On a Roll!!

Man, selling things is AWESOME! I always thought that I would love living an artist's live, and now I know for sure!

This morning I had a special request to ship to Canada, and now I am happy to say that I've made my 3rd "stranger" sale. Woo-HOO!!! That's two in a row! I feel like, just maybe, I can actually do this when DS gets a teaching job.

I can't really explain what it's like to put your time and love into making something, and then have someone say, "wow, that's really cool, and i'll pay MONEY for it!". Sometimes it's hard to let the thing go, but I know that if I really want to keep it, I can make another. It's such a gratifying experience. I can definitely see why people opt to make things rather than go out and work for the man. :)

Scaredy Cat

Tonight the fire alarm went off around nine in my apartment building. The cats have been through fire alarms before, and it always freaks them out. They immediately disappeared when it started, and not seeing or smelling anything, decidedly to leave them when I went outside.

For once, this fire alarm was legit, though it thankfully didn't do any damage to anything I care about. It looks like one of the garage doors died in a blaze of glory. Or at least we found it open, hanging strangely, and the sprinklers on full blast. It was like it was raining indoors.

The fire department couldn't seem to get the sprinklers turned off, and it wasn't until one of the maintenance people showed up that they made any progress towards letting us back in the building.

When I came back inside, Felix came running right away. She must have been worried about me, because she even let me hold her for a while, and she never does that.

Winston on the other hand, hid under the bed for a long time. And now he's trying to stir up the courage to leave the bedroom doorway. For all his beefiness and fangs and tackling Felix, he really is a big wuss.

They're both getting lots of treats and catnip tonight!

The Mighty Hunter

Not too terribly long ago, I became interested in felt making, both wet felting and needle felting. So I have a small collection of natural and dyed wools that I keep in a tote. For a while, I would wake up in the mornings to the wool be strung throughout the apartment. I assumed it was Winston, because he's usually the bad one. Turns out, I was wrong. It was this one:

If this wool is anywhere even remotely close to a place she can reach, she will get it. I used to store the entire tote in my wire shelving, which is about 1.3 feet square or so, and stacked on top of each other. This was on the 5th shelf, so not close to the ground. And she got to it.

So I thought, if I can't beat her, I'll give her what she wants. I made a needle felted mouse toy.

I didn't keep it long. In fact, taking these pictures were difficult.

She's very happy, and is strutting around the house, meowing loudly to let us all know of her glorious kill. She's so tough.

Cats, Planes and Gyros

This morning I took DS to the airport yet again, this time on his way to Athens, Greece. GREECE!!! On one hand, I hate that his job is constantly sending him places. On the other, his totally sweet and awesome mother is sending me along with him! That's right, on April 9th, yours truly will be on a place to Athens. I CAN NOT WAIT!! Having studied architectural history all through college, I'm so excited to be able to go to the Acropolis myself.

On the way to the airport, we passed a gas station with one of those small eateries inside. This one was called "Athens Gyros: The Original". DS felt it important to let Athens know that the original is on the north side of Madison. I'm sure they'll be surprised to hear it.

The cats are already raising a fuss over DS leaving. They each took turns laying on his suitcase in the hopes that he wouldn't be able to leave without it. As soon as I got back home after dropping him off, Winston destroyed a roll of toilet paper (one of his favorite "I'll show you" past times).

Just a few minutes ago he found a box full of peanuts (I keep the boxes I get in case I need them to ship things myself; recycle!). Within moments the box was tipped over, peanuts everywhere, and he was nestled inside. If I had known that all they wanted was a cardboard box and peanuts for a bed, I wouldn't has spent so much money on this one. Oh well.. Felix is currently fast asleep in the box, and it is kinda cute. Though I'm not looking forward to cleaning up those peanuts.

Winston - enjoying his freshly made bed.

Felix attacking a peanut while Winston decides whether to attack her.

Felix, mid meow. She really is a pretty cat, but she's so black and silky that the flash over compensates and makes her look funny...

In other news, we were once again tricked into thinking that Spring was on the way. For over a week we had temperatures around 40, and the majority of our almost 100 inches of seasonal snowfall had melted. Then came the first day of Spring, which brought like 12 more inches of snow. I guess that one week was enough to make people forget how to drive in it, because there were a lot of abandoned cars. The roads weren't even that bad! I mean, we drove almost a month straight on 3-4 inches of ice! Crazy northerners.

Update 3/23 9:43pm - It's snowing again....

Obsessed

Today, EA launched its "hype" site for the Sims 3. Last I heard, it's slated for a March of '09 release. Yeah, that's right. An entire year from now. But there have been articles talking about this came since 2006. This is a very long time to anticipate a video game. It's almost not fair.

Needless to say, I'm already drooling. Come on 2009!! (And damn you EA, for getting me excited a year early! Did you really need to do that? You knew I was going to buy it already. You've known since I bought my first expansion pack....)

Happy St. Patty's Day!

What Your Shamrock Says About You

You are charming, witty, and larger than life. At times, you can be a bit impatient and inflexible. You don't like to be distracted. You don't really consider yourself a lucky person. In your view, people create their own luck. You are stylish, in a classic sort of way. You are particular about how you like things.

The Shamrock Personality Test

Home Alone

DS left for New Orleans Tuesday morning to give some talks since he's a fancy pants doctor and all. I went to New Orleans once in high school with the family of one of my friends (well, really, all of my vacations have been with friends; my parents don't go places). So I've been home alone, and I've learned some things.

1. The house is much easier to keep clean with him gone. Not sure if that's because it got into the 40's this week (hello Spring!) which triggered the neat bug, or what.
2. My body has not concept of bedtime. He is my reminder that one must sleep. I'm quickly slipping back into my night owl ways, going to sleep around 2 am. Good thing he comes back tomorrow.
3. I'm way more motivated when he's not around. Weird. But I strongly believe that it's because when he's home, all I want to do is curl up next to him. Without him here, I've made tons of new jewelry, cleaned the kitchen, put away the Christmas stuff that stayed up this long due to never ending snow (seriously, did you expect me to extract that garland out from 4 inches of continuous snow??), and lots of other stuff.
4. I'm horrible about spending money. That's a definite positive to staying curled up next to him all night.. can't go to the bead store and spend a fortune.
5. The cats seemed to be more sedated. By which I mean Winston isn't doing his non-stop meowing, expecting DS to throw his mouse. Though he does try to wake me up at 6 am when he realizes his daddy isn't getting up to play with him. And he did accidentally puncture my wrist with his huge snaggle-tooth because he'd decided that watches do not belong on mommy's wrist.

All in all, I miss him, and am ready for him to come home. Even though he'll only be back for a week before taking off on another school excursion. But I need to find a way to hold onto this productivity while he's here. Maybe not quite so much, since I do want to see him from time to time. But a little would be nice.

Inspired by Patrick Henry

Having DVR, I don't always watch things as they air, so it's no surprise that I'm a few weeks behind on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. I know, I know. It's a sappy show, and the preservationist in me has real issues with their demolish and start over philosophy. But it's not just about how cool of a new house they can build. The people they're helping are so inspirational.

The show has been spending the last few seasons hitting each of the 50 states, and a few weeks ago the Kentucky episode aired. The recipient was Patrick Henry and his family. Patrick Henry was born without eyes, and cannot straighten his arms or legs. He's spent his life in a wheel chair, but he's never let anything keep him down. In fact, I could easily say he's accomplished more in his 18 years than I have in my fully functional 26. He was playing piano at the age of 2, and has gone on to be in the University of Louisville's marching band playing the trumpet. He's simply amazing. He plays piano better than I could ever dream of playing, and he writes his own music. I just can't believe it.

To see him do the things he can do was amazing. But he also goes to the school I graduated from, and I could help but be touched by what he's brought to the school. And I have to admit that it was really nice to see my home state shown in such a wonderful light, without the slightest hint of the jokes and teasing I get (not necessarily meanly) from people who find out where I'm from. I'm proud to say this man and I come from the same place, and I can only hope that some of you caught that episode and could feel the inspiration and joy that he spreads to everyone he meets (and even those he doesn't).

My iMac Got Sick

Yesterday, I'm playing around online. Nothing dangerous or bug infested, just normal safe websites. Suddenly, Firefox dies. But not your normal everyday crash and is gone variety. Nope, it froze, and then took 30 minutes to completely crash out. And this is with me using force quit.

This didn't seem to have any affect on the rest of the computer, so I just opened Safari and went about my business. Then, about an hour later, Safari crashes. And then Mail crashes. Repeatedly.

So, I think it's time for a restart. Everything seems good with that. Oh wait. WRONG! It never finished restarting, it just looks like it did. The clock, airport, and other little fancy icons are missing. No programs will start, and the dock is gone. So I try restarting again. Now the computer won't even shut down.

Several forced shut downs later, and much time spent surfing the net for troubleshooting tips (from my laptop of course), I give up and try running the Leopard disc. No luck there either. It won't run, boot from, or even remotely act like it knows it's there.

So this evening I had my first "Genius Bar" experience. I have to say, they're pretty good. I didn't have to wait too long to be seen, (though you'll most likely need an appointment, which you can make online), and my guy worked very quickly. Not much on the explanations, but he did stop and tell me what he was doing when I bothered to ask. 45 minutes and several dual boots from unknown sources later, my baby was back!

And it's a good thing too! Do you have any idea how devastated I would be to lose over 2000 digital photos? Or the 50 Gb of music on there? Or even just the smaller things, like my website back up files? It looks like it's time for a back up hard drive!

The up side, at least as far as I'm concerned, is that he doesn't think it was a virus. And should it end up be a hardware failure, it is most likely related to the RAM or video card. So if he's right, and it poops out again, it doesn't look like my data loss risk is actually very high. Still though, I am sufficiently "scared straight". New back up system will be in place as soon as I can afford (which may be a little while...)

Let's Celebrate!

Yesterday I had my first "stranger" sale at my store!! I'm so excited! I've sold lots of things, sure, but to people I know. This may be a subtle difference to you, but to me, it means that my things are good enough to attract the interest of people with a complete lack of sentimental obligation or charity or any other emotion of the sort. That's not to say that I don't greatly appreciate those sentimental purchases. I wouldn't be doing this today if I hadn't been bolstered by that support for the last 3 or 4 years.

So let me say thank you to all you wonderful people who have supported me thus far. Do a little dance, where ever you are, and celebrate with me! :)

Ice Storm

A while back, we had an ice storm, followed by snow. I love the look of trees covered in ice. Sparkly!