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!

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!

Crazy Days of Autumn

Life has been crazy lately... thus leaving me little time to update this blog, unfortunately. :[

With Jon in China for the semester, things have been rough. This is the longest we've been apart, and it definitely shows. I'm sure my parents are ready to strangle me, because I can't help but say "Damn, I miss Jon!" out loud at least 5 times a day. The 12-hour time difference doesn't help either. We try to keep in touch through email and Skype, but it's tough because his evenings clash with my classes, as well as my evenings with his. Needless to say, we can't wait for winter break!

I've been taking Biology and Public Speaking this semester at my local community college, and as easy as it may sound... it's not. My Bio teacher is a former teacher of embryological development at another college, and definitely knows her stuff. The class is twice a week, includes a lab, and runs from 11:30am - 2:20am with a 15 minute break in the middle. We have a lab quiz every week, an exam about every three weeks, and two lab practicals (basically my midterm and final, which includes questions about stations with microscopes and models). It's pretty hardcore, but I've managed to keep an A average. Public Speaking has been pretty crazy as well, seeing that public speaking in general is an unpleasant task... I have to say though, running a YouTube channel has actually made me better at it. I'm also sitting on an A average in that class, but heck... If I can't keep an A when I'm only taking two classes at a community college, then I must be doing something very wrong!

In addition to being heartsick and having my head buried in Biology notes, I've been taking on quite a few projects.

1.) My YouTube channel! If you haven't noticed yet, I've been making a boatload of Rage of Bahamut videos for the past couple months. Incredibly, people like them and I've actually managed to waste 1500 hours of peoples' lives. I've never been so proud to do something so horrible! But that aside, it has netted me $40 from ads, and as an unemployed college student living with her parents, any money is good money. I've been trying to upload a new video weekly, which can be kind of tiring because I no longer enjoy RoB as much as I used to. Ah well, it's cash in my pocket.

2.) SHRIMP. TONS OF THEM. Okay, not REAL shrimp, but clay shrimp! I've been in talks for months about doing an order for someone with a restaurant in Costa Rica, and finally we worked all the details out about two weeks ago. I was working like a madwoman to fulfill the order, because I had a deadline to meet: Oct, 20. This wouldn't be that tough, but it was because this wasn't a dozen shrimp... two dozen shrimp... This was an order for 100 CLAY SHRIMP, not only of different sizes, but different ring positions for hanging. I had to hand-sculpt 100 shrimp, put ring pins in 50 of them, head pins in 50 of them, bake them, cut and ring the head pins, and then glaze all of them before packing them away and shipping them off.

25 of the stylized shrimp, glazed and ready to be packed.

Needless to say, it was the most difficult, yet rewarding experience in my crafting career thus far! I have to admit, I did bite off a bit more than I could chew... but after sacrificing all of my free time, some sleep, and a little bit of my sanity, I was able to finish and get them to their destination on time.

3.) My room. Oh my gawd, my room is a disaster. You see, I haven't even been sleeping in my room for months... I sleep on the couch in the basement. Yes, I officially live in my parents' basement... embarrassing to a point, but I don't really feel ashamed of it. Losing 6 years of my life to depression really put me behind schedule in just about everything, which includes cleaning up my room. It's a mess of binders, notebooks, papers, books, and everything else I've amassed since middle school. I've started cleaning it up starting with my bookcase, and after two shelves I'm terrified at the task before me... I already have filled a giant plastic tub with all of my books, half a box with stuff I want to sell, and a box of things I want to keep. There is just so much stuff to sift through, but I keep thinking about the goal of this cleanup: essentially packing up everything for my future life, having a room that only has the things I need now in it, and making some cash. I've already found a vintage 1981 Garfield candle, some jewelry, and discontinued toys among the clutter, along with junk that I can sell at a tag sale for a buck or two.

Not to mention I still need to get onto working on Jon's and my scrapbook of our years together at UNH, get my driver's permit, and various other things....
I swear, sometimes it seems like there's not enough time in the world.

So that's basically my current autumn insanity. I can hardly wait for winter break, where I can just relax!