Work and Sleep and Not Feeling Well: Day 8

Yeah, this isn't happening.

After a week of being in a cat-ified environment, I can no longer handle my allergies.

I slept most of the day today, from 1:30am-5:30am, then 9:30am-7:15pm.

My face feels like it's going to freaking explode. I've had "Wal-dryl" (generic Benedryl), Advil, Advil Cold & Sinus... Absolutely nothing is helping me beat this.

As a result, I've been sluggish, in pain, and tired. I don't have time to write blog posts, and even when I do, it's not like I have anything to talk about. I just haven't been working as much as I should.

Guess I'll just share what I've managed to get done these past few days.

Woof?

I managed to work a little more on the pit bull. He now has eyes and ears, so I baked him (successfully) to preserve the work I've done so far. He still needs his face worked on since his muzzle isn't where I want it to be.

Bracelets, oh my!

I've also been beading a little bit in front of the TV. I feel like I need a lot more concentration and focus for sculpting, and since I've been feeling so crappy, I've just been trying to do what I can.

The plastic white pony beads are actually UV beads, which will show color when put in sunlight.

The army grows...

The top left UV beads are blue, top right UV beads are purple, bottom left UV beads are orange, and bottom right UV beads are purple/yellow/purple.

I'm going to try my best to do what I can while I'm here, but it's apparent that I can't be around cats... and Jon's house is contaminated with kitty allergens.

Bah, life never gets easy, does it?

Work & Play on Vacay: Day 4 + 5

I was busy/lazy/whatever these past two days, so I didn't have time to type up a blog post.

Time to catch up on what's been going on...

DAY 4!

I tried to move my sleep schedule back on track, so I asked Jon to wake me at 1:30pm.

That didn't exactly work out... I was too tired and ended up staying in bed for another half hour until 2pm.

Curse you and your persistence, winter!

Everything was blanketed in snow when I looked out the window, which was a real bummer. We still wanted to go and have a nice day, so I hopped into the shower to get ready.

Hilariously, while I was showering the power decided to go out. It was extremely windy out, so it wasn't that unexpected. Thankfully I was right at the end of my shower, so I just rinsed a little more and got changed.

At 3:00pm we left to go get lunch at Chick-fil-A and grab some Rita's. As usual, it was absolutely delicious.

Guava ice with vanilla custard. PURE BLISS.

I was extremely tired when we got back, and surprisingly Jon was too. We were pretty lazy for the rest of the day. I'm not 100% sure, but I think we just sat around and watched TV, and Jon played video games while I looked at sofubi toys on the internet. I honestly can't even remember.

That night I was exhausted and retired to bed early around 10:30pm. Unfortunately I didn't end up sleeping for very long, and awoke at 1:30am having to pee. That somehow woke me up, and I hopelessly got up to try and get myself tired again.

I ended up finally cracking open the journal I bought at Michael's Craft Store and writing a few pages about my life as it currently stands... A kind of "snapshot" into my life so one day I can look back and have an idea of who I was, and what my opinions on things were at the time.

After writing a bit, I mindlessly watched CNN (not sure if it was the global CNN or they just have the global CNN people at night) while browsing my phone for designer toy goodness. I finally went to sleep around 6:00am.

DAY 5!

I had asked Jon to wake me at 12:00am, but when I woke up I begged for another half hour... So it was 12:30am when I finally awoke.

I'm also starting to think that the cat allergies are finally catching up to me.

I was so exhausted and achey that it took me forever to convince myself to dunk my head in the sink and wash my hair. (I shower every other day, it's actually better for you.)

Once we were all ready, we left to go grab some food at the super market.

As expected, we left with very little food, and more cheese snacks than I know what to do with.

We also swung by Chick-fil-A for some nuggets, because they're too damn good.

I had a very blue lollipop afterwards, and I swear that I have eyebrows under that hat.

Jon and I watched some TV for a little while before he left to go see one of his friends in neighboring New Jersey. 

Being the weak person I am, I took the opportunity to take a much-needed nap. I lay down at around 6:30pm, only to wake up at 10:50pm hungry, thirsty, and confused.

I went upstairs and made myself some chicken tenders (I'm eating a ton of chicken down here in Delaware, haha) while being stared at for 50 min straight by Jon's cat, Bandit.

After preparing and eating my second chicken meal of the day, I decided to get some actual work done.

Working on the body and thighs!

Everything started out pretty well. I decided to scrap the wire armature of the thighs in favor for aluminum foil.

Once I was done building up the body and smoothing the clay, I popped Stolas into the oven and...

NOOOOO!

...his head didn't make it.

The styrofoam changed shape and the warping seemed to disrupt the clay enough for it to crack.

I tried to fix it but...

Nope, not happening.

...the pieces were much too warped and bent to fit back together. Oh well.

Guess my next course of action is to remake the head on an aluminum foil base.

On the bright side, I started playing around with a vinyl blank. Going to turn this hippo into a pit bull and hopefully auction it off for Bully Breed Rescue once it's finished!

Not much, but it's a start.

It wasn't until around 4:00am or so that I started getting tired and went to bed.

So much for fixing up my sleep schedule.

Work and Play on Vacay: Day 3

I'm a day late with this blog entry, but for good reason... I had a pretty craptacular morning and afternoon.

My hormones tend to get messed up since I'm still adjusting to my switch from Mirena to Nuvaring as control for my anemia, so I ended up being super tired and sleeping late. Jon kept trying to wake me up and I kept asking for more sleep time. It wasn't until 5pm, when he came back with a Rita's gelati and brought his mom back from dialysis that I finally had the strength and willpower to get out of bed. Of course, I felt really bad about sleeping the entire day away, but it was all pretty much explained when I realized I was bleeding again, even though I bled last week as well. (I always get insanely tired the day of or day before I get my period, because my body hates me.)

Anyway, annoying bodily dysfunctions aside, my Rita's gelati was absolutely delicious, though Jon's mom accidentally ate my Swedish Fish flavored one and left me with cherry. Honestly, that was fine, and pretty hilarious. When I looked outside, however...

WHAT IS THIS SHIT.

Seriously? Snow?

Yep, snow.

Even though it's officially spring AND we're a bit more south than Connecticut, Delaware got some snow while Connecticut escaped unscathed.

In an attempt to salvage the rest of the day, Jon and I decided to go out for dinner at Ruby Tuesdays.

I've never been there before, plus we had coupons, and coupons are always a good thing.

We left at about 6:30pm, and arrived at 7:00pm. (Delaware is big and flat, so travel usually takes a while.)

Tempura green beans. I ATE GREEN BEANS.

I have to say, for a fairly large restaurant chain, the food was really good. I don't ever eat vegetables other than corn, cucumber, spinach on pizza, and occasionally broccoli, so I was pretty amazed at how delicious the tempura green bean appetizer was. 

Southern-fried chicken tenders? YES PLEASE.

The chicken tenders I had as an entree were really good as well. They lived up to their name, that's for sure... They were lightly breaded, tender, and moist rather than overly-crunched and dry, like most restaurants offer.

We skipped dessert since we already had Rita's earlier, and were absolutely stuffed anyway.

At 8:20pm we went to Walgreen's to pick up my meds, and got home at 9:00pm.

After our little outing, it was time to bunker down and get some work done!

Testing tools on Super Sculpey!

After getting a feel for the material, I decided to try and start sculpting Stolas!

I'm not 100% sure if this will work, but I'm trying to sculpt him on a base of styrofoam balls. I did a little bit of research, and apparently it's safe to slow-bake it under 200ºF. The styrofoam WILL shrink, and I'm not sure if the clay will buckle along with it. Hopefully the clay will keep its shape and I can just remove the shrunken styrofoam from the piece once its baked.

Whooo?

I didn't get too much done, just got around to cutting the styrofoam balls and putting on a base layer of clay around the head. I punched out the eyes with a paint dabber (the thing my index finger is accidentally pointing to) and I still need to put a base layer on the body, and build up the upper thighs. 

I'm aiming to mold him eventually in three parts... head, body, and feet. I'm not sure how I'm going to do it, but I'd like the head to be able to swivel on the body, and the legs to be able to fit holes at the bottom of the thighs. Those might have to be glued into place.

Oh well, I shouldn't get too ahead of myself. I'm not even sure if this piece will hold up in the first place. I might have to completely redo him if my styrofoam base doesn't work.

Only time will tell, and thankfully I've got lots of it!

Work and Play on Vacay: Day 2

It's five minutes past midnight and I really have to pee after downing a whole can of diet root beer, so let's get this over with.

Today was pretty much no work, and all play... but I did get some neat stuff for some work tomorrow.

Let's start with the morning.
Jon attempted to wake me up this morning, but being the nocturnal person I am, I didn't want to get up. See, my stupid alarm went off at 4:30am because I had forgotten to shut it off the morning before, and it woke me up. I couldn't fall back asleep so I browsed Instagram on my phone and played iOS games until about 6:30am or so.
I don't think I actually got up until around 11:30am, and I'm pretty sure Jon had to wake me up anyway.
I ate breakfast, we showered and got ready, and left for an adventure in Dover, Delaware at around 2:00pm.

We first stopped off at PetSmart for some "dog therapy," as I like to call it. Basically petting dogs makes everything happy. (Okay, the kitties helped a bit too, but I'm much more of a dog person.)
There weren't all that many dogs up for adoption, but there were some very friendly and cute ones... except for one. There was a very aggressive boxer that went from licking and sniffing my hand to suddenly going berserk and lunging at the cage, but thankfully I pulled my hand away in time.

Bruce was one of the more memorable ones. We went to meet the dogs on the other side of the room, then returned to his cage. He was just lying there completely still, staring at us with this crazy look on his face like, "Yep. Just airing my balls out. YOU MAD?"

My favorite was a throwaway pit bull mama, of course. She was named Hannah and we actually got to meet her in the playpen. She wanted nothing more than to coat our faces in a thick layer of dog slobber, even if it meant knocking us over on our asses.

After our dog visit, I decided to get some things I'm missing for my first venture into toy customizing and sculpting. As an early birthday present, Jon got me a fantastic set of clay sculpting tools in a handy zip-up thing. (I really can't think of the word right now. Is it a case? A bag? Ugh!) I also bought myself a journal to write some rantings in (as in the rantings I can't share on my blog) and a can of Krylon Primer White.

I can honestly say I have no idea how primer is any different than white paint, but apparently it is.

Primer, sculpting tools, journal, and leg. I'm wearing corduroys. They are unbelievably uncomfortable.

After our trip to Michael's, we went to Chick-fil-A, where I indulged in my guilty pleasure of chicken nuggets, and laughed uncomfortably at the Jesus music.

Our lunch/dinner (linner?) was pretty short, partially because I inhaled my food, and partially because the lyrics to the music were so horrifically cheesy and I didn't want to offend anyone with my giggling...

The next destination on our list was the Dover Mall, which was surprisingly pretty empty. I managed to snag a $4 scarf from Old Navy and a really nice faux-denim jacket/sweatshirt/thing from PacSun for $13.

(I'm the queen of the clearance rack, just an fyi.)

We ended our adventure with Rita's, which is a "water ice" and "custard" place... Basically "shaved Italian ice" and "extra creamy soft-serve" for those who don't speak South. 

I had mango ice with orange cream custard.

Before...

...and after, Jon is weirded out by my inevitably orange tongue.

We got back home at 7:00pm, and I honestly don't really know how I spent my time up until now. I think I'm so exhausted that time started slipping by unbelievably fast. To my knowledge, all I did was check and play on my phone while Jon played Metal Gear Solid 3, and watched an episode of Bob's Burgers.

I should probably get some sleep now. Tomorrow we need to go to Middletown to pick up my meds, which will inevitably end in us getting Rita's again. We also have to pick up Jon's mom from dialysis, and I have to finally face my fears of cracking open the box of Super Sculpey and seeing how bad my clay skills are. HA.

Crafting Update! What I've Made This Summer...

Since I officially closed down my Etsy shop, I've been a roll making tons of new stuff for our grand reopening.

Here's some photos of what's in... hehe... STORE! (Okay, that was awful.)

After a lot of research into polymer clay techniques, I decided I definitely needed a clay machine. I found a reasonably priced off-brand one on eBay, and it works like a charm! 

After my first venture into the world of clay canes and clay machines, I made myself a cane that looked a lot like bacon. Thanks to the clay machine, I was able to make some great pendants and button-like post earrings!

Anyone who played World of Warcraft knows that home is where the hearthstone is... These hearthstones were shaped, textured, carved, and then accented with blue glow-paint from Glow-On. After they were glazed, they were made into pins and earrings!

Jon went for a bike ride one morning while we were in Delaware, and brought back a gorgeous dead dragonfly he found! I decided to buy a shadowbox and paint a background to mount it on.

More adventures with the clay machine! I made a tiger-stripe cane and used my new cutters to make shaped pendants. The pendants on the right were from my first clay machine experiment... They're supposed to look like they're made out of real stone.

Continued fun with both the clay machine, and my new blade! By making a small millefiori cane and cutting it up into tiny thin pieces, I was able to make the wings for butterfly post earrings. I then took scrap pieces, flattened them with the machine, and used the cutters to make some some more pendants and post earrings. 

School has started up again, and since I'm looking for a veterinary internship, I'm taking it easy this semester. The only class I'm taking is Sculpture I, and we're already getting started on something big! We're going to be making a giant "Yellow Submarine" installation in our college's east atrium... but the catch is that the WHOLE THING must be made out of only newspaper, and duct tape! Today I made a Portuguese Man o' War, and it may have attacked me... :P

I'll be keeping you all updated on the continuing progress that I make in building up my shop inventory before the big reopening day!