Neighbors, writing struggles, and musical zen,

Yesterday, I left to take a walk to my mail box. I was wearing my sun and moon leggings, a back dress that goes to my knees, and was carrying the lovely UV protection umbrella/parasol (I'm mildly allergic to the sun and some medication I am on makes me even more sensitive to sunlight) Amanda bought me for my birthday. All the neighbors who were waiting for the noon bus to pick up their kids at the corner stared at me. I had a little giggle. It's almost as if they've never seen a fat goth before. LOL actually, come to think of it. I don't think many of them have ever seen me period. I haven't exactly gone out much except to get the mail or go straight to the car since living here. I don't hang out with my neighbors. 

Speaking of my neighbors, I heard someone say "fuck off" really loudly outside my patio door last night and since I was up, I opened the curtain to see a woman walking away from a cop who was shining a flash light at her. I closed the curtain and went back to my business. In all reality she was probably drunk or something.

I slept a bit yesterday. It was good and I actually laid down for a bit with no problems. That's improvement. However, I was having a bad day emotionally. Not sure what set it off but I remember sitting at my desk, trying to write the last chapter I was working on while crying. I thought, I have nearly 400 pages, I'm struggling with this story and don't know why since I know where I want to go- more or less- with it, but it's nearly 400 pages of fanfiction, which means that when I do get it finished it is not publishable nor was it ever meant to be. But that made me a little sad. I feel pulled to work on other stories, but I have denied those urges because I have this terrible problem of not finishing projects and I am damned determined to see this one through to the end. It's a matter of proving to myself that I can. It is also a matter of me seeing if I can write period, which after yesterday's ugly cry fest, I felt less than mediocre. 

I e-mail Amanda at work and told her I was having a terrible day and we decided not to worry about cooking and went to Ron's Burgers, a local business near our house. I didn't want to go in, so we did the drive thru and came home. We both fell asleep watching Ab Fab but I woke sometime around eight and finished a movie I'd started several days ago. Then I moved over to my computer to pick up the writing work again. Except I didn't get much writing done last night because I spent about two and half hours listening to various music on youtube. I was all over the place. Halsey, Lady Gaga, the 69 Eyes. I stumbled across two new artists that seem interesting.

I'm guessing Kerli just might be pagan. Don't know, but there is some interesting imagery in the video.

Eivor was interesting, wasn't on the same heavy bass and epic level of music I seemed to have favored last night but maybe that's what made it so appealing. 

I, of course went for a favorite from Gackt. I love his voice! He's pretty too, but really, I just love listening to him sing. 

I learned about Nathan Lanier while listening to my Two Steps from Hell Station on Pandora. I love this song so much. He's definitely becoming a new favorite for epic music to write to.

Anyway, I relaxed a bit while listening to music, let myself get lost in a lot of it, and it was very much a kind therapy or meditative sort of thing. I felt a little better afterword, enough that I was able to finish the short chapter I was working on. 

I've started a small project, since I listen to music while writing, to write down songs that evoke certain emotions or have some reference to an element, such as water or fire. I'm trying to assemble an "elemental" playlist of sorts for a a story I'm going to be writing soon. One of the songs I found, which I think might actually fit the story really well is this one by Seabound, called Scorch the Ground.

 

It is so weird to think that I first heard this song a decade ago. 

Well, I since I was up all night again and am hurting a bit today, I am going to go lie down with a book with the hopes of crashing out soon.

When you sit outside...

Today was another of those asshole-ish days wherein Amanda and I were both depressed. She spent most of the day applying to jobs and I got a late start because I was in a lot of pain. I sat on the sofa with my coffee, the heating pad for my back, and the 4th volume of Sandman by Neil Gaiman. I ended up falling asleep, hence the late start. 

The rest of my day was pretty uneventful. I went to the neighbors a few times, watched a movie alone and another one with Amanda, and ate dinner. It wasn't until I went over to the neighbor's this evening that things got interesting. 

My neighbor finished a test, we talked, and coaxed Amanda out of the house to play a bizarre, hijacked version of Contract Rummy. My neighbor calls it Prison Rules, because we've tweaked it and made it so weird- not sure why she calls it that. Anyway, we played several rounds. Amanda and the neighbor drank beer, I drank water, and we ended up watching screaming goat videos on Youtube. 

But after awhile the cold got to be too much for me, so I came home and immediately found the space heater. Amanda doesn't like it when I am freezing and get into bed because my feet, legs, and yes even my ass are generally very cold. I don't much like it either because it takes forever for me to warm up. So, I've been sitting in front of our little heater in bedroom and am nice and toasty. Bonus, I am tired, so it shouldn't take too much for me to fall asleep. 

I did make some decisions today. 

1. We are going to stay home from the Mabon celebration with the IEPG. We just don't have the money for gas to go there and still have enough for Amanda to get to and from work. Also, it's Amanda's dad's birthday. 

2. We will probably also stay home from the Kemmetic class as well. I know some people are going to be disappointed, but we jut can't afford it. 

  3. Amanda and I have decided exactly what we are doing on Halloween. Fiona wanted us to come to her place and the twins wanted us to go to their place. Well, we don't really have the money for either and we're not letting our friends throw money for gas at us. So we are going to enjoy a nice night at home. Besides, we aren't going to have any extra money because we will have paid bills and spent anything extra on our anniversary. Given the summer we have had, we deserve a nice, big date day/night and everyone else can go fuck off.

Neighbors, homework, cleaning, and books to knock the creativity back into gear!

Narcisa playing in my summer hat

Please excuse the mess in the picture. When you have a kitty who eats and tears up paper and play with cat litter, it's a little difficult to keep up with her messes.

Yesterday Amanda's parents left for Seattle for their own little vacation, which means that Amanda and I get the house to ourselves. I spent the day yesterday reading in the living room. It was so nice. I had the curtains open too. We had the TV on but only because we can play Pandora through the Bluray player and that was on very low. We did watch a movie called The Quiet Ones, which I thought was pretty interesting. 

Since Amanda's parents are gone and it is just us until Fiona comes to visit tomorrow, and I am spending more time out of our bedroom, I need clean space. So I scrubbed down the kitchen last night and the bar. The dining room is going to take more work than I can do on my own. The living room needs a good dusting and vacuuming. Of course a few things need to be out away. Otherwise I have been working on laundry. I managed to get most of our bathroom clean the other day. However, the floor needs mopping. Amanda, like always, had to clean the shower for me, which she did this morning before work. I think, with a little help, I will be able to get the house presentable tomorrow. Today, however, I have to work on homework. 

This last week has been one big blow off for me as far as school work has been concerned.

I think I just needed to recharge a little. I spent most of yesterday reading. Tuesday I think I played on the computer off and on and went to Spokane Valley to take a friend to the  grocery store because her car broke down. 

Monday I spent doing making covers for two more volumes of my Book of Shadows. I think with the two extra volumes, I will be able to organize things better and have more room for said things. 

But I also tried my hand at wire wrapping. I've had a rainbow fluorite pendant since May or June of last year and not really had anything to put it on. I tried putting an O ring through it but didn't have any big enough.. Finally I just decided to order some jewelry wire and give it a go. I'd also recently bought a mermaid pendant from Joann's crafts and knew the rainbow fluorite would look amazing with it. After about three tries, using my fingers, flat nosed jewelry pliers, and a chopstick, I ended up with this. 

  

The picture is a little dark, but I think it turned out pretty well for my first piece. I have some adventurine pendants my Mother gave me that I would like to try wrapping, but that will have to wait until I am caught up with homework. 

Back to books. I have been reading Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning. It was pretty good and I liked it well enough that I simply had to go to the library yesterday and pick up the next book in the series. Since we took Narcisa with us, I remained in the car with her while Amanda went inside. She found another book while looking for the one I wanted and rented it too. It's about Elves and she thought I would enjoy it. I probably will. 

Anyway, because I took a break from homework and did somethings I have wanted to do for myself and read a book that I wanted, I've had some pretty wacky dreams. Furthermore, I have such an itch to write. Amanda thinks I should just do it but when I start writing I kind of get a bit obsessed and I love that. Which is why I can't really devote the time I would love to devote to it right now. I don't want to start then have to stop because of stupid homework. It will all be much easier when I can iron out a decent schedule. You have no idea how hard that has been in this house. Half of it is other people he other half is me. The part that's me is the total people pleasing nature I can't seem to kick. Then again, why should I kick it completely?  

Oh one of the books I ordered when ordering my textbooks for school next term came yesterday. It is called Frey, God of the World by Ann Groa Sheffield. I bought it used and it just so happens that this copy was autographed by the author! It had a nice message to what I think is a very good friend of the author and I wonder how exactly the book came up for sale. Did the owner pass away and her family give her possessions away? Did she decide to pass her book along? Did she lose it? Either way, this book is made even more special. I love autographed copies by authors.

Lastly, last night our neighbor came over and we talked with her for 5 hours. She's really nice and needed some pointers on homework. We talked about all manner of things and I think we are going to try to get together tomorrow or Saturday night and have drinks around the patio fire pit at her place.   

Must acquire a shield, I hope it's allergies and not ear mites, and I saved how much?!

It's pretty sad that it's come to this. Since we learned that Yoda is diabetic and can't have any human food, he's become desperate for it. He's knocked so many things over in my room trying to get to my desk where I sometimes eat. He's tried to go right for my plate and I'm fighting him a lot of the time to stay back. And he's not the only cat to come after my food, Galen and even sometimes Ellie join in. So investing in a shield to put my food behind sounds like a necessary plan of action. Will I actually do this? Probably not, but it's a nice idea. Plus, I can hide from sad, begging eyes. No, locking them out of the room isn't really an option. Why? Because they cry and yowl and it's sad and they are damn loud!

Speaking of Yoda-chan, he's been scratching his ears a lot in the last couple of days. I've looked up what that could mean and as far as I can tell, it's either allergies (which he has) or it's ear mites. EWWWW! I am hoping for allergies but to be on the safe side, I'm going to clean his ears and rub them down with some warm olive oil. the weird part is that neither of the other kitties are scratching and I really don't think if it were truly ear mites that they would stick to just one cat.

This morning I got up early because I was going to meet a friend at Hastings for coffee and just to visit. At first I didn't want to get out of bed. For once I wasn't hurting too badly, was comfortable, and everything was soft. But the minute my second alarm went off there the kitties were fussing at me to get up. But the neighbors were up as well, stomping around so loud that it was impossible to go back to sleep. So, I got up, fed the cats, got dressed, and ate my own breakfast. Before I left I gave Yoda his morning insulin shot and muttered my aggravation over how loud my elephant neighbors were being. Really, they are that loud. The stomping is so heavy that it vibrates our furniture! And when they aren't home, their poor dog cries and cries. I would complain to them or to the landlord but Skoora's parents made me promise not to, which really sucks because when my friend Christine B. was here for a visit, they woke her up every morning. Oh and if you have a headache or a migraine, the stomping is at just the right decibel (or what ever you call it) to make your head throb.

Anyway, I left the house with a coupon in my purse for one of the craft stores and headed over to CDA for coffee. I had a very nice visit with my friend. She has a job interview today and I really hope she gets the job. (Crap! I left my phone in the car and she was going to text me!) I wished her luck when we parted, her going to get a nicer shirt for the interview, and me to Jo Ann Crafts.

You know, I wasn't planning on getting much or really anything at all, I just wanted to get out of the house a little and see what I could see. Some of the fabric was on sale for half off, so I thought I would see if there was some that just grabbed me because I've been wanting to make a shirt. Some did but I wasn't sure how much I would need so I decided to go look at some patterns to get an idea and lo and behold there was a sign saying that Simplicity patterns were 5 for $5! You can bet your ass I jumped on that, patterns are so expensive. In the end with the fabric being half off and the patterns being a veritable steal, I only spent $14 and saved $90. Oh and I couldn't use my coupon because the fabric was already on sale, so I still have it for another day.

Since I forgot the Redbox movie (grabbed the case but not the DVD) I have to go back out again today. I didn't really want to do that, but you have to do what you have to do and its an excellent opportunity for me to get my phone out of the car.

Okay, that's really disturbing! I just got another notice that I have been logged out from another location and do I want to log back in. UGH!   

Getting somewhere, I think?

Guess what! It's September and in my book it means that it is Fall! Well, almost but this is when I start digging out the fall decorations. I'm not able to get to them just yet this year but hopefully next weekend.

I do have a sad note. I think my eldest cat, Yoda-chan, has arthritis. I am going to talk to the vet and see what we can do for him to help ease the pain. I thought maybe baby aspirin would work but I read on several websites that it's not all that great, especially long term. However, giving my kitty soft massages were on the helpful list and I have already been doing that. I just hope the vet has something affordable. Speaking of Yoda, some of his fur just flew in my face but that's because I've been petting him and have the fan on high.

Speaking of said fan, I had to turn it on high because I woke up sweating. Yay, my fever broke. Boo, I woke up in the middle of the night again! Also, part of the reason I woke up was because my upstairs neighbor seems to like to stomp around instead of walk. So I listened to that for about half an hour before giving up and just getting up.

Since I decided to be up I read for a little bit and then decided that I wanted to write, even if it was word vomit. So I put out about half a page and decided that was a good start to the chapter. I switched a few things around and that seems to have helped me out. I think that's progress of a sort.

Well, I'm going to try and get some sleep again. I need to get up semi-early to go to the grocery store since we are out of food. I should probably make a shopping list but I can do that in the morning or rather in a few hours when I get up again.