Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Got Stuff!

Today's blog is by absolutely NO means a comprehensive "stuff I got for Christmas" list. It is, instead, more of a "Ooh, I will be using these gifts directly for the blog" blog, if that makes any sense.

I loved all of my gifts this year, but the paintbrushes, palette, and paper I showed last week weren't the only things that I got that'll be very useful as I continue my creative endeavors.

My folks were super kind to me and bought a huge kit of rotary tool attachments, which means I'll be able to polish more rocks, put holes in little twigs, and do all kinds of ridiculous things with found objects!

And one of my awesome friends gave me an ENORMOUS jar of buttons that I'm slowly sorting through. I currently have a 10oz mug full of white/pearly buttons and a bowl filled with Huge buttons.

The Goods (Along with an old case that is slowly being filled with the buttons from the jar)

Now, why would I be taking those buttons out of the jar, you may ask?

That's because I wanted to see if I could organize them by color and/or material. See the Micron pen in front of the stuff? That's for scale. Bare that scale in mind for when I tell you that the 10oz of white/pearly buttons is not even all of the pearly/white buttons. And that I have an almost equal number of bone or mother-of-pearl buttons. And that the front of the case will absolutely end up full of black, mother of pearl, and brown buttons (and Things What Aren't Buttons But Ended Up In The Jar).

Some of the buttons had tiny seed beads stuck in the eyes. Some still have metal loops from the cards they were mounted on at the time of purchase. Some are rusted. Some of the "buttons" have turned out to be hook-and-eye sets or snaps or glass baubles or any number of Non-Button Items. Some of the actual buttons have writing on them!

I look forward to properly categorizing my new button collection. Once that's done, I'll be able to put weird and awesome buttons on my finished crochet projects!!!

Unfortunately for me, today is a weird day to be doing all this sorting. I leaned too heavily on my right shoulder on Friday and have been sleeping on it nightly since. It is very angry with me today, stiff and sore and slightly swollen, but with ice and ibuprofen, and RESTING IT, I've gotten it to have a truce with me. Not a fun thing to wake up to, I must admit.

So I might have to experiment with my left hand for today's art.

And I may take a bit longer to write my 100+ words tonight.

And I'll have to sleep on my left side.

My stomach and esophagus will be so happy with me lol! They are constantly reminding me that sleeping on my right side is a bad idea.

I just don't like not facing the door.

And I don't like having my head in front of the window.

In order to keep my face towards the door and my feet under the window, I have to sleep in my right side.

You see my conundrum.

It's a very silly conundrum.

I will sleep on my left side tonight so that I can work on art and writing tomorrow with my dominant hand at 100% (hopefully). If it's still being cranky, I'll roll my eyes and continue trying to work offhanded.

On Thursday, one way or another, I'll post art. If you'd like a say in what that art is, feel free to send me a coffee on Ko-Fi with a message letting me know what category you'd like to see (Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Dedbert, Location, Geometric, Word).

Next Monday, I will have some progress to show you regarding the shawl I proposed yesterday.

Next Tuesday I'll be back to blather at you, hopefully 100% and full of beans.

For now, though, I am going to sip cocoa, try to draw something left-handed, and type slowly.

I hope you all Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Talk About Tuesday

 

In Which I Am Le Tired

I overcaffeinated last night, I think. I didn't sleep fantastically well, and what sleep I did get was constantly interrupted with suddenly waking up and grumbling "What the f?!" before going back to sleep. This happened five or six times.

Yup. Definitely switching to chamomile or lemon tea tonight. Probably chamomile. I like that for nighttime.

Coffee is delicious, especially mixed with cocoa, but apparently once you hit 32 you just can't slam back mug after mug of delicious brown goodness without consequences. Drat.

Anyway, several neat things have happened/are happening this week! First of all, we took the cat for walkies again on Sunday:

Evie really enjoyed hopping up on the lowest branch of the old smoke bush near our neighbor's fence. She was watching their chickens and ducks and hoping for a glimpse of Skye, the cat she has a crush on (despite slapping him in the face when they finally met).

My mother and I stood out there with her for a while, trying to tempt chickadees and cranky woodpeckers into my mother's outstretched, sunflower seed filled hands. They did not deign to fulfill her Disney Princess Dreams, sadly, or I'd have taken a picture.

Perhaps a certain someone parking her fluffbutt under the tree with the bird feeders in it had something to do with their reluctance...

If you look very carefully, you can see a very put-out chipmunk glaring down at me because I'm the moron holding the bright pink leash to my cat right where he wants to be!

After the walkies, my boyfriend came over and we hung out and it was great! We tried something called "panackelty" that my mom made from a "Pooh Bear Cooks British Food" video, and that was incredible. Sunday was, in short, a wonderful day.

However there was one thing on Sunday that bothered me.

For about a year, now, I've had a strand of purple LED lights strung around my window. In the last month or two, they've started to go bad (flickering, lights dying and coming back on, generally becoming obnoxious), and it's been driving me nuts. I like having some noticeable light in my room while I sleep, and the purple light was very soothing to me. The lights were practically vibrating at times on Sunday, so I decided to bite the bullet and replace them with something actually designed for nightly use:

A Mr Glo 6" glow ball

This thing is a USB-recharegable LED light with a bunch of colors and stuff. I was not paid by the company or anything, I just knew that my BF has the 4" cube and that thing is great! It didn't have free shipping though, so I went with the slightly more expensive sphere. There's a lil button on the bottom you can use to cycle through the colors and light patterns, but if you wanna adjust the brightness, you have to use the tiny lil remote it comes with.

I have it on right now, plugged in and charging. I might just leave it plugged in tonight lol. It's currently sitting in my yarn bowl so it doesn't roll around on the end table - it's hard to sit it down while it's charging (which is a few points in favor of the cube!). I'm looking forward to using it as a way to get more light down to me while I'm on the ol floor pillow, crocheting or sketching.

I also got another shipment in, but that's a tale for Thursday, which is when the next blog should be up ;)

That'll about do it for me today, folks!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC