165. Hot Tamales

Hot tamales sounds a lot better than super enchiladas. It's on another level. :P

If you can't tell, I'm already deliriously tired and I'm not sure why. Today was my momma's birthday. :D I pretty much started my day by trying to call her and wish her a happy birthday, lol. There was a little phone tag involved, my brother trying to chastise/ guilt me into telling her the sentiment myself when I was already trying to, and finally getting to speak to her! She is a quite busy lady who is pretty bad at the whole phone thing, ha ha!

So that was quite the relief to finally chat with her a little bit and catch up. I heard a couple of stories about my family (including our dog!) heading downtown and out of the way to buy what probably amounted to over a hundred of koi fish. Whoa. I have no idea whether or not if the numbers were exaggerated. I never know with my family, lol. We have a new fish pond that my brother and dad built in their backyard and I guess it's ready to take on a lot more fish now!

Afterward, the SO and I went to a local, hole-in-the-wall breakfast joint that we have been craving lately. It was actually 100 degrees out by the time we were seated. The building across the street displaying the time and temperature near its roof said so. :D It's really good food for a super cheap price. Nice, greasy, and made to order breakfast goodies. Mmm... It is also a pretty tiny location and really busy so the noise was borderline overwhelming. With it being that hot that early on in the day, we decided to postpone the rest of our potential errands indefinitely.

When we got back to the house, this is one of the sights we were greeted with:

Aww... isn't he ours or what? Sleeping on the foot rest that his daddy likes to use and using a remote control as a pillow. I'm not quite sure how comfortable that could be, but who am I to say anything about that? I'm fairly certain that I've done it myself a couple of times through the years, lol. Such a sweet boy. XD

Later on, after much rest and relaxation, some of the family convened and we helped out making FFIL's famous super enchiladas. I made a nuisance of myself and asked a ton of questions about what the ingredients where, how to prep them, and what all the steps were. It seems that no one but he knows how to make them in their entirety but we have all been determined to learn! A few minutes after everything was ready, I had managed to type up an alphabetized ingredients list, the steps, and even added a few pictures I took tonight to the recipe. I printed out a few copies and hopefully the SO's dad doesn't have to be harassed constantly from eight different directions in order for this meal to be made. :D

Here are some pics of just before they went into the oven and after the eggs were added. I still have yet to catch a picture of the pico de gallo we make for tortilla chips nor the dish with the last bit of sauce spread on top. :( Hunger = picture fail.

Eat your heart out! The pico de gallo was so good and made from diced tomatoes, green onion, cyrano peppers, and cilantro. The fried corn tortillas were dipped in a diced onion, roaster garlic, chili pepper and powder, and tomato sauce. Afterward, it was covered in layers of ground beef, lettuce, cheese, and more dipped tortillas. The eggs were added later on and the final touch was to pour on a little more of the sauce before chowing down. Of course, the recipe I have written down is quite a bit more extensive. :P An intense and fun dish that was annihilated in seconds.

Alrighty, I really am getting old. :P My birthday is tomorrow and I'm going to a SU workshop and possibly doing... something for dinner. Lol, details details. We may or may not figure something out eventually. See you tomorrow! <3

164. For Me?

Aw... you shouldn't have! Lol.

I did quite a few big girl things today. Payments went through for classes as well as previous student loans and we made it to my passport renewal appointment early, so that was taken care of too! Little trouble finding the place because the particular post office that I made my appointment with was actually inside a bank building. ... What? Yeah... Lol.

Still working on the whole teaching thing. Fingers crossed and tons of phone calls to make. : )

I think one of the best parts of today was getting yummy breakfast foods for lunch! Breakfast foods are my favorite real food (I know I've mentioned it already :D). Hot chocolate with country potatoes, hickory-smoked bacon, a cheese omelet, and waffle with strawberries. Mmm... and for less than seven bucks.

This was at a place called Village Inn. much like Denny's or IHOP. My biggest gripe against them has been their outdated decor but today we saw that they were working on that. The colors are being spruced up slowly but surely with modern pastels. Lots of spots with halos of tiny dots, very cute. The best part of this was that they had window clings on the doors saying things like "vi :)" "hi :)" and "vi :)" "bye :)". I want them. So badly. By the registers in the cake/ pie case, there were these lovely do-dads that I just HAD to get!

Epic.

What are the chances of all of this?! Too hilarious. Even though I don't physically feel it right now, I am filing today under a total WIN! :D See you tomorrow. <3

P.S. Happy Friday, the 13th!

163. Ready-Set-Done!

What-what-what? I started planning out this year's winter holiday cards last night and before I knew it, I was working on them. Yes, I did get some sleep, but within 24 hours, my cards are more or less done!

Holy cow, how did that happen?

They are as done as I'm going to have them for... oh man, a couple of months! Wow. I would fully assemble the card with the base to the sentiment, but with how I've designed it, that would interfere with the note-writing I plan to do late November. So, once those are all written out (which, at this rate, is probably going to take the longest!), I'll fully assemble the cards and mail them out earlier than ever! All the more time to enjoy then during the holiday season, aye? I'm in such awe. I keep flipping through them all and I'm amazed at how quickly the process went. I am so pleased with how they turned out. A total of 59 cards because I messed up one beyond repair.

I also learned something pretty darn important today. Okay, two somethings and one isn't as important as the other. First of all, I am really bad at stamping. Rofl. No matter how hard I tried to do different things to improve it, I just think I'm naturally bad at it. My cards definitely have that handmade look :P, but I still love them anyways and I hope my loved ones do too!

How on Earth did I manage to crank out that many cards in so little time?! Did my design and prior planning actually cause it to go that smoothly? Wow. Just wow.

It also gave me a lot of confidence about making and selling sets of cards. What do you guys think? Definitely something to keep in mind. :D On that note, I want to give a little shout out to my wonderful SU demonstrator for giving me advice and support. And an even bigger thank you for my birthday present! I love it and really appreciate it. Thank you, Kim!

There has been a lot going on behind the scenes dealing with the messier more stressful part of life. It hasn't made me very happy. Actually, it's been borderline upsetting but it'll all work out in the end somehow and taking all of these steps now will make life better down the road. I have to keep reminding myself of this. I'm nervous about starting up classes again on Monday and I'm exploring a couple of options in terms of teaching. Classes for many kids starts next Monday too! Ahh! It's like treading muddy water. All the weariness and overwhelming feelings of treading water but with less clarity and a significant more resistance. I think it adds to the panic, but again, a way shall be found.

Thank you everyone for the continued support and encouragement in all that I do/ try to do. It means the world to me and you know I gladly give it back anytime and always. <3 See you tomorrow!

162. Christmas In July

I am vaguely aware that it is neither Christmas nor July. Vaguely. I think a few days ago I mentioned that my birthday was 9 days away. I'm now pretty sure that by 9, I really meant 6. But... who's counting, right? XD

I did however, receive my SU Holiday Mini Catalog in the mail as well as my supplies for my Holiday cards. There are a few really cute things in there that I think I might want to snag. The first day that customers can start placing orders for it is Sept. 1st. Fortunately for me, it'll all be available for a few months so that gives me time to figure things out. Lol. I may have gotten too excited and started planning out my winter cards... Simplistic my butt. Nothing seems simplistic when you have to make 50-60 of 'em. Maybe rice or noodles.I'm already struggling in my head about what to write on everything. I really don't like repeating myself. Only if it's all truly super sincere. Rawr rawr rawr. :( Trying to figure out the most logical assembly line procedures is also frying my brain.

I totally just walked away in the middle of typing a sentence to go lay down and almost passed out. I am extra pathetic when it comes to dealing with heat. My room has been pretty close to the equivalent of a sauna, even compared to the rest of the house. The coolest it got in my room for the first half of the day was something around 80 degrees. It makes me sad. I'm not quite sure what about the heat just drains my energy. I'm sure I heard about it in one of my science/ health classes through the years, but who knows? Ha ha.

The SO and I went to a Vietnamese restaurant today because he has been having a craving for it. Go figure I spend most of my life running away from it, but now crave it too but for homesickness sake. So we drove downtown to grab some and chatted about the possible visit to South Florida together this winter. It was fun and nice to daydream. : )

I am having a ton of fun playing with my new toys such as trying out a different personal paper cutter, figuring out the best way to emboss, figuring out new ways to use my border punches, and making sure everything really stays with my red tape. Such a fan of that tape! Sigh. Not a huge fan of the stamp scrubber I got from the craft store though. It does not measure up at all to the one that SU offers. I'm irked at it and trying my best to make it work because it's here. Lol. I shall take a picture of it soon so we can pick it apart together.

I'm still pleased as punch about the clay that I've been making. I haven't made anymore because I was getting myself into the mindset for card-plotting. I really need to replenish my stash. having pre-made cards on hand has been so great.

Speaking of stuff like that (>_>), I've already started getting birthday wishes. It's kinda cool. :D The SO and FMIL are all worried that they're going to miss it, so every time it's mentioned, they double check that it isn't the current day, lol. I appreciate the thought and effort. I don't become totally butt-hurt if people forget, especially since I usually don't mentioned it until the day before or of... Lol. Not because I'm testing anyone, I just... don't feel like making it a big deal often. Part of me thinks I'm doing that because if you set your expectations low, you can't be disappointed. /shrug. Oh well, people know this year. Lol. Another fun thing is that my mom's birthday is the day before mine. :D I usually have to remind her about her's! Maybe that's where I get the semi-nonchalance from... XD

Ahh! A bug just flew on my hand as I was leaning on it to think. Concentration = fail. Sigh, I that lovely note, I'll see you tomorrow. <3

161. Clay-mactic

I think that was supposed to be like "climactic" or something. I don't know, lol. Witty = fail.

But that is not the point to today's blog post! It's *drumroll* pictures! I'm as done as I'm going to be with the current clay creations. I'm going to do my best to line up the before and after shots while throwing in a few that show the scales of these suckers.

First off the hamsters that I didn't show yesterday.

Before.

After.

robot - normal - tiger - pirate - girly hearts

- - - - -

Before.

 After.

 Cacti in honor of my new found Southwestern-ness.

- - - - -

Only after.

Only after.

Only after.

Tiny seascapes!

- - - - -

It's my FLUFFY!

After.

His bowl of grapes. Nom nom nom.

:D

- - - - -

How great is all of that?! And I don't say that very often about anything involving me. Not the best lighting or surface to be taking pictures on but I got all excited and it's what I had on hand. :P 

I have a total of 8 hamsters (including 1 burnt one) and none of them are the same size. Whoops. Lol. There is a definite height and length order they can be put into. Robo-hamster has a bionic eyes and tiny divots around his body. Pirate-hamster has a tiny mustache for... no apparent reason. Girly-hamster has random hearts all over her body.

Not much to say about the cacti. It was just one of the test pieces I threw together. Lol, I do little to no planning or measuring with most of my crafts. It's kind of weird.

Tiny landscapes are an idea I've seen all over the crafting community. I like how mine get taller and taller, lol. Yes, I realize that crabs aren't red unless they are thoroughly cooked. Maybe that's what happened to him when he crawled up on that little island. :( I didn't completely process what I did until the entire scene was finished and by then it was too cute to pry apart. I tried to think of another landscape I would like to make other than ocean-y but couldn't, so I made the octopus one! I love the tiny snail and tiny starfish I added. I'm pretty pleased with how the goldfish aquarium one turned out as well. That one I made tonight by throwing stuff together. I'm amused. :D I'm slightly fascinated with how the tiny yellow coral on the octopus scene turned out. I was just poking holes but they seem to look pretty darn good! Lol. Teehee, I have three seascapes. How great! 

Last but not least is my WoW figurine. I'm pretty sure it was on the bucket list of my life to make a figurine of this creature. It's by no means great at all, but sentimentally, I adore it. My main character is a hunter and the pet that has been with my through a lot of my time in that game and during a hard time in my life was this creepy lizard thing that I named "Fluffy."

That's a picture of him from a resource site called Petopia. Love that site! My Fluffy is a sweetheart. He's a boy that only eats fish and fruit by nature, so I've always fed him these green grapes. He has been a great companion and unofficial mascot for my guild. I can't stop smiling. He's not particularly skilled or powerful, but neither am I as a player. We work pretty well together. I attempted to add some "scales" to my figurine, lol. Oh well. I'm still incredibly proud of myself.

Phew. That's all I can think of to write about today. I'm waiting for some supplies in the mail tomorrow, so yay! I think I'm going to go oogle my creations some more. :D See you tomorrow! <3

160. By The Numbers

Huh. I already forgot why I wanted to give the title of this entry a numerical theme. I know of one reason but I know there was another one. XD Dangit, and we were just talking about how I was supposed to write my ideas down. /sigh.

Not much to report today. Theoretically, the internet at the new house should be working better today. While the SO, his dad, and I were trying to play the game together last night, we were disconnected several times within a hour for a few hours. Pretty darn frustrating. I worked on a few more sculptures which I'm pretty pleased about. Hm, the grammar on that last sentence seems questionable, but I don't know enough about it to correct it. Oh well! :P

We took one of the motorcycles out to fix up my residency with the local school so I can start my program next Monday! I cannot believe that the summer vacation is practically over and all the kiddies are going back to school too! Wow. Well, I arrived there to turn in my form and failed to bring the folder that had proof that I moved here over a year ago. Really, me, really? GG,gg (good game, good game). The SO made sure to ask all sorts of questions to clarify the situation, which helped because I was still flabbergasted at my mistake. So, we trekked back home, I went through a mini frenzy to ensure that I had any paperwork I could possibly bring and that it was in chronological order, and then we headed back out again. It was settled within maybe three minutes. :D I just reduced that bill by $3,325.50! Woohoo!!!

I even came home to a semi-surprise care package from my folks too! In it was some clean laundry from my trip I guess and burned copies of the DVD home movies that my dad made during his recent trip to visit his side of the family. I have been mildly begging for copies so I could show the SO and his family some more of my family and more about my culture. I'm excited about that too. :D

Teehee. My birthday is in 9 days. :) I don't plan on doing anything in particular to celebrate it, I haven't done so in years, but still. It makes me happy thinking about it, even if I dread turning another number that is grossly adult-like. Usually other people plan co-birthdays and tag celebrating mine onto them, but I don't think I have anyone here that even shares the same month. Oh well, at least I'll be stamping and hanging out with a couple of ladies. Maybe I'll request the family to eat dinner at a restaurant (my treat of course since their birthdays involve favorite home-cooked meals instead) and let the SO leak that it's my birthday so I can listen to a song and get free dessert. :P That's kind of bad isn't it? Requesting a birthday dinner so I could get free cake/ ice cream? Lol. I actually don't feel too much shame about it because it'll actually be my birthday! XD

I'm currently going through the painstaking process of curing/ baking my clay figurines right now. With no temperature dial, I've had to mess around with my oven thermometer, aluminum foil tenting and platforms, heating coil settings, and timers to try to make this work. I baked a test piece and felt it came out okay so I tried another test piece with my least favorite tiny figurine. Yeah... then I had my first causality. Then, I realized I forgot to take the "before" pictures! I snapped some of the raw figurines and the afters of the ones that had already cured. I don't think I'm doing this properly, but they are holding out well enough. Unfortunately, it takes about 30 min for each piece. I am doing more than one piece at a time, but it's pretty much torture. Not to mentioned making the already stick and humid air all the more hotter with the constant baking and re-baking. I don't even remember how long I've been going at this, lol.

I checked and did the math. About 1.5 hours and I only have five pieces as done as they're going to be with me. I still have twelve more to go! :( I'm really paranoid about the bigger pieces I've made, especially since two of them have a lot of white involved and that's one of the most sensitive to heat colors. /fret. I know I can make them again, but still. I'll be a little heartbroken if anything bad happens to them.

I still have that stupid dry cough. I think it has been just about a month since I got sick. Lovely. Just lovely.

To not be a complete tease, here are a couple of photos of (fairly) cured clay figurines!

My first casualty (the alien hamster) - Ninja Hamster - Emo Hamster.

Profile view of six legs - dual wielding swords - dark purple spots.

The aerial view. Those grayish green spots on the first are supposed to be neon yellow. :(

And just for some scale. That's my index finger!

So tiny, cute, and burnt.

I think I shall keep trucking on this. I'm pretty determined to bake all of my currently finished pieces by the end of tonight. Therefore, I shall have more pictures to share tomorrow! See you then. <3

159. Amassing Armies

*Cue diabolical laughter.* MWAHAHAHA!

I have gone absolutely nuts with messing with my polymer clay. /giggle uncontrollably. I really hope that my recently acquired toaster oven bakes them well. I was only supposed to make a few test pieces and got carried away. I can't wait to show you all! Alas, I don't have all the pieces to finish them still. I will take before and after pics for sure because they may be burned beyond recognition later, lol.

I've made a gift for a friend, something desert-themed, one WoW-related item that was on my bucket list to do- plus an accessory for it, a little bead made from the leftover colors from the aforementioned piece, a cute itty-bitty landscape, and then my oh-so-cute army!

Remember that I mentioned I got an idea (more or less) from the SO at the end of yesterday's post? Well, I tried to take that idea and run with it! I made an emo one, a tiger one, a robot one, and then figured I should have a normal one in there somewhere. After that I decided to make a pirate one, a ninja one, an alien-looking one (unfortunately, he looks more like a caterpillar or a lima bean with growths), and then a girly one with hearts. I kind of ran out of ideas after that. Any suggestions? Who knows? Maybe I'll make two of the suggestions I really like and can figure out how to make and mail you one! I do stuff like that. :D They are really freaking cute. And tiny. I can't wait to show you pictures! I'm so proud of them. I really hope that they stay together and don't burn. I'm kind of bad at planning for those sorts of things.

I guess that's one of the pretty weird things about me. Some things like a trip, I want to plan to the minute. Not that it has to by any means, but if we run into problems, we have that to fall back on so we don't really have to think about it in the moment. For crafting especially, I wing it 98% of the time. Sure, I do a mad amount of research and idea-absorbing, but designing my own stuff? I totally make it up as I go. Many times the more realistic or outrageous stuff doesn't turn out the way I had it in my head, but I usually expect that because I know the limits of my skills. However, since I am aware of this, I can plan accordingly and turn out really cute stuff that I love because it's exactly what I wanted. ... I think that made sense.

Um... only 1 out of the 11 critters I've made in the past two days have the eyeballs that they should have. It's kind of weird. XD And I really love tiny things. I find doll miniatures that ppl create out of polymer clay to be fascinating. Hmm, people*. Some of them are amazingly realistic, it is so mind-blowing.

I see this stuff on Etsy and Craftster. I don't think I've mentioned the latter before and I want to smack myself for holding back such a fantastic and amazing resource! Just in case you weren't around for my first month and a half of posts where I constantly mentioned it (lol): Etsy is like an eBay for handmade goods, craft supplies, and vintage wares. Craftster is "a community for crafts and DIY projects with free craft ideas, inspiration, advice, and more." I could not have said it better myself. The pictures, tutorials, and swaps are phenomenal there. I don't visit nearly as often as I should because I don't think I'd would do any work in my life. I would just craft and sit there and try to learn how to do everything. Even if you don't think you're particularly handy or crafty, check it out. You'd be surprised at how easy a lot of projects are and how innovative one can be with the right ideas!

I learned a lot about polymer clay from there. Needle-felting is another type of crafting that I had never heard about before wandering the forums and galleries. You pretty much stab at wool with a needle to sculpt whatever you want. The more you poke, the more the fibers spread and yet cling to each other. I definitely will try it one day when I get a chance to pick up a new craft! Since, I'm on the subject, I might as well plug my favorite needle-felting shop. Keep in mind that I don't know her personally, I just saw her work and fell in love!

Her Etsy shop of needle-felted birdies is: Feltmeup Designs!
She even has sections of birds that are inspired by wild birds. My absolutely favorite are the owls because I adore owls!

There's a sub-store of creepy monsters too! It's called Feltanomicon.

And of course, I follow her blog right here on Blogger! Check out Feltmeup Designs: The Blog!

She has really inspired me to try this art form one day. <3

Whoops! I just had an idea for my next little sculpture so... >_> ... <_< I'm going to run off and do that right  now. XD See you tomorrow! <3