Advanced Auto Rave

I thought about having posts of my marriage scenes, events, moments as something like "Fraking Friday" or "I Spy". Then I blinked. Jex and I have such a weird off the wall life that some times we don't do anything for weeks, or we're not together for weeks, or we're driving for weeks. So, it can't be a staple of my blog, but it is still the biggest part of my life, so it will get written about.

This story begins with the first walk that Jex and I have taken together in three months, round about. We used to walk and just talk and be together a lot more often, when the world was a cooler place and we had cars that weren't broken. In order to not have to climb through the window when my husband doesn't want to get out with me we needed to replace the door handle.
Because my husband is a man, and there for forever 4 years old on the inside, he likes to tell me he's not coming in, watch as I climb out the window, then roll up my window for me, get out, and lock the car. All the while grinning like he's won some kind of competition.
There's an Advanced Auto Parts up the street from the house where we've been staying for the last couple of weeks (thank you Tristan and Cait!!!). We haven't walked in a while, so I invite Jex to come walk up there with me to get the door handle replacement.

We get to the store and I go straight to the line and trade looks with "Jerry" as the customer ahead of me fights with a large box to get a look at the strut he just bought. Before boxing it back up and taking his leave.
It's been about 5 seconds, waaaay past Jex's attention span unless there are pretty colors and fantasmic music, and out of habit I glance around to see where he's got to... and what he may be playing with.
Over the radio Lady Gaga's Poker Face is just queuing up.
My husband is in the aisle behind me, the aisle with all the colored LCD lights that can be attached to your vehicle and he has a full on rave going on. No, he didn't just randomly push buttons like some kind of kid. This man has artistically and perfectly synced a large portion of the light strips in beat with the song playing over the radio. It was like an amateur Daft Punk light show.
Suddenly I was reminded of why I like him so damn much.

In less sappy news I can now get in and out of my car without climbing through the window. Yay!

The Light Heart Lives Long

Why I can't VLog

I've tried the video blog thing a few times. Turns out I'm just weird and silly. I don't have any great ideas or insights, not really personable and I'd much rather use pictures than words.
This video is the last time I tried to start Vlogging. Maybe I should just give up.
Or just try again in a couple months.
Eh.


Capture 20120419 2 from Angharad on Vimeo.

The color of the day

Blue.
In American English it means to be sad on some level or another.
In German it means you're drunk.
Quite the difference; depending on what kind of drunk you are.

Today is a Blue day. It's raining, I'm tired for some unknown reason, Eve's Curse is due any day now, and I don't want to be on the base. Though these may contribute to the color of the day, I don't think they make it themselves.
I've told you before that the women in my family are crazy. Not crazy in a bad way necessarily, but most of them have have to seek out a way to balance whatever throws us off into a random deep-end. My mother is anxious, my grandmother is depressed, I don't remember what the other two figured out for themselves at the moment but they had something that threw them off too. Sometimes I freak out and I feel like running to the nearest doctor that can evaluate me and see if I need help as well. God knows I probably have bipolar, or anxiety through the roof, or my brain is all kinds of chemically screwed!
Yet, other times I have this weird peace and I just know that the day is going to be a color, I can lighten the opacity or let it completely blind me, but no matter what the day will be that color. And today is a blue day.

Here's the thing though: I'm not allowed to have blue days.
Where did this hang up come from? I can't rightly say. Maybe it's leftovers from memories I can't quite grasp. Maybe it was something some one impressed upon me. Happiness is a choice! But sometimes it doesn't really feel that way. Perhaps it's that super 'take care of everyone' thing that is part of the core of my person; I have to radiate happy so that the people I love and care about can be happy. Or maybe it's the insecurity that sits snugly beside all my good points and shouts that "no one wants to see your sad face! if you show it to them they'll find you depressing and you'll have no friends!"
Whatever it is it's really really hard to be around people on blue days. Especially the people who mean the most to me.

Today is a blue day, but I can lighten the opacity. Blue is a beautiful color; I've never found it sad. I think that we should call some one Gray when they're sad; not Blue. Blue is the color of the sky, of the bird that is the symbol of happiness. Blue is an amazing butterfly, and a bright flower. Blue is a delicious berry, and my favorite comfy shirt.
Blue can tint my day and be more like the German meaning than the American.

Today is a blue day, but it's also a good day.

In Search of a Top Hat

The Quest Continues!
In this exciting next installment in the Top Hat Search Series our Heroine battles the weirdness that is "The Flea Market" in defiance of all odds to find a top hat!

... if only it were so amazing...

Aparently Top Hats, Skeleton Keys, and Old Broken Chime Clocks are nearly impossble to find. I'm going to stalk eBay and see if I can't find a How-to-make-a-top-hat page on the internet. Well... maybe that's not it... it's actually more like any of the above mentioned items are impossible with my budget. I have all of $70 USD that I can spend on everything (not including door prizes).

In the Spirit of not giving up (It's the part of me I've been working on lately; you know the side that goes "Oh look an obstacle let's find an alternate route!") I'm going to pick up a pack of pretty Art Nuevou style Tarot cards.
You see I have this vision for my hat. An old clock face, the hands removed and pointing up and away from the side between 3 Tarot Cards; Past, Present, and Future. Then from the colors on the cards I'm going to make a band and fix everything to the hat with a few shiny cog patterns (I might get a stamp and some fabric paint instead of actually fixing little cogs to the band like I REALLY want to). In the end it should be wonderful. I'm also trying to figure out if I can't make a double breasted waist coat with tails to match.

Why am I doing all this Awesome, you ask? My sister's Hen Party (Bachelorette, whatever. Hen is easier to spell) is an Alice in Wonderland Steampunk theme.
For the door prizes I'm ordering a replica of the Master's pocket watch from Dr.Who, a white rabit shaped japanese lunch box, and some mustache cookie cutters. I was thinking of maybe getting a really off the wall tea cup for another prize but have yet to be impressed by anything I've come across.

But that is neither here nor there.
I've got a Top Hat to find... or create.
Till next time just remember; The light heart lives long.

Hats are Amazing Things

I realized not too long ago that I have not shared my fanatical  completely normal love for hats.
Sadly I don't look very good in a hat because I have no forehead and my ears are too high so they end up getting in the way of said object as it sits on my head. This issue has not in any way dampened my love for hats.

Hats are amazing inventions. Not only are they useful (they fight the evil rays of the sun) but their pretty damned spiffy. I really think I was made to be born in the 1930's -50's when a proper lady still wore a hat and gloves into town. Anyreincarnation, I'll be digressing and regressing in order to share with you denizens of the interwebs the wonder that is 'the Hat'.

My favorite, and most giggle inducing hats, are the oldest ones.

Rice hats for example are super awesome and have been around FOREVER. I wear one when I garden and I love it. It's not too heavy, it doesn't get in my way, and it protects my shoulders too. Though I'm fairly certain that I look like a complete weirdo to my neighbors.

Bonnets can be really elegant and lovely but tend to end up on the dorkier side of dress for some reason. Maybe it's all the frills people try adding, or that if their made poorly the look like bad chef hats. 

My favorite Era for hats (other than the fun animal beanies that have hit the markets within the past decade or so) is really the Victorian Era. The top hat is the single greatest hat ever invented. Not only does it fit with both fancy and casual dress but it tends to look decent even when ridiculously decorated. 

And the Victorians were just as silly with their hats as we are with ours. I mean come on, I have a hat that has big yellow-green cat eyeballs and ears on it. 

ah silly victorians

Which leads me into some more modern, if less common, hats. The Steam Punk hat. 

I love the clockwork and steam theme that is (more often than not) elegantly worked onto the hat. And Mini-top hats are probably the coolest miniaturized item invented. 

Before I get too into the modern Hat. I want to do a quick montage of the fun hats that have passed through the mid 1900's.

1920's

1930's

yes

Oh no, batman. No.

1940's

1950's

1960's

Best known for the Pillbox Hat and Other Stuff

^ See... Other Stuff...^

1970's

I think this is when Beanies were invented... but the internet won't tell me much about 70's hats... Maybe everyone was still recovering from Woodstock or something.

1980's

This is when the UFO hats and baseball caps got popular

Or at least that's what I remember being popular (I was kinda tiny)

Since we're close enough to the present for me I'm going to start gushing about my own  hats. 

I own something like 5 ball caps, 1 fisherman's hat (for fishing, duh), 1 mini top hat I got in Harajuku a few years ago, 2 berets, 1 rice hat, 2 beanies, and 2 duck hats (I don't know what else to call them). 

Of this not so vast collection (I'm very picky about what I actually buy not what I oogle) my favorite hat is my mini top hat. Unfortunately I don't have very much to wear it with. *sadface* Lucky for me Jex is the best husband Evar! and lets me buy little things here and there so that I can wear my hats, even the ones he thinks are the ugliest things ever (read: my duck hats). 

My favorite Ball cap is my Guiness hat. It even has a bottle opener on the bill!!! Wah! Close behind is my Deutschland cap that I bought during the 2006 world cup. Stupid Italy... *grumbles* Stupid Chelsea... *grumbles again* 

I don't have access to my external hard drive (read: I still haven't freaking unpacked all our shite) otherwise I could post fun pictures of me and a friend with all her hats. 

I miss you Louda... I miss you a lot. 

Like unto the ball cap is my duck hat. It's a beanie with a bill. And I LOVE IT! My husband thinks I look like a complete and total Dork. But they make me happy so I will keep wearing them, even if I look stupid. 

                                                                             ^^^

This the the Duck Hat I found in a Seria (japanese dollar store) parking lot. It was so dirty and messed up I couldn't tell what it was and I thought. Ha! I'll take it home and throw it in the wash machine and see what it turns into. Voila! just like that I had the most comfy hat in existence. 

And I can't wait to get my hands on one of the freakishly cute/silly animal beanies. (^_^)

In closing. Hat's are awesome, customizable to the point of stupidity, and super useful. Which is why I love them and why they will never fail to make me laugh, or grin. If you haven't go to a store (like Ross, or Burlington Coat Fac. or wherever would have a bunch of different and fun hats) and try on a bunch of hats with a friend and have a laugh. Or just google them and have a laugh. It will make your heart lighter.

And as a wise people once said: "The light heart lives long."

The Roller Coaster of Boredom?

I feel like nothing really exciting ever happens to me.
Or maybe it's just that I can't write about it as well as Dazee or Rachel or all the other super awesome chicka's whose blogs I stalk read.
Recently though I feel like I'm on this Roller Coaster of Boredom. Yes, I know how much of an oxymoron it is. That's just how I feel.
I have nothing to write about when I have internet. But the moment I have no web access what so ever things like tipping over Motorcycles, driving through a storm and losing a windshield wiper half way to home, and the dog eating/puking weird crap happens.

Then there are days like today that are just Awkward. I don't know whether or not to write about them because I'm knee deep in someone else's proverbial Chili.

So tomorrow, if I don't get to go to the flea market (like I thought I was going to today) to find a hat I can spiffy up I'll do my hat post.

It's Thursday... and I'm back in Sandland

You know that Jex and I moved right? Yes we moved 345 miles south west of SandLand to a place I'm going to call Appalachia. It's about an hour south of where Jex grew up and all my inlaws are within driving distance. Literally, Dadio is only 2 miles away. *facepalm*

But every two weeks Jex has me drive him the ungodly 6 hours back to SandLand. Why would this be? Oh it's because the Military is STUPID. (We'll just ignore for the time being that most of what I say gets ignored once Jex is in mission mode. If he has a plan, then BY GUAVA that's what we have to do.)

So I'm back in the Loooooow Country till monday morning. And since I have internets right now I wanted to tell you guys all about the awesome that's happened. We'll just leave most of the not so awesome for my sketch pad and poetry book so I can throw them in some dark unvisited corner and pretend I was never that Emo.

Did you all know that I have a Motorcycle? I do! It's a Honda and it's shiny and older which means when AssbreakerTony lets me learn how to ride it in his driveway and I tip it over the first time I try to turn around It's OK. My knees however look like I generously applied purple eyeshadow to them. But I only tipped it over the once. Which according to Tony is actually pretty good for some one who has so little experience with any kind of motorized bike thing.
No really, I rode a scooter once when I was... 15? 16?... something like that. ONCE. And I have to remember to shift. Luckily my dad did force (long story) me to learn to drive stick so I have the concept down. Now I just need to practice a little more and figure out when/where the motorcycle course is at the DMV. After that I'll have my liscence and go buy a helmet and chaps and be ready to go! Yay!

I'm excited to be incharge of the games and stuff for my sister Bachelorette party. It's a SteamPunky Alice in Wonderland theme. I'm so EXCITED!!! Jex is going to help me come up with awesome sauce for games and prizes. And I get to buy a hat! A HAT! Have I told you all how much I love old fashioned hats? No? That's weird. Well I love them and if I think about it and have some time between learning how to ride a motorcycle, fixing up our new home, and game planning I'll write a post all about hats and why they're so awesome and should freaking come back in style.

I need to find a job. A not fast food job. Preferably a job where I get to deal with books. But first I need internets.

Now I'm going to need some input from my readers, if you please.
What are the best providers for internet? Who do you get internet through and what do you love/hate about them?
Sadly the "Cheap but Decent" stuff I was used to doesn't exist in the U.S. that I've found. We can't sign more than a 6mo contract, simply because the Military might just decide to uproot our lives again.