Things that make me happy

Three things that make me happy!

First, I'm featured in the treasury A little bling by AnikasArt. Anika is a really talented fellow FAE, so please make sure to check out her shop after you're done admiring the treasury!

Second, I had a fun day exploring the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum with Andrew Thornton. I'd tell you all about it, but my guess is that Andrew will blog it more eloquently than I will, and with better pictures (I left my camera at home because I'm paranoid about it dying again). I will say that my inner Goth was very pleased that the first birds in the raptor free-flight were a pair of Chihuahuan ravens!

Third, by the time I got home I had a new water heater and a fully-operational shower (and a new bathroom faucet to boot)! Oh, happy day! I can finally take a hot shower in my own home again! And my water heater won't make weird sloshy noises any more.

Water sucks!

My hot water pipes need to be replaced entirely. BOO! I hate water. Go ahead, ask me about my torrid history with water.

However, the heat appears to be working again, which means I can get into the bead room again, which means I can make jewelry again. Yay!

365 Days of Beading, too?

As I've been getting ready to embark on my year of belly dance practice, I'm wondering if I should set the same goal for beadwork. I didn't get nearly as much jewelry made as I wanted to this year, so spending at least half an hour a day, every day, would allow me to put more stock in my store, Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs, create a few more necklaces for myself, and participate in more beading challenges. I suppose I'll have to wait and see if I get any time to bead today, and it's not looking likely.

You see, while I was gone, our furnace started acting up again (we already had to fix it once over Thanksgiving weekend). This time it appears to be a problem with the thermostat. The furnace itself seems to be working fine. So I've purchased a new, better thermostat (programmable!) and I'm just waiting for my Dad the electronics technician to come over and make sure I don't zap myself in the process of installing it.

But as if that's not enough, this morning I got up and went to wash my hands, only to be greeted by opaque orange water in my bathroom faucet! The kitchen was fine, and the orange went away, but now we have low water pressure in the bathroom sink and tub, which means no showers and probably another plumbing bill in my future. Why did I ever want to be a homeowner?

So beads would be really good therapy right about now, but first I have to fix the furnace because the beadroom is the coldest place in the house. Brrr.

Hope your New Year is off to a better start than mine!

I'm boring today!

Tonight is the last week of gaming-on-Tuesdays, unless of course the next session of Krav Maga classes is also on Wednesday nights. I'm not sure if they've set the schedule yet -- I'm too busy keeping track of my belly dance schedule, and already thinking ahead to gem show in a month and a half.

Anyway, since it's a gaming night, that means today is a cleaning day. I got sick of all the clutter and mess that had been building up, so I'm doing more than my usual spot cleaning. It's incredibly boring, but also necessary. I'd like to greet the New Year with a tidy house, and be ready to make some improvements before my in-laws visit in February. Chris pointed out the other day that it felt like we were still living in a rental, because we hadn't done much to make the house ours. What little effort has gone into the house has all been put into the game room, and even that's not finished yet.

Well, back to the grindstone for me.

Progress, but not much.

The game room project continues at a snail's pace. Would you believe that Chris's job called him while we were hanging insulation, and made him work 4 hours, on a Sunday? Then today, he tried to get off at 3pm, which would have given us a couple of hours of daylight* to work in there before dinner, but he got stuck working until almost 4. Ugh. We're hoping to get a little bit done tomorrow, but we probably won't have time to put serious work in again until Saturday.

Meanwhile I've been working on other stuff. The BFAC pictures, which I am way behind on (thank goodness someone is taking them over for the next round. I'm not cut out for semi-professional photography). Beading my kit project (the necklace morphed into a bracelet). Keeping the house from sliding into general disarray. All that good stuff.

Tomorrow I'll be taking pictures, and while I have everything set up (probably in the dining room, because the game room table that I usually use is piled up with power tools, hardware, safety gear, and miscellaneous game room contents), I'll be taking a better picture of the faerie button necklace, some jewelry gifts that I received, and the bracelet I'm working on, all of which will be posted in this blog throughout the week.

*The game room's well-lit and all, but it gets COLD out there when the sun goes down.

Happy New Year!

It's still 2008 here in Tucson, but it's 2009 elsewhere, so: Happy New Year!!! I hope that everyone here is having a safe and happy holiday.

Chris and I went out for a couple of things and to have dinner at our favorite Japanese restaurant. We were home before 8 and ready to spend the rest of the night at home relaxing! We've both been hard at work for the past week, so it's good to have a quiet night at home, just us and the puppies and some DVDs.

Oh yes! Dad and I finished installing the door. It needs some fancy trim around the outside to hide the fact that the Sawzall doesn't exactly cut straight lines, but it is a sturdy, fully-functional well-framed door. And I helped! My new power drill even came into play, because Dad's was too big to fit between the stud and the door frame. I'm so glad that I bought the one that is "30% smaller and 33% lighter" (or was it the other way around?) because otherwise it wouldn't have fit, either!

I'll be back tomorrow with the return of the Thursday Thirteen.

Oh wait, it's a Monday.

I'm having a hard time keeping track of days right now. You see, usually when I dog-sit, it's on a weekend. So Weds-Friday felt more like a Friday-Sunday. This made it very weird when Chris was off on what felt like should be a Monday and Tuesday. It felt even weirder when we spent those two days getting work and errands done. I'm all mixed up.

My Dad came over today and started working on putting up the door in our game room. Chris helped. I mostly... uhm... well, let's face it, I was not very helpful. There's not enough work for three people on a project like that. I did things like held a flashlight and held nails, and did busy-work around the game room. Hopefully the door project will be done tomorrow, and then Chris and I can spend Friday (our next free day) putting up all of the insulation that will be delivered tomorrow. THEN it will be time for putting up drywall. Oh boy!

Really, the only part of this I'm looking forward to is painting the entire room jade green. It's going to be so pretty!

I've got tools!

We went to Home Depot today to buy the things we need for renovating the game room. Along with all the *boring* stuff like drywall and insulation and a door, we bought cool things, like a neon green cordless power drill, and a staple gun. Oh, the havoc I will wreak!

This week is going to be very busy, with renovations, housework, and holiday festivities. As we've done for the past few years, my family will be exchanging gifts on New Year's Day. Chris and I will be cooking the entire dinner, which is kind of a big deal for us. We're used to just cooking for two, not 5 or 6. There's going to be a big roast, potatoes, cranberry sauce, and corn. And presents. Woohoo! Presents!

I probably won't do any beading until Saturday, when I plan to try out the kit that I bought last week.

Things and Stuff.

I had quite the busy weekend. We had my parents over for a BBQ Sunday night, so I spent the weekend cleaning, running errands, and arranging the house. The BBQ was a success, which made us both very happy. We've had friends drop by for visits to see the house, but this was our first time hosting something semi-official, and Chris's first time grilling.

Today I was feeling pretty run down, partially due to all those errands and cleaning, so I decided to be lazy. I got pretty much nothing done. Tomorrow I need to be much more productive. I'm hoping to maybe even get back to beading tomorrow. At some point this week, I want to put some more work into setting up my bead/sewing/craft room. Of course, I'll get it done just in time to leave for Comic Con... but at least I'll be all set to be productive when I get back!

I'm pretty excited about the convention. I've been getting lots of e-mails about different panels, previews, and demos, most of which I'm not very interested in. I know there will be things that interest me there, I'm just not getting e-mailed about them. I even got a CALL today about some presentation about two movies. The funny thing is that I know the book one of them is based on is very popular, and the movie is highly anticipated, but I just don't care. And the other movie is a stupid raunchy comedy, which overwhelms any curiosity about whether the first movie is all it's cracked up to be.

I just have to hope that my new faerie wings arrive in the mail before the convention! I can wear my costume without them, but it won't be as much fun.

Evil Steampunk Faeries!!!!!

Yes, I'm finally back to blogging, and what brought me back is the need to tell you about the awesomeness of Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

Did I mention the evil steampunk faeries? Oh yeah, that's right, it's the title of the post. Seriously. The movie needed more of 'em. Like non-stop nothing but evil steampunk faeries. They were pretty amazing, what with their weapons and weird facial scars and army of indestructible robots. Sure, I guess the good guys were cool, too, and they also had some rather steampunk gear at their disposal, but they weren't faeries. It's hard to compete with that.

I have to say, the movie's main weakpoint was the drama between the characters, which felt kind of cliche and predictable. Everything else was very well-done. Good acting, amazing effects, sweet action scenes. Lots of faeries, trolls, and goblins. Cool sets. Neato weapons. And a few laugh-out-loud moments. Also, faeries princesses have awesome fashion sense. How I want that blue dress!

If I had to make one actual complaint about Hellboy II, it's that the trailers (which I've seen repeatedly) show pretty much every single faerie and creature that's in the movie. Sure, you get to see more of them and learn about them in the film, but there were very few surprises, you know? How much cooler would they have been if I hadn't already seen them a dozen times? Granted, the trailers got me all fired up about the movie, but they could have done that without showing me everything.

In non evil steampunk faerie news, we're still settling into the house. It takes forever to unpack and figure out where we want everything! I'm enjoying life here, though there's certainly a lot more work involved than in apartment life. Much more cleaning, and a yard to maintain, in addition to all the work of settling in. The work is worth the reward, however. It's so much nicer and quieter here, and I definitely feel a lot of pride of ownership.

Not a lot of beading going on, and I'm clearly just not going to get around to updating this month. I have a lot of BFAC stuff going on, plus I'm going to Comic Con in less than 2 weeks. I haven't even been writing much lately. Or dancing. The lack of creative outlet is getting to me, though, so I'm going to try to set some time aside this weekend.

More tomorrow. I don't want to write a novel.

Life is Good

I've got to try to get back into the habit of blogging!

Anyway, as the title says, life is good. We finally had a nice rain today, and the weather is just about perfect right now. While it was raining, I went out into my beadroom (our screened-in porch) and saw that the rain was not being blown in through the screen, which was a relief. In fact, it was very nice in there. I think I'm going to enjoy beading in there, until winter, when it will be unbearably cold (note: anything below 70 is "unbearably cold" for me. This is why I live in the desert).

On Tuesday, I started writing again. I'm not sure why, I just sat down at the laptop, opened up one of my files, and started working on it. It feels really good. Months had passed since the last time I wrote, and I definitely felt its absence.

The desk is all finished, except for the drawers. I think both Chris and I have had about all the assembly we can take. We had to have a friend come over to lift the hutch onto the base. My girly arms just couldn't handle it, and even the guys had a bit of trouble with it. That desk is NEVER leaving the office. I don't think we'll ever be able to paint, and definitely not replace the carpet.

I really want to paint the bedroom, though. It's a kind of nasty shade of off-white that looks especially hideous in low light. And I want to paint the living room, as it's currently painted with some sort of flat white paint that attracts stains much in the same way that white pants do (note: I never buy white pants or skirts for this reason). All home improvements will wait until Autumn, however, as 110 degree weather is not ideal for painting.

Tomorrow I hope to find some time to bead, but the main plan is to move the rest of the stuff over from the apartment and see a late showing of Wall-E. Every time I watch a trailer or animated short for that movie, I start to smile. That is one cute little robot!

Yes, I'm still alive.

I didn't mean to drop off the face of the internet. I've just been very busy, and my computer of choice (with all my bookmarks and things) is currently awaiting a good spot to be used at. The table it was previously resting on was taken down to make room for the awesome entertainment center, and building the desk has turned into a monumental task. We're almost done with it tonight, but I honestly don't know if we'll be able to lift the top (complete with hutch) onto the base. I have weak girly arms. I knew I should have been working out more!

In other news, I finally started beading again today. The beadroom is still in the process of being properly furnished and arranged, so I just sat on the couch and worked on the rivoli project I was doing before we moved. The cats prefer it that way anyway -- Topher spent most of the time curled up next to me.

Slowly, the house is turning into a home. We've got furniture, and it's pretty much arranged how we want it. In another week, we'll have a washer and dryer. This week, I'll try to hang up some of the art that I've amassed over the years, and I've got more coming from Etsy. It will definitely feel much more home-like with nice pictures on the walls. Right now all we've got is my Nene Thomas calendar, and I just hung that today.

Once we're all settled in, I'll take some pictures. In the meantime, I've just been photographing the interesting bugs that I find!

Desks, but no beads

The desks arrived this morning, but there's been no time to assemble them. They're sitting there, forlorn in their boxes.

I spent a while today with my neighbor (from whom we purchased the house) learning about my irrigation system. I do not have a natural green thumb and I am trying to not kill my beautiful plants, and maybe actually have them thrive. I love plants, I just don't seem to be very good at taking care of them. I am determined to do this right, though.

Tomorrow, the rest of our furniture arrives. It's been over a month since I've had a couch to sit on, so I'm really looking forward to it -- even though it will probably arrive at an hour best reserved for sleeping. It will also be good to be able to put clothes in the dresser, and the TV and DVDs in an entertainment center. It will make the place feel much more put together and much less piled-up.

We have our usual game tomorrow, and I think maybe I'll take my beads to that. I want to create!

It's official.

Clearly, I am a homeowner now. We went to Home Depot tonight, and I actually enjoyed it.*

You see, when I was a kid-teenager, a trip to Home Depot was something to be dreaded. It was like many people's reaction to a dentist visit. To my young mind, nothing could be more boring, more of a waste of a Sunday afternoon, than looking at hardware cloth, PVC pipes, or whatever we needed for the latest home improvement/repair. The only possible fun was looking at all the paint sample cards and wondering whyohwhy my parents wouldn't paint my bedroom silver.

I did, in fact, want a silver bedroom when I was a teenager. It seemed a brilliant idea at the time, but my parents adamantly insisted that silver paint would not dry properly or something like that. So my bedroom stayed the same slightly-dirty blue it was when I moved in, because seriously, why bother painting at all if I couldn't have the color I wanted?

But I digress. Home Depot is a lot more fun when you get to look at things which will enhance the beauty or efficiency of your own home. I ooh'ed and aah'ed over pretty switchplates and drawer pulls, priced window film, and picked up compact fluorescent bulbs, among other things.

Anyway, in other news, our desks will hopefully arrive tomorrow, and then I will hopefully be able to put some furniture in my beadroom and actually bead.

We're living in our house!

Weee! Chris and I have moved into our new house. Things are pretty chaotic and messy right now, but I've been working hard to get things organized. I have to, as the furniture is arriving on Tuesday and there needs to be a place to put it! Right now almost all of our stuff is piled up in the living room, waiting to be redistributed to the proper rooms.

Our friends and family really worked hard to help with the move, and made it go a lot more smoothly than it would have if we'd just done it ourselves.

There are still some things left in the apartment, waiting for us to take another trip or three next week, but all of the important things are over here now: beads, cats, us, chocolate, and pillows. The pillows kept getting forgotten and required a special trip last night hours after we thought we were done.

Now I have to learn how to take care of a house... maintenance, and cleaning all this extra space, and watering and trimming my various plants. It's exciting, and should keep me very busy!

In the meantime, my temporary computer space is not very ergonomic, so I'm going to cut this short and relax my poor shoulders. New desk won't get here until Tues or Weds, yikes!

Another awesome dragon

This gorgeous carved shell dragon was the surprise in my mail that I mentioned several posts back. Thank you, Marilee!

I love the transition from dark to light, and the iridescence that the photo only hints at. Actually, I'm pretty happy with this photo, too. It really captured all the details of the carving. I'm really looking forward to designing with this piece.

I don't have a lot of time to blog right now, as I'm still packing and preparing to move. But guess what? I'm a homeowner now! I have KEYS! It's very awesome, and a little hard to believe.