend too well, and have to go slow if I stock, dust, etc. Other than that, I just have to stand at my register.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Wiiiiiiiiiii!

Guess what we got today!



It's so cool and white and shiny and spiffy and.... Woo-hoo!

Matt and I both had really good paychecks today. Plus, we get paid again before the first of the month and all the bills (and rent) that means. After figuring out what we needed to pay for in the next couple of weeks, we seemed to have a fair bit left over. So.... we finally got what we'd been wanting for months!

It came with one game and one controller, so we got another controller as well as a charging station so we won't have to buy batteries all the time. For right now, Wii Sports is fine. We played bowling and tennis, and then I "trained" a little with the other games. Man do I suck at golf! I'm not too great at baseball, either, but I'll get better.

It's just something fun and silly Matt and I can do together. It's not anything difficult and involved like a lot of other video games, which is why I'm not a video game person. Just swinging around a little controller and playing easy games. Eventually I'd like to get Wii Fit (maybe for Christmas?) and do yoga and stretches and whatnot. But for now, this is good!

Little Women

I tried reading this book in fourth grade and, unsurprisingly, couldn't get through it. I did, however, enjoy watching the movie several times throughout the following years, though I haven't seen it since junior high, probably. For some reason, I decided to give the book another go a few days ago.

An old old copy, bound in blue and well-worn at the corners with the text in faded silver letters across the front and spine, has sat on my bookshelf for years and years, until I couldn't even remember where I got it. Turns out it was my grandme's, and was given to her for Christmas in 1941; I think she was about 12 then. I don't recognize the name of the gift-giver, inscribed inside along with my Grandme's full name and address, but there's a bookplate pasted on the inside cover with a little poem on it, and Gandme's name written at the bottom in lovely blue ink. I'm very careful with the book, since it's decades old and rather fragile, and I checked out a paperback copy from the library in case I want to read it on the go--that way I won't risk damaging Grandme's copy.



I so wish I'd read this before, because I'm really enjoying it! Just like, well, pretty much all 19th-century novels, it gets a little preachy sometimes, but in a charming sort of way. And how can you not love these girls? I'm not very far into it so far--(SPOILERS!) Beth just got the piano from Mr. Lawrence and Amy's limes were all tossed out the window--but I love it so far. My memories of the movie are very vague, so most of what happens is a surprise.



I've got it up on the laptop, too, through Project Gutenberg, so I'm sitting here IM-ing and knitting while reading it, which is easier than trying to keep a book--with small print--propped open. Once I'm done with the book, I'm sure I'll Netflix the movie to watch again.

If you haven't read this before, and enjoy this sort of story, I highly recommend it.

English-y Goodness

An art gallery/vintage store downtown occasionally hosts arty things, and the first Thursday of every month through December (I think), English faculty from the local state college will gather to do readings. Three or four professors read at each event, and the three who read tonight were all professors I took classes with at some point in my college career.



It was nice to say hello to them, and to some other professors who showed up to watch. It's also always good to see the proprietress of the shop. She loves wearing vintage things like I do, and we always enjoy seeing what the other is wearing to these get-togethers.



You know I love any excuse to dress up! The gloves were a dollar at the Goodwill last time I was there. Five more pair of vintage gloves (all but one or two handmade, I'm pretty sure) for 99 cents each! Three black, one light pink, and one brown leather, this time. Fabulous! The shoes were $2 at the Salvation Army a couple of years ago, but I got them for $1 since all shoes were half-off that day.



The dress is from a consignment shop I checked out while visiting my mom a while back. This is one of the ones my aunt bought me on that trip. I'm spoiled! It's Laura Ashley and Made in Great Britain, according to the tag, and can't be too old, I don't think. I want to say 80's, but there are no shoulder pads. The 50's cut of the dress makes it hard to pin down, but I'm almost certain it's not actually from the 50's. It has pockets! It had been marked down and marked down and marked down, and I (or rather, my aunt) got it for TWO DOLLARS!

Fun night! :)

Ladies and Gentlemen

Please hop on over to my new hobby/obsession/story, The Grand Adventures of Miss Bernice Sophronia Philomena Greenwater, Orphan, Traveler, Adventuress! Put her in your bookmarks or subscribe to watch her on your RSS feed. Throughout the month of October, pictures and hints will be posted. Starting November 1st (hmm, the first day of NaNoWriMo...) the real fun begins!

So far, only her profile is filled out, but there is much more to come. Watch that space!