So much news, sick, flashing lights on my street.

Our house is situated near a fire station to west and police station to the east. We also live on a relatively busy street. There's almost constant traffic and we often see and hear emergency vehicles speeding passed daily, but we don't really mind. But this morning six emergency vehicles zoomed passed and I looked up a news source to find out what the hell was going on. Turns out someone was getting evicted from their home about 4 blocks away and there were shots fired. I don't know if they fired at someone or if the police fired at them, but not long after an ambulance sped passed our house heading the other direction. 

We also had a homeless man walk up to Amanda, startling her, asking for food. She was so frazzled that she couldn't figure out exactly what to give him. She gave him hard boiled eggs. But that was Saturday.

Today, after a night of coughing, crap sleep, and bizarre cat stuff along with some other tidbits, my shit-tolerance level is at zero. I'm also going to try to keep this as short as possible.

Post a lot of frustration, some tears, and internal struggle, I decided that it was in my best interest to quit the Wiccan Seminary I'd been going to. I'd with a couple of lessons, struggled with some structural and organizational elements, and the time I was spending on all of it. Worse, when I tried to not go to as much so I could spend more time with Amanda and do other things, I only felt guilty for not doing school stuff and couldn't enjoy anything else. I even felt guilty for not doing school related stuff on my birthday. That's unacceptable. Granted the guilt part is on me and that's something I fight with all the time, but I don't need one more thing to feel near crippling guilt over. 

Then one morning, at devotional, I was listening to the Charge of the Goddess and had a moment where I was swept up by a surge of "what the fuck am I doing? I'm wasting my time doing this instead of what I set out for myself to do this year". That's when everything exploded in my head. It took me several days of wrestling with my feelings, consideration, and a lot of discussion with Amanda before I emailed enrollment to withdraw. I thought, I can always go back. I can always hop on the sim for events put on by the school, even if I feel like an awkward outsider about it (again, that last part's most likely on me).  

Today, I'm not sure I want to return. I got online to check my school e-mail to see if I had any response or messages and I also wanted to check to see if I the work in my classes had been graded so I at least knew what I got. Only I couldn't and I'm a little pissed about it. It took my instructors sometimes several days to get back to me on homework questions, the dean a almost two weeks to answer a question, my supervisor for the scholarship work two weeks to get back to me about a concern and I didn't really fuss. As in, I only fussed to Amanda and a friend and not even that much, because I understand that people are busy and have lives. However, I send in an intention to withdraw on Friday and by Monday I am shut out cold. WOW, that's rude. I can still access my e-mail from SNHU and I graduated in 2016. Again, this is frustrating because there were things that I was enjoying. 

So, now that I have the majority of my days back, what am I going to do with them? Well, what I should have been doing. Unpacking and cleaning my house, writing, and exercising. I recently changed doctors again but I will talk about the outcome of that in my next post. I'll talk about my birthday weekend as well.

Other than that, I've been sick with something. I tried a nasal sinus rinse and a different cold medicine, both picked up from the health food store down the road. Those combined with tea have helped a lot. I'm still a little icky, but not nearly as bad I was. So yay there! 

Oh and my Mom and her older sister seem to still be doing well. 

Well, that happened, the paint is crying, and sick

Amanda and I. 

Well, it happened. We are married! Finally! The day of was pretty intense. Amanda was freaking out and I was trying to take it easy. Of course part was that as because I twisted both ankles and fell at Scarrywood the night before and the other part was because I wanted to be as calm as possible. Everyone else was freaking out and I'm not going to go into it, its done and over. 

The ceremony was beautiful, what I remember of it. It seemed to happen fast and a lot from that day is a blur and I was in a lot of pain. Thankfully, people recorded it. We never got to dance, never even got to listen to the music that wasn't in the ceremony itself. We basically got to eat dinner and a little cake and then the pavilion lights went out and it was time to clean up. Only, I didn't. I was cold and hurting, and went to warm up in the car. 

We had a small after party at a friend's house. I was planning to get drunk only I hung in long enough to sit by the fire for a few minutes, drink non-alcoholic hot cocoa, and then fell asleep on my friend's sofa. Another friend scared me awake to give me a hug goodbye. Amanda and another friend, both drunk, woke me up to go join the coven they were making in the back yard, but I was too sleepy. I do remember my friend nuzzling my boobs and pulling on my arm, but that was it. Apparently they made me drink some alcohol too. I missed all the vomiting excitement too, for which I am thankful.

The next morning when we walked to our car, parked around the corner from my friend's house, we found this gem:

Since Our car was parked facing away from the road and the damage as done on the passenger side, I can only assume that someone walking by threw something or hit the windshield as they were passing by. That's at least a 300 dollar fix and it will just have to wait until after we get back from the honeymoon. We have far too much shit to do at the moment. 

Speaking of which. I am sick and Amanda is feeling the first of it. I think it is a combination of stress, us being out in the cold rain the night before our wedding, and the mildew- mold smell permeating our apartment.

Two weeks or so ago we had what looked like a lactating tit dripping water down into our shower. I called maintenance about it. They came and slashed it and told us that they needed to let it dry out and that they weren't going to fix it until after we moved out since we are moving out on the 30th of this month. Lovely, how kind of them to leave us with this over our heads while we shower and while our out of town wedding guests shower. Fuckers.

Thursday night, after SScarrywood, we came home to a small puddle in the bathroom and our bathroom wall looking like this:

The next morning, our wedding day, it looked like this:

I went down to talk to the office about it. The apartment managers were gone so I cornered one of the Walker Construction guys and told him. I told him it was my wedding day, we were going to have people in and out of my apartment all day, but that I would be home Saturday. Well they don't work on Saturday, which he neglected to tell me, but he did say he would talk to someone about it. 

I waited all day Saturday and by Sunday morning I had had enough. Especially when I stepped in a wet spot in the hall way. I'm not sure how the water migrated there, I checked the water heater closet and nothing was wet in there and everyone swore they didn't spill anything. So I called Emergency Maintenance. They came out looked, mopped up the floor with some towels and did something with the water upstairs, which was where it was coming from. Our house smells awful. I'v had the dining room window open the last couple of days to try and help air it out. I've also kept the house kind of cold to discourage mold from growing. I don't know if that's doing any good or not. 

Since I have been sick the last few days, I've been resting, sleeping, and downing cold care tea, mucinex, and cough drops. Neither  Amanda no I want to be sick on our honeymoon next week, so I am doing my best to rest and get over whatever crap it is that I have. No, I am not smoking anymore. I quit that the day before I got sick. This doesn't help our efforts to pack up our house to move. In fact, Amanda has been doing most of it. Two of our friends are going to come over while we are on our honeymoon to finish it up for us, that way, when we get back, we can get a truck, and load it all into storage. Man this month fucking sucks! 

On the house hunting front, we have viewed two houses. They weren't us, not really. So we are still looking. 

For today, I am going to take the car back to emissions, finally, and hope it passes. Then I am going to go get car tags, finally. At some point the car needs an oil change and we need to pack for our hoeymoon and pick up our order from Torrid. But, at this very moment, I have a very spoiled and needy orange cat curled up on the table and on my arms wanting more attention, so everything else can wait a damned minute.

Talked to my Gyno's office this morning...

At the urging of some of my friends, I was going to call my gynecologist's office this morning to talk about the amount of pain, how weak, how much I want to throw up, and so on, things I am experiencing from the withdraw of the progesterone. Well, the gynecologist's office beat me to it and actually called me. They wanted to reschedule the ultrasound I was too sick to go to, schedule more lab work, as well as my biopsy. Okay, that's fine, but when I am expressing to them that I am in a lot of pain, I am completely miserable, and they ignore it, I'm more than a little pissed. 

I can deal with bleeding all over, the fucking huge clots, the fact that I'm going through pads right and left, and can't leave the house because just going to the bathroom takes so much energy out of me. What I can't deal with is the weakness, the rampant nausea, and feeling like I'm being torn apart from the inside out. I hurt so bad, the pain is going down both legs and my fucking toenails hurt. I've had panicked crying fits, panic attacks, and have been fighting urges to claw at my skin and cut my own uterus. But, nope, the lady on the phone could give a fuck. Such is life. 

Ice, ick, and furniture.

I took Amanda to work this morning at 5 am. She volunteered for overtime and while that is fantastic and I am glad she could get some, we just had a big ice storm move in on top of all the ice and snow that has yet to melt. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining about cold and lovely winter weather, on the contrary, I love it. I don't even mind driving in it, what bothers me are the other people driving it in. 4 wheel drive doesn't mean 4 wheel stop. Spokane is shit at plowing their roads, especially if they are residential, and this morning, I had to pull over because a Semi-truck was far to close for me to be comfortable and it was spraying a wave of dirty slush-ice at me. Then, as I tried to get back on the road, some jack ass coming up from behind didn't want to slow down and flashed me with his high beams. Really? No, seriously, because I can't tell that it's taking me extra time to get back on the road because my car is caught on a little patch of ice and you might actually have to be inconvenienced for all of 30 seconds by having to slow down. You never should have been driving that fast on icy roads to begin with, moron!

Now that that rant is out of my system... I am sick again. This time it feels like a head cold that's trying become a sinus infection or it's just a straight up sinus infection. Not totally sure, just know I'm not sleeping very well, my face and head feel awful, coughing, snot ick and drainage, and my teeth hurt a bit... so yeah, probably sinus infection. I've been self medicating with lemon ginger tea, a ginger tincture a friend made, a homemade chicken enchilada soup, coco, and water.

Behold! I finally got a hutch!

Okay, ignore the mess on my kitchen table  and bag of bags. A hutch has been on my semi-secret wish list for many years. As someone who has grown up with a hutch in my parents house for a time, and two in my Grandmother's house, hutches have always been nostalgic and make, for me anyway, a house feel more like a home. 

This one popped up on Craig'slist last Thursday for 50 dollars. It came with a matching table and 4 chairs. We don't really need another table or 4 chairs, but we agreed to both because the seller needed money to fix their broken car and they had an infant in the house. It looked like they were selling pretty much everything to get the car fixed. We decided to give the table and chairs to a friend and her boyfriend for their soon-to-be-new- apartment. This hutch came at the best time for us. I had  reached my limit with our apartment and its lack of storage. Sure we have been sick and the holidays did us in as well, but it just seemed like we couldn't make anything fit without it being messy or me getting overwhelmed.  So, below are the bigger appliances that don't really fit in the cabinets, dish towels and tea towels are in the drawers, my tea and a couple of my tea pots are in the display cabinet along with a bag of kitty treats. On the shelves we have most of our coffee cups, my tea making supplies and some herbs, and the bottom shelf is a nice little altar because I wanted something pretty. 

Just having this has made so much of a difference in my kitchen cabinets and made my kitchen feel more like home to me. I am not sure I like having so much white and had thought to paint the cabinet a light blue or green, but my Dad thought that might make it look more Swedish or Swiss (?) can't remember. Which of course is nice, but not really what I am going for in the kitchen. I thought about redoing everything Gothic fantasy like the living to tie the two rooms together, but you know what, I really like my greens and blues and I can still have the gothic fantasy charm in the kitchen without changing too much. So for now, anyway, the hutch will remain white. I also cut out some of the mermaid coloring pictures I've done and might put them on the backs of the shelves to break up some of the white... maybe, we will see. 

Lastly, I was holding Thorin an hour or so ago and my phone rang. He reached for it as my friend Fiona, who is up for a visit, handed it to me. Amanda was on the line to tell me she is staying a couple of house late for more overtime, but before she could tell me that Thorin pressed his paw to the my phone screen and hung up on her. I had Amanda on speaker and when I tried to call her back he tried to hang up again. I had to move the phone out of his reach and thankfully, the little shit was too lazy to move to chase after my hands for once.

Overloaded, disappointed, and no matter what, I am going to find something positive.

from a wallpaper site

There's no better way to ring in the holiday season than a bout of sickness. That's me being sarcastic, but I will get to that more in depth in a moment. First I would like to point out that while I enjoyed the food at Amanda's cousin's restaurant, while I was tickled silly over the singing quartet of elderly men who came in and sang us three songs at Amanda's family Christmas party, and even enjoyed the snow that day as well as my exchange gift (lavender sage hand soap and lotion), I did not enjoy the surge of panic that came along with it. To say that Amanda's family overwhelms me is an understatement of vast proportions. When you get the sisters together (there are six of them) in any combination or number, things are loud, you can't get a word in- there is no point in trying they are going to interrupt and talk over you anyway- you're in for a period of time in which you can't decide if you should run and hide or if you should observe because this might be good fodder for story writing. Then if you add in the kids and the cousins- we had a rather small turn out this year mind you- and pack the into a small place, the noise is much louder, the chaos is worse, and then you stick me in against a wall (because it's the only safe place where there is any breathing room) between two tables and a lot of people scooting and pushing about, Oh My God! I had a lot of problems with my claustrophobia. And, in fact, I was so overwhelmed, that when we finally got home several hours later, I had to do dishes just to calm myself down.  However, thank the gods for the snow! It was the quickest Christmas party to date on account of people worrying whether or not they were going to make it over the pass. While I dread any family gathering of Amanda's or even my family, it wasn't completely a bad time.

Amanda and I are still sick. We finally gave up and went to Urgent Care- mostly because she still needed to go to work and couldn't wait around on her doctor to have an opening and because my doctor doesn't do same day appointments. I apparently have the tail end of a sinus infection (even though I told the guy I saw that it does't feel so much in my sinuses but more in my chest and I am still coughing until I throw up and hacking up bright avocado green ick- yeah, you'll think about that next time you eat avocados won't you?). Instead of just giving me antibiotics to clear the rest out, I was given some cough medicine and nose spray. We will see how well that works. Amanda was given steroids, an inhaler, and cough medicine for an upper respiratory infection. Um, okay. We will see how well that works for her too. If it doesn't, we will be back at urgent care tapping our feet and giving them the stink eye.

I am, for once in my life, really disappointed in my father. There is a job opening at Amanda's job that he is perfect for. Amanda spoke to her boss about it and her boss said my Dad would fit in really well with the security guys there. He was even guaranteed an interview because Amanda works there and could vouch for him, and he might have actually gotten the job. More to the point, we would have let my parents move in with us for as long as they needed to get on their feet. But no, my Dad won't apply for the job and while I understand his reason of him never being able to forgive himself if he got it and took it and having to leave Grandma and Grandpa behind, I am really pissed because that means that he and Mom will be still be stuck in limbo with him have no prospects. It is maddening! What's more, the selfish part of me wants to smack him and say, remember how you felt bad about working too much and us never taking family vacations, you never making me promises, and all that crap, well you could make it up to me by moving up here, and easing my worry about you and Mom, and being close so I could actually spend time with you. But no, their lively hood and anything I want for them or feel doesn't matter over his possibly guilt. Thanks Dad, in a way, you just reinforced some "i'm not important enough feelings" that I have been struggling with. And that my help with mom, who you say is overwhelming you, isn't going to be good enough. Well fuck you too.

That aside, yesterday was a non-stop day. We went to Urgent Care, came home picked up Tsuki, and then Tsuki and I took Amanda to work and went to Winco, where my back kept trying to lock up on me. From there we went to the pharmacy, Wal-mart, McDonalds, and then to Tsuki's house to drop her and her groceries off. Then I drive back downtown to pick Amanda up from work, took the library books back to the library, and came home to cook dinner. The day was filled with a certain amount of embittered sass, a little bit of annoyed road rage, and emotional outbursts. The outbursts took place while I was trying to make dinner. All my anger and frustration exploded in the form of me yelling, slamming cabinets, throwing a package of spaghetti right into the trash only to have it burst and go everywhere. I was exhausted, hurting so much, and just wanted to scream. Oh and I have to rearrange the tupperware and bakeware cabinet because nothing would going in right so I slammed shit around in there. I also got pissed off at my dishwasher. Needless to say, I flipped my shit.

Part of the reason why I was flipping my shit is because I feel so selfish when I try to focus on me, when I want things for myself, and that shit with my Dad. Another reason was because I have gained weight again and I am trying so hard to be kind to myself. It is such a struggle because I have so many years of pent up rage, anger, and hate inside for my body. One of my friends wrote about hating herself and her body just recently and I understand what she is talking about- but from my perspective. I keep telling myself that it is okay to feel these things, to address them and look them in the face, so I can deal with them, but it is fucking hard. It is hard to say, I love myself when I can't push the car seat back any further, and my stomach touches the steering wheel. It is difficult to say I love myself when I am afraid to sleep because my period is so heavy that if I move wrong, or even cough, out gushes a ton of blood. It is hard to say I love myself when I'm having panic attacks about making phone calls to schedule appointments, going to store, and even taking a shower sometimes. It's hard to say I love myself when everything hurts from fibromyalgia. And it is hard to say I love myself when you are terrified that the one time you got drunk at a friend's house, you said something that probably offended a friend and you're already worried that said friend and well friends only tolerate you because you are engaged to Amanda. Yeah, I just said it. I think everyone likes Amanda more and just tolerates me because they want to hang out with her. I am only as good as what I can give or do for other people and beyond that, nothing. I don't make people happy, I can't make them laugh. I am certain most people think me clueless and stupid and don't take me seriously.

I hate my depression and anxiety so much. You have no idea how much it makes me angry. Sometimes, I want to tear my skin off or cut away pieces of myself.  Oh well, I keep telling myself that you have to get worse before you can get better and I am trying to get better. A friend of mine gave me affirmation stickers and one of them says something to the effect "Would you talk to your best friend they way you talk to yourself?" The answer is no, I really wouldn't. I love my friends and I don't want to hurt them or see them hurt by anything or anyone. So why is it okay for me allow the opposite for myself? And why does taking time, focusing on myself and trying to be kind to myself feel so selfish and wrong? Who the hell taught me that or let me believe that? 

Okay last thing and it is a happy one, per se. Amanda, after lots of whining, begging, and puppy-dog eyes, conned me in to doing a written role play with her. I am hesitant to do written role plays because they rarely get finished and I often neglect my own writing in favor of the RP. I do like writing with Amanda though. So last night we were talking about what we were going to write. I'm going to be an Elf, because that's what I was feeling and they are one of my favorite beings. Amanda is going to be a Dragon- also one of my favorite beings. However, I told her that I would only do this RP if she was at my complete and utter disposal for my own writing, that we only did one post a day, and that she has to write at least one page on her novel a week. I want her to finish the damned thing and if this is the only way to push her into it, then damn it, so be it! That said, I do have to come up with a first post today. Good thing it's still early in the day and I already have the roast cooking. 

So much work, Xmas/ Yule, Sick, Snow, Happy Kitty

I couldn't tell you...

Much to my great annoyance, I am sick again. Last night I spent a good deal of time shivering in front of the space heater waiting for Ibuprofen to kick in, and kill the fever. That really sucked and it was worse when it did finally break because then I was drenched with sweat. I did manage to get to sleep for a little while, but woke up with a runny nose and said screw it, got up, and went to sleep sitting up on the sofa. Of course I awoke freezing again. But for a little while, last night, I got to watch it snow. It was beautiful! I know a lot of people around me don't care much for snow, I know it rainy and snowy weather makes them ache and hurt more. Well, it does the same to me, but I am happiest when it's overcast, rainy, or snowy. Even when I am sick.

I have a lot of work to do between now and Yule and then Christmas. I haven't been working on presents the last couple of days, but today, I am going to get my butt in gear as much as I am able. Unfortunately, some of friends read my blog and so I can't disclose what I am doing. I will take pictures of finished goods and share them after people have received their gifts. And unfortunately, this year's Yule and Christmas are going to be a little sparse. Amanda and I are making things because we can't afford much. 

Last night, instead of cleaning the house like we said we were going to do, Amanda and I packed away all of the Halloween stuffs, and pulled out the Christmas/ Yule decor. We made a couple of bags of "to go" because there are some things that we don't want or need anymore, much less have the room for. That and I really like the more "natural" look or as some people might call it, "Rustic". Our tree, for the moment is a 4 foot fiber optic leaning thing that is driving Amanda nuts. She was so frustrated with it last night that I told her we would get the other tree from her parents, take the ornaments off the fiber optic tree, put them on the soon to be acquired tree, and move the fiber optic one to the kitchen table- which is now in front of the kitchen window. This way we have more pretty lights and Amanda will be happier. When we get everything in place, I will take pictures.  

I don't know why Amanda likes some of my wild ideas sometimes. I said, in more of a passing thought than anything, that it might be cool to move the bed out into the living room so we could enjoy the Christmas lights and fireplace. *facepalm* She took me seriously. She wants to move the sofa, and all the living room furniture around to make this happen because no one will be coming to visit us really this winter so why not?! I don't think its a good idea. I like going to the other room to go to bed. Except sometimes, like when I am sick and need to sleep sitting up on the sofa and want her company, but she will only sleep in the bed- because she is lame like that. 

We have a very happy kitty. Amanda moved Narcisa's bed from in front of one of the windows in the living room and put it between the side table holding our Christmas tree and the fire place. Our friend Tsuki gave me a small, round heating pad for when my cramps are really bad, but I have this terrible habit of falling asleep with the heating pad on, thus I haven't been using it much. Well, Amanda gave it a slightly new purpose, tucking it under the frist layer of blankets on Narcisa's kitty bed. She loves it! She melts into a black, furry, puddle. Amanda also set up a couple of Narcisa's stuffed animal toys along the wall like pillows. Not only does my cat have a better bed than I do, but its cuter too.

Wal-Mart Creeper, it's deliciously cold, the ick has arrived, and my therapist is amazeballs!

Art by Nene Thomas

Because of my therapist advocating for me by leaving a rather terse and testy message for my soon to be ex-doctor, I finally have my depression medication again. My doctor left a lame excuse on my voice mail saying that the pharmacy had sent her a message stating that I wasn't taking my meds properly-which is utter bullshit- and that's what some of the "mixup" was. 

We had our first snow here this morning. I missed it because it was at 6 am and I was still sleeping. It also melted away before I got up. Still, it was nice and cold today and its wonderfully cold right now. We have a log burning in the fireplace, and the space heater running. Amanda is making me a cup of Gypsy Cold Care tea because I'm coming down with something and haven't been feeling very well the last day or so. 

We went to the store tonight to buy some wood for the fire place and to grab something for dinner because I didn't feel up to cooking. We ended up with more than we went for but at the same time, we were just having fun perusing the store, and we found a few treats. However, while we were taking our time and enjoying ourselves, there was an older man following us. He started in the grocery section and we kept running into him all along the way. We were both polite and didn't really mind talking to him, but there was something about him that kind of set off warning bells in my head. I still remained polite because I also got the sense that most people don't pay this guy any attention least of all women, and that he might be awkward and lonely. 

Amanda and I kind of tried to shake him by going into the women's clothing section, which didn't work because he just walked back and forth in front of the check out looking at stuff. So we said screw it and headed for check out where he, of course, followed us. Well, I had an issue with a card and had to deal with that, so we cancelled our order, moved out of the way, while I dealt with my card. He checked out and while I was on the phone, he asked Amanda if she was single. She said no, that she was taken and when he asked about me, she said the same. Being that we aren't that far from Idaho, she didn't tell him that we are together- to which I told her later, when she was filling me in on this, that was probably for the best so he wouldn't get his feelings hurt thinking it was just some lame excuse. He apparently told her that he wasn't trying to be weird, he just has a thing for big beautiful women, which is really sweet. However, he stopped at McDonald's (yes, our Wal-mart has a McDonald's in it) and while we were getting our groceries out of our cart, he gobbled down his hamburger and began to follow us out. A bit weirded out we too hurried to get to our car, put our groceries in, and then we sat in the car with it on so it just looked like we were defogging the windows enough to drive. He got to his truck and was there a for a few minutes and finally left. But, because Amanda and I were a little unsettled, I went the opposite way and took a longer route to get home, just to be safe. 

I realized today that when ever I begin to feel sick, I want soup- usually vegetable beef with barely- and potato salad. If I didn't have butternut squash to use up within the next day or so, I would make homemade chicken noodle soup in the crock pot.

Lastly, in the spirit of colder temperatures, it is finally time to sit my butt down and make some quilts. Amanda and I are going to take some time and pick out which fabrics from what I have, and which pattern we want to use. She's going to put to work in helping me cut out the block or pieces, and we will go from there. This first one will be a nice spooky one. I also want to get as thick and squishy of batting as I can afford so it is nice and warm. 

Books, because I need too, and late morning.

Yesterday, I finally finished reading Gothic Charm School by Jillian Venters. This book is an interesting read which stresses things like being being polite and kind to others, especially if you are part of a minority subculture that people are kind f freaked out or afraid of. But people should be being kind and polite everyday regardless. But aside from that, the bulk of the book feels more geared toward those outside the Gothic culture such as a parent of a baby goth or baby bat, or a coworker, boss, family, and or friend, and even has some tips for those just beginning their exploration. I felt that there could have been more information into the history of the Gothic culture, a little more about the different Gothic subcultures, but it really is an overview. It is still a good book and one that I would recommend. Wish it had been around when I was growing up and that I could have shoved a copy under my Grandma's nose. 

I went into the library/ Bowie room this- well it was morning for me- and looked at my book shelves. There are a ton of lore books I want to read, some writing books, and several pagan books, but like I said, I am just kind of burnt out on "informational" stuff at the moment. The need to get lost in a different world feels kind of imperative at the moment, not sure why, maybe I just miss the feeling. So, instead of starting a new book series, I thought I would pick up one of the books that got interrupted for whatever reason and give it a go, hence the picture of The Vampire Narcise. I only got 40 pages into it when I last read and I liked the story well enough, so it is time. 

Last night, well this morning when I went to bed after 3 am, I tried to start a book on my Kindle. Once Upon a Curse is a grouping of 17 dark fairy tales said to be less Disney and more Grimm. However, I was tired and had a very needy cat in my face. Of course the moment I out my Kindle away, Narcisa declared victory and trundled off somewhere else. I was too tried to get out of bed and chase after her, to make her come back and deal with cuddles, and fell asleep shortly thereafter. When I awoke this morning and checked the time, I had that moment of almost panic and most assuredly disappointment. It was after noon. But then I got over all of that because I am sick and feel like crap. In fact I feel so crappy, I am have barely left my bedroom, and while I have managed to get some things done on my page long to do list, I'm calling it an early day. Which means I am probably going to go make myself some Miso soup from a packet, a cup of tea, have those, and curl up on the sofa if not back in bed and watch tv or youtube. Amanda wanted to go to the fair tonight since she won free tickets at work, but I just don't see myself making it. I was really going to try, but I think doing that will just make things worse.

I know it's almost 1 am but it's still Wednesday for me, so Haunted Hump day still counts.

It's that time of year again!

Since I am sick, I didn't feel up to picking up my house and taking pictures of my spooky decor. Don't worry, I am getting to it and haven't forgotten. Nor have I forgotten that I said I would share some pumpkin pictures on a Halloween Swap page on Facebook- they are on a camera that was moved and I keep forgetting to go look and to ask where it is. Fear not, I have made a page long list of stuff I want to try and accomplish over the next several days. Lists make my life so much easier. 

So, in lieu of spooky decor and really any current successful craft projects (my salt dough ornament experiment didn't work out the way I had hoped so I am moving on to sculpey), I will share a semi-spooky personal manifestation board I did several weeks back and a personal ghost story.

Here is my board. I wanted it to be more witchy but apparently I was channeling my inner goth/ vampire that day. There are some witch-ish elements shining through, but mostly it has to do with other aspects of my life. Since we as humans are multifaceted it makes sense. A more pagan-centric manifestation board has been planned to address my pagan goals, but I may just save that for Halloween night, you know since it is the Witch's new year and all that. 

On to the ghost story, which Marfi, who hosts Haunted Humpday, kind of inspired. Well, in so much as reminded me with her post, that I can post ghost stories too. Anyway, I am sure that those who have met me physically have heard this story, but those in internet land have not, read it if you wish. This is a personal experience dating back to when I was a very small child...

I woke up in the middle of the night scared, the cold sweat, to scared to make a noise, kind of scared. My bed faced the wall opposite my bedroom window. A street light always shone in and there was also the shadows from a large tree in the back yard. I used to lay in bed and entertain thoughts of a skeletal chicken army marching across my wall, so in some respects the tree plays a tiny part, in that most of what I would normally see, wasn't there. Instead it was blacked out by a black, child-sized figure perched on my windowsill, and it was watching me. I knew it was, its red eyes glowed on my wall, as if the wall was a mirror. It watched me for a few little bit then turned its attention to something outside. Somehow I managed to pull the covers up and hide, desperate and hoping that if I could just go back to sleep it would leave. 

I never saw it again. Some might say it was a really bad dream. For awhile I thought maybe it was until I heard an internet radio show hosted by a Shaman. I don't even remember what exactly he was talking about that recalled the memory of this creature, but I e-mailed him and described what had happened when I was younger. His response was that it probably wasn't a dream, that it was probably a creature that fed from children's fear. He had a friend who studies this kind of thing. Of course for the life of me I can't remember what her name was, but how freaking creepy. Now, I don't know how true this could be, because when I tried looking up information on such a creature, I was coming up with nothing. However, I didn't really look too hard or too long. I might do that in the near future.   

Can't hardly wait for Autumn, we've been moving some stuff around, and cleaning zones.

Fiona has been up visiting. It's been really nice, and even though she doesn't have to be, she's been really helpful. She even made dinner this evening and afterward, she helped me roll my hair up in curlers. Tomorrow she said she would help in the kitchen, which is really nice too, especially since I am trying to get the house on a zone cleaning schedule as well as get it actually, all the way clean. The Bowie room is still a year long work in progress and probably will be until the end of the year. It sucks, but that's the way of things right now. 

We've been in our apartment almost a year now and we're still trying to feel things out. Amanda moved my craft stuff into the living room, near the dining room, after moving my desk into the Bowie room several months ago. Then she decided that the crafts had to go into the Bowie room and my desk needed to go into the bedroom. Not all of this happened all at once, but it happened. Now the altar is where my desk and the craft shelf used to be. I like it. The living room feels a bit more open. However, there is this naked area of the living room that seriously bothers me. For Halloween and later Yule, we will have our respective trees there, but for right now, its so bare! Sterile even. Excuse me while I shudder. 

I almost can't wait for the Autumn season. There is a lot of stuff on my Summer/Fall bucket list that needs to happen. I am pining for cooler weather, pumpkins, vibrant colors, and of course Halloween. September 1st I plan to get the autumn/ Halloween decor out and begin decorating for the season. I also want to start my fall crafting about that time. 

Lastly, I've been having some trouble with my sinuses. Today I feel pretty icky and like I've taken the 1st steps to being down right sick. It doesn't help that we noticed two very large fires burning pretty close up in the mountains. The wind was blowing pretty hard today, which doesn't help the fire crews, and certainly didn't make me feel any better. I know there are more than just the two fires we saw today, but I'm not sure where they are. Anyway, I couldn't smell the smoke today, but I bet we will be able to tomorrow. I wouldn't go out in it, but I have a therapy appointment and need to return some books to the library.   

When you leave Hannah alone for too long...

Just a cool thing I found on Google+

I felt like "Death warmed over" to quote my Mom, this morning. It was one of those, tired, fog-brain-can't-focus-for-shit, hurt all over, feel emotional taxed and uber depressed, blah, blah, blah, kind of days where you just want to stay in bed. Except I was hurting too much to stay in bed and it wouldn't have done any good anyway because Narcisa wouldn't leave me alone. She was out of food, poor kitty. 

I made a valiant attempt at homework today. I only have 12 pages to read about the nature of war, but I couldn't focus. After rereading the same sentence ten times, I laid down to watch a movie, and then tried again. There wasn't much success. My mind wandered too much so I thought perhaps if I printed it out, that might help. 

Well, I printed it all right and since I was doing some printing, I decided to print out some other things too. For instance, I printed some coloring pages, some writing tips, my visual craft project list, and some pretty pictures for my manifestation board. I also made a page of quotes of inspiration that I like to put around my desk or on my manifestation board.  All in all, I think it was about 40 pages. Amanda made a comment to a friend that while we may have a printer, we may not have many more ink. I be to differ, especially since we just put new cartridges in not that long ago. But in my defense, that's what you get when I'm having a yucky day and you leave me alone until 7 pm at night. 

While printing writing tips and quotes out today, I looked at some things on my writing stuff board on pinterest and managed to find MJ Bush's website. I joined her mailing list and generally liked what I read on her site. I linked her over to Amanda and Amanda likes her too. 

Aside from that, I wished my Dad a Happy Father's Day and apologized to my Mom for being snippy with her yesterday on the phone. She called me at a very bad moment. Then I called my Grandpa to wish him a Happy Father's Day. He didn't stay on the phone long so I talked to my Grandma, who oddly enough seemed to be talking me out of Grad school. Why is it my family keeps doing that? I don't get it. When I was in high school all I heard was "YOU WILL GO TO COLLEGE OR ELSE!" now it's congrats, you're almost finished with your BA - no, it's not the degree we wanted you to have, but congrats anyway- and hey, don't you think you ought to try working for awhile and writing before trying to take the next step school wise? How about what I feel is right for me? 

I leave you with a picture from my garden.

An eventful morning, one pair of glasses, and story critiques.

Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade works characters Archer and Rin tohsaka

Okay, I found another anime that I am in LOVE with and it is called Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works. I've had it in my Netflix queue for awhile and just decided last week that I was going to watch it. It is wonderful! It's also a little dark and heavy, which I love. I really want to see the other Fate/Stay anime and see if I can't find books and what not. 

Moving on, one pair of my glasses, the black frame cat-eye ones that I really love, aren't really working out. I think maybe the prescription is a little off and that they are a tad too tight. So, I may have to send them back to get readjusted. *sigh*

This morning has been eventful. I woke up really cold, got up to go to the bathroom, and had just settled back in bed when my phone rang. Poor Amanda was sick at work and needed to be picked up. Since the jeep is still not fixed and she took the car to the park and ride this morning, I had to call a friend to take me to get the car. From there, I got Amanda, of course. There's been some roadwork the way I normally take to get home, so I automatically went the way I've had to take to get home, only some asshat was riding my ass far too close and distracted me just enough that I turned up Stevens instead of where I usually do. So finding my way to the highway again was a short adventure. Of course, not before some other asshat decided his shiny SUV deserved to take up the whole road and nearly run me off of it. Bastard.  Then, I passed my bank where I needed to make a deposit, had to turn around and go back. That was obnoxious, but at least the drivers were better.

So now we are home, Amanda is asleep on the sofa next to me, snoring terribly. She'd been kicking me in her sleep a lot lately, so I told her if she does today, she will be sent back to bed. I have some chicken and broth slowing cooking in the crock pot to make soup later.  

I discovered that the author I wrote about in my previous post did not leave the book off in a cliff hanger, instead it was a teaser from the previous book. Leave it to me to get confused, then again why would a publisher put a teaser from the book prior in the series at the end of the series?

Okay on to the story critiques for my short story in my writing class. I like feed back as long as it is constructive. However, one of my fellow students seemed to get a little snippy in her critique of my story concerning page length. Uh huh. I don't think that special permission needed to be granted and if the instructor had had an issue with my page length, she would have said something in her critique. If anything, the instructor wants me to add a few more scenes. There were a couple of other things that she and another student commented on, like the glazed over death of a character I had to do to focus on the death of another. *sigh* Yes, I know, I am not happy about it either but I can't put everything everyone wants within 20 pages, not for it to make sense and flow smoothly anyway. Which is why I am going to tear the story apart and make it into something longer after the class is over. I just want to say, quit bitching.

Now for one of my critiques. I have been following another classmate's story since the beginning of the class. Last night I remembered why her story frustrated the crap out of me. Her writing. I sat reading with my hand over my face through most of the story and there were a couple of parts that I actually laughed because no, just no, no, no, no, no, that's not how that works! Her story idea is really good and she did fix some stuff from the previous draft, so I know that she is paying attention to critiques. I also know that in the beginning I wrote like she writes, which gives me an indication that she might be just starting out with writing, but this is the last creative writing class before graduation. You can't take this one unless you have taken all the others. What was her writing like before? Has she improved along the way or not? I'm not trying to be mean, I just want her to be successful and at the moment, unless she self publishes, she's going to have a lot of work ahead of her to get where she wants to be. I would really like to see this story published someday. I think she could make a whole novel out of it, if not a series. There's enough foreshadowing to allude that there is a great deal more. 

Still sick, Sofia the 1st, some things I need to vent about.

Fun stuff first. I saw Sofia the First at my friend's house while baby sitting her son. That was awhile ago, but I recently found it on Netflix and decided that Amanda and I needed to watch it while we wait for the next season of My Little Pony. LOL, Amanda and I really love it and tonight we watched the wassiling episode- or rather their equivalent of Christmas. By the end, and it was a really good ending, we were both doing that ugly cry thing. It was great. But also while watching this show, I've been thinking about some things, things which I will get it in a few moments. 

Okay, more serious stuff. I'm still sick. We're going on about 2 and half weeks now. I started to feel better but for some reason couldn't quite shake it and it came back in full force. So I've been pretty miserable. Miserable in the sense that sometimes I don't realize that I have a fever and take some medicine fall asleep, and wake up drenched in sweat kind of miserable. But I have some antibiotics, am still drinking tea, and have some cough medicine to help. 

Being sick has made trying to do homework problematic. I am for the most part caught up (except for the last papers I need to write for this term) but I gave up on having A's in the classes. Fuck it. I just want to pass the classes and get on to the next term. I am so close to graduating and with everything that has happened over the last several months, I'm just burnt out and tired. Amanda is right, I do need to take time off instead of trying to go right into grad school. I need a break. But I don't want to be doing IEPG stuff, trying to plan a wedding (oh yeah, Amanda and I finally set a date), and doing grad school all at the same time. I'm sure I can do it. Or at least I think I can do it all, but while my brain says "Of course you can" my body and energy level says "Now just a moment sugar, you're gettin ahead of yourself here." Because I imagine all my inner voices to have some form of attitude and possible accents. 

One of my blogger friends was talking about fear and being too afraid to do things. She also talked about anxiety and worrying about everything. I get that. I lived in a sort of paranoid, completely pointless fear for over a year. I was scared to leave my house, scared to be seen enjoying my life even the least little bit. Shit I was scared to be seen walking and carrying in a sack of groceries, all because I had applied for disability and my stupid crazy aunt told me the gov. watches people who apply. I was scared that they would see me on a good day and I would get denied for have a few good days. Thankfully, I decided I didn't want to live like that anymore. 

But while, I got passed those fears, I am scared for all new reasons. Some of them are family related and completely normal, like a kid worrying for their parents. Some things I am scared of are completely irrational, like calling people I don't know. Granted that is left over from call center work and some hiring manager at Borders ripping me a new one right before I had a nervous breakdown. to this day, I don't like talking on the phone unless it is with someone I know and even then I tend to keep it short. Most of the time phone conversations with my Mom are about 20 minutes. The only people I talk to longer than that with are my Grandparents. 

Bringing back the things that I have been thinking about because of Sofia the First, I've been thinking about my current friendships. Most people who know me pretty well have either figured out or have been told that I am very much an introvert. I need time to recoup and recharge after a lot of things. No, it didn't used to be this bad but some health issues, soon to be dealt with, don't make it easy. I'm not expecting that to be a cure all either. But since getting involved with the IEPG a couple of years ago, I've come out of my shell little by little and made some friends on my own. I actually have more friends now than I ever did while in school. That brings forth a whole new slew of problems and social complexities that I don't think I was entirely prepared for.

My parents are pretty much hermits and in a lot of ways I am like them, especially when I get totally engrossed in writing- another scare factor I will get into in a bit. So when I call up my Mom and fuss about this situation or that situation or how I can't seem to understand why there is a seemingly unintentional lack of respect in some areas of friendship, my Mom says that I need to get a new set of friends, I kind of stop an wonder what for. Then I watch things like My little Pony and Sofia the First and realize that either I've got some really selfish and fragile friends or I just need to stop trying to stand up for myself and quit trying to put up boundaries. 

I understand that everyone has had trouble and trails in their lives and that people have had truly horrible things happen to them. I understand that some people will never get over these things and I would never expect or ask them to. It;s not right and its not fair. However, is it really fair to freak out on someone for trying to address something that upset them and they set up a boundary? I'm not even talking big issues, just something small? I've had a couple of friends do that to me and not just once but time and time again. It;s to the point that anytime I have an issue, I am afraid to address with them because I am worried they are going to freak out on me and either make me feel like shit for having an issue or feel like shit that they got so upset. So, instead, I've said nothing and things keep cycling over and over in my head and one of these days I will explode and it won't be pretty. And in the meantime I just get more and more bitter as time goes by. its not really in me to hate anyone, but it is in me to be furious that I can't even talk to someone about something small, talk to them like an adult, resolve it and move on. 

And more to the point, I can't even talk to these friends about how they have treated Amanda in some situations. Another friend of mine once made mention that I don't have much a back bone. In some cases, yes, that is true, I have a hard time standing up for myself, being assertive, and a lot of people take advantage of that. But when people start talking shit, belittle, and try to police Amanda and in her own home no less, that tiny back bone of mine gets really big and its all I can do to bite my tongue and keep from causing a scene. 

   

I would just treat this all as some learning experience from which I can grow from, and in a lot of ways it is. Except I don't like the person I am when I am constantly angry. I don't like how snappish I get, how down right bitchy, and given more toward gossip and venting to Amanda about it. She's got enough on her plate, she doesn't need to hear all of my issues. She should be focusing on finish her novel because her mentor from Grad school want to send it to her personal editor to try and get it published!!!

Now I will discuss why I am scared to write, or at least why I think I am afraid to. There are a lot of reasons. First it was that I could never get quite. Well, we have our own place and will be setting up the "Bowie room"/ office/ Library in its entirety over the next couple of days. So I will have a quiet space to work and room in which to spread out and set up story boards and whatnot. Sometimes I am scared to write because when I feel the urge, I am frustrated and feel guilty because I should be doing school work. I tried setting up a schedule but Amanda thinks with my health and how tired I am all the time, that I need to remove some of what I want to get done in a day from that and just take it a little bit at a time. Okay. I can do that, so these are things that I can easily work out and have to some degree. But the bulk of it is that I am actually scared to it down and write. I'm worried about my characters and if they are all the same, if I've given them enough flaws and if they can have room for growth. I am scared that I peaked when writing fanfiction. I am scared that I will only be a mediocre writer and that no one will take me seriously. Hell, most of my friends don't and that makes me less and less willing to share anything I've written, especially when some of them hate some of the things I write about. And I am most especially scared of writing because if I can't get my friends and even my own family to read my writing without begging, how the hell am I going to get an editor or an agent to look at it and then  publish it? 

I don't know how many times I have sat and cried over even the last bit of that. I've wondered if I should just give up on school. If I should forget about going to Grad school for writing. If I should just erase all my stories and burn all the printed hard copies, the disks, the flash drives, and wipe and rewrite the hard drives of my laptops where everything is saved. Amanda says no. Amanda and my parents think I have talent. Amanda thinks I hit a big milestone when writing fantiction and that I am going to hit more. That there is room for more development and growth. Do, I want to give up writing? I don't really know who I am without it. But at the same time, being scared to sit down and write, leaves me feeling a bit lost. And while feeling that way, and having all these new challenges with people I want to stay friends with and know I can build stronger relationships with, on top of finishing school, and everything else, is kind of exhausting. I always try too look at things from the perspective of "anything I learn, can be useful for personal growth but also in terms of writing". And also, the get up and keep moving. But sometimes, sometimes, a girl gets tired and needs to sit down, rest, recharge, and regroup. 

On a slightly more upbeat and kind of funny note. I won a cruise today. I have dyslexia and it took me 5-6 times to call my health insurance case manager back today. I called some out of service number that google was still doing quality assurance for and also Royal Caribbean cruise lines and won a cruise for two with nominal fees of course. I finally got the number right and got to talk to the health insurance guy. 

The next post will be happier, I swear, because I said fuck it last Friday and got some crafting done.   

    

Sick, herbals, homework grief, unabashed ugly crying

To start tonight's... ehm... this morning's blog off, I am showing you a picture of tea. Not just any tea, semi-magical tea. When you whine on social media about how sick you are and one of your friends happens to be a licensed herbalist and lives near by, you get a middle of the night house call filled with instructions and stuff. Now, Amanda and I had already gone to the store and gotten this brand of tea's seasonal sampler, which was great because it had Throat Coat in it, but my friend brought this with her because it has yarrow in it. She also brought two things of ginger and an elderberry tincture. What's great about the elderberry tincture is that I had completely forgotten about it. We used to buy the juice when I was in high school and mix it with grape juice to make it more palpable. 

I started drinking the tea and taking the tincture per her instructions that night. The next morning I did feel better, but not a lot and since my drainage was a darker icky color, I decided to go to urgent care as well. Urgent care was lame. All they said- after asking me how I am sure that I am not pregnant, really?!- was that I have an upper respiratory infection. Well it was either that or a sinus infection. But they basically gave me cough syrup with codeine, sudafed, and a nose spray. I totally get the "some things don't need antibiotics", I really do, but since the only thing to read in the room was a single small poster detailing the how and way of that topic, I really didn't need a lecture about it. I also didn't ask for antibiotics, I asked what I was sick with precisely, mainly because with how utterly terrible I had felt, I was worried it might be trying to turn into the flu. No flu, thankfully. However, the biggest kicker of the whole urgent care issue, was the paperwork they sent me home with detailing if and when I should return. Every single thing that was listed, was why I went in. I was like really? 

Anyway, in conjunction with the nose spray, sudafed, cough syrup, and all the herbal stuff, I am feeling better but the crap is lingering. It also doesn't help that I have managed to give it to Amanda. So I am still coughing a a little bit, my throat is still raw, I am still coughing up stuff, and today I  apparently had a fever I didn't even know I had except for waking up from an unintended nap drenched in sweat, signaling that it broke. Lovely.

Moving on. Before said nap today I had that infamous unabashed ugly cry. Okay, it was more like sobbing and looking around my house asking no one "Whhhhhyyyy?!" in that really pathetic voice. I watched the last two episodes of Merlin today while eating my lunch and waking up. I really love that show and while I think it was a good ending, I was so unsettled by it. I can't discuss why because Amanda hasn't seen it and I want her, no need her to finish the series so I can talk to her about it. 

Lastly, because where would I be without a little venting, homework grief! Because I have been sick and not feeling well, because I have been worn out with all the stuff going on around my birthday, I got a little behind with some homework. Not a lot, but last week, I was really struggling with some of it. Basically, I was having trouble settling down to actually do and then not getting so frustrated that I could finish it. The problem is that I am taking a Literature class. You'd think that it would be easy for me. I love to read, to talk about books, to enjoy them and the experience I have with them, not analyze the ever living fuck out of them until it isn't fun anymore. Ever heard of beating a dead horse, well trust me Beowuf, Othello, and Frankenstein are so dead you couldn't being them back if you wanted to. What is worse, for whatever reason my first instructor couldn't finish out the term and they gave us some new instructor who pardon my french, fucked shit up, in my opinion, at least for me. He didn't like my paper proposal and not only did he not like the paper proposal, he erased the previous feedback from my previous instructor and downgraded me. 

So while I have been unhappily trudging through hoity toity, ego inflated, bullshit (doesn't anyone ever read something to just read it and enjoy things anymore?) about the three pieces of lit, and sick, this new guy has incited panic into my otherwise miserable as of late existence. I have freaked out about it so bad that its like pulling my own teeth to get myself motivated to get it done. I just plain don't want to do it. But I don't want to throw away all the previous work I've already put into the class either. 

Something I have learned about myself, is that sometimes, I need to talk it out verbally to get through some things. Talking it out, albeit after a little break down over it, helped. I got this week's assignment done and out of the way so I can focus on last week's assignments. Actually it wouldn't have been so bad had I not gotten sick the week that whoever wrote this class decided that putting 4 rather large assignments in one week with a shot ton of extra reading, was a great idea. And I simply loathe how they set up their final projects. They want to "scaffold learning" so they split up certain parts of the the final projects into certain weeks. Which in theory should work, unless you are me and used to doing things  certain way. As in giving an annotated bibliography before I've even read the material I'm basing my project on. I'm not kidding. And if I remember correctly, I didn't even have a response on my topic proposal from the first instructor until after the annotated bibliography was due. Further, it is pointless, in my opinion to give an annotated bibliography before you've read the material because you don't know exactly what points you are going to make or really even what to search for in the way of sources. You only have an idea, and shouldn't you get your own opinion in your head first before you start reading and being influenced by other people's opinions? You know think for yourself first, then see what other people have thought. 

Okay, I am finally getting tied, so I am going to finish my tea and go to bed. Tomorrow I get to tackle my other class. Which means reading and watching the Matrix then doing a discussion board post about it and avatar and modern films. Then I get to work on my rough draft for my LOTR paper, at least that make sense and is interesting.       

The hair thing happened, so did the tummy plague, and I made a thing.

Here it is, my hair. My phone camera is terrible and seriously dulled the colors.

This shot is a little better. I will be taking one outside, in natural light as soon as I feel up to it. 

At the moment I have a tummy plague. I don't know if it is a stomach flu or bug or just a terrible manifestation of all the running, go go go, and stress and this is my body's way of saying "You dumb bitch, you can't do all of this shit anymore, slow the hell down" or what, but it sucks! Amanda is sick too.

I made a thing for a friend's birthday today. I painted a feather and I am sure it could have looked much better had I actually been able to find my paint brushes, but for what it is, all the finger dabbing, Q-tip dabbing, and cuticle pusher (yes you read that right) dabbing, I got it done. I even finished it off with sharpie to add some more details and a clear glitter to help give the galaxy effect. I also made her a bracelet. Amanda made her cookies. However, if we aren't feeling better she might not get it until after her birthday. Which makes me sad. 

Its a fat owl. 

Oh and Narcisa had to have one of the turkey feathers I bought for this project.