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Email: Many thanks to cyberdelia for all her design help!
You rock! *trueblood header image courtesy of HBO* *Teeny DRD courtesy of snurcher.com* |
first, the new minimalist-y blog design is done for now. i’ve upgraded to a pretty cool wrodpress theme called atahualpa. it’s a tweaker’s playground. the basics of the layout are all there and then the design, colors, etc, are up to the blog owner to change as they please. it’s been a bit of a learning curve but for me, changes will be made very easily. more changes at work have caused the switch to only one shift, so i am back on the day shift starting tomorrow. it is going to be rough getting up with the alarm at 5am after not having to do that for the past month. if we go back to 2 shifts, those of us who were on nights will have first crack at going back to that shift. i really hated it at first, but i was finally starting to get used to the hours. that shift did have its perks, most notably the 4-day work week, but i still think i like working during the day better. at least my troubles with a certain person will be a lot less since we are now playing in my backyard so to speak, not theirs… my weekend in ormond beach last week was much needed and much appreciated. i spent 3 beautiful days on the beach and in the pool and my soul was fully recharged. i have been extremely stressed from work and i don’t think i would have been able to get through last week without that down time. i am going back over the weekend after july 4th. the weekend of the 4th will be spent in atlanta with some of my best buds. i did an experiment in making soy candles last night and it turned out to be promising, some bugs to be worked out, namely my choice of wick material. the experimentation will continue until i get it perfect and then the candles will be sold in my etsy shop. now it’st time to head back out to the crafts store and then back home to mow the yard, hopefully before any rain comes. i am busy breaking my blog so be patient while the transformation takes place… in reference to the images and style – no, i haven’t lost my mind. things will be set to rights quickly!
the past week went by pretty quickly and here i am at another weekend already. this afternoon will find me finally putting the grout on my shower floor. it will be the weekend after next before i can actually use it. the grout has to be lightly misted with water for 3 days to cure it, then i have to wait another 72 hours before putting the sealer on and then another 48 hours before use. i won’t be able to seal next friday, however, because i will be headed to ormond beach for the weekend and won’t be back home until after work on monday night. the time before use drags on… it will eventually be finished and hopefully, leak free. i started work on my first warhammer miniature army pieces last night. i took advantage of my day off to hit the local game/airsoft shop. the girl that works there was really helpful and gave me a ton of useful info (she paints the figures also). after chatting with her for about an hour, i picked out my first set. of course, i had to pick one of the harder sets to assemble, but they look really cool – i bought the dark elf cold one knights . they are sinister-looking knights riding what look like equally-as-sinister-looking iguanas (the cold ones). i assembled all 5 pieces in about 7 hours and i sprayed them with black primer this morning. i have zap-a-gap glue (essentially, superglue) under my fingernails as well as black primer all over my hands. i only stuck a few of the tiny pieces to my fingers during assembly! my next army will probably be space marines or something less detailed. they should be much easier. the coming week at work should be interesting. apparently we will be working the full 40 hours and i will be working till 1am each night for the first time since i started the new shift. i worked till midnight this past thursday and it wasn’t so bad. i am looking forward to my mini-vacation next weekend. i need some beach therapy! i am starting to get the hang of the night shift. i’m still not necessarily thrilled with it but it’s something i have to deal with for now. i am putting out feelers for something else but in the mean time i still have a job. for how long, who knows. i made it through the palm tree pruing from my last post. i still have one more tree to do but that might have to wait until at least thursday morning, or the weekend. i had to get down from the aluminum ladder last time since i heard thunder rumbling in the distance. i’ve no desire to become a human lightning rod! i want to wait to do the trimming on the day before trash pickup. the dead fronds are over 10 feet long and have to be cut in half and then bundled. all i want to do is bundle them and drag them to the curb – no extra trips! this coming friday finds me having lunch with some friends that i worked with in the past. a few of them retired, a few more were let go, and one of them is coming in from out of town. it will be great to see everyone! now it’s time for shower and lunch and then i am off to work. as most of us have the day off today and enjoy barbecues and the company of others, we might forget what this day off is all about. that said, i am taking this day to also enjoy the outdoors except i will be doing yard chores. there’s palm tree pruning and mowing to be done and maybe even hanging new strings of lights along the fence. i am sitting here writing while waiting for my “apply 15 minutes before sun exposure” time to be up after applying my waterproof sunscreen. this brand isn’t the usual spray on that i use and i had mixed results last weekend at the beach. i thought i waited long enough but i think it’s not a very even spray and it left a few places splotchy and a few seemed like they weren’t even covered by the stuff. i disregarded the “no rubbing in” directions and smoothed it out this time. when this is gone, i wil go back to my usual brand that i know works extremely well. i spent almost all day yesterday cleaning and organizing in preparation for moving next year. i have a lot of ’stuff’. i have a big bag of linens ready to take to the thrift store tomorrow before work. my linen closet is huge and now fully organized. nothing more to get rid of. i am going to try to take it a room at a time until everything i don’t want is in the garage and then it’s garage sale time! i have decided to break away from using outlook express to check my email. using two different computers makes it hard to synchronize everything and i’ve decided to give the gmail feature a try. i have it checking all of my mail now and have installed the notifier so i don’t have to have my browser open all the time. so far, it’s working great and i can access all of my email from any computer. later on this evening, roomie and i are going to see the new terminator movie. i’ve heard mixed reviews but i am sure i will like it. i usually like anything the movie critics don’t. my 15 minutes have been up for a while and now it’s time to get up on the ladder. if you hear a loud thunk, it’s just me falling off the ladder. call the paramedics. it has been raining for two days now. today has been on and off but we need the rain badly so anything is welcome! i left ormond beach yesterday at about 11:3o and because of the rain, it took me just about three and a half hours from there to my job. i cut it pretty close and punched in 5 minutes early. it is usually a three hour trip at best. i had a great weekend, had an awesome time with my friends there and got some sun before the monsoon started. i am going back over there next month, hopefully adding an extra day to my trip. the powers that be at work are being pretty crappy about us taking time off so an extra day might involve me calling in sick. oh well. i don’t really think my problems there will last much longer. i’m in the midst of coloring my hair. i am trying to save money wherever i can and i’ve decided to start doing the color myself. even if i wanted to get it done, i remembered to do it last minute so i would have had to wait a few days, and i want it to look spiffy for tonight. i’m going to see queensryche again at ruth eckerd hall . the timer just went off so it is time to wash out the color and start getting ready. i am going over to my friends’ place for snacks and drinks before leaving for the show later. i made it through the work week! it was pretty tough but i live!! i am headed to the east coast until monday evening for much needed R&R. I can’t wait to be lying on the beach tomorrow. i surprised myself today, woke up at 8, before the alarm, got the car to the garage for an oil change and then after coming home i got the front yard mowed. i shouldn’t have started what i did next because that turned into a 3 hour project. it was part of next weekend’s chores. i ended up trimming and shaping the huge holly tree on the front lawn and i also trimmed the smallest of the three palms too. next weekend the two huge ones are getting trimmed. have to make them less dangerous for hurricane season, which is a mere 3 weeks away! roomie brought some goodies back from the battlestar galactica prop auction! i got a pic of the “unknown soldier” autographed by the actor who played the part and she also brough home my personalized battlestar harem stainless steel flask. it’s kind of an inside joke but the flask is beautifully done. if i can figure out how to get a good pic of it i will post one. my laundry is done and i have to get to bed. i’m almost all packed, just waiting for those last few items. i never got to home depot for the lawn mower air filter but i did fill the gas can on my way home from work last night. i just put the old filter back on and started the mower right up! i was amazed that it actually ran i got some info on my shower floor tile situation too. i finally had some time to dig out the old, cracked grout and managed to pop up a few of the 1-inch square tiles. can of worms! the shower base is cracked under the tile and i was afraid that i was going to have to break out the entire concrete base and repair it. a friend’s dad does flooring and he recommended that i get a porfessional-grade waterproof sealer and rubber strips to put over the cracks. i can tile over that after it’s dry. there is also another option; i can get all the tile off the floor, seal the cracks, and the put a rubber bladder on the entire floor and tile over it. i am toying with option 2, which will include using bigger tile on the floor.more on this next week after i get back from the east coast. my address tiles have been baked and are cooling in the oven. they came out nice and i will have a pic in my next post. night #2 at work went ok but was quite boring. the 8-hour nights are ok but i have no idea how i am going to handle 10-hour nights when we start getting busy again. roomie will be home tonight and i am excited that i will be sleeping cat-free! i think the kitty is good company but my sinuses think otherwise. is written down on my garage wall. on the inside of either side of the big door are a set of floor to ceiling shelves. hanging on the sides are spare lawnmower blades, assorted tools and keys, and a legacy of instructions written on them by my dad. all sorts of info is there like how many bags of mulch is needed for the flower beds, what kind of oil and filters and such are needed for cars and mowers. since my hours have been cut back at work i have decided to save the expense of lawn guy and take care of the grass myself. the mower wasn’t exactly running perfectly last year when i started having the grass done so i thought a tune-up would be in order. i got the blade (and spares) sharpened by a friend, picked up a new spark plug and tomorrow i am getting the new air filter. i put the new blade on this morning and was ready to install the spark plug when i remembered that i didn’t have any idea what the gap was for it. my mower is so old that any model number that might have been on it at some point, is now long gone. looking online wasn’t helpful at all without that number…then i remembered the writing on the shelves. sure enough, the info i needed was there! the writing was kind of faint since it’s been there for years but i could still read it. amazing. of course, the gas can is empty so i have to wait till tomorrow to get the thing started anyway. i made it through my first night at work. there are 6 of us that work together and i have to say everyone that i didn’t already know was really nice, and they all welcomed me to the shift. it was pretty much business as usual but much more laid back. it was only an 8-hour night and i was pretty brain-dead by the time 11pm came around. i need the $$ but i am hoping we don’t have any 10-hour nights this week. i really need to work into this. i finally did it. i bought my dragoncon membership this morning. the price goes up on friday so i thought it wise to pay for it today so i didn’t forget to do it. the hotel has been booked since october, and my transportation is all worked out. now all that’s left is working on a few costumes although i don’t know if i will be costuming every day. i have been home alone since last wednesday. roomie is in CA at the second battlestar galactica prop auction. i have to get used to being alone here since roomie is moving out next month. the thing i have to get most used to is the quietness. i hear too much stuff when i am the only one here. the things that make noise are still going on, but anything i hear i usually think it’s just the other person in the house! i know i will get used to it – it’s just that i haven’t lived alone in quite some time. the past month has been filled with changes too. first we were put on 32-hour work weeks and tonight is my first night on b-shift. i’m a night person but i don’t know how i will take to being at work for those hours. i got some good news over the weekend. first, i accidentally overpaid my cable bill by one month and have a credit of $8 with them now (not sure how that happened), and the power company has refunded my account deposit by the way of putting it towards my electric bill. i was shocked when i opened the bill and the balance was $0.00. my next two bills should also be taken care of with the balance of the deposit. that helps out a lot! we are under a severe drought here in FL; lawn watering and car washing are both prohibited at this point. to say that my car is filthy is an understatement. i decided to suck it up and get the car wash when filling my gas tank the other day. my local hess station has jacked their car wash price from $4 to $7 for the cheapo wash! i really think they are taking advantage of the “no car washing” rule. i refuse to pay that for a car wash. i will go outside with a bucket of water and a few old towels and give the car a sponge bath before i pay that much for something that isn’t going to get my car that clean in the first place! saving the best for last, i made plans this morning to head over to the east coast to visit my friends and get in some much-needed beach time.the best part of my new shift is that i have fridays off, so i will be leaving friday morning and staying till about 11am on monday. that gives me enough time to get in my morning walk on the beach and hang out for a bit before heading back and going straight to work that afternoon. i am pretty sure that i am going back over for memorial day weekend too. seems that i’ve been quite busy and have started this post on three seperate occasions, only to never finish it. i had 3 days off this past weekend and even though it wasn’t under the best circumstances i got a lot done and enjoyed my weekend. i got to be a plumber when i got home from work today. all i was going to do was run a borrowed snake up into the cleanout pipe in my backyard to unclog a recurring problem due to bad pitch in the drain pipe and a pesky low-flow toilet. that didn’t go as planned. i ended up having to take the toilet out and go in that way. kind of a gross job but also a real pain. i learned something today; i am not strong enough to lift a toilet by myself! in the ‘fun stuff’ dept: i spent the weekend rearranging my art room. i finally got my desk cleaned off and organized too. i made a few things and even worked on some costume shoes for roomie too. i am going to try to use my one extra day off each week to work on art projects and try to sell some of them. i have some cool pics that i’ve been wanting to put in the gallery, a few tweaks in the design here and more to write about but i amjust too tired to write any more tonight! i stopped here after work today with a friend who is looking for some new music gear.
i didn’t buy anything but i did see a bunch of stuff i wouldn’t have minded taking home with me, including a pink fuzzy guitar strap! this is the post of badly taken pics
it has been an entire weekend of festivities that are still going on. i took the day off yesterday and got some really cool gifts from roomie – cool candles and incense and some other stuff and i got a set of black-stemmed martini glasses from another friend. went for mexican food last night and ate more than i should have. had three awesome beef enchiladas, rice and black beans.
i also got my queensryche ticket this weekend. the concert is may 19th. i can’t wait!
i have one more day off to enjoy and then it’s back to work until next friday when i leave for orlando after work to go to FX international. it has been “summer” here for the past few weeks now, temps in the upper 80s and high humidity. both without the benefit of afternoon thunderstorms. a cool front passed through this afternoon and the weather has turned cooler, it’s 70 degrees right now, and according to the weather channel, it won’t get past 65 tomorrow! the air is drying out and it’s not supposed to go higher than 80 degrees before friday. of course, i won’t be able to fully enjoy the weather until friday. i took the day off for my birthday. roomie and i are going to a local mexican place called carmelita’s. they give you free dinner on your birthday and the food is delicious and not too pricey even when it isn’t your birthday work is still holding, meaning i still have a job. we actually have OT this week and even though i am loving my new 7am – 3pm hours, i am not loving having to be there at 5am for OT. we’re getting some rain today! it looked like the rain was forecast for the east coast but we’re getting some too. it poured at my work and roomie said that it rained most of the day here at home too. we really need it. the local news reported that we have a 30 inch rain defecit. we’ve been under water restrictions ( i don’t believe in watering my lawn) for some time now. our rainy season doesn’t start till sometime around the end of may and ends near september. the longer the summer stays hot, the longer the rainy season lasts. we get thunderstorms almost every day during that time. i got something really cool in the mail today; something that i was expecting… my TCF patches! they are beautifully done and are a shiny silver and black. the camera doesn’t even being to capture their beauty:
after dinner i cranked up the old iTunes and got my guitar out and played for about 2 hours. i haven’t played guitar in…well…i can’t tell you how long it’s been. (rock band doesn’t count – lol) i was amazed that even with a bum finger, i can still kinda play! i would like to start playing on a regular basis and try to get semi-good again – not sure why, but it might be fun. i am sure that my neighbors could hear and i really don’t care. i played some of the songs 4 and 5 times till my memory came back
yeah, that is definitely a goofy look on my face. i think i was saying something like “you better not be taking a pic of me!” i have actually been too busy to post or read blogs lately. things are also changing at the TCF (my sci-fi, geeky second family) that announcement came on the same day. many people there are bracing for it to shut down when in fact it’s just changing its face a bit. at least i think that’s what is going on. as for sci-fi, i will be attending FX international in orlando on april 18th (a week after my birthday. it’s really just an excuse to get together with a bunch of those geeks for a day. i am planning on going to walt disney world on my birthday. i get in for free! that should be a blast. hopefully, somewhere in between next weekend and my birthday i will be able to get myself over to see my friends on the east coast. i don’t think the water is warm enough to get in yet, but the beach is still available for getting some sun. nothing says you have to swim when you go to the beach i’ve cancelled my plans to go to the BSG auction happening in los angeles in may. i really wanted to go but i decided to use the $$ to save up for this year’s dragon*con in september. i want to have everything paid for just in case i am unemployed by then. i have decided to fly this year. my roomie will be moving before then and i honestly don’t want to make that drive alone. i checked the airfare and it’s pretty cheap right now. i will be getting a ticket as soon asi am able to. i figured it all up and the flight, round trip, is exactly the same amount of money that it would cost for gas and paying the $25/night parking fee at the hotel. of course, i am also saving myself 6 hours of travel time each way! saving even more, a good friend is picking me up at the airport i haven’t had any crafty projects going on as of late, just too busy/lazy to work on anything. i have a few costume props to do for other people and i have a bit more work to do on my big starship troopers gun. i nicked it in a few places and then also remembered which parts move and realized that i never painted under them! those projects will feed my craftiness bug for a while.
frak! i’m a cylon! pics can be found here in my gallery some were taken by me and others were taken by the lovely and talented cassiline roomie sent me over to an awesome blog called little faerie tales over the weekend to show me a cool project. i thought it was so beautiful that i had to create my own. i ended up purchasing the shells but i am going to make a smaller version soon with shells that i plan to collect when i visit ormond beach two weeks from this coming friday. i painted and decorated it in a few hours spread over 3 evenings. i would like to use it now but i have to wait because the grouting on the lid is still wet. here are two pics, the lighting is a bit weird in the second one but you get the idea. thanks for the inspiration joanna!
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