OMG OMG, Laurellen has my ruff done!!! It's made with the stunnniiiinggggg lace I bought in Florence last year during the Janet Arnold Conference...go LOOK!!

YIPPEEE!!

Memorable events this year( and more )

lifted from my wonderful friend river_rain :

"For strong women"

A strong woman is a woman who is straining.
A strong woman is a woman standing
on tiptoe and lifting a barbell
while trying to sing Boris Godunov.
A strong woman is a woman at work
cleaning out the cesspool of the ages,
and while she shovels, she talks about
how she doesn't mind crying, it opens
the ducts of the eyes, and throwing up
develops the stomach muscles, and
she goes on shoveling with tears
in her nose.

A strong woman is a woman in whose head
a voice is repeating, I told you so,
ugly, bad girl, bitch, nag, shrill, witch,
ballbuster, nobody will ever love you back,
why aren't you feminine, why aren't
you soft, why aren't you quiet, why
aren't you dead?

A strong woman is a woman determined
to do something others are determined
not be done. She is pushing up on the bottom
of a lead coffin lid. She is trying to raise
a manhole cover with her head, she is trying
to butt her way through a steel wall.
Her head hurts. People waiting for the hole
to be made say, hurry, you're so strong.

A strong woman is a woman bleeding
inside. A strong woman is a woman making
herself strong every morning while her teeth
loosen and her back throbs. Every baby,
a tooth, midwives used to say, and now
every battle a scar. A strong woman
is a mass of scar tissue that aches
when it rains and wounds that bleed
when you bump them and memories that get up
in the night and pace in boots to and fro.

A strong woman is a woman who craves love
like oxygen or she turns blue choking.
A strong woman is a woman who loves
strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly
terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong
in words, in action, in connection, in feeling;
she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf
suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she
enacts it as the wind fills a sail.

What comforts her is others loving
her equally for the strength and for the weakness
from which it issues, lightning from a cloud.
Lightning stuns. In rain, the clouds disperse.
Only water of connection remains,
flowing through us. Strong is what we make
each other. Until we are all strong together,
a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid.


--Marge Piercy

It's been a few weeks since I last posted in my own journal. The holidays didn't go so well for me this year, I got some great gifts for Christmas including a new cabin style tent that sleeps up to 10 people so it should fit me + all my gear at events but the day itself ended up tanking. My brother and brother in law both decided they just had to be dicks that day, my brother was being pissy and just talking to him ended up in him yelling at me and the brother in law is usually an ass but one would think he could've tried to be nice for the holiday. Nope, everytime he opened his mouth around me it was to make snide commenst, get digs in or insult me and or my dog. Honestly dude if you don't like the family and don't want to even try to be a member then ya shouldn't have married my sister and moved into the house. So I hopped on the computer and escaped into World of Warcraft for a bit, at least there I enjoyed what I was doing and had fun too.

I decided for New Year's Eve it was best that I stay home and didn't go to any of the gatherings I was invited to. Before the fiasco at Christmas I'd been feeling extremely blah; not sleeping well, feeling very moody,  feeling anti-social and losing interest in things. I've been dealing with depression for years, usually I can keep it in check and find things that keep me going and out in the world but stuff had been piling up. So rather than be a downer I stayed home after vesta_aurelia and herodocles dropped by so I could measure Vesta for her corset, and get hugs. Staying home wasn't so bad, got exposed to the brother in law's crummy attitude again but rather than stay with the rest of us he went back to the cave and stayed there. We played or rather I got my butt kicked at Uno, ten thousand (a dice game), and we played several Wii games; I found out I'm pretty good at Wii golf until I start drinking. I even had time to think, or as John Wayne put it in Maclintock (spelling?) "I've been doin' some thinkin' drinkin' ", things will be ok don't know what to do with the brother in law but that's his problem not mine, and I want to be amongst my friends again.

I'll get a chance to do that at 12th Night, Friday I'm picking up Karessa and little Eirik and the 3 of us are heading up to site with as much of our stuff as we can carry. Thorfinn and Tatiana have invited me to bunk with them and her brother in their hotel room, I'll be on an air mattress on the floor, which isn't so bad and it saves me from having to rent my own room. Plus it helps them out because Thorfinn has to work until 5pm then head up to site so have wife, child and as much of their stuff as possible up there will help him get on the road faster.

Still have finer details of Coronet stuff I'm working on, gotta get together with scarywoman and see where we're at and talk over some ideas. Winter term started yesterday, my first class on Mondays is at noon and I've got to work on my timing to get parking because I'm not driving around for 30min to find it. Got to get out early from my last class because the entire class didn't have the necessary book and we all took a field trip to the bookstore to discover that they still did not have the book in. I've got to call the bookstore today to see if the book is in and if the rest of my books I placed a pick order on are in yet.

Well I'd better get going, need to get up and get my day rolling.

For some it has been a very difficult year. I hope 2010 is significantly better. May we all prosper in the things that are truly important...Love, faith, hope, family, friends and more. May we have all that we need and not all that we want, so we still have dreams and goals.

i can't beleive i willingly got up at 6:30 this morning. o_e

ah, the smell of brownies is filling up my house. i'm baking them for the phearsome phour party at simon's tonight. let's see, we'll have:

two pizzas (hommeade by me)
two pans of brownies (dan's bringing ont, too)
peanut butter cookies (dan)
2 gallons of milk (for the brownies)
3 bags of chips, and 2 dips
icecream
and a blender to make milkshakes.

think that's enough for 4 teenagers? to last us until about one am?
oh, and did i forget to mention the movies? tons. not sure about you guys, but i am set for new years. :D

This is a terrific and funny talk about the nature of creativity, and how schools are not modeled to support the creative mind:

I had a nice quiet Christmas with Robert and Carrie. ( Details )

I hope you all were as content with your Christmas celebrations as I was. Here's to looking forward to the new year!

possibly the best christmas present i have ever gotten. so, i got to open one of my presents early, and guess what i got? a BLENDER!! no joke. it was awesome. i then proceeded to run to the kitchen and make a smoothie. yus. it was win. :D

oh, and i got new copic lining pens. another win. and did i forget to mention my 50$ check from my grandma for books? :DDD i got a twilight themed gift card from my dad, who knows i hate twilight. :P i already ordered a book. YEAH!

oh dang. i just remembered we forgot to buy eggnog. D:<

oh, and i already drew a detailed drawing w/ my new pens. :DD i'm happy. although i should probably go to bed soon. and dan didn't call. by the way, said guy is currently in california. D:< no fair. oh well.

*grabs sketchpad+pens and goes to bed*

wow. something odd happened the other day. dan was, over, and as most of you know, my cats HATE coming out when someone's over, right? they actually came out, and LET HIM PET THEM! it appears that my cats approve of dan. :D

Happy Holidays to all my friends!