Pictures that I forgot to post back in April

Found these sitting around in my Drafts, so guess I should post them.

These were from early April, when I was still in Delaware.

I really have been slacking with blog updates...

A drawing I did of Rangeas, one of my vinyl toy grails!

Some UV color-change action on the bracelets I made!

This pibble was named Baklava, and he was SUCH a cutie. I wish I could have taken him home.

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 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.

Work and Play on Vacay: Day 1

It's become apparent that I am seriously slacking when it comes to making new content, whether it's videos (how long has it been?), blogging (been a month), or art (last time I touched some clay was before Christmas.)

SO.

Today will be the first day in a pitiful attempt to make some blog posts and get some shit done.

See, Jon has been working for the past four months, and we haven't had the opportunity to visit his parents in Delaware for more than two days over Christmas. Now that his part-time position has come to an end, we can finally escape Connecticut and my crazy family, and take a much-needed vacation.

Of course, since almost every day at my own home is a vacation day, that means while I actually have to DO things while in Delaware.

(Let's face it, all I do at home is sleep, play FFXIV, sleep some more, and wonder why my body hates me)

Here's a recap of what I've done today.

Today was rather uneventful.

I went to sleep at around 10:30pm, only to wake up at 1:00am having to pee. I half-watched reruns on Investigation Discovery until my alarm went off at 4:30am. At that point Jon and I got ready to leave, which we finally did around 5:50am or so. 

We drove our way down south, stopping at some random rest stop for a small breakfast, which for me was some Roy Roger's breakfast fries with chocolate milk.

(Let's just say that I deeply regret my choice of breakfast some 9 hours later, and leave it at that.)

We arrived at Jon's house at approximately 9:30am, and almost immediately passed out until about 2:45pm.

The remainder of the day was spent watching TV, eating dinner, regretting breakfast, and...

Putting stuff up in my shop!

Yes, I'm finally putting my shop together after about a year of non-selling limbo.

Only my needle-felted pieces are up at the moment, and they aren't for sale yet because I stupidly forgot to measure them before leaving home, but at least they're viewable as a preview.

Did someone say BRAINS? No? ...oh, okay.

You can check out the shop HERE or click the Shop tab for a link.

So, that's it for today. Tomorrow we're going to drive to Dover to get some Chick-fil-A (I know, I know, it's a weakness of mine), see dogs and cats at PetSmart, and of course, check out the Michael's Craft Store for any goodies, like vinyl toy blanks. Maybe I can even get started on making something!

College, Why Do You Hate Me So?

What a way to kick off the new year...

I've been very busy. It doesn't seem very evident to you all since all you are witnessing is a complete lack of updates... but I have been busy... and very unfortunate.

December was insane at my place of work. Just to give you an idea of how busy the grooming department was, my paycheck was twice that of a usual 2-week period. I was a dog-scrubbing maniac.
December 22, I had an accident at work. I was carrying a small dog to the play area, and I managed to slam my other hand in a big, heavy door. My middle finger and index finger were both hurt, with my middle finger getting a diagonal cut just from the force of the door itself. I ended up dripping blood everywhere and bruising both nailbeds and my finger bone. Needless to say, I couldn't work for the rest of the day and the day before Christmas Eve. I lost the oppurtunity to make around $100 or so, which was extremely upsetting.
Christmas Eve, I got sick with a cold. By the 27th I was feeling pretty much better, and was back at work. Things were slow, but it felt good just to be making money again.
On the 30th I went to Delaware to visit Jon for New Year's. Every year he has a New Year's Eve party with his friends, and we end up eating lots of food, watching tons of movies, and just generally having a good time. We watched the first 3 Star Wars movies, which was great because I don't know squat about it. (I never had any friends who were into it, so I never saw any of the movies.)
Sure enough though, something had to go wrong. I GOT SICK AGAIN. This time I was coughing up a storm, and keeping poor Jon up at night.
I came home on the 3rd, worked on the 4th (all the while being dizzy and completely out of it), and then took a day off on the 5th because of my unchanging state of sickness.

Now for the kicker.
I called my local community college today to see if they got my college and highschool transcripts. I need both of them in before I can sign up for classes, which start on Jan 20th.
NEITHER PLACE HAS SENT THEIR TRANSCRIPTS.
I requested my transcripts early and mid DECEMBER.

I feel like curling up in a ball and hiding in bed.

I just want to go to college and get it out of the way so I can someday move out of my parents' house... so I can pay the rent, make more than $10/hr, have a future together with my boyfriend. Is that so much to ask?
Apparently it is too much to ask, and these damnable people with their comfortable college employee jobs are just sitting, high on life and raking in the dough while not doing what they're being paid to do.
As someone who slaves away at work, always comes in on time and tries to make an honest living, I feel so defeated and frustrated.

All I can do for now is call them and leave them messages, since nobody there ever picks up the phone... and just hope for the best... please...

A Taste of What's to Come!

I'm back from visiting Jon in Delaware! I had a great time, as usual!
We went to the mall, the supermarket, went for walks, watched the first two Lord of the Rings movies, and played videogames.
I didn't get to catch any frogs sadly, but we got to watch egrets, barn swallows, geese, red-winged blackbirds, bluebirds, and turkey vultures! We even saw a lone killdeer.

But don't worry, it wasn't all fun and games and bird-watching.
While we were there, we also visited craft stores.

Now that I'm back at home, I can finally put the supplies I purchased to good use!
So, what am I going to be working on next?
Here's a teaser list!

• PINS!!! Yes, I bought a nice bag of pin-backs to attach to two clay flowers that I've already made, and will be making more soon! Don't worry, I'm not going to just make more flowers... Expect some fun and possibly geeky pins too.
• ACEOs!!! I got my blanks in the mail, complete with protective sleeves! They're sturdy and nice quality paper, so they'll be perfect for whatever I decide to do with them.
• MORE EARRINGS!!! I bought some more dangling earring hooks, all silver-plated and ready to attach clay charms to! Since summer is here, expect more fruit and bright things. Even better, thanks to the awesomeness of eBay, I will soon be making post-style earrings! The posts will be silver-plated as well, so no worries about nickel allergies.
• NEEDLE-FELTED ANIMALS!!! I have two that are ready to sell already, but I'm waiting until I have a good bunch before posting them. The bluebird that I originally made for Jon will be sold, since I stupidly forgot to bring it with me to Delaware, and ended up making a whole new one on the train ride there. I also made a turtle while I was in DE, and started a parakeet on the way back home.
• AND MORE CLAY THINGS!!! Jon, being the awesome person he is, bought me a nice set of colored clays! I finally have black, brown, and tan clays to work with, so I may finally make some animals. In addition to that, I also bought some glow-in-the-dark clay that was on clearance. I'm going to have a ton of fun with all of those clays. I also just made my first clay cane today! It features a glow pawprint with a purple and blue border. I need a razor blade to cut it with, but hopefully I'll get one this week.
• PRINTS!!! I still have to finish my owl-person drawing, but after that, I will be scanning in some of my old drawings and editing them on the computer to add color, and also to eliminate any imperfections. Once I figure out the best method for printing (and most cost-efficient, seeing that I'm just a fledgling crafter and all) this will finally become a reality!

To put it simply, keep your eye on this blog for new crafty developments! :)
Until next time!

YOU'RE FIRED!

Sooo, yeah. I got fired yesterday.
BY TEXT.
(Technology, what have you done? People don't even have the decency to call anymore.)

I could rant about how bad the management was there, how they are technically breaking laws, and how that job was close to being slave labor... but I would end up ranting for ages.

Let's just sum up everything to some life lessons I have learned...

1) Ask more questions about a job before you sign anything.
If I had known that I would be mopping floors until 1am whenever I had the closing shift, I wouldn't have taken the job. Heck, I wish they would have at least told me I was going to be a janitor. Looking back now, I probably should have asked what exactly the job entailed before signing all the necessary papers. Because I didn't ask, I got stuck doing backbreaking work nearly nonstop for 7-9 hour shifts for minimum wage... I could have just been sitting on my butt and managing phone calls and appointments as a receptionist somewhere, to the sweet tune of $12 an hour. Instead I was on my feet all day, cleaning sticky yogurt and toppings.

2) Stupid people don't like it when you make them look stupid... especially when that person is your manager.
I'm going to be blunt... my manager was an idiot. The very first weekend I worked, he changed my shift without notifying me, and proceeded to blame me when I didn't show up. This led to him being scolded at our employee meeting by the owner himself. You see, the manager was supposed to email us the schedule every single time there was an edit made. He didn't do that, and the owner embarrassed him in front of all of us by telling us it was "his mistake" and to do that next time. I believe this was the beginning of his grudge against me. When I tried to take a sick day and he accused me of all these crazy things, like not working for two days the previous week, and calling "every day" to take a day off (neither of which were true at all), I emailed the owner to clear up any problems. That must have embarrassed him again, seeing that he probably was getting his own employees mixed up. Pointing out discrepancies between what he said about breaks and the Employee Handbook was probably the last straw. People just don't like being wrong, and I guess being upstaged by someone more than ten years younger than you AND someone lower on the employee ladder probably led to some anger.

3) Customer service is the key to success, and good tips.
During my short employment, I was astounded how much a good attitude could affect the behavior of your customers. If you took the time to explain how the shop worked to new customers, greet them as they approached the register, and told them to "have a nice day" after their transaction, they were a lot more likely to leave tips. They also were more likely to return, recognize you the next time, and even talk to you while you were getting them their change. Incredibly enough, neither the owner or manager cared about customer service. They were more focused on cleanliness and how much money they made. After a lot of observation though, it was easy to see the difference in behavior between the customers who interacted with a bored cashier, and those that I was tending to. Making the kids happy was the most important part. Kids are sometimes intimidated by people who are older than them. If you can break down that barrier by asking them what flavor they got, commenting on their stack of gummi worm toppings, or just being nice, they start gaining an attachment to the store. One kid whose family I had spoken to on a few occasions exclaimed to me that he was at the store 4 times already, and it was his favorite place. Customer service really is where the money lies, not in having the store spot-free.

At least I learned something from being fired, haha.

Back to looking for jobs... and hey, at least I have cashiering experience now. That'll hopefully open up some more avenues of employment.

In other news, I'm going to Delaware to visit Jon tomorrow!
Hey, it's not like I have to worry about a work schedule anymore, right?
This is exactly what I needed... a nice, relaxing break with my favorite person in the world! <3
Definitely looking forward to it.

Until next time!

Miffed About Management

Complaining about work can get you in trouble, as far as I've seen in news reports where some people tweeted insults about their bosses and such... so I'm trying to be careful.
But I'm very upset right now.

The manager didn't send me this week's schedule until today... as in Tuesday. (I know it's past midnight, but I haven't gone to sleep yet so... yeah.)
He sent it by TEXT.
My hours have been cut in half, and he wouldn't reply as to why, even though I asked twice.
If he had told me this on Monday, or even Sunday, I could have booked a train ticket to Delaware and visited Jon for 3 days.

Sigh.

So now I can't see Jon, I'm only working 14 hours this week, and at minimum wage, that's really not much.
I guess that gives me more time to do crafting, but I really would have liked to see Jon... or at least be able to work.
Guess there's nothing I can do about it.
It sure is disappointing though.

I just hope things don't continue on like this at my job...

Nightmare on My Street

I've been incredibly lazy when it comes to updating the blog, though I swear, there's good reason for it.
...okay, maybe only a little bit of reason.

For starters, I'm taking a semester off because of my anemia and various health issues.
Unfortunately my iron levels aren't going up as fast as they're supposed to, so I have a bunch of tests queued up for this week. I was supposed to already be done with all this insanity earlier this week, but as you may have heard, Connecticut got a freaking BLIZZARD... And I spent that whole time on Blizzard's World of Warcraft, leveling my Worgen Mage.
(He's level 59 now, and seeing that I made him when Cataclysm came out Dec 7th, that's kind of sad.)

I'm also getting some colored clay one of these days... Once again, the snow kind of ruined our trip to get some from the craft store, and the preparation of food and stuff for the onslaught of Christmas guests didn't help any.

FINALLY... I am going to Delaware to visit Jon for New Years, and also our 15th monthiversary!
Yes, we still celebrate months... We love each other too much to take every month together for granted.
(That sounds so incredible corny, I know. It's true though.)

SO. Everything is very hectic right now, and full of insanity!
Thank goodness that blogging isn't my full-time job, or I'd be in some really deep doo-doo right now.
One of these days I'm going to actually be a good blog owner and start updating regularly like I did before...
...and fix this darn layout.

Mr. Toad

Yeah, yeah, I know I've been extremely lazy with updating.
I assure you that once college starts back up, I'll be updating a lot more often... you know, with me being such a procrastinator when it comes to actual work and all.

Celebrations Across the Weekend

This weekend was extremely joyful for both me and my family.

Life Drags on By... Like a Dead Person!

Things have been pretty much staying the same...
...which is pretty bad all around.

It Summer Again

It is a strange feeling to be experiencing summer in another house. This whole year has been chaotic for me. I live in South Jersey all my life, then after high school and summer, I moved into my college dorm at UNH, which is a new frightening/exciting/amazing experience on its own, but during that time my folks moved to Delaware. Now that school is over, a part of me is expecting to go back to Jersey, but I can't. I'm living in Delware now, and I'm realizing how hard it is to move from a place where I've lived my whole life, into a new environment in which I'm almost literally stranded and away from all my friends and civilization. I knew that moving wouldn't be easy, but now its starting to look like more than I can chew. To sum it up, the transition from high school life-in-NJ to college life-in-DE makes me feel like I was thrown out in the world and now I don't have an anchor. Despite all this bad, there is still good.