| Self-publishing |
[Jul. 9th, 2009|10:08 am] |
Instead of sending out tons of letters (and receiving tons of rejections) I am going to SELF-PUBLISH my own book of poetry.
I'm excited, because I've always wanted to do this! I want to see my poetry IN PRINT! And who cares if I don't sell a lot of books? I just want to do it to have done it.
I'm going to use lulu.com. There isn't any cost to get it uploaded (I don't think) and then I can make my book available through lulu.com and amazon.com. They are a pay-as-they-print publisher so I don't have to purchase a bunch of books ahead of time or put cash upfront.
I'm also talking with a certain VERY TALENTED photographer (LJ's very own!) about putting our work together. I always thought poems and photography go well together.
I have 20 poems I have picked, and I think I'm including a short prose piece as well. The whole project will be titled "the lightness of flight."
I don't care if I only sell one book to myself. I'm excited! |
|
|
| What does it MEAN?? |
[Jul. 8th, 2009|11:22 am] |
I dreamed I was making out with Edward from Twilight. Except I knew he was Robert Pattinson, but he was also a vampire.
I do not think Robert Pattinson is very cute.
I thought Twilight was all right.
What does it all MEAN????? |
|
|
| Digital Scrapbooking |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|11:04 pm] |
Anyone into digital scrapbooking? Any suggestions where to start? I don't want it to replace my other scrapbooking, but all my pictures are digital now and I thought it might be fun to also have some digital scrapbooks.
Is it expensive? I have a mac computer. Suggestions welcome! |
|
|
| Cake advice |
[Jul. 2nd, 2009|10:39 am] |
I have decided to bake Caylin's cake for her party instead of going out to get one. Here are my options:
1. Make a cake that looks like a castle. There are pictures on the internet, and it looks like I could make a square or round cake and then make the turrets out of paper. This could be cute, or end up looking REALLY amateur!
2. Buy the Wilton cake kit. It's $20. I believe you make 2 cakes, one smaller than the other, and then frost them and use the turrets that come in the kit. If they carry it at Michael's I could get it for a little over $10. It could ALSO end up cool or amateur!
3. Use my crystal castle light-up cake topper from my first wedding on top of a 2-tiered cake. It does have a heart over the castle, so it may look a little wedding-ish.
4. Make regular cake and put "Happy Birthday Caylin" on it.
5. Make cupcakes and buy the little paper castles on toothpicks and stick one in each cupcake.
I am an artsy person, so I'm thinking I COULD pull of a castle cake. I've just never done it before!
Anyone have experience? I do have a cake decorating thingie with all the tips for frosting.
Also, anyone have any white frosting recipes to share?
Thanks! |
|
|
| From Boy Shoes to Bling Shoes |
[Jun. 28th, 2009|02:04 pm] |
I got a whole crate of boys' soccer shoes on freecycle. They are all black. I just blinged one of them up for Caylin with rhinestones, pink shoelaces and nail polish. I put pink nail polish on the back and shiny sparkly nail polish on the front. They look totally girlie now! I'm thinking the nail polish will hold up pretty well. If not, that's OK. They're just shoes. Soccer shoes are more than we can afford right now and she outgrew her pink ones that I got for $7 at Once Upon A Child. I think the blinged-up ones are unique and fun!
Go Me! |
|
|
| Sunburn |
[Jun. 17th, 2009|11:43 am] |
Poor Caylin, she went to Tom's mom's house and no one thought to put sunscreen on her when she went outside to play in the pool. So she got MAJORLY sunburned. Like, really, really bad. I felt so bad for her! We put a swimsuit on her for swimming class and she was screaming and crying. If we don't put Solarcane on it she can't even wear a tee shirt. She says the solarcane burns and she cries when we put it on. I feel so bad!
I let her go to swimming in a tank top and bike shorts because the swimsuit hurt her too much.
I did an MMS treatment on her and that seemed to help a lot. Today she says it doesn't hurt anymore.
Any other suggestions? I've never had a sunburn in my life, I don't burn. It's going to peel, right? What do we do then? |
|
|
| Toot Toot! |
[Jun. 14th, 2009|12:01 am] |
I'm just going to toot the horn of Dr. Bronner's All In One Soap. I LOVE IT! I have one bottle and I take it with me all over the house. It really is an all-in-one soap! I use it to brush my teeth, then I've been using it in the shower because I feel so squeaky clean afterward and I'm excited that it's all natural with no weird ingredients that I can't pronounce. It's very gentle on my skin.
I've been using it in the kitchen because it cuts through grease so much better than hand soap or even dishwashing liquid! When I'm cutting chicken my hands get all greasy. I used dish soap to try to get the grease off and I couldn't. But two drops of Dr. Bronners made my skin grease-free in seconds!
Jeez, I sound like a commercial!
I also used it to get some baked-on yuck from a pan and I recently just used to clean the dirt off the soles of my shoes. It got them so much cleaner than anything else.
I can't wait to go buy some more! I need a bottle for every room of the house. The bottle is very strange with all sorts of weird things written on it. Dr. Bronner sounds like a whack-job, but his stuff is certified all organic and free-trade so I'm OK with buying it.
The bottle I got for about $5 is pretty small, but you only use a few drops at a time. It's not like other soap. One drop cleans my hands, a few drops cleans other things. I've been using it like crazy and the bottle is still full.
This weekend I'm buying more! |
|
|
| Healthy Eats at the Wheelers |
[Jun. 12th, 2009|09:59 am] |
We've been making a concerted effort to eat healthier. We stopped buying pop and chips and any kind of sweet and instead we have fruits and veggies as snacks.
Last night Tom made THE BEST Mediterranean steak salad. It had strips of grilled steak marinated in balsamic vinegarette dressing, romaine lettuce, cucumbers, artichokes, red onions and black olives, and was topped with crumbled feta cheese. Even Caylin (who wasn't so sure about the whole steak-on-salad thing) loved it! She ate every bit and asked for seconds!
I will post the recipe later if anyone is interested. The only thing I would have added was some corn. I like corn on my salad!
Caylin is now getting to the point where she grabs and apple and peanut butter or carrot sticks and ranch dressing for a snack. I like having an apple for dessert.
----------
I really like brushing my teeth with soap! I love the way they are SO SMOOTH and food doesn't stick to them! My teeth feel clean all day, not just after I brush them. I'm used to the slight soap taste now and it doesn't bother me. They feel so smooth and nice that I want to whiten them a little bit.
The two posts above are quite fragment-y. Oh well, it's not like I'm a writer or anything.
Oh wait... |
|
|
| The Dream Life for SomebodyStrange and Davesanngel |
[Jun. 10th, 2009|12:00 pm] |
So last night I dreamed that I was visiting ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) somebodystrange and davesanngel's house. Of which I've never seen (I was at their old house, like 5 years ago!)
In my dream, their house was white on the outside and much larger on the inside than the outside.
They had a gigantic dining room, and they had two very fancy dining room tables in the dining room. One had a big glass top and was decorated with gold accents and golden plates. The second table was wood and decorated medieval style.
They had a china cabinet that was a whole wall and contained shelves of fancy china, kind of like a museum.
There was also a bed in the dining room, which somebodystrange was lying on. He had two dogs with him, a golden retriever named Molly and a tiny dog named Sparks. Sparks was about the size of a hamster and he was a gray dog.
Before dinner, everyone (and there were lots of guests but I don't know who they were) had to lie on the bed on their backs while somebodystrange told us a story he had written. In my dream the bed suddenly became enormous and everyone fit on the bed. I was wearing a red hoodie and Sparks kept playing with the tassle on my hoodie and I couldn't concentrate on somebodystrange's story. This was upsetting to me because I knew everyone would be talking about the story at dinner and I would look stupid if I didn't understand the conversation.
When the story was done, davesanngel put Sparks in her pocket and told us we had to eat our potatoes like the character in the story. But I hadn't been listening, so I didn't know what was going on. We all sat at the looong tables, and I sat at the golden table. When I looked down in my bowl it had broccoli in it while everyone else had potatoes. Evidently this meant something and everyone knew except me. somebodystrange saw that people were waiting for me to do something and he could tell I didn't know what was going on so he sat next to me and whispered what to do. I was supposed to eat the broccoli with...
and then I woke up.
I have no idea what this means, or how to eat my broccoli. |
|
|
| Scrapbooking |
[Jun. 3rd, 2009|01:16 pm] |
I didn't write much about my party, but it was GREAT! I got to see friends I hardly ever see AND met a new friend in person.
I finally was able to break open my Mickey album that wallybat gave me a long time ago. I'm thinking it had to be YEARS ago. It was so long ago that I couldn't even remember exactly who gave it to me. That's a long time.
Instead of going back and "catching up" I decided to do whatever excited me, and that was my Disney trip. My scrapbooking style hasn't changed, I still like clean pages without a lot of stuff. I still love stickers and plain colored paper. I've even scrapbooked since the party, I want to finish the album so I can show people. I don't think my pages are incredibly beautiful or creative. They just tell the story that needs to be told.
I've kind of moved past the "it has to be totally creative" idea and I'm all about "good enough." Because it's more important to me now that it get done. What I don't want are my kids to have some 1/2 finished gorgeous books and a pile of pictures! I'm already getting to the point where I look at pictures and can't remember details about them.
I also think I want to journal more in my scrapbooks.
I also have too much paper. That I will never use. I think I will donate it to Caylin. I love to buy patterned paper and then I can't seem to figure out how to use it so it looks good. I need a patterned paper tutor.
I bought myself the Mickey punch at Michaels! It's my treat to myself. |
|
|
| Miracle Mineral Supplement |
[Jun. 3rd, 2009|11:24 am] |
Well, so far the MMS hasn't taken down the big lump on Shakespeare, but she seems to be improving in spirits! She spent the last few years or so as a Lounge Cat, keeping our chairs and the back of our couch warm. She'd trot around to say hello and want to snuggle on our laps. That was about it.
She's much happier and much more playful. She's been dashing around, trying to rid the house of loose pens, ponytail holders and balls of Kleenex. She hasn't been that playful since she was a kitten!
She's also happier that I don't have to stuff a syringe in her mouth. Instead she gets a treat of watery wet food 3 times a day. She LOVES it.
Based on what I read, we just have to stay steady on it. It is working, but because she's a little cat we have to go slow. I thought she was losing weight, but now I see she may be getting it back on. At least she's eating, and that's a good sign.
-------
I've been taking it and it got rid of the fluid in my ear! I've been getting chronic ear infections and I sometimes hear fluid in my ear. The Dr. said he'd have to drain it if it got worse.
I found I can take the MMS with Simply Lemonade and I can't taste the nasty. I put the drops in, wait 3 minutes and then add some water and then the Simply Lemonade.
My ears have been tingling about 10 minutes after each dose. And now the fluid is gone, my ears are no longer plugged up 60% of the time and my allergies have improved! They haven't gone away fully but they have improved. My itchy, watery eyes get better after I take my morning dose. I got nauseous yesterday but that's because I took the MMS on an empty stomach and you're not supposed to do that.
So far no other magic has happened. It does smell REALLY BAD (like nasty bleach) so I can see why some people find it hard to take! Luckily with the lemonade it's better. I want to start swishing it around in my mouth because it's supposed to help with teeth and gums. But I want to get some peppermint extract first to get rid of the Nasty. I'll let y'all know how that goes too! |
|
|
| Avoidance Parenting |
[Jun. 2nd, 2009|01:49 pm] |
I know there are different brands of parenting. "Attachment" and "1-2-3 Magic" and so forth. I think if I had to name the kind of parenting I've resorted to employing, I'd call it "Avoidance."
This doesn't mean I'm avoiding parenting. It means I'm doing my best to avoid putting myself and my stepdaughter in situations that don't end well. Or ones that annoy the hell out of me.
I got sick of her asking for cookies. So I hid the cookies. I got sick of her begging to have Ramen Noodles for every meal. So I hid the Ramen noodles. We now avoid both arguments! See? Avoidance Parenting.
I got tired of trying to push her through her bath so she could go to bed, so I moved the bath before dinner. Now she hurries out of the bath because she's hungry. We can now relax through dinner as well.
We also don't take her grocery shopping with us anymore. We both hate grocery shopping, but shopping with a kid who's favorite phrase is "I want" is like washing your privates with a cheese grater. One day in the future we'll stomp out that phrase from her vocabulary. Until then, I'll take her to places I enjoy going to so at least I can float away in my happy space and tune out the "I want...can I haves."
Ahhhh, tuning out. Another benefit of Avoidance Parenting. I tune out the questions I'm sick of. I answer them once, and thereafter become deaf. I change the subject, ignore, or answer her question with a different question on another subject. Sometimes I just become very, very interested in a furniture polish commercial.
So far it's working OK. It has taken a while and some discipline and some creativity to figure things out. If she ever takes a look at the top shelf of the pantry, I'm in trouble. I figure I'll reintroduce things as we get a reign on things. I'lla put the cookies back once we get the "no means no" down. I suppose it's like house-proofing for a two-year old. You avoid for a while until they're old enough to understand. So if I have to hide cookies for 18 years, I guess I'll have to do it! |
|
|
| RIP Aunt Gyneth |
[May. 29th, 2009|10:17 am] |
My Aunt Gyneth died yesterday. She's really my great-aunt, my grandma's sister (on my dad's side).
She was very ill, so in many ways it was a relief. I am sad that she is gone. There were 4 sisters and 1 brother including my grandma. Now there is just one sister left and one brother, my grandma passed a few years ago.
The hardest part about growing older is knowing we don't all live forever. |
|
|
| Anyone Want Green Day Tickets? |
[May. 16th, 2009|10:19 am] |
I got up to buy Green Day Tickets and logged onto the Ticketmaster site. The first try I had General Admission floor tix. But the stupid computer would not process the order! It timed out. So I tried again and got pretty good seats on the first level. The site timed out again and would not process the order! So I tried a third time and it put me WAY UP on the balcony. But it worked. So I bought the tickets.
Then, out of curiosity to see if they were sold out I tried again. AND GOT GENERAL ADMISSIONS SEATS! So now I have four tickets to see Green Day at the United Center. I LOVE this band and HAD to have good seats.
If anyone wants to buy the balcony seats off of me I'll give you a good price. I paid $124 total. I have etickets which I'm sure most people are wary of because you could sell them to multiple people. But I wouldn't do that. |
|
|
| Beautiful |
[Apr. 30th, 2009|11:18 am] |
This person recorded street performers around the world singing the same song and mixed them all together. I love it!
|
|
|
| I love Freecycle!!!! |
[Apr. 27th, 2009|10:51 pm] |
I just picked up THREE BIG BAGS of clothing for Caylin FOR FREE from another freecycler. I had asked for UGLY clothing, but most of it was anything but.
It included 7 pairs of jeans, all with plenty of wear, one brand new with the tags still on, and one a size 1 (My size! And from the Gap!). Plus a winter jacket (kind of dirty and raggedy but she can deal since she lost her other jacket) one adorable pink and white shiny baseball jacket, one Planet Hollywood Orlando jean jacket, one sparkly blazer, one shiny silver jacket and a pink rain jacket. All in GREAT condition!
Plus countless tops, some pjs, tee shirts, pink fuzzy slippers, a couple of jumpers, a jean skirt, khakis, and pink jean shorts.
Did I mention? For FREE???!!!!!! |
|
|
