given eyes to see (the ever changing status of m)

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 03:13:00 +0000

Sicker than Sick
Forget the whole, "why do I have a sore throat?/Might I be getting sick?" thing. It's WAY official. I am dead-on-my-feet sick. Still a sore throat over 24 hours later, my entire body feels like I've been bludgeoned by sledge hammers and I'm alternating between sweating and being so cold I shake so hard I can't hold a glass of water.

I asked Love if he ran me over in the car then carried me up and put me on the couch without telling me, but he's not confessing.

I even had to sleep for an hour before dinner. (Which was the most delicious splurge of pot roast that I ate about four bites of.)

I'm going to bed. Wake me in a week when it's over.

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:46:00 +0000

When It Rains, It Pours
Incidentally, it did that yesterday too. (Rain and pour that is.) Turns out "leak" in my car's a/c not so much a leak as a need to replace the entire compressor unit.

I got up and got ready to head to Mom's yesterday. I was heading up to meet her so we could go to the place by her that "fixed" the a/c in my car last time and drop the Buick off. I say "fixed" in quotes because they said there was a leak but couldn't find it. So they put dye in the system, recharged the 2lbs of empty freon and sent me on my way saying when it stopped working again, bring it back and they'd use the dye to track down where the leak was.

First off, it's about a thirty minute drive to Mom's. And the sky was a nasty shade of "it's about ready to pour." I made it about twenty minutes up, fingers crossed the whole way without any rain. The Buick doesn't have power windows and to wind up the passenger one means leaning as far over as I can possibly reach - not something safe to do when driving. So when I reached a traffic light ten minutes away from my Mom's and saw dark, dark clouds and lightning ahead of me, I rolled up the passenger window.

Sure enough, by the time I was getting into the turn lane to get into my Mom's neighborhood, the sky opened up. It was pouring by the time I got to her driveway. Got out, said our hellos and then got back in the cars and followed her over to the repair shop. (In a downpour, without a/c or defroster so my windshield was fogging over and her damned neighborhood floods like you wouldn't believe so I'm trying to follow her and can't see a damned thing.) Get there, explain what's going on and leave the car with the instructions to call us on Mom's cell.

Mom and I run a couple errands and then her cell rings. It's the repair shop with the fabulous verdict about the a/c. The compressor is shot. Sonofabitch! Two months ago, when I took it in, they assured me the compressor was fine. It was only a few years old because Nanny had it switched over to the new freon system in the recent past. But they said the dye looked like it "exploded" everywhere in and around the compressor. They seemed baffled that the a/c worked just fine for the past two months. I was baffled at why suddenly, it went from "there's a leak somewhere in the system we can't find" to "you need a new compressor."

*sighs*

So, I wound up driving back home in the heat - thankfully, the rains were done so I could roll the windows down - still sans air conditioning. They didn't have the part on hand that day and I wanted to call around and get some other estimates anyway.

It's an eighteen year old car. It's really not worth dumping money (that I don't have) into it. So it's highly frustrating to be told that a huge part which was supposed to be just fine, is now shot and needs replacing. And the quotes are not looking promising.

And if that weren't enough, I wind up with a sore throat. After I get home, soaked and sweaty, I change and we go out to the store to get some food. We have dinner (soup and sandwiches) and watch a couple episodes of Angel on dvd. My throat feels like it's fuzzy and coated in a film. I keep trying to clear my throat but it's just not going away. By the time Love's going to bed, my throat is no longer "thick" feeling, now it's just sore. And it's sore ALL NIGHT. I keep waking up because it hurts so bad to swallow it feels like my throat is half the size it should be. Meanwhile, poor Love who's still trying to get better from his bronchitis, is coughing all night - something he's been doing every day this week.

I wake up many times overnight and into this morning. And I just keep going back to sleep because it hurts so bad I want to sleep through it. I finally decide to get up for real around noon. It's doing a little better; still sore but not so tight. Love called his doctor's office and explained that he feels better mostly but the cough is brutal. (And it really is.) So they're calling in some more prescriptions for him. Poor guy just can't get past this. And I have no clue what prompted the sore throat from hell for me either. I almost never get a sore throat. Even when I get sick, I don't tend to get them. My voice is really broken today too and I don't sound like myself at all.

Anyway, it's just another fun couple days around the household here.

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:21:00 +0000

Briefly
Oy! Busy day so far. I just wanted to touch on a few things real quick.

Mom made it back safe and sound from her vacation last night. I'm heading up to her place tomorrow to see about getting my car's a/c fixed once and for all.
Someone stole my idea! I came across an ebay listing last night for the "Tru Blood" sample I received and it's got two days left and is up to $71. So I said to myself I need to get in on this and list mine too. Hopefully, I can make some much-needed cash from it.
Getting ready to run out the door with my friend to get a book from the library and some kitty food. (Thanks to Steve for his order the kitties can eat!)
I may - may - have a lead on a potential opportunity for some work from home through a friend. It's way too early to get into it really, but just the fact that there may be something happening has me a little more hopeful than the other day. (When I felt more like debating which bridge to jump off of.)

I don't remember what else I wanted to touch on, but since my friend just arrived, I'm going to close for now. Just wanted to say a broad, "thank you" to all my friends who left encouraging comments the other day. It really means a lot and it's deeply appreciate more than you know just to get that kind of support and understanding.

Ok, out for now.

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:53:00 +0000

Tru Blood
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You've heard about it on the web. Everyone's talking about it. Well now, you too can get in on the ground floor.

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noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 05:21:00 +0000

Crap On TV
When I flipped through the channels and proclaimed, "there's nothing but crap on tv!" I didn't mean it literally.

I guess sometimes the universe has a sense of humor after all. Sometimes you need a good laugh and this was certainly one of those moments. (Please note that not only is the History channel airing an entire program about poop, but that "All About Dung" two hours long. And yes, that is poop on the screen. Fossilized turd in fact.)

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:57:00 +0000

Online Garage Sale
PLEASE check out THIS POST as I'm running an online garage sale. Need cash and want to clear out some stuff I'm not using at the same time.

Thanks for looking and feel free to spread the link around to anyone you know who'd be interested.

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:52:00 +0000

Just Down
I haven't really felt like writing an entry lately. Mainly because I've got nothing but negativity and severe down things to talk about. (And who wants to read that?) Last Tuesday, Love's at work and the CFO of his company calls him to his office saying way back in September of 2007, Love had gotten an advance of $75 and somehow, it fell through the cracks until now and since they're closing the books they need the $75 that day. Neither the CFO nor Love remembered a $75 advance but it was in the books, so guess what? Had to pay it. The following day, Wednesday, Love had his doctor's appointment for his suspected bronchitis. It was over a two-hour appointment (and hour and a half of which I sat alone and beyond bored in the lobby until the nurse took pity on me and brought me back to sit with Love instead) and because Love's insurance just changed, instead of a straight co-pay for the visit, he now has to pay 30% of the total. Which we didn't know and weren't expecting. So, yay! His co-pay turned out to be $73.50 and then another $15 for prescriptions. (It was bronchitis.)

So in the course of 24 hours, we wound up spending near $200 that we didn't have to spend. I mean, I don't begrudge him the need to go to the doctor for bronchitis. Not at all. But we were expecting it to be like $30 or something, not $90 including the scripts. And no one was expecting the weird $75 he had to pay his work. Suddenly, we went to absolute penniless state and we hadn't even paid on the car loan this month. Nor the $50 I owe my friend Rand for fronting me the cash to get the tag on my car.

Now we've got literally $6 total to our names until payday on Thursday (since Friday is a holiday) but payday won't matter because it's rent check and his check is going to be short from taking a day off when he was sick. When it's rent check week, with a full check, we pay rent and have literally about $100 left over to last us for the next two weeks. And since we're already behind and broke - out of everything in the house in terms of food and household supplies - and since his check is going to be short, I'm not even sure we'll meet rent, let alone rent and have anything to live off of for the next two weeks.

Oh yeah and somehow we're supposed to come up with hundreds and hundreds of dollars by mid-July because we have to drive up to North Carolina for his newly-discovered sister's wedding. (Which also involves needing a hotel for two nights AND a wedding present.) This literally isn't going to happen and yet, not going isn't an option either. But it's at the point where we can basically pay rent or go to the wedding for July but not both. I'm sorry, but I know which is more important to me.

I've put out applications everywhere around me. I've followed up with all of the businesses, trying to get five minutes of face time to "sell" myself and try to get an interview. I can't even get a call back let alone an interview. Supermarket, Target, Lowe's - you name it, I've dropped off an application. Nada. Nothing. No response. What exactly else am I suppose to do if I can't even get them to call me back?? I update my site regularly with new things - but most people don't have cash to spend right now either. So nobody's buying. I can't even count on the little $20 order here-and-there to help out like it normally does.

It's not like I'm not trying. I am. But nothing's coming of any of it. Meanwhile, we're just falling deeper and deeper in the hole and I'm just out of ideas and options. We can't get ahead because we can't even get caught up! Hell, the only reason I have the $6 in my wallet at all is that I found $11 laying on the ground on Saturday and I've got six left. Seriously. It's just that bad. We can't borrow money from anyone because (a) we either already owe them money or (b) can't get ahead enough to ever actually pay them back. I don't have a credit card, so if we don't have cash to buy something - like food - oh well, it just doesn't get bought. And it's not like we're blowing our money on all this extra stuff. I mean, neither of us even has a cell phone or anything! There's no credit cards, no cell, no debts (other than the car but that's a necessity not a luxury) so there's nothing to "cut back on."

I read these "ways to save money each month" articles and it's the most absurd shit like "don't buy a $5 coffee everyday and you'll be amazed at how much you save!" Well first off, no shit, Sherlock. Secondly, no one in this house is ever spending cash on fru-fru coffee like that. Even if we drank coffee, we wouldn't have the money for that much cost each day. Then it's things like "don't pay for dog walking or grooming - do it yourself!" (Yeah not an issue in my life either.) Or, "cut back on your weekly manicures and pedicures!" (What manicures or pedicures? I've had exactly ONE pedicure in my life and that's only because I had a coupon that got it basically for free.) All these "save money" articles expect that you're living high on the hog and not already wallowing in the muck. I'm sorry, I haven't even bought myself a new toothbrush head for my Sonicare (that the only reason I own is because I got it free in a BzzAgent kit) despite the fact that I've been using the same one for seven months (recommended change? every three) because it's $28 for a three pack of heads (can't buy just one) and I don't have $28 to spend on something as frivolous as my dental health. My last haircut was in January. Not exactly glamorous living here.

Hell, I owe $20 to Dreamhost because I haven't been able to even pay the $9.95 a month hosting charge last month or this month. They'll be shutting down PhoenixFire Designs any day now until I pay them. But I can't and once they suspend it, it's kinda unlikely I'll be making any money from the site to be able to pay it, you know?

So all of this is why I haven't written an entry. Why bother? No one wants to hear it and no one cares that I'm at a point in my life where I literally don't know where the money for my next meal is going to be, let alone how we're going to put enough gas in Love's car so he can get to work all week. It's disgusting and pathetic and I'm just so very, very sick of it all.

Jane, get me off this crazy thing called life.

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 03:28:00 +0000

WAY Overdue Recap Entry - Part 2: The Rest of the Week
So, Tuesday the 17th was Eddie Izzard which rocked. The rest of the week and it's week-long migraine fest? Not so much with the rock.

Every day from Monday (16th) through Sunday (22nd) I had a migraine. Either I'd have it and it wouldn't go away and thus I'd wake up with it still there, or, it'd be gone when I got up, but as the day went on...BAM! it'd hit again. Normally, by Sunday, the hormone-induced migraines are gone as I start up the new pack of Pills. But noooo... this month had to be even more of a pain in the ass than usual. I had one Sunday night. By the time I got up Monday, I was beyond sick of being in pain. Thank goodness though it was the first day migraine free. And *knock wood* none today either. Last night, I had some sinus pressure from the storm fronts moving around, so I took a Sudafed decongestant and that helped. Still, it's such a relief to not have a migraine after just about a solid week of being in pain.

The Weekend
Well, it rained Saturday. Like ALL DAY. Which was great, don't get me wrong. We need the rain. It's just really unusual. Florida's the kind of place where the term "scattered showers" has a whole new meaning. It can rain literally on one side of the street but not the other. And, typically, in about 20 minutes, it's all gone anyway. Saturday it just rained and rained and rained.

We ran out to Blockbuster and rented Fool's Gold (Don't ask me why, it wasn't MY choice.) It was so horrible that like 15 minutes into it, I was bored beyond belief. 30 minutes into it I got up and worked on my website updates instead. Terrible.

Sunday, Love wasn't feeling well and didn't even make it down to his folks for the weekly Sunday morning breakfast. I had a migraine again so we both basically slept the day away. Total wash of a day.

Monday & Tuesday
So, poor Love still was feeling horrible on Monday but he had to go in because he's out of sick days right now and we can't afford for his check to be short. (Hell, we can't afford life with his check at full amount right now either. But I digress...) So he muddled through the day.

Tuesday, it was clear the whole sick thing wasn't getting better. And in fact, his chest was getting worse. So he actually called and made an appointment with the Dr. He goes in tomorrow (Wednesday) and they're pretty sure he's got bronchitis. Sadly, poor Love is prone to it. Whenever he gets a cold, it always settles down into his chest. So hopefully, with some antibiotics tomorrow, he'll start feeling better soon. Poor guy is miserable.

Today I also ran out to the post office (as reported in the last entry) and it was hot. Spoke with my mom for a little while today too which was nice. Hadn't heard from her since she left for vacation. She's up in New Jersey with her sister right now and they're going to be getting together with some of my aunt's kids in the next few days and making a run into NYC as well. Mom's from New York so she's really looking forward to that. She's also having a nice time and that's good too. She really deserves it.

Yesterday, I also sewed two little projects. Using the Easy Peasy Wallets tutorial, I made two of them. Neither perfect, but both pretty good for being such a clueless sewing newbie. (I had the perfect pink thread for the one but no real color thread that totally matched the blue tie dye one exactly.)

I'm proud of having gotten them to work and be pretty darn "finished" even if they're easy projects and I'm still perfecting technique. It's definitely harder to sew than I thought it would be, and yet, I'm finding that from one test project to the next, I'm seeing marked improvement. So it makes me hopeful I can crack this yet. *chuckles*

I think I had more I was going to mention, but at this point, I don't remember. I've also posted a few updates already as well (like the a/c going out in my car on Thursday) so in one confusing way or another, I'm pretty sure that's the gist of my week. Hopefully, without the migraines to totally sap the life out of me, this week can be slightly more productive than last.

Ok, well, Love laid down awhile ago to go to bed and I'm typing in here disturbing him, so I'll wrap here. Night all!

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:57:00 +0000

WAY Overdue Recap Entry - Part 1: Eddie Izzard
First off, it's effing hot outside. I just got back from running a simple errand over to the post office. I had to drop an order off. Post office is like three or four miles away. But when you have no air conditioning and the feels-like temp outside is about 96F (35.5C) outside, you just sweat and sweat everywhere and don't dry off. I've been home like 20 minutes and I'm still hot. Ugh.

Anyway, that's not the point of the entry, I'm trying to play much belated catch-up on the past week or so, including my never-got-around-to-it write up of Eddie Izzard last Tuesday, June 17th. So let's get on with the show.

Cake Or Death? (Tuesday, June 17, 2008
This was the night I got to see Eddie Izzard doing his "Stripped" stand up show while on tour at Tampa Theatre. Let me first pause to tell you a little bit about Tampa Theatre. It was built in 1926 as one of America's "most elaborate movie palaces." And let me tell you, the place is weird. The decor is the most amazingly over the top you can imagine and yet it's really neat. Escaping demolition in the 1970's it went on to become listed on the National Register of Historic Places and a Tampa City Landmark. When it was opened, it was the first air conditioned building in Tampa. It's really a weird place and it's totally haunted. But it's a neat place just because of it's history and uniqueness.

View outside Tuesday night

And a quickie video from outside the theater before the show. (Sorry about the crappy quality. It looked fine before I uploaded it. I think YouTube ate it during upload.)

A view of the lobby/concession area. (Not my photo)

A view inside the theater. (Not my photo) I really wasn't kidding about how over the top the decor is inside! (Take a panoramic tour of the theater here.)

(When he came out on stage, he turned around to look at the walls, and decor and everything and said, "Oh this is quite nice, isn't it?" He explained that he hadn't bothered with the sound check that day ("I told 'em to fuck off" said in that humorous Eddie Izzard style) so this was the first time he'd seen the stage.)

We got there and when I gave my ticket to the usher, he said, "Oh! Congratulations! You're in the front row!" And sure enough, yup! We had gotten the tickets through a co-worker of Love's. She's friends with someone who handles shows and such at the Theatre and had access to reserved block of seats.

Hard to see, but this is the view from my front-row seat. I didn't take any photos during the show as they specifically said no pictures.

The seating chart gives you a better idea of where I was lucky enough to sit!

He started late; about 15 minutes past the 8pm show time. Someone said that they were trying to finish up with the lines in the lobby though I don't know that for sure. The first 15-20 minutes or so when he came out, he just kinda chatted, joked and babbled about this and that. He asked what "Tampa" meant (and he kept saying it really funny, like "TAM-PA" all bold and with a big break between the two syllables) and then he pulled out his iPhone and Wikipedia'd it. He joked quite a bit about Wikipedia and how up until only like "two years ago" if you wanted to know something - like how to make jam - you'd ask your friends and if they didn't know, you just had to go on not knowing. And now, though, with wikipedia, well...you can instantly learn how to make jam! And the whole world will know how to make jam together! He also joked about how slow the internet is on the iPhone but how that should change in July. He started reading something about Tampa very seriously, then looked up and said, "no, I'm just shitting you; I just made that up. I'm still waiting for it to load." He also commented about the heat and we shocked him by pointing out that even us residents aren't use to the heat. It was really funny. He literally bopped and danced around the stage all hyper little kid-like and just warmed up the crowd and himself. At one point, he's like, "This isn't part of the show. I haven't started that yet." And we all laughed. (Of course, because he's fucking funny.)

The rest of the show was great. He said in the show, he'd talk about "everything" - and he was right. He started with the earth being formed 4.5 billion years ago. Joked about dinosaurs and the absurdity of people who dismiss all the amazing scientific facts about life on earth developing and randomly evolving and instead believing that the Earth is 7,000 years old. ("I have only two problems with 'Intelligent Design.' Number one, the 'Intelligent' part. And secondly, the 'Design' part. Other than that, I think it's brilliant!") Went through historical events and civilizations and such and there's just no way I can even begin to touch on all of it. I mean...he's crazy. But in a good way. We laughed for the whole show (which was over two hours long.)

When he finished up, we applauded and gave him a standing ovation. He came back out for another 10 minutes or so as an encore. We were hoping that we'd get a chance possibly to meet with him backstage as the co-worker's friend can normally hook that up, but I guess he was leaving right after the show and wasn't going to do a meet. I don't know what happened because he did another show in Tampa the following night and I think he did a meet after that show but, either way, we just exited the theater after the show and didn't stick around to find out if what we were told was right or not.

We had a great time. He's so funny. And he really hops around and dances about and stuff on stage just like I've seen in the dvd's. He's so hyper I don't know how he does it. And he's so creative because you can tell that while he has an outline of where he wants to go joke-wise, a lot of it he just makes up on the spot and runs with it. WELL worth seeing and I'd definitely so see him again if he ever comes back to Tampa.

Oh yeah! And I even got a "Cake or Death" mug. Which totally rocks:

Ok, this has officially gone on really long, so I'm going to make a part 2 with the rest of the recap after the show. So more in a bit!

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 01:04:00 +0000

New Items Live
The items I posted teasers of PLUS a NEW FAERIE HUTCH is live on the site now.

Garnet Czech Glass Necklace featuring Ankh Pendant with Silver and Hematite Accents	Beautiful Plum Garnet Gemstone Tree of Life Pendant and Memory Wire Choker
Tree of Life Pendant - Silver on Silver with Genuine Hematite Gemstone Leaves (pendant only)	OOAK Handmade Miniature Spooky Halloween Hutch in Two Tones of Orange and Black

Yay!

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:15:00 +0000

Summer!
Blessed Summer Solstice to all my Pagan friends and Happy First Day of Summer to everyone else. (Of course, to those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, Happy Winter Solstice.)

How the heck is it summer solstice already? Jeez. Where is this year going? It dawned on me the other day, it's already been over a month since my birthday! Holy cow.

So, today's the longest day of the year and while it's been summer weather since early May here in Florida, happy summer anyway.

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:14:00 +0000

Perfect Effing Timing
So on the day that I have like 500 errands to run and the day that Love won't be home until way late because he and his brother are taking their dad to a baseball game as a Father's Day gift immediately after work the a/c in my car decided to die.

Let me back up a smidge. A couple months ago, the a/c in my car just stopped working. It wouldn't get cold, it just blew kinda lukewarm air at me. I didn't have the cash to fix it, so I just dealt with it. I drove up to see my mom one day and we dropped the car off at a place near her. They fixed my a/c for me. Kinda. See, it needed 2lbs of coolant in a reservoir that holds 2lbs. Meaning, I have a leak. But they couldn't find the leak. So they put a uv dye in the coolant and sent me on my way saying that someday in the not-too-distant-future, I'd run out of coolant again and to come back and they could run a blacklight under the car and find the source of the leak to repair it.

Today was the day I guess I lost enough coolant that it no longer blows cold. Today is also the day before my Mom leaves for vacation for over a week. Since the place is way up by her house (a good half hour drive from mine) I now have to wait until she comes back from vacation before I can get my a/c fixed again. Otherwise, I'll be stuck sitting in the parking lot of a car repair shop by myself all day. (As opposed to my mom and I dropping the car off and then being able to wait at her house or something while they fix it.) Which means I'm stuck being unable to drive my car for the next week and change. (Because this is Florida and you know that heatwave you guys in the Northeast were dealing with? That's nothing on our daily heat and it's pretty much physically impossible to be in a car in Florida without air conditioning because of it.)

Just. Fucking. Great. Of all damned days. I can't just have bad timing in luck in my life, I have to have horrible timing.

Anyway, I'm waiting to hear back from my friend Rand so I can maybe at least bum some automotive a/c enough to get a few of the more important errands done. (Like getting the cats food for dinner tonight seeing as they didn't have it yesterday and I really can't get away with not giving them a full dinner two days in a row.)

*sighs* Just....seriously. *sighs*

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:39:00 +0000

Day Three
Ugh, this migraine just isn't going away. Most of the last three days, I've had a migraine, just in varying levels of strength. Last night, it started to get bad again and by the time I went to sleep, it was killing me. So I got ready and went to bed. But, oh goody!, it's still here when I woke up. Ugh, I hate that. Sleep should get rid of it, but sometimes it just doesn't.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot I can do this week but deal with it as best as I can because the migraines this week are hormone-based. It'll be better next week after Aunty leaves but in the meantime...ugh.

I'm going to go take a nice, relaxing shower and hope the Excedrin kicks in. Then I can spend some time telling you guys about Eddie Izzard.

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 23:31:00 +0000

New Items Teaser
Ok, I WILL get around to giving a more detailed report from Eddie Izzard last night, but right now, I'm going to post some teasers of a couple things I made today. I'll be doing a site update later tonight or tomorrow, but I like what I made and thought I'd show it off really quick.

First up, a genuine Garnet Tree of Life pendant on a memory wire necklace. Man, I love these garnets. They're this almost plum-red color. And I don't have any more of them, so this one is it for now.

Next, I made a stand-alone hematite Tree of Life pendant after getting such positive feedback on the memory wire necklace I made out of hematite. This way, there's a pendant ready and available on the site.

Also, because I had so many people wanting the Garnet Czech Glass Gothic Cross Necklace, I made one with an Ankh. I've yet to find another pendant like that one, but I did have a cool ankh, so I made this:

And, last I made these for a swap. I make these little yarn balls for use in my Faerie Hutches and a swap partner does knitting, so I thought it'd be fun to make yarn ball earrings:

Love kinda looked at me funny when I showed them to him, but that's pretty normal on the quirky stuff. I think they're fun and cute.

Ok, off for now, but more actual posting forthcoming. Honest!

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:37:00 +0000

Eddie Izzard Does Tampa
Had a great time. So funny. Laughed for two hours. Sleepy now, more details later. Not a lot of pics because they didn't let people take any. But man...he was great to see live.

"So....it's hot here, but I guess you guys are used to it."
(entire audience at once) no
"No?"
(entire audience at once) no

Just...funny. Great night all around.

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:18:00 +0000

Of All Days
So, tonight, we go see Eddie Izzard which is totally awesome. What's not awesome is that because good ole' Aunt Flo is in town, I have the most horrific migraine. And have since last night. I couldn't sleep, and it didn't go away overnight, so it's still here. And it sucks. Plus, my stomach is super annoyed at me for having a migraine for the past 15 or so hours.

Dammit! This is a total once-in-a-lifetime evening for me and right now I feel like complete shit. Hopefully, by this evening, I can feel better and enjoy myself but dammit, today of all days I have to be in agony. (Put it this way, I'm typing this entry mostly with my eyes closed because looking at the screen hurts my eyes. Grr.)

Please, please, please I hope I feel better. I seriously don't ever get to do things like this and I want to enjoy myself tonight.

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 04:14:00 +0000

The Red Seal Mystery
(Or, Really Cool Viral Marketing for the new, upcoming HBO Series, "True Blood")
So, HBO is making a tv serious out of the Southern Vampire books and is calling it "True Blood" right? Well, that wasn't the first thing on my mind when I received a mysterious envelope a couple weeks ago at my po box. Velum envelope, black envelope inside, sealed with a wax seal and inside that a velum sheet filled with runes or lettering of some sort. Nothing else. No explanation, no meaning. I thought maybe it was some odd art project since I do participate in various snail mail communities.

Well flash forward to today. When I get the other items from my po box and inside is a bubble wrap envelope with a tube and a sample of "TRU BLOOD" within. Ah...now it makes sense. Having read the books, I knew it was all part of a terribly clever marketing campaign. And it let me google and find others who had received the "red seal" letters.

I recorded a video showing off the items because it's just terribly neat to see creative campaigns like this. The quality of the materials is top notch so they really didn't skimp on it. I had no idea I'd be part of it when I received the first item, but it's definitely pretty cool and I give points for the creativity of it.

Apparently, people got several variations of the original letter. Mine was a strange cuneiform apparently, but other people got other languages and scripts. Somehow, I guess the characters are supposed to spell out a website. www.revenantones.com. You can read some forum entries there but I'm not sure how you register. There's also another site, www.bloodcopy.com involved as well though I'm not sure it's total role. Anyway, it's still a neat campaign and wanted to share. I don't know if I've seen the last of the mysterious "TB" mailings but it's certainly been fun.

Here's some other sites discussing the mailings:

Pretty cool right? Shame I didn't come across some of these other sites sooner. I had mine for a couple weeks but didn't know what to make of it so I missed out on the public search for what it was.

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 02:50:00 +0000

PC Problems
Ok, I'm typing this on the laptop just to do a quick update. Everything was fine this morning, then I went out to run some errands. Came home a few hours later and went to check my email. Turns out my monitor hadn't gone to sleep like normal. It was still on, but all I was getting was a black screen with a blinking cursor. Yeah, never a good thing. It was on and normal when I left.

So we got it back up, but it's telling me Thunderbird is totally hosed. It won't start, it's corrupted, everything's gone to crap. And, my files are totally not there. So, Windows did a system restore point as of 1am last night and after having tried everything else, we're going to try to restore to this point.

This means if you emailed me at all today it's gone. I either got it but it's been lost, or it came after I left for the day and I never even saw it before the system crashed. Because the emails download off the server when I check it, I can't retrieve them.

Still, if this works, it saves over a year of emails but I'll lose a days worth. *sighs* It's a fair trade-off, but it seriously sucks still. Cross your fingers for me though, because if it doesn't work, I'm going to literally cry.

Edit: 1:09am Ok, the system restore didn't work. Despite rolling back a day, Thunderbird still wouldn't launch and my files were still not there. So, we undid the restore and ran chkdsk and about an hour later, it was able to restore the orphaned files - my Thunderbird profile. We've now got it up and running and everything seems to be there. There is a chance that some emails might have gotten eaten this afternoon, so if you sent me a message between say 3pm and 8pm today, you might want to re-send. I think everything is there but there weren't a lot of messages waiting for me when we got it working again, so I can't be sure. Still, I'm SO relieved that everything appears to have been corrected and is back to normal. I'm not sure what happened this afternoon, other than I know there were some serious thunderstorms and perhaps there were some power outage issues (despite having a battery back-up, I have no idea how long the power might have been out.) I'm just beyond happy that my pc is back to me whole, safe and sound.

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 00:26:00 +0000

Mini Gemstone Chip Bottle Pendants
My mistake is your gain! I ordered some miniature bottles online to use in my Faerie Hutches, but when they arrived, I realized the ones I ordered were too big for that purpose. So...I have bottles sitting around and can't use them. Today I realized they'd make great pendants. (Or rear view mirror decorations, or keychain charms...) So I filled a few with natural gemstone chips. And I'm putting them up as a first-come, first-served offering.

Left to right: Red Goldstone, Rose Quartz, Semi-Precious Mix, Peridot, and Amethyst

The quarter shows scale.

I'll be happy to include a cord for wearing as well if desired.

$10 each with special $1 only shipping. Make your choice in the field. Right now, there's one of each, but I can make probably one or two more if one color sells. These are natural stones and very pretty. It's like a little bottle of wearable treasure!

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:43:00 +0000

Just The Basics Meme
You know how sometimes people on your friend's list post about stuff going on in their life, and all of a sudden you think "Wait a minute? Since when are they working THERE? Since when are they dating HIM/HER? since when???" And then you wonder how you could have missed all that seemingly pretty standard information, but somehow you feel too ashamed to ask for clarification because it seems like info you *should* already know? It happens to all of us sometimes.

Please copy mine below, erase my answers putting yours in their place then post it in your journal! Please elaborate on the questions that would benefit from elaboration! One-word answers seldom help anyone out.

1. First Name: Miss M. ;)

2. Age: 31 as of May 16th.

3. Location: Tampa Bay Area, Florida

4. Occupation: I own and run PhoenixFire Designs, I keep up with the household duties and I'm desperately searching for a part time job to bring in more steady income.

5. Partner? That'd be "Love." He's called "Love" because he has no online screen names and he didn't want me using his name on the web. *shrugs* We've been together almost ten years but no, we're not married. And yes, I AM sick of hearing, "when are you two getting married??"

6. Kids: Just my two kitty girls. No plans to change that either.

7. Brothers/Sisters: I have one older sister. She's a breast cancer survivor who just finished her treatment in May of this year.

8. Pets: My two kitties. Mika ("me-kah") is a fat, brown tabby girl weighing in around 20lbs. Gracie is a grey girl with some beige tabby markings and she's little, coming in around 10lbs. Some pics here: http://pics.livejournal.com/memoryanddream/gallery/0001wgzb

9. List the 3-5 biggest things going on in your life:
1. Trying to get more steady income. This is hard though because I have serious chronic health problems that mean I can't work a full time job. I'm trying to find something part-time but it's not working out so well.
2. I'm currently trying to learn to sew. It's harder than I thought it would be. The machine is very foreign. But I'm so crafty, I'm sure I''ll eventually figure it out. I know it's not life-changing or anything, but I'm always trying to think of new things I can do or make that I might be able to sell and add to my site for more chances at income.
3. Did I mention being broke? We're really finding it harder and harder to live on one income but I'm just not having luck getting something I can do.
4. Health issues. I have chronic health issues (Chronic Fatigue/Fibro, IBS, Migraines) and Love's got some on-going issues as well. We both need to spend some quality time and cash with a dentist but...it gets pushed aside because of aforementioned financial issues.
5. My mom is disabled with Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis and a few other things which makes life harder for her. She struggles with my almost 92 year old grandmother as well who still lives on her own. My mom is important to me and it's hard to watch things get heaped on her.

10) Where and for what did you go to school for? I graduated High School here in Florida in 1995 and wanted to take a little time before jumping into college. I had a Florida pre-paid college program that would pay for 4 years of tuition. But my asshole of a biological father stole it and cashed it in so I never went to college.

11) Parents? My mom is 60 and lives about a half an hour drive from me. She and I have a really good relationship these days. I cut off contact with my sperm donor when I was about 16 because he was an abusive piece of shit that made my life a living hell. I realized I didn't want to try to "make it work" after my parent's divorce and that for my own sanity, I cut ties. He lives up in PA somewhere with his new wife I think.

12) Who are some of your closest friends? Sad as it is to say, I don't have a lot of "real life" friends. Love and I are a little...I don't know. Not anti-social per se, but we don't like drama. So we often just do things together. I have some good online friends and people I'd hang out with if they lived closer, but...

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 03:34:00 +0000

This and That
I keep thinking of little blurbs of things to post but they're (A) not enough to do on their own or (B) things I think about at times that I'm not ready or able to post. I'm going to try to remember some though now and update.

Sewing Machine So I've managed to get some non-loopy stitches out of my machine last night. Not sure which was the problem, though it might have been the bobbin not being loaded into the tension thingy right. Not sure though because I tried so many different things that were suggested to me, I'm not sure which one worked.
Retail Me Not When you're 16, it's really easy to get a simple, part-time retail job. When you're 31? Not so much. Today, I followed back up with Target ("I'll look up your app from like three months ago and call you if interested but since you're not willing to work 24/7, we probably won't call you."), checked back in with Michaels' ("We're, like, not hiring right now at all.", filled out yet ANOTHER useless computerized application at the supermarket despite NOT wanting to work there at all ("I don't think we're hiring, but hey, you can fill out the useless thing that takes like 30 minutes and asks stupid questions and doesn't offer you a chair right next to the door and if we're interested, we'll call you in a week") and even stopped in a new massage place next to the supermarket and asked if they needed part-time clerical help. ("We just hired two people but email us your resume." At least they were professional. It was weird not being treated like scum like when applying for retail. I mean, you don't even see anyone, you just sit at the pc and answer idiotic multiple choice questions and wait to see if they call you. No, I'm sorry. I'm NOT willing to work every single night and weekend for $6.50/hr. I may need the money, but I'm also a real person with a real life and I need that too.
Sure, The Economy Is Great! Money sucks. Or rather, lack of money sucks. I need cash like, a week ago and none is coming for another week and a half. At this point, Love literally doesn't have enough gas to get home from work tomorrow. And we've got about a total of $5 to our name. Not sure how this is going to work out. And I do mean literally don't know.
My Poor Mother In other happy-joy news, looks like Mom broke her wrist today. We were supposed to get together tomorrow, but instead she called to tell me that thrilling news. Her dog, Kylie, is a sweetheart. But she's also really hyper sometimes and knocked Mom down once before when she came running back to Mom at too high a velocity. Guess what happened today? Yup, she came charging back, all excited and happy....and knocked Mom down. Huge bruise apparently on her leg, hurt her knee, and broke her wrist when she fell. She had x-rays and it's in a temp cast, and she'll know for sure when the radiologist confirms the break. How shitty is that?
Boob Tube Summer tv sucks. It's like, we just got our shows back after the strike....and then the season's over. Now there's nothing to watch, so we've been going through the Angel: The Complete Series dvds I got for my birthday. (We're already on disk five. Of 30 though, so plenty more to go.) I'm glad we have them to watch, but still. Man does tv suck right now. We can't even afford to re-join Netflix or Blockbuster right now. I even have a month free trial that a friend sent me but I don't have enough on the PayPal card for the authorization. (Even though it's free, they check to make sure you have $20 in funds which I don't.)
Orders - Or Lack Thereof I love people's enthusiasm and appreciation of my jewelry but when you literally don't have three dollars to your name to buy dinner, it's hard to feel good about the "Oh, your work is great!" comments if they're not followed up with orders. I know that sounds cold, but I'm just so frustrated right now about finances and it's so hard when you're just not getting a lot of sales. Especially when you really, really need them.
Fatigue All Time Highs I've been so tired lately. I don't mean like sleepy or drowsy, I mean like, if I sit down for ten minutes, it's almost impossible for me to stay awake. And, I fight for an hour or two just to get out of bed. Lately? I've been waking up around 10am which is when I should get up if I went to bed around 2-2:30am, but...I literally can't fight my way out of sleep and the next thing I know, it's 11:30am. Gods, I'm sleeping until almost noon every single day now. And yesterday, I had to lay back down for another hour after I took a shower and today, I uncontrollably fell asleep for a half an hour just sitting on the couch this afternoon. What gives?? And my dreams are so vivid and exhausting, though I don't remember them when I wake up, they feel like I'm living days, weeks, months and more of time. I wake up sometimes unable to remember if something was real or a dream.
Welcome to Florida The heatwave amuses me. Not in the funny ha-ha sort of way, but in the kinda ironic, but this is EVERY DAY for me sorta way. All my friends are talking about the heat and how it's in the 90's and how the humidity is high and all the health warnings and weather advisories and stuff and it's so weird to me. Because we've been in the 90's since mid-May. (We were at Disney on Saturday, May 10th and the actual high was 93F that day. Not including the humidity, the UV index, or the feels-like temp. Just the actual air temperature.) And we'll be here every single day until at least the beginning of October when, if we're extremely lucky, we'll go down to the mid-80's. We live at least six unbroken months of the year in this hellish heat. And yet, people are always dismissive of the impact and the seriousness of our summers. They always say things like, "yeah, but we get blizzards." They fail to realize the intensity of our summers are EXACTLY the same as the intensity of terrible winters. When other parts of the country have a taste of what most of our year is like normally, I can't help but say to myself, "See?? I wasn't kidding about the seriousness of it! Or how horrible it is!" You don't "get used to" the heat here, you just learn how to limit your exposure to it as much as possible. I just wish people would remember how miserable and dangerous and horrible these heat waves are the next time I hear shit about Florida summers being no big deal.
Fuck Off With Father's Day Already I can't tell you how sick I am of getting sales emails for Father's Day.
Get Dad a Nintendo DS for Father's Day!
Take Dad out to lunch at Bennigan's with this special offer!
Food & Family: Special Menu for Dad!
Buy John Adam's on DVD - in time for Father's Day!

Oh fuck off already! Jesus fucking christ, I don't want all this bullshit sales pitch. It's all such crap. They'll find any absurd excuse to send out something for a supposed "holiday" just to try to drum up sales. But I don't need fucking emails from Nintendo or Sephora trying to get me to buy some man-friendly item. Look, assholes, not everyone has a fucking dad and not everyone wants to be reminded of the day. Pushing your crap just annoys me and makes me LESS likely to buy shit from you in the future.

I better stop. I've gone into full rant mode. Did I mention how upset I am about the whole not-a-penny-to-my-name broke thing? Or the can't-get-a-fucking-$6.50-an-hour-job-to-save-my-life one? Yeah? Well, there you have it then. Deep blue funk, welcome back. Haven't seen you for awhile, but I know you're familiar with this place so make yourself at home again.

Anyway, stomach's killing me (as usual though it's been far worse than normal last couple days again making me question why I'm bothering to try to find a job anyway since even if the world ended and someone did hire me, I'd just fail at it again anyway because of my stomach) so I need to close. Not that anyone will have read this (nor do I blame them) nor cared that I'm upset/depressed again (because tell me something else that's new.) And I wonder why no one comments on my journal. Ha. It's happy entries like this I'm sure. Oh wait. I'm sure I'll get some comments. Like the trolls who always leave helpful things like, "get a job." Wow. Why didn't I think of that?

Bah. I'm working myself even deeper. I'll just shut up now, hit post and crawl back under the rock I belong under.

....and of course, 30 minutes later, Blogger STILL won't publish.

...and it's 1:42am and STILL no publishing now. turning off the pc and I'll try again at some other point in time.

... Wednesday 6/11/08 @ 10:28am trying again to publish.

... 1:57pm trying again to publish.

... It partially uploaded earlier but not fully. It's now 3:42pm and supposedly it's fixed so let's try one last time.

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 06:02:00 +0000

Autumn Colored Knitting Charm Bracelet
Just thought I'd show off a recent bracelet. This was made for a swap, so this specific one isn't for sale, though I have a few more knitting charms and I could make a similar piece (in the same types of colors or different) if interested. I just thought it came out nice and wanted to share.

I'm kinda on the whole chunky charm bracelet full of fun dangles kick lately. I think they come out really pretty and impressive. They're a lot of work, but I like doing them.

Thoughts?

Edit to add: I've also been updating my sample craft photo gallery lately. Check out some of the creative things I've come up with recently over there as well!

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 05:21:00 +0000

Pirates of the Caribbean - Chess Game
(This post is more of an off-topic entry to direct people looking for information than a typical journal entry. Since google indexes my site, I thought I'd help people locate what they're looking for by putting it in an entry.)

In the queue of Pirates of the Caribbean attraction at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World (Orlando, Florida), there's a point where you can look down into a dungeon cell and see two skeletons. In between them is a chess board. These two prisoners clearly played chess until they died. The rumor is that the chess board is at a stalemate. (Where there are no moves left and neither player has won or lost the game. In other words, it's a draw.) A stalemate would be funny because it'd be ironic; they played so much and so long that neither could beat the other before they died.

Sadly, this rumor is untrue. The chess board is NOT in stalemate.

Legend has it that it was originally supposed to be in stalemate. And that the original artwork for the dungeon shows it as such, including a diagram of where the pieces should be placed on the chess board to make it a stalemate. As the legend goes, someone moved the board (bumped, cleaned, whatever) and no one knew how to put it back. So it was just random pieces on the board.

The rumor goes on to say that when the ride was refurbished to include Captain Jack Sparrow in 2006, they found the original art and placement diagram and restored the chess board to it's original, intended stalemate. Sadly this is also untrue.

How do I know this? Well, way back in August of 2003 I wanted to find out if the rumor of a stalemate was true or not and I took it upon myself to find out once and for all. Diagrams on the internet of the supposed placement varied and were inconsistent and since I live close enough to go regularly, I just took it upon myself to photograph it myself.

So I managed to get a nice shot and when we got home and looked at it Love - who's a big chess fan and the one most curious if the rumor was true or not - studied the board and proclaimed it NOT a stalemate.

I decided to put up a website and share my revelation with the world. But, being the obsessive details person that I am, I wasn't content just taking one picture. The next time I went back I took another. And the next time after that another. (You get where this is going.) It's now five years later and I still take pictures. I've got a chronological photo gallery tracking the board and it's changes. Because, and here's the funny thing, despite never being in stalemate, the pieces on the board DO move. Quite a bit in fact. Realistically, it's just a result of dusting and cleaning, or someone throwing something down into the cell and disrupting the board, but it's still interesting. I love looking at the photos and playing "spot the differences" between months and years.

Little things move. Pieces change position on the board. (Sometimes to impossible or illogical positions.) Pieces are added; pieces are removed. And other details vary - the mugs of the skeletons turn, or the pieces off the board get rearranged. The more you look, the more little differences you notice.

After five years of photographing the board, I think I can officially claim the informal title of "POTC Chess Board Expert" and give the most correct answer that if the board was ever supposed to be in stalemate, it is not now, nor has it been since at least before 2003, in stalemate currently.

Don't believe me? Look for yourself.

I'll keep taking pictures and updating the site. It's too much of a habit now to stop. So for as long as I'm able to get to WDW and for as long as the little dungeon's chess board is there, I'll keep taking pictures of it. And though I'm writing this in June of 2008, if you come across this entry years later, know I'm probably still snapping away.

I hope this has been informative for any of you out there wondering about the Chess Game Stalemate and I welcome comments, input or feedback. I also hope the photos have been interesting and that they've helped you solve one of the internet's pesky and persistent rumors to satisfaction.

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:15:00 +0000

I HAVE STITCHES!

No, really! I manged to make stitches in a piece of scrap fabric just now! I have now officially sewn! (Even if it's just a straight line it still counts!)

(I even tried a few of the different stitch settings to see what they looked like!)

Now I just need something to sew. I'm all jonesing to actually try and make something. (I know, getting ahead of myself.) But, DOOOOOD! I got it to work!!

noreply@blogger.com (:: miss m ::) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:16:00 +0000

Sewing Machine - The Morning After
Ok, I'm going to go back to the comments and reply to them specifically, but I thought I'd made a follow-up this morning first.

Thanks for the replies. I was so frustrated last night. The way the manual wrote it out, it seemed like upper threading and lower threading were two different processes. Like, your choice of ways to use the machine, you know? It didn't list it like, Step One make a bobbin. Step Two, top load thread. Step Three, bottom load thread. If it would have just explained hey, it takes a top thread and a bottom thread in order to make a stitch, I wouldn't have been so confused. Maybe it's common knowledge that sewing uses thread in two places at once, but I had no clue. I mean, as it is, threading from the top is a weirdly complicated process involving this meandering pattern where the thread goes through like six things. So it's already really out there in terms of what you'd (I'd) expect. (Good news is that I'm REALLY GOOD at top loading the thread at this point. I did it enough times last night thinking I was doing something wrong.)

I think I'm going to write up an entry or a page or something that deals with this extremely basic concept. Because I couldn't find this sort of thing when I was searching. Everyone just assumed you knew how the machine worked. Which was making me feel all the stupider for not being able to make a stitch. I had threaded the thing correctly from the top and thread was through the needle and I had the fabric properly lined up and the needle moved up and down and yet I was getting no stitches. Which didn't make sense. The only sewing I'd ever done was by hand (replacing a button, etc.) and the hardest part there was getting the thread in the eye. Once you do that, you can sew. Which is why, I guess, it never occurred to me that a machine used two separately loaded threads at once.

So I'm going to go back and re-try the bobbin making (which wasn't working last night and I still don't know why) and I'm going to follow the lower thread loading directions and then hopefully, I can report a successful stitch. I feel a little more confident today that I have a little bit more of a clue what I'm doing. At least I'll be re-approaching the machine instead of touching it for the first time. I feel like I have a little bit of a better clue what I need to do to make it work. Last night, I had no idea. I was just so frustrated I had actually started to cry at one point. Today's a new day though and I'm better armed with the information I was missing last night, so I'll go back and plow through the directions and see if I can't make the damned thing work afterall.