> recent entries
> calendar
> friends
> My Website
> profile

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

xanthvamp

8:57p So... tired. I'm sick. Again. Good times. It's worse this week, though not bronchitis worse. Just "all I want to do all the time is sleep" worse, slightly achey, headaches, sore throat, some boogers. Good times. And, yes, I got it from Devin again. She's stuffy and coughing a little, but otherwise you'd never know she was even sick. I think she's adapting ;). So... these sweet Chex mixes ALL look good o_O. Urge to experiment... rising... ;). I also really, REALLY wanna try Amity's pumpkin cookies. Like WOAH. AND I gotta get Mike to give me his Eggnog cookie recipe. Devin could not stop eating them! :) Mmm. Nom. Right... so... update? ;) Lessie... We never did make it to that playdate last Sun, as I'd woken up sick myself the next day. The week I just worked. There was snow and the driving was not only ok, I got home in record times! I90 was EMPTY, of both cars and snow ;). Belly danced Thurs. Devin was adorable. She told me stories, "cooked" me water soup, found the remote and her paci, changes her dolly's "poopie diaper", SO much cute stuff! Smart too :). Saturday Albie, Devin and I went to Navy Pier and the Winter Wonderfest. Devin slept in till NINE so we skipped her nap. We didn't pay for the wristband cause I thought Devin was a little too young to understand things like lines and time limits, but we decorated a sugar cookie, had cinnamon nuts (turns out Devin likes cinnamon!), had hot dogs, and wandered the whole Pier. We made Chocolate Moose with his little friend Vanilla Bear (or Cocoa and Marchmallow, hehe) at the Build-A-Bear. I found $10 Indian embroidered skirts, *gorgeous*. We played in the Children's Museum shop for a long time. It was a blast. We WILL be going back. Sunday after a lazy morning we helped Mike bake more cookies then I've ever baked ever ;). It was fun, Devin had kids to play with and we have a new fave - Eggnog cookies! Yesterday I smashed my thumb at work, but it's ok. Afer work I went mitten shopping. I found Gordini mittens at TJ MAxx for $10! They are CRAZY warm, so that's good for the walk into work in the AM o_O. Devin was being a pill, and when we got home I was ready to toss her out the window when she poked her head around the corner and said "I love you!!" really loud then ran into the bedroom! I about died, then chased her down and tackled her with kisses :). Kid knows how to make up. Today was quiet. I woke up yesterday with that NEW sore throat, so I'm just tired. Did a little cleaning... much needed, as it's hard for me to clean when I'm sick and this has been an ongoing thing o_O. The rest of my week's ok... work, then the work holiday party Fri. Saturday's the Hafla. Sunday's rest :). Prolly laundry :P. OK, must sleep... current mood: sleepy current music: Best Thing I Ever Ate

(comment on this)

xanthvamp

7:23p Hohoho Habibi Hafla!! I'm SO TOTALLY going!! You should join me :). EEE!!! I'm SO totally excited. A bunch of my friends are performing :D. AND Devin'll be nice and warm at home with my dad, sleeping, hehe. ( Ho ho ho!! ) current mood: excited current music: Ace of Cakes

(comment on this)

Friday, December 11th, 2009

xanthvamp

10:17p Happy Hanukkah!! I wish you a very happy Hanukkah tonight! :) I hope it's super duper yummy and illuminating. Many blessings and miracles to you all. BTW, the above video is BNL's Hanukkah's Blessings, one of my FAVE songs on their holiday CD. BUT... the only version I could find was from Rock Band 2... o_O. But it's an excellent song and still well worth a listen :). Enjoy!! *yawns* I'm WIPED OUT. Night all!! Tomorrow? Navy Pier and the Winter Wonderfest!! Joy!!! ;) current mood: sleepy current music: Good Eats! Yay!!!

(comment on this)

ministry_victim

5:11a My twenties - I never made the time. I usually have a lot to think about and a lot to share in these year-end retrospective posts, but in this I really don't. My twenty-ninth year of life was fairly serene and peaceful, if not overly busy. There were only a handful of weeks where I didn't have either school or work to contend with, and those weeks I spent with Cristiana. I could put a voice to my anxieties and concerns regarding school, but why? They're not anything that's overly noteworthy. That being said, I'm taking four months off to relax. I'm thinking about losing myself in some fiction - long or short form - with the intent of going on an adventure inside my own skull. I've explored hundreds of thousands of pages worth of fiction from inside the heads of other people, and I wouldn't mind maybe finding six or seven, or maybe four hundred pages, worth of my own stories. I have apologies to make to people I've wronged and closure to seek in fiction that I won't be able to seek in reality. There are vistas that I want to see that otherwise I wouldn't have access too. There are people I want to talk with, and philosophical discussions to be had, and love to fall in, and I want to dance screaming wild and mad underneath a silvery moon, offering invocations to the heaven queen, knowing that she's up there and listening. My thirties have arrived and I'm looking down a long and lonely path that may be long but needn't be lonely. My twenties were lonely. They weren't as lonely as my teen years, but they had their patches where my choices dried up the love, and left me twisting. I wrote two books, and a multitude of short stories and I have to admit that I didn't write enough. The motivation for it dried up because I didn't take good enough care of myself. I plan on changing that. If I do anything in my thirties, I plan on doing that. I've been reading the journals of some of the various authors I have on my f-list and I'm beginning to reconsider a number of the different means in which I present myself on the internet. I'm thinking I need to open up a separate journal, and maybe reduce my facebook account down to something respectable instead of the variegated hodge-podge of miscellanea that it is right now. Maybe I"d best start using Twitter, and maybe get on some other social networking site. I have a MySpace account, and as you might expect, you wouldn't know it was mine to look at it, so well hidden am I. Marketing and artistry, and ultimately, writing writing writing. Writing until there's nothing left and I'm forced to crawl exhausted back to my bed. In the morning, after I've slept away the night's demons, perhaps I'll ponder venturing out into the world to gather some experience, soak up some colour and come back with tales to tell. I think I'm going to start some of that right now.

(comment on this)

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

xanthvamp

8:04p Winter scents! Mmm... the nice thing about perfume oils is that even though their delivery takes a long time, it's a lovely suprise when it finally shows up! ;) A while ago I ordered a bottle of Lamb's Wool from BPAL, and I was in a holiday BPAL decant circle. I got: From BPAL- Lamb's Wool: A popular holy day beverage in 18th century Ireland: roasted apples mashed into warmed milk and ale, with nutmeg, sugar, ginger, and clove. Venice (frimp): A complex, voluptuous scent that captures the robust beauty of the Italian Renaissance: lemon, red currant, wisteria, red rose petals, heady jasmine, Florentine orris root, waterlily, red sandalwood, violet plum, and violet leaf. House of Night (frimp): A sorrowful graveyard bouquet of somber blooms, funereal boughs, dismal green and laden with grief. From mcfly85's circle- EL DIA DE LOS REYES: Hot cocoa with cinnamon, coffee, and brown sugar. THE PEACOCK QUEEN 2009: In dramatic contrast to the soft innocence of Snow White and the dew-kissed freshness of her sister, Rose Red, this is a blood red, voluptuous rose, velvet-petaled, at the height of bloom. Haughty and imperious, vain, yet incomparably lovely to the eye, but thick with thorns of jealousy, pride and hatred. PINK SNOWBALLS: A lighthearted winter scent: chilly vanilla rose snowballs! COUNTESS WILLIE: Chocolate plum musk, red musk, amaretto, candied fruits, and red ginger. MOTHER SHUB'S SPICED LAIT DE CHÈVRE: Nothing warms the cockles like a mug of Mother Shub's egg nog! Goat's milk egg nog with coffee liqueur and spices imported from the Crimson Desert! HYPOTHERMIA: Bone-chilling, heart-stopping cold. SOL INVICTUS 2009 (sniffie): A radiant blend of solar oils: golden amber, saffron, heliotrope, hibiscus, citron, frangipani, frankincense, tangerine, mock orange, and orange blossom. JULIA STONE (frimp): Rotting once-white fabric, spotted with mold. I already know Lamb's Wool is like HEAVEN on me, sweet and spiced appely and just TOTAL yum. It's the best BPAL apple ever. I've not really tried anything else yet. All the circle scents smell good so far. Pink Snowballs and Countess Willie smell a touch too "perfumie" for me... though not bad. Julia Stone smells *wonderful*, like sweet, clean, yummy mold. I happen to LOVE the BPAL mold note. El Dia is FAB as well, spiced chocolatey goodness. Peacock Queen is a big, fat, juicy red rose :). Hypothermia does smell good, icy cold, and Sol Invictus smells just as warm - odd, but lovely. The Spiced Lait de Chevre smells nummy, like spiced nog, indeed. Now we just need to see what my skin does to them! I've only tried El Dia so far, tonight in fact. It went on HEAVENLY, this rich chocolatey spice drink. But BPAL chocolate just does not like me... It's too bad I smell like Chocolottie now... though it's not all bad, and kinda nostalgic ;). Kinda plastic too, heh. I'll prolly keep the imp though - if I ever FINALLY get that scent locket it'll prolly be good in there. Gotta keep trying them! :D current mood: okay current music: Dental Care - Owl City

(comment on this)

Sunday, December 6th, 2009

melodie_de_sang

7:02p Homework Good gods almighty!!! I can't express how much I hatehatehatehatehate book projects. The entire household turns into the axis of evil. Kid being a biligerent shit, man at the end of all patience and sarcasim drippy, and me wanting to just slap people...not really careing who...and really hoping for more then one to slap....just somebody....GAH! friggin book projects are a sign of the end of days...forget that 2012 shit..... current mood: aggravated

(1 comment | comment on this)

Saturday, December 5th, 2009

xanthvamp

11:14p Hi! ;) These sound right up my alley: Cinnamon-Spiced Hot Chocolate Cookies. And THESE are *definitely* up my alley: Cake Sachets ;). *sigh* I keep wanting and meaning to update, but it's just like... there's no time! I don't even know where it's all going o_O. It's not like I'm DOING all that much, I don't think... yet here I am, it's almost 10pm and I have no idea what happened to my day. Yeesh. OK, let's see... mini update. I've been crocheting my fingers off. Work is good. Devin is BRILLIANT. Today: Earlier I asked Devin where her nom (paci) was, and she said backpack. I went and checked her little Hello Kitty backpack and sure enough, she'd put it in there! Yay for good baby memeories :). Then later I was looking around for the remote, didn't say anything. Devin not only figured out what I was doing, she popped up next to the sofa with it in her hand! "Here it is!" she exclaimed to me, handing me the remote. This kid is scary smart sometimes :). I know I never did her 2 year update... it's coming... eventually. I could chatter on about her forever. Yesterday she was gogo dancing to Curious George. Last week she put on pants pretty much my herself for the first time. She can put DVDs in all my herself and play them now. She can quote her fave Curious George ep... See? On and on ;). I haven't done a whole lot. Thanksgiving, as I posted (kinda) was good. We decided to be lazy for my 4 days off. We saw Albie Fri, Albie and Zach Sat and Zahra Sun. The only Black Friday I did was Michael's, for yarn for ami presents. Devin's sick again, so we were going to go to a baby shower today, but Devin was too sick to go out, especally since it was at 6pm :P. We might have a playdate tomorrow, but it depends on how she's feeling. She napped for 3.5 hours today!! AND went to bed pretty much at 8pm still. WOAH. And that's it for now! More eventually!! current mood: sleepy current music: Guy at Disney

(3 comments | comment on this)

xanthvamp

2:43p Amigurumi love! I discovered amigurumi almost exactly 2 years ago. I already loved crocheting, but this just took it to a whole new level. With so many wonderful things that could be made, I was in heaven!! A new obscession was born ;). Since then I've made so many fun toys, gotten Simple Making of Dolls -Hello Kitty, Amigurumi Patterns Cosmic Mook and Amigurumi No Nakamatachi in Japanese, not to mention Creepy Cute Crochet and Amigurumi World, and found SO MANY amazing web sites. I felt like putting all my fave ami links and help together in one spot. So, besides cruising the wonderful weloveamigurumi, here's where I go when I am looking for all things ami!! Patterns: Lion Brand Amigurumi Toys on Crochet Pattern Central Ami on Squidoo A Crochet Toy Chest Kristieskids Patterns Snuffykin's Good For Beginners Delicious collection Crochet Kitten DIY Ami Posts For beginner help: Krysanya's Tutorial Cupcake Tutorial Planet June's Tutorials Part 3 - Other Techniques Tutorial Mygurumi Tutorials Sculptural Crochet Primer by Wunderkammer The Front and Back Sides of Crochet By Deb Richey Knittycat's Yarn Knot Eyes Crafty Shanna's Dr. Horrible Hand Crochetspot Tutorials and Help (arwenjade7 listed the shapes) For Japanese patterns: Japanese Character Translation How to Read a Japanese Crochet Pattern Guide to Reading Japanese Patterns by aspettame Resources: Ami Books on Amazon Joann's Yarn CR's Crafts Eyes Suncatcher Eyes current mood: sleepy current music: Travel Channel

(1 comment | comment on this)