the Sandland Diaries 1: Produce Peculiarities

I like titles, unfortunately I'm bad at them unless it's the first thing that comes to mind. In the past few days I've also discovered that I like to categorize things, put things in little boxes of like items so they don't mix in the drawer and so on. Quilting has only made it worse.
Jex and I are back in Sandland for a two week stay. All the fun and not so fun of the forever beach in the fall has hit us the last week, and we've one more to go. Also, I've decided that I'm going to punch Jex's C.O. in the face if I ever see her again... I might not actually do it; the military fear of higher ranking officers and what they can do to your man is too ingrained in me, but I will imagine it while being as civil as is required to not be aggressively hostile. So many faces that need to be punched, too much social and legal backlash that could result. *sigh*

Anyhoop, I've discovered more than just my odd need to categorize odds and ends. And my phone decided to take some nice pictures (it knew both the camera's are dead and decided to be nice to me I guess).

Hooping!
You don't know what this is do you? Yes it has to do with hoola hoops. ON FIRE!!!! Or with LED lights! WAH! I'm going to jump into this because I haven't found a decently priced belly dance class near by, and I dearly miss it. It kinda feels like an upgrade because belly dancing you get to play with swords, but hooping involves flame! *maniacal laughter*

Ah, video for you. My friend Cait, who spins poi (their fire balls on strings invented by the Mauri (sp?) of New Zealand, she hasn't graduated to fire yet but she has some really fun LED poi now) found this and showed it to me.

Ima do this! *haha*
The first step however is to make a regular hoop. Which I'm going to try and do with Cait today. I'd love to be able to afford the fancy tapes and stuff, but I'm cheap so it'll probably be ducktape. Then, when I stop hitting myself in the face/head/eyeball all the time I'll probably beg Jex for an LED hoop... followed by a fire hoop. *evil grin* I can't wait!
We'll ee if I'm this excited about it after my first black eye. Because you know it's going to happen.

Oh! Another super rad discovery I made was on my first trip to a Trader Joe's.
Do you know what a brusslesprout plant looks like? No?
It looks like THIS!

Coolest discovery this month so far. And it was really heavy. This stock weighed close to 9lbs on it's own. I bought one just to show Jex, and it wasn't that pricey either. Two big hearty russian meals came from this bad boy, and it was fun too. Apparently you can just throw this whole thing in the oven and bake it and dip the sprouts in stuff like a fondue pot of butter and heaven. I popped them off the stalk and cooked them in ways I'm more familiar with because it wasn't my nor Cait's kitchen we were using. 

Aaaand, this is what Jex does when I turn my back on him for 10 seconds. I dubbed it the "Great Pyramid of Gala" because 'granny' didn't quite fit the pun. 

~The light heart lives long. <3 p="p">

Zombeeez and Gearing Up for NaNoWriMo

My friend Doorf just told me yesterday about the Zombie walk in SandLand! And as luck would have it we'll be around there at the same time!!!!!! I'm so EXCITED!!!!
I've already figured out what I'm going to do this year. Year before last... was it? Oooh it was... I went as an attacked-while-fleeing-in-the-middle-of-the-night zombie. I wore a white dress that looked a lot like a night gown, some easy to throw on leggings and unlaced boots that one would likely find by the front door. I wasn't as bloody as a lot of other zombies but I felt the more subtle look is way more fun because some people don't realize you're a zombie till they get too close. *evil laugh*

This year I think I'm going to be a little more overt, aaaaand I'm going to use liquid latex. Not for anything super rad, I'm nowhere near that high leveled in the makeup arts (hell I can barely put on mascara without loosing half my vision) but I'm damned good at painting and that's basically what I'm going to do. On top of all the excitement for myself is that JEX SAID HE'D DO IT WITH ME!!!! He's going to be at my mercy! I'm going to make him the most awesome zombie EVAR!

Except for one thing.....
We have a NerdKingdom appointment that night. I'm totally fine with showing up late, and zombified, to the shindig. Count Beowulf of the Sands might not be so ok with us being late. However, I'm not giving up! I'm going to cling to and ride this excitement into the ground. Dammit.

The Cherry on the Sundae of Reckless Joy is that National Novel Writing Month (aka: NaNoWriMo) is coming up and THIS TIME I've got a handle on it.
You see, up till now I've spent the first 3 days or so running around like a dying chipmunk trying to get an idea and simple plot thrown together. Supposedly you're supposed to be thinking of all that stuff through October, getting characters polished, smoothing out idea wrinkles, and the like. No one tells you this. Hell the first time I heard about it (three years ago) it was the middle of the month already and I just jumped in head first with some craziness about zombie dragons and atlantis. Last year I was a little more on my game. This year, not only will I make the 60k or whatever word count, I'll actually finish a story. I know, I know, it's a sign of the apocalypse, but it's going to happen! It might not, but I'll try my hardest to make it so!

I've already pared down my ideas to one light and fluffy story about princesses saving themselves, a fully narrated mythos type back story to an island I created in the NerdKingdom, and a rewrite of a dark kinda spiritual story idea I kicked around in my only year of college.

I like having things to look forward to. It makes me feel like I can fly.

The light heart lives long~

Liquefied Organs and A Quote Book

Hi! Wonder where I've been?
On Vacation in the Mountains, maybe traveling the globe, or perhaps away on some grand adventure.
I wish.
Actually, I was in bed with a 'light' case of food poisoning. I don't know if you've ever had food poisoning... but calling it 'light' just makes you more horrified.
"You mean it can get WORSE?!"
I really could not believe it could get worse at the time. Sure it only lasts 36 hours max, but those hours are some of the longest hours in your life; second only to waiting for your birthday when you're 4 1/2.  For 5 hours (according to the traitorous clock it was only 15 min) I sat on the toilet with a trashcan in my lap regretting every single bite of food I had eaten that day. It was after that that my organs liquefied and crawled around my insides before oozing out my eye balls. I lived next to the bathroom, chilled even wrapped in the fluffiest most thermal blanket in the house, and tried not to move. I think my heart had gotten stuck in my brain when the rest of my organs oozed out of my pores.
And some how it could have been worse. 
The bad part is, I accidentally did it to myself.
No I didn't eat anything bad, or slightly off smelling, I made dinner. No big deal, just some chicken and rice. But when I was done scooping delicious cream of awesome soup over the whole ensemble I licked the spoon. The spoon that I was sure had not come into contact with any of the raw chicken. The spoon covered in delicious cream of awesome. The spoon that was a gateway to pain and suffering.

But as always the phrase 'the shadow proves the sunshine' comes to mind when I'm in these stupidly unhappy predicaments. While laying in bed Jex was all sweetness and care. He even remembered that he was supposed to start keeping a quote journal of things we say to eachother that we keep bringing up to the other's chagrin.
The most recent example was me feeling like crap. I announced something like. "No, I don't want any skin contact!" When Jex was rubbing my back, when seconds before this he'd had his hand resting on the skin of my forearm. Upon reminding me of that I shot back. "Well forearm skin doesn't count! It's not intimate skin. NOTHING can be done to a forearm that would make anyone feel anything. Same thing with hands... wait... nevermind."

Oh we also got Jex's camera back from the Wedding we lost it at. It's broken... the 'take a picture' button is gone and there's no way I can figure to jerry rig it. Which in one way is ok because we were planning on buying a new camera anyway... but in another way it sucks because I was supposed to inherit the new camera. *sadface*
Bis spater dan.

The light heart lives long~