Ch-ch-ch-changes

Sigh. Have you ever wished and wished for something new and shiny to replace something old and worn, but when you finally got your wish you almost couldn't bear to part with the tattered item it is replacing? That is exactly how I feel about the present that Rocket Boy got me.

This is my old wallet. I've carried it since I lost my Hello Kitty wallet during my sophomore year of high school. That was many years ago. I bought it at the Contempo in the now demolished mall in Boulder, back when edgy, punk rock girls shopped at Contempo. It served me well all those years.

Once in college it was stolen out of my purse right behind my back. Oh, how I mourned the loss of it then. Whoever took it used my credit card, took the cold medicine and cash out of it and then dropped the empty wallet into one of those blue post boxes. When the post office sent me a notice weeks later I cried with happiness. I had to pay the post office $8.15 to get it back, but I didn't care. It was my perfect wallet. Satiny soft on the outside, (that's all worn off now. It's as slick as deer guts on a glass doorknob, as my dad would say) roomy inside with lots of room for discount cards (I'm a sucker for a coupon) but still cute and ever so slightly punk rock.

Cash never really fit into it all that well, so I developed a way of folding my bills that drove everyone crazy. I always had to unfold the cash before I paid for something and then carefully fold the change back into my wallet. If I wasn't ever so careful, the bills would catch in the zipper and it'd get stuck. I ripped the corners off of more bills than I care to remember. Sometimes I'll get a ripped bill now and wonder if somehow it has been in my wallet before.

I started tucking a twenty into the middle change pocket after one horrible trip to the gas station. It was before I had a credit card and one morning before work I filled up my tank with gas, grabbed my wallet, and noticed there was NOTHING inside. "No big deal," I thought, "I'll just use a check." Except I didn't have any checks either. I panicked. I stood there next to my car crying. What was I going to do? Nothing like this had ever happened to me! Thank the Maker, a very nice stranger saw my distress and paid for my gas for me. I don't think I even thanked him properly. Sir, if you are out there, you made a huge impact on the seventeen year old me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

A few years ago the front pocket started to rip after I pulled my ID out of it a little forcefully. I was in a hurry to a doctors appointment and got pulled over for doing 40 in a school zone, only I wasn't actually in the school zone while I was speeding. I know I wasn't because I worked at the school in question, and the school zone didn't start for another 2 blocks, and it was 2:20 on a Saturday, so (I thought) it didn't matter anyway. Got a double fine for that one, but I haven't gotten a speeding ticket since. The anger I felt at getting the ticket wasn't worth the few minutes I would have saved if I hadn't been pulled over.

Just now when I cleaned it out I found Rocket Boy's fortune from one of our first dates. Actually, it wasn't a date. We were just hanging out at his place before we "officially" started dating and decided to get something to eat. He took me to a little Chinese buffet where we pigged out on fried rice, sesame chicken, and veggies. We got our fortune cookies at the counter when we paid and opened them in the car. I knew as soon as I saw his fortune that things were going to work out for us. I tucked the little promise into my wallet and promptly forgot all about it. I am tucking it into the change pocket on my new wallet to serve as a reminder of all the wonderful, magical things in this life.

Here is the shiny new one. I sent Rocket Boy to the Queen Bee site and told him which color combos and styles I liked and he picked this one out for me. Isn't it sweet? Look at the tag- the bee just makes me melt.

Oh, I will miss my old wallet. But I'm sure my new wallet will carry just as many memories for me. And look at how nicely it goes with my new purse from ten thousand villages!

SNOW DAY!!

Woo woo!Here's the view from my bedroom window. This looks like nothing, right? There are places where you can still see the grass and then drifts that are taller than I am!

Today is actually day two of the snow day. Yesterday I was SO grumpy when I got up and got ready for work. I was mean to everyone. When I left the house it was snowing a little and really windy, but I didn't think it would really be a blizzard. I had gotten all the way to the highway before I heard that my school district was closed on the radio. To be honest, I didn't believe it when I heard it. My district almost NEVER closes. So I just pulled over to think about what to do. A few minutes later the secretary from one of my schools called me to make sure I wasn't driving to work. So I turned around- it's a good thing I did, because it had taken me 20 min. to drive from my house to the highway, but it took me 40 to get back to the house!

Around 11:30 Whit called us from school and asked if Rocket Boy and I could come pick her up. Instead of taking the truck we took the car which was a bad plan. There were places where the snow drifts were taller than the car's clearance. We spun out pretty badly on the way over to the school, and we didn't dare stop anywhere for fear that we couldn't get going again. The ride back was pretty uneventful, except that there were high school students who had tried to drive home in the ditches everywhere. We all felt awful about not being able to stop and help them, but since we took the car there was nothing we could have done anyway. Highway patrol is really good about rescuing people out here though, so I'm sure they all got home safely.

I am so lucky to be one of the people who made it home before the storm really hit- some people on the highway had to sleep in their cars all night! I'm praying that everyone is okay.

Rocket Boy and Poppa J discussing the best way to try to clear the driveway.

See? Huge drift right next to nothing on the ground! Crazy. Also, I'm noticing that we look like we have a ton of crap parked in the yard, which is true, but most of it isn't ours. The tanks are water and propane, but I have no idea what's leaned on the table there. The boat, truck, and camper are all Poppa J's- I don't think any of them run right (I KNOW that the truck doesn't, but that's Rocket Boy's fault for driving it and gassing it with the wrong gas when he was 16. Don't tell him I told you!) Good lord, we really are country folk now. At least nothing is in the front yard up on blocks.

Rocket Boy churning up snow and mud at the edge of the drive.

We left a trailer piled full of uncut firewood on the driveway. Under the trailer there is almost no snow at all. I think some bunnies took shelter under there for a little while last night.
I love the edge of this drift. Doesn't the wind do cool things?

This is the view from my studio window. It's like a tunnel!

Alright ya'll- I STILL haven't wrapped any giftmas presents, or finished sewing my sister's present, so I have to get off the internets and get to work!

Before and after

So, I'm ready to get started on making some holiday gifts but uh, this is what my crafty space looks like.

So, my first project of the day is going to be cleaning. Whoo! Hopefully I'll be back in an hour or two with an updated picture.

Ahh. SO much better. Although, I didn't really clean up all my beads. I just moved them off the table and onto the hutch. That's okay, because organizing my beads is on my list of things to do. I just haven't done it yet because it will be a whole weekend task. (Excuses, excuses)
Okay- I'm off to make a pattern (that's why the open notebooks are on the table. I don't plan on leaving them there!) and a holiday monster.

One year

Rocket Boy took me to a cabin in Allens Park for our one year anniversary (December 13). I cannot believe that I've been married for a whole year! I am so blessed to have him in my life- he is the kindest, most imaginative, sensitive man I've ever met. He's my bestest friend, and I've learned so much about myself just by hanging out with him.

I snapped these photos of the ancient first aid kit I found in the kitchen right before my camera decided that it didn't like working there. I was really sad that it was broken, but as soon as we got home it started working again. Stupid technology. There were a ton of cool things in the cabin, old leaflets about the mountains, cool books, and knick-knacks. I wanted to get pics of everything, but oh well. Maybe we'll go back in a few years.

The cabin was lovely. It was built in 1914, and it was pretty drafty, but there was a fireplace to snuggle in front of. My only complaint is that I forgot my pillow, and since I'm such a tender, fragile flower I woke up with a sore neck each morning. We drove into Estes Park twice to wander around and got another blown glass ornament for the collection (which I'll take a picture of some day...) we also picked up a few presents while we were there.

Okay- I'm off to wrap some presents and make a final list of things to do before Christmas.

I want my 2 hours back

Firstly, I'd like to say how much I enjoy being a member of Netflix. We've seen some really great movies that we never would have seen since we joined. I like the way their website is set up, and their pricing system is fair (unless you get black balled for watching to many movies in your price bracket, but that's another post) the only problem is that sometimes a movie is recommended to you that really, really sucks.

So I'm rolling out a new feature here at Copygirl X. I'm calling it "I want my 2 hours back" and it's where I'll review said craptacular movies. Hopefully I won't be using this feature too often. This week I present:

Elephant

Directed and written by Gus Van Sant and released in 2003, this movie got surprisingly good reviews. The tag line is "An ordinary high school day. Except that it's not." The movie follows random high school students through their day and ends in a gory school shooting rampage. A noble subject to make an honest film about for sure. I have no problem with the subject matter of the film. My problem is the way the story is presented.

This is NOT a normal high school. Long spotless hallways, a population of mostly Anglo students, and the apparent optional classes. None of these students seem to ever go to class! Instead, they take endless, meandering walks down school corridors on their way to nowhere. They play football or relax in the quad. Now, we do see a gym class and the humiliation of locker room changing when you aren't part of the popular clique and a GLBT meeting, but no lectures, no homework, no note passing.

During lunch the camera takes us on a tour through the kitchen- again, huge and spotless- where we notice two students taking a quick break from working to smoke a joint in a kitchen closet. Here's the thing- high school stoners are smarter than that. No student would smoke a j. in the middle of his lunch shift INSIDE the kitchen. They'd walk across the street to the park or the laundry room of the neighboring apartments or where ever the smoking place is. True, they might come back higher than a kite with reeking skin and clothes and eyes so red they look like the undead, but they wouldn't smoke in school.
We also meet a group of girls who go to the bathroom together to puke after lunch. Once again, these are not real students. I mean, I knew those girls in school- they didn't all puke at once because that would be too obvious and someone would talk to a teacher who would call the girls into the principals office to have an intervention.

One nice (sort-of) part of the film is that the shooters motives are never explained. We're supposed to gather that high school is so terrible, so lonely, so whatever that the students were driven to kill their classmates.

It really made me sad that every character in the film was reduced to the most blatant of stereotypes. I have a feeling that it was a choice to present them that way, and it makes the movie 2 dimensional and crappy. It is a beautifully shot movie, so if you like watching "film" for the sake of film, have at it. Otherwise, don't waste your time.

Go ahead Mr. Wendall

One post in the last month? Bor-ing! I've made a little challenge for myself- one post a week for the next 3 months. We'll see what happens.

I've been in a pretty deep funk, to tell the truth. I think it's the month of November. I don't know why, but every year in October I get all excited about plans for the upcoming holidays, and then BAM! it's the first week of December. It stresses me out because I never get everything I planned on doing actually done.

I have been crafting lately though! Here are some ATC's I made for a glitter swap. I found this great dog stamp in my stash of stuff and decided to make a set of cards around it. So I present Wendall the Wonder Dog! There's Wendall walks at sunset, Wendall swims in his dreams, Wendall catches a bitchin' wave, Wendall dreams of being King, Wendall contemplates making lemonade, Wendall leaves the weeds, and Wendall in Bat Country.








I started by laying down a layer of watercolor on one big sheet. I was just playing around with the colors, enjoying the process of painting. Then I cut the big sheet into ATC size (3.5 by 2.5 inches) and decided where to place the stamp. I colored Wendell and the other details with colored pencils and gel pens (for his collar and any spots that didn't stamp shiny enough). Then I added crepe paper or other collage stuff. I think they all came out pretty nice, but Wendell in Bat Country, my homage to the late, great Hunter S. Thompson is my favorite. I almost didn't send it to be swapped!

I can't wait to see what I get in return. I love swapping, but I'm so bad about it- I almost always send late because I freak out about my stuff not being good enough.

People get ready....

I had written a very long post about how much I think the new Colorado constitutional amendment that marriage is only one man and one woman sucks sweaty goat balls, but it was full of anger and cussing, and I don't want to put those feelings out into the world right now.
But I will say this: Denying people the right to marry is the most judgemental thing I can think of. And don't even get me started on denying homosexuals the same basic legal rights that we allow common law couples (which, let's face it, is fancy talk for "living in sin") because it's dangerous.

Dangerous to who? I don't need someone telling me what my marriage does and does not stand for. It's MY marriage. I'm positive that same sex couples don't need their long term committed relationships defined for them either.

I think it's bullshit. Whoever wants to marry should be allowed to do it. I pray that none of the people who voted that way have children who will one day have to tell their parents that they are homosexual.

That's all I can say about it right now.

Easy like a Sunday morning

Okay, okay, so today is actually Tuesday but what did you expect? I should rename this blog "Super Lazy Girl x" or something. Here's a photo essay from Sunday. Rocket Boy changed the oil in our cars and did a bunch of tune up stuff while I took a million pictures and drank cold frosty beverages.

And we ate popcorn. Lots of crunchy, salty, garlicky popcorn. Yum. I think I'll make some more right now...


I call this one Portrait with The Captain (and coke).

We are family

Whew. So we got back from Palm Springs last night, and Rocket Boy had to leave at 3:00 this morning to work out of town all week. I have no idea how he can do it- I was so worried about him driving after he left this morning that I couldn't go back to sleep. Well, if we can't be together physically at least we can both be equally exhausted! Ha.

The trip was...not what I expected, but good overall. The airlines lost our luggage (If you ever think it's a good idea to save money by changing airlines in the middle of a trip, don't do it. Avoid it at all costs!) and the Las Vegas airport smells like dirty wet feet. But they did find our bags and deliver them to my Grandpa's house (at 10 pm) for us.

We also missed some of the cousins that I really wanted to see, but there will be other trips.

I did score some fun crafty things from an antique store we stopped at on the way back from an orchid show. We also went to Thousand Palms and walked the fault line and stopped at the oasis, which is the most beautiful place I've ever seen. No pictures though- My camera was packed in my bag and it hadn't been found yet when we went. That's okay. I like having it just for my memory.

Rocket Boy had his first ever In-N-Out Burger, animal style of course. I think he was impressed. Okay- I know he was because we stopped at another In-N-Out on the way to the airport and had double doubles before we left. Yum!


Here's my to do list for the week:
1. Finish patching Rocket Boy's work pants. There are 3 pair left. It's embarrassing to have a husband going to work in hole-y jeans because I'm to lazy to sew them up.
2. Finish my Big Lebowski swap package.
3. Finish 2 necklaces for a personal Glitter swap.
4. Finish 1 Necklace for a personal Craftster swap.
5. CLEAN THE HOUSE. Ew. Just thinking about this one makes me sad. It's such a dump around here.
6. Change my car registration to our new address. Um, yeah- we've lived here over 2 years now. Noticing a trend are you?
7. Something else, but I've forgotten what it was.

I don't mind, the thing that bothers me is someone keeps moving my chair.

I'm feeling like I can't catch up at all. Work is crazy, my latest projects are failing, I'm planning an unexpected trip to see some family, and I keep walking into rooms and instantly forgetting why I'm standing there.

I can't wait for the weekend!

Recharging

I just finished the most draining week ever. A whole bunch of little things went horribly wrong, which I could have delt with, but I also had a sinus headache for 5 days straight. Lovely.
The week ended with an all day work meeting that I was an hour and a half late for because of a really bad (fatal) car accident on the highway. The meeting was a total waste, and then when it was over, I lost my car. A friend drove me around and around for ten minutes before I remembered that I was driving my FIL's car and we had already passed it twice. So I went home and went back to bed.

But look! Kitten!

He belongs to my sister and he's 7 weeks old. This was the closest to still that he was all day. I wish I could have gotten a shot of his face, because he is the cutest little schmoo I've ever seen.

So things are looking up. Thank the sweet baby Jesus for 3 day weekends!

Gift giving

I like to go a little crazy when I wrap gifts. I love doing it so much that one year one of my coworkers paid me to wrap all of her Christmas gifts on my lunch break. I had a lot of fun doing it, and she kept bringing me presents to say thank you.
My favorite presents to wrap are books, because you end up with a flat, thin-ish surface to work with. Making the wrapping a part of the gift just feels better, like I'm creating less waste. I also try to only use what I have around the house because buying pretty paper that's only going to be thrown away seems strange to me.
This one is a book about Bob Marley that I bought for my sister during the last Chronicle Books sale. First I wrapped it with a piece of drawing paper that had been sliced with an exacto knife on accident. It looked so tempting as a blank canvas that I had to rewrap it with a nice piece so I could draw on it.

I was listening to great music while I drew which gave me the coolest idea for the circle journal swap at Glitter, but more about that later.

I used a picture in an old embroidery book as inspiration- I think it came out pretty nicely.

This one was a copy of The Prophet for my friend Laura. I had to add all sorts of pretty stitches because I cut the ribbon to short and didn't have enough left over to fit around it either. The butterfly sticker is covering where I sewed the ribbon together. Then I decided that I couldn't just write her name on the wrapping, like I usually do, so I made the little butterfly tag out of origami paper.

Someday these will all be swapped

I made these pendants out of porcelain and fired them using various techniques- some are regular gazes fired to cone 10 and the shiny ones are raku fired. The plan is to use them for jewelry for swaps, but some of them I like to much to send away.

Birthday No. 27

I adore birthdays, both my own and other people's. I've never been one of those people who thinks of it as "just another day".
This year I had a very quiet birthday, which started with the perfect morning for sleeping in. Cloudy and cool- we don't get days like this in August very often.

For breakfast I made myself Special Gunpowder green tea in my favorite mug (my momma made it for me) and oatmeal with fruit. I ate it at my desk downstairs while listening to the best college radio station ever. After I ate I changed the sheets and enjoyed the quiet beauty and bliss of a freshly made bed. Someday when I'm rich (but not famous, because I don't want to be on TV or in People magazine like, ever) I'll have fresh sheets everyday.

Then I hit the thrift store and the magazine stand for some birthday goodies. The cards crack me up!


Later, while I was buying myself a flikr pro account with my b-day money from my parents, I heard something smacking against the window in my studio room. It was the biggest toad I've ever seen trapped down there. I don't know how they get down there, but in every window well we have a colony of toads and salamanders, and sometimes snakes. The toads jump up to catch bugs and thump the windows. They're cute, but it sounds so gross.

When the hubster got home, we got ready to go out to dinner at Hapa in Boulder. On the way we saw a rainbow and these clouds that looked a lot like a mushroom cloud. We couldn't decide if that was a good omen or a bad one.

Dinner was wonderful! I don't have any pictures of the sushi because it disappeared to quickly, and I don't have any pictures of us because I drank sake and cocktails and got really ah, well you know.

Then I spent the rest of the week in blissful laziness. I gave myself the gift of being forever 22 years old on the inside. So, while on the outside I'm now in my "late" twenties (oh eww) with a "real" job and plans to buy my very own house and finish grad school, on the inside I'm still the giant slacker who loves playing video games all day, drinking at all hours, and just doesn't care about silly things like bills and other people's opinions. Twenty seven is going to be a great year!