crazyfurries | Entries tagged with life is shiny

Got awoken by a ginger fluffball cat insisting that it was playtime an hour before my alarm was due to go off. His preferred manner of insistance was nipping at my nose and purring that fluffy head off while not actually standing on me.

On the shortcut to work I spotted a snapping turtle basking in the middle of one of the country back-roads. It's that time of the year when the reptilian population takes heavy hits as members join the ranks of roadkill and I do actually kind of like the buggers. Even if they're ugly as hell, they're still part of the local ecosystem. So he (or she, I couldn't really tell) was gently nudged, flipped and pushed out of the road and back into the marsh to prevent their skulls from experiencing tire-crush. For what ever a snapping turtle being angry enough to try to projectile piss at you while you are trying to save it from a grim demise is worth, karmically speaking.

At work, it was back to the hand-crank method as the new motor was starting to choke at me the other day. And the pasta rollers all need some serious maitenence to get their gears back into place. Mean time, apparently I have become something of a source of entertainment and education for my co-workers. The former comes from the fact that I will sing along to whatever I'm listening to on my headphones while cranking out pasta. In regards to the latter...

I think I made the sauce-chef's day when I started cursing out the malfunctioning pasta machine in various methods, including the Finnish, Pennsylvanian Dutch and Shakespearean methods. What followed could only be described as him getting his mind blown as I informed him about some of the The Bard's more.... X-rated plays.

Also, I got to listen to all of my Tales of the Red Panda: The Crime Cabal audiobook while cranking my right arm off today.

Sometimes, it's nice where I work.

Time to enjoy my chicken soup and a cider now.

Current Mood: lethargic

Who wants christmas shinies?

There are three options for christmas shinies this year, those being

A) A handdrawn christmas card!

B) A Randomized art card!

C) A colorful 2 by 2 inch square art patch! (for each person in a household if need me!)

So cmessage me with what you want and your snail mail address! Shoot me an email!

Give me your links to your crazy art, you wonderful everyday weirds...

And please, you post any thing that would show up in 4chan I will be very annoyed with you.

Current Mood: curious

Monday

- finish 10 plush toys by 8pm.
- If toys get completed before 4pm, use extra time to work on scroll art
- If scroll gets completed (unlikely) refabric and start on moar tiny altar clothes

Tuesday

- Donate, while donating also sketch book cover ideas
-Mail toys to designated target
- Do book cover on computer

Wedensday

- If book cover is not complete FINISH THAT NOW
- Work on altar clothes and scroll frame

Thursday
-Work on altar cloths
- Set up tiny altar supplies
-Work on art patches

Friday

- Donate, sketch art patches ideas
- Work on more art patches
- If finished with patches SCAN EVERYTHING.
-Make Mini ritual tins full of stuff.

.....this is a small announcement...

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things~~!!

...that is all.

I should always remember to forage in my own yard for some things for salads. It's so easy to forget how delicious some plants can be in a salad, and cost so little for me to get aside from a little work picking them!

Case in point, the wild wood violet, which grows like gangbusters in the grass of the lawn, between the dandelions, creeping blistered charlie, clover, pokkelidjer weed (crownvetch) and tiny fernlike plants I can't freaking identify.

Four cups of violet blossoms and I haven't even gotten through 1/4 of the yard. What I don't eat, I'll press or dry on a rack for dried flower jars.

BROWN PAPER PACKAGES ALL WRAPPED UP WITH STRING~~~

Warning y'all, I'm going to have an image heavy post, but the good news is that you guys get to see for the first time how my embroidery work progresses!

( A little under two weeks in the making )

Current Music: Garbage - Bleed Like Me [Explicit]

I will never cease being delighted at the look and feel of a handembroidered piece of work.

Just doing work in a single color lets me explore all the kinds of textures I can achieve with thread. French knots, bullion knots, back stitches, sachiko, and chains....

Now if I could figure out how to record dozens of nature documentaries to listen/watch while I'm working I think i'd never stop.

Step One
- Make a post (public, friends locked, filtered...whatever you're comfortable with) to your LJ. The post should contain your list of 10 holiday wishes. The wishes can be anything at all, from simple and fandom-related ("I'd love a Snape/Hermione icon that's just for me") to medium ("I wish for _____ on DVD") to really big ("All I want for Christmas is a new car/computer/house/TV.") The important thing is, make sure these wishes are things you really, truly want.

- If you wish for real life things (not fics or icons), make sure you include some sort of contact info in your post, whether it's your address or just your email address where Santa (or one of his elves) could get in touch with you.

- Also, make sure you post some version of these guidelines in your LJ, or link to this post (it'll be public) so that the holiday joy will spread.

Step Two
- Surf around your friendslist (or friends friends, or just random journals, or holiday_wishes/wish_list) to see who has posted their list. And now here's the important part:

- If you see a wish you can grant, and it's in your heart to do so, make someone's wish come true. Sometimes someone's trash is another's treasure, and if you have a leather jacket you don't want or a gift certificate you won't use--or even know where you could get someone's dream purebred Basset Hound for free--do it.

You needn't spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn't to put people out, it's to provide everyone a chance to be someone else's holiday elf--to spread the joy. Gifts can be made anonymously or not--it's your call.

There are no rules with this project, no guarantees, and no strings attached. Just...wish, and it might come true. Give, and you might receive. And you'll have the joy of knowing you made someone's holiday special.

See, this kind of awesome is why I love y'all on my friends list.

1. Tell me your most memorable, or most favored holiday memory. I'm writing down in the traditional means, what memories I still have from long ago. But I wanna hear about other peoples, because hey, the smiles of nostalgia are awesome. The one I remember most cleary was when I was I think about seven or eight? We'd just opened our presents and I was squeeing over my little make-up kit (which didn't work for beans for coloring my face at all.) and Dad said to look at the ornaments on the tree. I didn't understand what he was talking about, and after about a minute of confusion, he chuckled and pointed...There on the tree hanging from a branch was a little crystal charm on a thin gold chain necklace...and in the middle of the charm was my first initial.

Looking back at it, Dad was awesome as heck. I was however, still young and wanted to know where the kitten I had asked Santa for was. This memory may be warped due to time.

2. Free repeater. I absolutely go into squee fits at getting christmas cards, or anything pretty in the mail. I won't post my address here, but note me or email me and you WILL get my address. I love getting them and they'll likely end up on my altar shelf by the time the season passes.

3. ...I think I need to spend a chunk of today working up an online wishlist, but really, any old comics, magazines or stock photo catalogues no one would mind getting demolished would make me a happy little collage artist. Art supplies, paints, funny finishes, an old container of pastel ends...

4. Artbooks and eye candy? I'd be giggling and twisting all over like a cat in the 'nip for some muse bait and food. I love animals, monsters, fantastic brightly colored landscapes, prehistoric beasts (thank you

camwyn. I saw an elephant-camel figurine the other day and almost bought it.) are love. My favorite book in my collection has been "The Art of the Dark Crystal".

5. I love getting little fabric scraps, my best patches came from when people trimmed and resized their shirts or pants and gave me the cuffs. However, if you find some neat embroidery floss, I'm going to ask that you make sure it's DMC? I'm sorry, I'm just terribly picky about the floss because the other cotton brands break every 20 minutes. Also? I would not say no to a 4"x8" embroidery frame. or any embroidery frame really.

6. Mix cds? I live in the land of dialup currently, so I can't access very much in the way of MP3s and should someone suggest that I used radio to find new music I will growlingly point out how many times I'm heard Kesha's "Take it off" in the last freaking hour. I love old rock and roll, Three Dog Night, Rolling Stones, The Beatles, and Billy Joel are happy sounds. I know there are other artists out there, ones from this decade who go for a similar sound, small independants, so a mix cd of their music would be LOVE. I'd also like to hear some pagan music, though if you could find pagan ROCK I'd be giggling and happy like a cat at a sushi platter.

7. Der amazon wishlist is here!!

8. I'm a foodie. I love to cook, try new foods and flavors and stimulate my sense of taste and smell. I'd love to get cookies, teas, biscuits, savory chips, fruits (dried would probably work best for the mailing) spread mixes or spice blends, with one limiter. I can not eat bell peppers. So before you buy that lovely looking salsa or sauce, check the ingredients for me. I'm pretty well set for utensils, but if you happen to find a really NICE bento box set (green IS my happy color)on sale somewhere, or some really cute sauce bottles or reuseable plastic ice cubes... well *eyebrow waggle* send on my way sugar.

9. I'd love more things for the altar, while god/dess images and statues would be alright, I'd really like animal bones, teeth, skulls or fur. Monster or animal figurines would be loved to bits. So would any pretty or interesting stones, feathers, bits of wood, or scraps of metal.. I'm a friggin magpie. An icon for this subject would not go unloved, if you could find/make one to fit me.

10. Be a gift fairy. Seriously, while gifting to any of my milliways pups (

tyler_marlocke or

command_dot_com) would be a level of truly brilliant awesome, so would gifting a dollar or two to charity. Likely even more so for charity. Especially for charity.

Be awesome unto each other this holiday season.

email me: laughingmanticore (at) gmail (dot) com.

Known elves:

wanderlustlover,

cupenny

Edit: okay, Elves mean people who have the mailing address if you wanna get all sneaky with the mailing. Go forth and be a gift ninja!

Current Mood: jubilant

a little bit inspired by

missmonster's monster paintings.

hand-embroidered, using a faux-victorian frame, calico fabric and embroidery floss!

Just cleaned for an hour and a half. filled three shopping bags with trash Iiiii think I've earned a little time out and about.

Honestly though? I just wanna cuppa tea. Mnh. Nearest tea/coffee place is too far, and bars are not the happy places.

Going to work on altar space and must find the nails so I can hang up my latest goodwill acquistions. Got some shadowboxes for a buck each and I think they'll make wonderful wall-altar spaces.

The other 3 elemental shortbread cookies!

Earth! Flavored with vanilla and sprinkled with fresh chopped rosemary prior to baking, hand-brushed alchemical symbol for earth done in black food coloring!

Fire! Flavored with orange essential oil, topped with dry sweet basil prior to baking, alchemical symbol hand-brushed on with food coloring.

And finally my personal favorite and personal element..WATER! Flavored with lime essential oil and fresh chopped thyme leaves sprinkled on prior to baking, alchemical symbol hand-brushed on with green food coloring!

( And the recipe is here )

OH! And whoever wants cookies for christmas? NOTE ME, OR EMAIL OR IM ME YOUR MAILING ADDRESS PLZKTHNX??!!??

You'll get 4-5 coins of each element! Or just specify.

Current Mood: accomplished

Here's the results of today's cookie baking...

They're each about the size of a silver dollar, lemon-lavender shortbreads and the purple food coloring painted on top of them is the alchemical symbol for air~

EDIT: For reference, there will be 3 more elemental shortbreads coming.

Well, I stopped in today on the way back from the Sheboygan (awesome animal book filled) library. It was a whim to check in on everyone here, including many of my favorite people EVER. (Stephanie and Zeke, both of whom could be said outrank me, but are both awesomesauce people who I admire, and do not read this blog!)

Anyhow, I came in, for a quick nibble and think, and to my surprise, Zeke comes out of the kitchen and asks if I want to take up doing all the baking instead of running the line. I said yes, but wasn't that Steph's job? (last 8 summers running) He said this was a paln between him and Steph. I plan to check facts before hanging around Steph for training.

What it'll mean is that I cannot be a late night girl anymore. I'd have to be in by 6 am (or earlier). The nicer news is that I'd be out by 4 pm most days except for banquets. Mild pay raise possible. We're cutting down on staff this summer, which is no surprise at all. I didn't see Mike at all here in a few weeks, and when he was here he was mostly ah... ...appliance-like.

And not in the toaster sense.

This should be interesting!

Also, I swear to god I wanna eat the chef's special to heck tonight. Everything in here smells delicious, except for the humans.

Went to see the West Bend showing tonight, and get myself a signed copy of the companion book!

The pre-showing event with the cheese and beer tasting was pretty decent, I've actually encounted the Saxon creameries work at the Bistro and knew the two cheeses by the sight of their rinds. There were beers being served out for trying and tasting in little cups.

Me? I've never been, and I don't think I'll ever BE a beer person. I tried the cherry beer and the pale ale and...really, I think if I ever attend something like this again, I'm going to remember to attend on a full stomach. There were some interesting exhibits on display in the museum, like a replicated 1887 camera and photography! And an exhibit on Wisconsin Native American culture with people dressing up in clothes and styles likely worn by their ancestors at that time. Lot of interesting ideas there!

Meeting Faythe again was fun, however, the same social seize-up of my ability to talk and interact in crowds got the better of me again. Stick me in front of someone with a group behind me, and watch my brain fail to think of something beyond a short answer. The director of that showing was really nice, and was completely okay about me brining in a sewing project to sit down with.

I have to say this for fancy embroidery sewing, like Jenny Hart from Sublime Stitching said, "I can't describe how good this feels, this is better than drugs, better than alcohol, better than SEX." I can even manage to be sociable while I have something to do, though I was a little self-conscious since more people asked to see what I was working on. Though, given this was a crowd for indie films and indie makers of shinies, I guess I shouldn't have worried so much.

Preparing for work tomorrow and next week? CALIFORNIA!!!