go me!

i've had quite a productive day today.

i went and picked up a shirt for lily, and then i stopped at the bead store to get more ear wires. i might actually have a pack of ear wires already, but that's ok. i'm sure i will eventually make 144 pairs of earrings, so it's cool.

i'm about to clean out my car, because alicia julia and i are going to see incubus in south lake tahoe today! we're leaving early, and one of the lovely ladies is going to drive stanleigh home so i can dose off a bit. since i have to be at work at 8 tomorrow, i'm very grateful for this!

i still have some stuff to post from thursday at work, maybe that will happen tomorrow night.

great day

tonight was a great night. i got to see a bunch of people that i haven't seen in way too long, and i will get to see most of them again on saturday. and guess what, the ones i get to see again, are the ones i like! i'm excited. brittney and liz the most. i got to sit by them tonight and much fun ensued. i don't even know if that sentence made sense, but it would have tonight. i might get drunk with them on saturday even! i know they would all like that. and i'm sure i could crash at kim's.

oh, i need to go take my 365 pic for the day. i look cute.

ok, i don't look cute on the couch with or without a flash, but at the kitchen table without a flash i'm totally adorable.

i got highway flirted with tonight. it was crazy, i was in the 2nd lane from the left, and he was in the fast lane. i was intentionally staying behind someone else who was going fast enough to keep me happy, but slow enough that he wasn't horribly over the speed limit. the flirty guy dove past me, and then slowed down enough so that i came back up next to him. obvious, no? i loved it. i could tell just enough with the sun in my eyes that he was at least cute enough to keep flirting with. but then i needed to get over a bit to take my exit, and since i got out from behind my pace guy, i sped up. so did mr. flirt. i loved it. so while i was singing still alone (new favorite song btw) i glanced over, still totally dancing along, like i've been doing the whole time (i think i forgot to mention that) and smiled. the sun was totally behind him, and i could only tell that he was looking back from the profile. then i needed to exit, so i waved out the open window, and just smiled even more.

it was fun.

i also have an update on the road sign! while it still has the same message, it is now turned so it is facing the road so one can only see it when right beside it. i don't think i explained it well, but i hope you understand. i still have no idea what is happening from 10:00 pm to 5:00 am, but i assume that this is their attempt to make the message disappear as much as possible without actually removing the sign, or taking the message off and leaving it blank. i don't know why they didn't just remove the sign completely though, when they took the time to move it and all.

ok, that's my actual post for now. hopefully i'll have more soon!

moving

for those of you who don't know, i've been planning to move.  here's a bit on the thought process.



ok, so i've taken a few days in the file room to kind of think about the whole moving thing. I've got not one, but a few prospects open to me, which actually kind of complicates things, or at least it complicates the decistion making process. there is one option specifically that i've kind of been playing around with, but at the same time i've kind of left it on the back burner. Something crossed my mind today that really changed that.

I realized today that i'm still not actually accepyed, or even really applied to any schools. while it may be really awesome for me to go to one near where i've been playing with moving to, what if they don't accept me? or what if i'd rather go to another school that does?

because of this, i realized that i can't sign a year, or even a a six month lease even as early as august because of the overlap with school schedules. that one option that i've been kind of unfair to though, as far as i know would not require me to sign a contract. i would of course keep my roommakes in that situation very well informed of any of my plans for another possible move.

i feel silly admitting this, but it's also the situation that would probably give me some really interesting stories to tell later, or maybe even put on film? i know that it would be wrong to base my decision solely on that, but the fact that there is character in the place does appeal to me.

tonight i made 20 pairs of earrings.

the most difficult aspect of doing this was not using the same colors every time.

look out, 'cause i'll be posting a bunch of them now!

work

excerpt from a letter i wrote to a friend while working a reception position on thursday june 7.

3:08 pm
so, when i say that i'm going to file for 45 minutes, i should probably not rush through the rest of my filing & get it done in only 40. Though the rush of phone calls did help some. my hands are now dry & the girl who is normally here has some lotion and some burt's bees hand stuff. I'm totally gonna try if out! let's see if i can make that last 5 minutes.
-3:12
-3:17
ok, so i made it last that long, but even going relatively slow it really only takes 3 minute to use Bath & Body Works Mango Mandarin Anti-Bacterial hand lotion, burt's bees hand salve and burt's bees lemon butter cuticle creme. Dang, it takes almost as long to write as it does to use. This isn't a completely accurate test though, for a couple reasons.
1. I'm using someone else's product, do I applied in smaller portions.
2. I already knew what the Bath & Body Works was like, so I didn't use much of that, plus she's running low and I didn't want to be the reason she runs out.
3. I have absolutely no idea what hand salve actually is, or the appropriate amount or way to apply it. To me, it just kind of seems like a thicker lip balm type substance that smells like some generic aromatherapy product.

now, this salve is in a .3 oz container, so there is really no much room on the pachaging here to tell me what to do with it or what it does. There is room for the ingredients though. I know this because they have included them. there seem to be a lot of oils in here. five actually. wow. five oils in 11 total ingredient there are also 3 extracts.

fascinating, no?

hmm, they make sure to note that this product was "not tested on animals." yet they use beeswax in the product. i guess that's why vegans aren't exactly fans of burt's bees.

they've also included their website on the packaging, I guess one could go there to find out more about the purpose & use of the hand salve.

I've moved on to the lemon butter cuticle creme now. first off, i have to say that i love the smell. (it was kind of a negative for the salve but it kicks ass for the creme.) It's like lemon pledge with sugar. this probably sounds rather odd, but if there is ever some form of lemon pledge desert, i will smell exactly like this creme.

what's with the name though? is it because it's not an actual cream, but more of a balm? why not just call it a blam then? Or do they have enough balms already maybe? Maybe it would be too easy to confuse it with a lip product. So many questions brought on by one little word.

more interesting to me than that word is actually another group of words on the back of the tin. somehow, on the same size tin as the salve they have managed to fit a brief description & directions for the creme. This seems odd, especially since the creme had 8 ingredients, certainly not enough of a difference to allow for room for a description!

I've got the two side by side now & all is becoming clear. It is not a different size font as would be a logical guess, but there actually is more room for the print on the creme. Both tins thave the labeling printed on them, but the creme goes right to the edge, while the salve is made to look as though it is a sticker placed on the tin. This gives a small perimeter to the area of print on the salve tin, and reduces the useable space.

i bet you never though that 2 burt's bees products could captivate me for so long. Oh, and i didn't even get into the common ingredients (there are 6) ot the possible problem that burt's bees may have if cell phones are in fact killing off bees.

Considering the conversation that [my brother] & I had about cell phones & bees, this could have been a much longer letter if i went on to that topic.

Sewing

I'm greatly enjoying sewing. I've found a class I would like to take this fall titles beginning sewing! That, coupled with my intermediate editing class should prove for a very interesting semester.


But back to the sewing!

I've been getting into making book purses. I have lots of ideas, and I'm happy with what I've done so far, but will not be charging the amount that I hope to in the future, as there are small flaws in the ones that I've done so far.

I really like that I'm figuring things out, and learning new tricks. I should probably be writing some of them down though. They don't really do me any good if I figure something out and know just how to remedy a glitch, only to forget it before I get to that point in the next purse.

trying.

so i'm still not so great with the blogging. i'm getting into some new crafts though, so i'm hoping to also start writing about them. once i actually get into the practice of updating regularly, i will see about some sort of audience.  ok, so audience does not at all seem like the right word, but it's the best i could think of!

cicada studio

i hate the bugs, but i love the seller!

when i had a family reunion in ohio one summer in high school i was first introduced to the annoying creadtures called cicadas. they are insects that annoy me to no end, and i was very glad to leave and not deal with them again. though i swear for weeks afterward i still heard the cicada song in my ears.

fast forward several years and you'll find me on the etsy forums chatting away. there's one name that brings back that odd humming to my ears. fortunately, i tend to read what a person has said before actually reading who wrote it (or i just look at the avatar which is much quicker than reading those pesky user names) because she's kind of awesome and i ended up checking out what is a very fun etsy shop!



lots of fun zodiac stuff! it makes me wish i had somewhere to put one of those Framed Zodiac Glyphs. Seriously, only $20? That's amazing! and the shipping is pretty cheap considering what's being shipped! please go check out her shop and pass the link along to anyone you know who likes all that stuff!

she's also got another website with a bunch more stuff.  she just keeps on amazing me!

did i mention she's also a mother?

and the first feature goes to...

i think it's only fair that the girl who got me into all of this be the first on my list!

lexi's stuff is rather amazing. many of her supplies are recylced items from thrift stores, so not only is she making wonderful things, she's also not using up a bunch of new resources to do so!

her wallets are my favorite of her items. she's got one up now and there's another that's already sold. i really can't wait for her to make more. you definitely want to keep her in your favorites as she goes supply hunting once a week and has recently had to replace her sewing machine, meaning she's also recently gotten an upgrade!

speaking of upgrades, ms. lexi has some exciting events taking place in september. not only is she going to barcelona, she's getting married there! so i would live to encourage you to aide her in funding that trip with a purchase! i do believe that she will do custom orders as well, so if you see the type of thing you'd like, just not exactly as you'd like it, go ahead and hit that handy little "contact" link on her page!

etsy!!!

so, i've been a little absent from blogger for a while. it seems that many people in the new community i've recently joined are here though, so i've decided to start things up again!

for now, i just want to tell everyone to head on over and check out the site as a whole. i will soon be featuring many of the sellers on the site. i have two that i want to list right now, so i will probably post about one of them tomorrow. after that i'm hoping to post at least weekly. i might just do so more often though, 'cause there are seriously some talented people on this site!

pay attention to the right side of the page, i'm sure that the list of my favorite people will grow much faster than i will post, so definitely check that for new fun stuff!