my first clothing embellishment…

My husband asked me to make him a flashy jacket for the Christmas concert he’s directing, playing lead and singing for this weekend. This was my first foray into costuming/clothing embellishment, and was very nervous about it. But here is the final product:

During the 4 hour sewing marathon, he started transforming himself (after graciously cleaning up the kitchen, doing the laundry and straightening up the bedroom) rockabilly style… he started at the top – pulling out all the hair products, coaxing his hair into a pompadour. He donned his black shirt, black slacks, bolo tie w/ a cow skull slide, and his black & white shoes. He kept coming into my studio peeking at my progress. I’ve only seen him more excited when he opened up our new 24″ iMac the folks bought us for Christmas.

I was finally done at midnight and his transformation was complete…

The Elvis shades will not be part of the regalia this coming weekend, but doesn’t he look good?

some bad news

Cross-posted in my ARRRT! Blog:

Due to an unfortunate incident, I am forced to remove my items from the Blue Frog Gallery.

I wish this didn’t have to happen, however this is how life goes sometimes.

On to bigger and better things, I suppose!

Another friend has succumbed to the pregnancy virus…

They’re falling one by one…

One of my friends gave birth several months ago, and now another has recently conceived.

For all expectant mothers everywhere, please please please read this site. And do your child a favor… be sane, sober and drug-free when you think of baby names. Kids are horrible and will tease a David, but if a “Breckin” or “Venus” steps into the classroom… watch out.

The Game Of Politics… Congrats to the Dems.

I voted yesterday. Mostly Republican for the National seats, but I voted Libertarian wherever there was a candidate for local offices. As sick as I am of the Republican abuses of power and major straying from conservative principles, I couldn’t stomach voting for a Democrat.

If you’ve been living under a rock, the Dems now have control of the House & the Senate. is one state away (come on Virginia!) from being controlled by the democrats.

I’m not writing for political analysis, but to explain that the office I work in is mainly Liberal and I’m one of the (I think) three people in an office of 20 who count themselves as conservative – one an NRA member & another young Christian girl.

Ten minutes ago when the wires published that Rumsfeld stepped down, a wave of cheering flowed through the office. All the message boards I belong to are echoing the same sentiments – they are ecstatic the Dems won the House.

Me? I’m keeping my mouth shut. I don’t like confrontation, and I don’t like explaining myself to hostile persons after their party wins – Sore losers are one thing, but sore winners? Yikes. I suppose we get the government we deserve. Perhaps the Republicans have been shaken out of their complacency and will figure out how to get back on track… either that or I’m voting strictly Libertarian from now on.

Review: Hi-Tec-C Cavalier by Pilot Japan

(I lifted most of this from the review I wrote for this pen on Jet Pens)

A while back I bought a few pens from Jet Pens, one of them was the Hi-Tec-C Cavalier Pen .3mm.

I have to say that I *love* this pen. My search for an extra-fine-point everyday use pen has come to an end. I’ve been using the .38mm uniball signo pens for years and was happy. I wanted something a little more non-disposable, classy & professional-looking (not that I have anyone to impress), and this one caught my eye.

The line is consistent, no skipping, very smooth writing and I like the weight of the pen – substantial without being too weighty. One thing I did notice is that the ink is not completely waterproof. It’s a minor thing, but an inconvenience when I want to use watercolors over it. I have other waterproof pens in my arsenal so it’s not a huge turn-off.

I use this one every day in my moleskine and art journal. Just a word of warning (although most who like using very fine pens will know this already) this pen WILL go through paper if you write hard enough.

I showed this off to a friend of mine and the next time I saw her she pulled out a blue version of the exact same pen. She’s just as much of a pen-freak as I am.

More journal pages

I uploaded a few more journal pages on flickr… here are a couple:

Halloween Tricks – and a saddening lack of creativity

At least in my neighborhood. Our doorbell rang three times. Three. We had a total of 5 trick-or-treaters, and only two of them were in costume. Three of them wore all black, one of them actually wore a mask, but the other two had masks in their pockets. I may be wrong, but aren’t masks supposed to be worn over the face?

I said to these costume-less kids, “Guys, I see a severe lack of creativity here… Come on, it’s Halloween – where are your costumes?”

To which they replied, with sheepish grins on their faces and pulling out their masks from their pockets, “We’ve got masks.. and eggs… and toilet paper – those are for people who don’t give us candy.”

Yes.. TP & Eggs. I gave them candy so I was spared from the TP & Eggs… It astonishes me that children egg peoples homes who don’t give them candy. It’s CANDY. I could go on a diatribe of the entitlement mentality that’s spreading like wildfire… but it was Halloween… no treats, you get tricks, right? And ever since I can remember, tricks usually involve vandalism instead of silly little pranks.

I grew up in Michigan, and every October 30th we were all warned to stay indoors – in Michigan (more specifically, Detroit) the day before Halloween is called “Devil’s Night”. For those of you who didn’t have the experience of growing up in Michigan, or haven’t seen The Crow, Devil’s night is a night of destruction, vandalism, and pyromania. I haven’t lived there in years, so I don’t know how big of a thing this still is, but I remember teachers, newscasters, bus drivers and parents were very vigilant on the 30th of October – warning us and making sure we were all inside, even those of us who lived in ritzy suburbia, at dark – just in case some crazy gang members decided to start fires in our neighborhoods.

We never saw anything in our neighborhoods on Devli’s Night, but the evening news showed us terrific fires & smashed-out windows… That was the trick, I suppose, from people who don’t get many treats without taking ‘em for themselves.

One Halloween I dressed as a punk – complete with dad’s black leather jacket, eyeliner, a lightening bolt painted on my cheek & a purple mohawk wig. My sister was a skunk. I think the next year she was a punk skunk… Anyway, we were walking around, alone since the 80′s were a bit safer and our mostly-Jewish neighborhood wasn’t exactly a hotbed of criminal activity, doing our Halloween rounds when a kid came up to me and sprayed shaving cream in my face. I suppose he thought that was a neat trick. I don’t take kindly to things like this, so I grabbed the can from him. It would have been more difficult to do if this kid had been on his guard, but he was laughing. I grabbed the can and threw it at his head as hard as I could. That was my trick… I think he ran away crying, but I didn’t stick around long enough to find out. I grabbed my skunk-sister and ran home.

So back to the kids that came to our home last night expecting to be handed mounds of stomachache-inducing sugar… What happened to imagination and creativity? Is it all just about the candy? I remember thinking for months beforehand what I would be, and gathering the appropriate props & clothes for the occasion.

I blame video games, the federalized school system, and television for the lack of creativity among kids these days… All the creative costumes I’ve seen on Make & Craft have been made by 20-30somethings. Maybe it’s just my neighborhood. But I think the problem is a little more widespread than that.

**Edited to add: 16 Homes burned on Devil’s Night in Michigan. Guess it’s still going strong..**

The longest drive…

Driving to work the day after daylight savings time ends is always the worst drive of the year. It took me 40 minutes to drive 5 miles. Traffic was backed up everywhere – I think people forgot their sunglasses this morning.

The world is spinning…

(I’m not trying to elicit sympathy… just trying to chronicle my experiences living w/ vertigo for others who have the same problem.)

I woke up Monday morning with a full-on attack of vertigo. On my scale of severity, Monday morning was a 6/10. I couldn’t drive. I can usually manage driving with a mild attack but I wasn’t about to chance it. I did my vertigo exercises twice before I went to work and wished I had some topical phenugran (a really good anti-nausea medicine that you place on the inside of your wrists instead of ingesting it), but the last few doses I had in the refrigerator had expired in July. I’ve been trying to get a refill to no avail.

I knew on Sunday night when I turned over to my right side to sleep, that I’d have a bad morning. I usually experience a burst of vertigo when I lay down on my right side, but it normally goes away in 30 seconds or so. This time I counted to 160 and the world was still spinning.

Today is a 3/10. I’m functional, I can drive, but in the past 3 days I’ve made so many mistakes at work… I even brought down our entire development network yesterday. Vertigo makes me fuzzy-headed too.

I spoke to a friend of mine who’s training to become a TCM doctor (Traditional Chinese Medicine) – between him & a third-year friend of his, he diagnosed me with some liver dysfunction – and prescribed some herbs. After 15 years of vertigo, and “western” medicine failing miserably to treat it, I’m moving on to alternative treatments. This is the first…

These herbs are supposed to treat both migraines & vertigo… as well as stress – three things I’m dealing with a lot these days. I ordered it yesterday, to ship express. We’ll see.

One more interesting tidbit… I knew my body temperature rises & my blood pressure goes up when I have a vertigo attack, but never had the numbers to prove it. Monday morning I got a flu shot and the nurse took my temperature & bp – I had a mild fever, 99.3 and my bp was 130/70, which is high for me. Normally my bp runs 115/75.

Uploaded some journal pages on flickr

I broke down & scanned some pages from my moleskine sketchbook from last year around this time and uploaded them to flickr. The Moleskine sketchbook is my first art journal…

here’s a couple of my favs: