Still looking for my pace.
Last week was mostly pretty nice, with a few hiccups along the way. Mostly transit-caused.
Tuesday I got both my BPAL and BPTP orders, yay! Investigated all my new things over the course of the week so I didn't overload my sinuses.
As for BPTP, the lunacy t-shirt fits! Tho is a bit too long. Long enough to go all the way over my butt, but not *wide* or loose enough to make that look good. So will wash it to let it find it's sizing, then hem the bottom. Very pretty design tho, and it fits great above the hips. The hair gloss smells nice (clove & frankincense), but is OMFG strong. I may have to get a dedicated comb, spray it on the comb and then run it thru my hair. Otherwise argh, sho much. I also neglected to ask if the 'Vitamin E' component is wheat derived before I bought it, so will use this one up and ask before/if I buy another.
And then there were perfumes! Limited edition Halloweenies! Eeee! All wonderful and different and distinct. Samhainophobia, September Midnight, Haunted Houses, Day of Skulls, Ghosts in Love, and A World Where There Are Octobers. September is very fruity, but will reserve judgement until I try it. Octobers is very green and not as maple-y as I expected, but the recent Harvest Moon was similar so I'll give it a try too. All smelled fine on me in little doses. Samhainophobia smells like burning (but in a good way), and Haunted Houses is my fave so far. Squee.
I ordered a ton of stuff, but I've been craving autumn scents since May, so I feel like I went justifiably overboard. But I think it's a sign that you've ordered *too much* when they send you $14 of imps between your two orders. Whups. Some of those were really nice, I added Prague and Dorian to my collection of jojoba-mixed vials.
And obviously I've been running out of space in my BPAL box, b/c I'm nutz. So I reorganized things a bit over the weekend. I'd been hoarding imps, even ones I'm not super fond of, so I went thru my backlog and figured out which ones I actually want to wear on a regular basis. I mixed those with jojoba oil in the vials (much easier to deal with than imp containers, urgh), and the rest of the imps are going to find their own box for future giving away and trading with friends. And if I'm bored I can always 'shop my closet' to see if my tastes have changed, or if some oils mellow over time. The ones I strongly dislike or am allergic to (darn you, jasmine) stay in their own baggie.
Except now I need to get another box for teh imps. *sigh* Will see what I can dig up around the house, I am certain I have extra boxes. I had jewelry box from my office pre-renovation, and that's where my jojoba vials live. And I might take that all to live in my office desk, so I can have a less-precious supply there.
No more perfume shopping until the Yule stuff comes out, but last year I only ended up wanting one of them. Maybe the occasional Lunacy, tho I've only bought two of those in the past year (ok, three, but one was an old one from their Etsy site for my b'day). I've only really gone seriously bpal crazy since DCon and I think I'm over it now. Tho might be time to set some new financial boundaries on that. On the other hand, buying a bunch of non-rare stuff at DCon turned out to be a huge hassle, so as long as I can remember that I'll be better.
I stayed in Tuesday and Wednesday, partially b/c BPAL, and part b/c I had plans Thursday and Friday. I also baked gf/df cookies on Wednesday which was fun. I tried it with white sugar instead of honey, then a couple tbsp of honey anyway b/c the batter wasn't holding together, and they came out nice and crumbly. And slightly burnt, but in a carmalized way. On Sunday I tried the recipe again with honey and I didn't like them as much. Very simple batter tho, and doesn't make a ton of cookies so I don't have as many to nom. Tho b/c the batter-base is almond butter I *can't* eat all of them at once or I'll asplode from protein overload. On the other hand they don't give me a stomach ache like almond-flour cookies. Almonds are complicated.
The stand mixer still works, but btw that, the crock pot, and my other kitchen devices I may have to reorganize the counter-island again. Meh. Darn tiny kitchen.
Thursday was a very fun IAF meetup. Small, but included two new people from Columbia (the country, not the college) who are building their own SF writing community in their home city. And currently traveling the world to network with people and learn new arts and sciences. Sho much fun! And of course I stayed out too late, forgetting that all of the trains in central Queens were broken. (Monday night too, so I stayed in on Tuesday in part due to sleep dep.) But had good train-luck until I got to Jackson Heights station, where it was suddenly August again :-P
Got home and to bed 90 mins late, but figured I'd be OK to gently push myself through Friday b/c I'd had so much fun. Except around 5:30 I'm woken up by what might be a mousetrap going off, and instead of getting up to go check on things I lay in bed freaking out for another 90 mins. When my alarm went off at 7am it was light enough outside for me to be less freaked, and it turned out something innocuous had fallen over to make that noise. *headdesk* So Friday was a wash. I got thru the work day, did not stick around for the boardgame night I'd been looking forward to, and went right home.
Did some ritualistic things, since it was the so called "Blood Moon", and we had some Things to discuss. That seems to have been a good move. On the way home I picked up some treats for seven days of successful fun-list activities, but ppl were already getting stupid/crazy for the full moon. Great. Best to hide at home.
Saturday was spent with chores and some sewing work, Sunday my Pooka friend stopped by to hang out for a while, and I showed him what its like to use a rotary cutter on knit fabric. And we played with perfumes & tarot cards, and gossiped, and I baked cookies again. Yay for nice afternoon. I then got distracted from *finishing* sewing projects and chores by perfume. Oops. At least I finished the laundry.
I'm almost finished with the Doom Coat, just have to slip-stitch the bottom hems together (less complicated than the actual instructions), hem the sleeves (in cheat mode), and add the buttons. By the end of this week it may actually be cold enough to wear it, so Ima try to press on.
Did not get as much work done on the costume-knit-dress as I wanted, but it turned out to be a crappy thread problem rather than a broken machine. Still not entirely sure how well this will translate from woven pattern to knit fabric. And I haven't finished the overdress either. Meh. And I still need to make presents for the wedding couple.
Yeah, I might put all the sewing/crafting away after I finish these two projects. I do kinda want a black version of my purple corduroy jacket, b/c I'm getting a TON of wear from it this season, and I already have all the materials. But it would probably be too cold to wear it by the time I finished, and I'd really like to WRITE MORE soon. The sewing is very distracting. And the chantry is very messy again, need to work on that too. So after November 10th ish, no more sewing until after Xmas. Maybe.
Just realized my Samhain outfit would require me to finally turn an old skirt into a crinoline. Darnit. Not sure I'll have the spoons for that. How the hell did I manage to finish my DCon costume a month early this year?
This week the trains don't seem to be broken (so far), but I'm still taking it easy on plans. I have sewing to finish, and both a flu shot and an allergy shot scheduled. There's a steampunk fashion thing happening on Thursday for which I might try to finish Doom Coat, b/c black velveteen goes with everything. A friend wants to go a'gothing this weekend, and its Absolution on Saturday, so will see about that.
Am also nixing that 2-lunches-per-day experiment, b/c it wasn't working out. I ended up with two post-food crashes per day instead of one and a lot more tupperware to wash. It was hard keeping track of my work-flow with two breaks to remember. This week, one lunch one break. If I end up feeling even worse, then I can halve things again next week.
Wedding-trip plans went awry but got fixed again, fairly quickly. Now my ride is staying Saturday and Sunday nights, returning Monday, and I can't afford two nights in the fancy hotelLuckily a friend still had a spot in the cheap hotel and I'd already requested Monday off from work. And supposedly they have a fridge and microwave, so if a friend can lend me his collapsible cooler I might have even *more* traveling food options. Would be nice to not have to survive on corn chips and apples all weekend, tho I am still looking forward to the apples.
Samhain also fell apart and back together again, b/c a coworker couldn't cover their Thursday nite shift as usual. As of now I'm working the afternoon/nite shift on 10/31, and then going to midnight public rituals (and parties) until super late. But I've got permission to take Friday off, so I won't asplode from sleep dep. And Thursday I'll be able to sleep late before work, so even better.
B/c I'm scattering around so much vacation time these days, I may not take a full extra week off at work before Xmas. We'd be back after NYE on Thursday, so I may just take those two days off for an even two weeks of not-commuting (plus extra NYE recovery, b/c no way am I having another party at my house). Since changing my schedule for sleep reasons, it looks like pre-finals won't be as horrible a time to be in the library as usual. Yay! And I want to keep conserving vacation time, both for actual vacations (moar cons! just not sure which ones yet after Arisia) and to use for sick time.
And in magical mumbo jumbo, gonna be a less than fun week.
So ... this week might suck?
Lots of feeling stuck, feeling in unpleasant freefall, and feeling like I have to be on the defense to attack. But in each card there's a way out, pretty much to relax and go with the flow even if I think its going to hurt. And if something falls apart in the midst of it, I wouldn't have been able to fix it anyway, so should save my energy for picking up the pieces afterwards. So chill out & breathe.
I'm not a fan of how this deck makes the swords suit all-negative-all-the-time. Cuz its not. They also encompasses power of the mind to rise above, plan, get new perspective, etc. Which I think I can also take from this reading, but it's all SWORDS! DRAMA! OMG!
Not surprisingly, Mercury is now in retrograde. Adding to the notion of stepping back and getting my breath, reviewing, rewriting, & putting things back together b/c forcing myself into moving forward will be extremely not fun. One of the astro sites I frequent is very "don't think, feel!" but based on swords-ness, I might do better to focus on thinking clearly rather than getting caught up in teh feels. Keep my perspective simple, and in worst case scenario remember that this too shall pass.
Still not getting much writing done, but a friend has an idea for a co-motivational sort of creative group. Maybe that will help?
Based on some of last week's thinky thoughts, wondering if I should start making myself go out every weeknight to see what happens. Well, every night that I'm not recovering from sleep dep or anxiety attacks, or both. In a pinch, there are always several improv-houses willing to take my $$, I'll just skip the bars afterwards. But REALLY want to finish those craft projects this week, so it may be a few more weeks before I have a normal week to try that theory.
<3 Chrysilla
Crossposted from Dreamwidth, http://chrysilla.dreamwidth.org/
Tuesday I got both my BPAL and BPTP orders, yay! Investigated all my new things over the course of the week so I didn't overload my sinuses.
As for BPTP, the lunacy t-shirt fits! Tho is a bit too long. Long enough to go all the way over my butt, but not *wide* or loose enough to make that look good. So will wash it to let it find it's sizing, then hem the bottom. Very pretty design tho, and it fits great above the hips. The hair gloss smells nice (clove & frankincense), but is OMFG strong. I may have to get a dedicated comb, spray it on the comb and then run it thru my hair. Otherwise argh, sho much. I also neglected to ask if the 'Vitamin E' component is wheat derived before I bought it, so will use this one up and ask before/if I buy another.
And then there were perfumes! Limited edition Halloweenies! Eeee! All wonderful and different and distinct. Samhainophobia, September Midnight, Haunted Houses, Day of Skulls, Ghosts in Love, and A World Where There Are Octobers. September is very fruity, but will reserve judgement until I try it. Octobers is very green and not as maple-y as I expected, but the recent Harvest Moon was similar so I'll give it a try too. All smelled fine on me in little doses. Samhainophobia smells like burning (but in a good way), and Haunted Houses is my fave so far. Squee.
I ordered a ton of stuff, but I've been craving autumn scents since May, so I feel like I went justifiably overboard. But I think it's a sign that you've ordered *too much* when they send you $14 of imps between your two orders. Whups. Some of those were really nice, I added Prague and Dorian to my collection of jojoba-mixed vials.
And obviously I've been running out of space in my BPAL box, b/c I'm nutz. So I reorganized things a bit over the weekend. I'd been hoarding imps, even ones I'm not super fond of, so I went thru my backlog and figured out which ones I actually want to wear on a regular basis. I mixed those with jojoba oil in the vials (much easier to deal with than imp containers, urgh), and the rest of the imps are going to find their own box for future giving away and trading with friends. And if I'm bored I can always 'shop my closet' to see if my tastes have changed, or if some oils mellow over time. The ones I strongly dislike or am allergic to (darn you, jasmine) stay in their own baggie.
Except now I need to get another box for teh imps. *sigh* Will see what I can dig up around the house, I am certain I have extra boxes. I had jewelry box from my office pre-renovation, and that's where my jojoba vials live. And I might take that all to live in my office desk, so I can have a less-precious supply there.
No more perfume shopping until the Yule stuff comes out, but last year I only ended up wanting one of them. Maybe the occasional Lunacy, tho I've only bought two of those in the past year (ok, three, but one was an old one from their Etsy site for my b'day). I've only really gone seriously bpal crazy since DCon and I think I'm over it now. Tho might be time to set some new financial boundaries on that. On the other hand, buying a bunch of non-rare stuff at DCon turned out to be a huge hassle, so as long as I can remember that I'll be better.
I stayed in Tuesday and Wednesday, partially b/c BPAL, and part b/c I had plans Thursday and Friday. I also baked gf/df cookies on Wednesday which was fun. I tried it with white sugar instead of honey, then a couple tbsp of honey anyway b/c the batter wasn't holding together, and they came out nice and crumbly. And slightly burnt, but in a carmalized way. On Sunday I tried the recipe again with honey and I didn't like them as much. Very simple batter tho, and doesn't make a ton of cookies so I don't have as many to nom. Tho b/c the batter-base is almond butter I *can't* eat all of them at once or I'll asplode from protein overload. On the other hand they don't give me a stomach ache like almond-flour cookies. Almonds are complicated.
The stand mixer still works, but btw that, the crock pot, and my other kitchen devices I may have to reorganize the counter-island again. Meh. Darn tiny kitchen.
Thursday was a very fun IAF meetup. Small, but included two new people from Columbia (the country, not the college) who are building their own SF writing community in their home city. And currently traveling the world to network with people and learn new arts and sciences. Sho much fun! And of course I stayed out too late, forgetting that all of the trains in central Queens were broken. (Monday night too, so I stayed in on Tuesday in part due to sleep dep.) But had good train-luck until I got to Jackson Heights station, where it was suddenly August again :-P
Got home and to bed 90 mins late, but figured I'd be OK to gently push myself through Friday b/c I'd had so much fun. Except around 5:30 I'm woken up by what might be a mousetrap going off, and instead of getting up to go check on things I lay in bed freaking out for another 90 mins. When my alarm went off at 7am it was light enough outside for me to be less freaked, and it turned out something innocuous had fallen over to make that noise. *headdesk* So Friday was a wash. I got thru the work day, did not stick around for the boardgame night I'd been looking forward to, and went right home.
Did some ritualistic things, since it was the so called "Blood Moon", and we had some Things to discuss. That seems to have been a good move. On the way home I picked up some treats for seven days of successful fun-list activities, but ppl were already getting stupid/crazy for the full moon. Great. Best to hide at home.
Saturday was spent with chores and some sewing work, Sunday my Pooka friend stopped by to hang out for a while, and I showed him what its like to use a rotary cutter on knit fabric. And we played with perfumes & tarot cards, and gossiped, and I baked cookies again. Yay for nice afternoon. I then got distracted from *finishing* sewing projects and chores by perfume. Oops. At least I finished the laundry.
I'm almost finished with the Doom Coat, just have to slip-stitch the bottom hems together (less complicated than the actual instructions), hem the sleeves (in cheat mode), and add the buttons. By the end of this week it may actually be cold enough to wear it, so Ima try to press on.
Did not get as much work done on the costume-knit-dress as I wanted, but it turned out to be a crappy thread problem rather than a broken machine. Still not entirely sure how well this will translate from woven pattern to knit fabric. And I haven't finished the overdress either. Meh. And I still need to make presents for the wedding couple.
Yeah, I might put all the sewing/crafting away after I finish these two projects. I do kinda want a black version of my purple corduroy jacket, b/c I'm getting a TON of wear from it this season, and I already have all the materials. But it would probably be too cold to wear it by the time I finished, and I'd really like to WRITE MORE soon. The sewing is very distracting. And the chantry is very messy again, need to work on that too. So after November 10th ish, no more sewing until after Xmas. Maybe.
Just realized my Samhain outfit would require me to finally turn an old skirt into a crinoline. Darnit. Not sure I'll have the spoons for that. How the hell did I manage to finish my DCon costume a month early this year?
This week the trains don't seem to be broken (so far), but I'm still taking it easy on plans. I have sewing to finish, and both a flu shot and an allergy shot scheduled. There's a steampunk fashion thing happening on Thursday for which I might try to finish Doom Coat, b/c black velveteen goes with everything. A friend wants to go a'gothing this weekend, and its Absolution on Saturday, so will see about that.
Am also nixing that 2-lunches-per-day experiment, b/c it wasn't working out. I ended up with two post-food crashes per day instead of one and a lot more tupperware to wash. It was hard keeping track of my work-flow with two breaks to remember. This week, one lunch one break. If I end up feeling even worse, then I can halve things again next week.
Wedding-trip plans went awry but got fixed again, fairly quickly. Now my ride is staying Saturday and Sunday nights, returning Monday, and I can't afford two nights in the fancy hotelLuckily a friend still had a spot in the cheap hotel and I'd already requested Monday off from work. And supposedly they have a fridge and microwave, so if a friend can lend me his collapsible cooler I might have even *more* traveling food options. Would be nice to not have to survive on corn chips and apples all weekend, tho I am still looking forward to the apples.
Samhain also fell apart and back together again, b/c a coworker couldn't cover their Thursday nite shift as usual. As of now I'm working the afternoon/nite shift on 10/31, and then going to midnight public rituals (and parties) until super late. But I've got permission to take Friday off, so I won't asplode from sleep dep. And Thursday I'll be able to sleep late before work, so even better.
B/c I'm scattering around so much vacation time these days, I may not take a full extra week off at work before Xmas. We'd be back after NYE on Thursday, so I may just take those two days off for an even two weeks of not-commuting (plus extra NYE recovery, b/c no way am I having another party at my house). Since changing my schedule for sleep reasons, it looks like pre-finals won't be as horrible a time to be in the library as usual. Yay! And I want to keep conserving vacation time, both for actual vacations (moar cons! just not sure which ones yet after Arisia) and to use for sick time.
And in magical mumbo jumbo, gonna be a less than fun week.
So ... this week might suck?
Lots of feeling stuck, feeling in unpleasant freefall, and feeling like I have to be on the defense to attack. But in each card there's a way out, pretty much to relax and go with the flow even if I think its going to hurt. And if something falls apart in the midst of it, I wouldn't have been able to fix it anyway, so should save my energy for picking up the pieces afterwards. So chill out & breathe.
I'm not a fan of how this deck makes the swords suit all-negative-all-the-time. Cuz its not. They also encompasses power of the mind to rise above, plan, get new perspective, etc. Which I think I can also take from this reading, but it's all SWORDS! DRAMA! OMG!
Not surprisingly, Mercury is now in retrograde. Adding to the notion of stepping back and getting my breath, reviewing, rewriting, & putting things back together b/c forcing myself into moving forward will be extremely not fun. One of the astro sites I frequent is very "don't think, feel!" but based on swords-ness, I might do better to focus on thinking clearly rather than getting caught up in teh feels. Keep my perspective simple, and in worst case scenario remember that this too shall pass.
Still not getting much writing done, but a friend has an idea for a co-motivational sort of creative group. Maybe that will help?
Based on some of last week's thinky thoughts, wondering if I should start making myself go out every weeknight to see what happens. Well, every night that I'm not recovering from sleep dep or anxiety attacks, or both. In a pinch, there are always several improv-houses willing to take my $$, I'll just skip the bars afterwards. But REALLY want to finish those craft projects this week, so it may be a few more weeks before I have a normal week to try that theory.
<3 Chrysilla
Crossposted from Dreamwidth, http://chrysilla.dreamwidth.org/