Breads and Milk

I'm going to have to take back what I said on my previous post about bringing on the storm. I'd like to send it back and send it back with all of the destruction it brought when it came to town. And to the little old lady at Wal-Mart warning me to get my "breads and milk" before this blew in, I apologize for laughing about you with the people I work with. You were right.

This wasn't the ice on the roads type storm that I was expecting. It was so much worse. The storm moved in on Monday evening with some light freezing rain. By 5AM on Tuesday, we were without power. Okay - this won't be so bad. The electric company said it would be back on by Wednesday - I could make it one day. It actually came back on just after lunch on Tuesday long enough to make some coffee (it was getting cold). However, after a loud, scary explosion somewhere on my mountain, the power was out again.

The storm grew uglier. Tuesday afternoon was spent huddled under a blanket on the couch listening to the constant sound of breaking tree branches. The loud pops were followed by the deafening crashes as huge branches and top halves of trees came falling to the earth, to my house, on top of my neighbor's houses, in my yard, and almost on my car (I was sneaky and moved my car before it was too late). For about 5 hours it was nonstop snapping and popping until it started to slow down. It was dark by this point, so I wasn't able to see the destruction until Wednesday morning.

We spent Tuesday night in a dark house, playing Trivial Pursuit, cooking soup (thankfully my house has a gas stove) and letting the temp get very close to freezing in our living room.

Wednesday morning was scary. The entire area looked as though a frozen tornado ripped through the area. There was no way we were getting the cars off of our street - thankfully we had a friend who parked his Jeep down the street and could get out. We drove around that day, taking pictures, enjoying the heater in the car, and eating in a heated fast food place.

Wednesday evening was like Tuesday - but much, much colder.

Here I find myself at Thursday. I'm at a place that is warm and has internet and tonight we're all staying at a friend's house who has power (warm beds are always a good thing). Who knows when my house will have power again - this weekend? Next week? Dunno.

Send me good thoughts - this is surreal, scary, sad, and oddly enough, beautiful. Nature can really do some amazing things - even if they aren't ideal.

Possible Closures Reported

It seems as though we have some doomsday type weather heading our way here in NW Arkansas (and part of Oklahoma and Missouri). 1-2" of ice, power outages, yadda yadda yadda. The clip above doesn't sound doomsdayish - but people have been out of their freakin' minds while shopping for supplies and the news hasn't exactly helped the situation at all.

Now, now, I know what you northerners are saying "anytime it just hints of cold weather, people down south do the freak out dance". Let me tell you, 1-2" of ice isn't the same as snow or cold weather. We're talking ice rink conditions out there people. I live in a very hilly place and the last thing I want to do is test the traction on my very old and slightly balding tires while heading west on North street (if you are from around here, then you know which street I'm referring to).

If the power does go out then I'll feel badly for those with electric stoves and no blankets - but I've got a gas stove, plenty of cans of soup, and blankets enough for the entire block.

Bring it on.

Honesty Scraps

So Melodie, over at For Once In My Life, decided she loved me so much that she would tag me to do something that actually requires me to sit and think.

Thanks Mel.

I am supposed to come up with 10 things you might not know about me. So, here goes nothing..

1. I dread, DREAD, going to Little Rock for my mom's appointments with her nuero surgeon because I might run into the one person that I could TOTALLY do without seeing for the rest of my life. Yeah, that day in January of 2004 pissed me off that much.

2. I did drama in Jr. High and part of HS and have many trophies to show for it. I was good at picking duet partners and I was known to tell you "no" if you wanted me to be in a scene with you but I thought you were not "up to par". Yeah, I was super nice about it too.

3. I use to play Nerf Wars in the Fine Arts complex at UT Almost (Arlington) until the sun came up (or until campus police found us) with Kappa Kappa Psi. We'd all bring nerf guns and hunt each other down. The ladies of Tau Beta Sigma decided I was on their black list for hanging out with the guys ('cause I was cool enough to and they weren't perhaps?) and things fell into place for me to abandon ship at UT Almost and head back to UT Austin (thank God for Nerf Wars)

4. My one music obsession is Elton John. I cannot get enough of him and secretly with I had been a groupie of his in the early 70s even though he didn't go for my... ahem... type. He was married to a girl once, it could have been me!

5. Okay, I lied just now, I have 2 music obsessions. The 2nd being Barenaked Ladies and more specifically - Steven Page. Yes, I would marry him too... especially now that he's unmarried. Who cares if he was busted for coke in upstate NY - I'm sure he learned his lesson and such.

6. The only thing that scares me when I'm home alone is myself. I can be perfectly fine and then I create these outrageous scenarios involving vicious ghosts and intruders and I'm upstairs and hiding under my blankets in no time. I'm not sure why I do that to myself. I just like to claim it's my amazing, overactive imagination and you all should be so lucky.

7. I dislike Ashlee Simpson with every bone in my body. And no, NWArkansas does not have a "Rock Doc" - phsaw!

8. The only reason I own a bassoon is because Yo Yo Ma himself told me to buy one - "You create your own destiny" he told me - yes me. That meant go spend a lot of money on some wood so you can be happy in life... so I did (it was the only sensible thing to do).

9. If I was single I'd move to San Francisco or Chicago. I wouldn't even think twice about it - I'd find a job and move... or save up and move and then find a job. Some people dwell on moving to big, exciting places, not me, I'd just go. However, I'm in a relationship that I want to keep and the sweet boy doesn't want to move to San Francisco - the jury is still out on Chicago.

10. I'm a bit high stress and cause myself many problems because of it. I've always been that way and I'm not sure why. If I'm stressed, I get hives, if I'm stressed, I get sick, I have somehow given myself what I think is an ulcer because of the stress, and I continue to take on more and more projects at home and at work. Don't tell me to take it easy, that won't work because then I'll be bored and that will stress me out. Some people just live with it and thrive on it, maybe I'm one of those people. It keeps me organized at least.

Well - there you have it - I think I'll tag Girlchild, Beehive, and Dancing Mooney - enjoy :)

Theatrical and such

During a recent trip to Little Rock, I ran across some vintage/antique (not sure which) brass theater seat numbers. At first I didn't realize what they were, I just knew they were going to be made into jewelry so I bought what they had. It didn't dawn on me what they were until I was taking a seat for a show at work and looked down as I entered the aisle and went "AHAH!". Funny how things like that work - I see these elements in the theater weekly, but didn't really recognize it at first.

I've been holding on to them since then. I wasn't sure what I wanted to use them for. Well, I knew they would turn into necklaces, but I wasn't sure what the look would be. After playing around with them for weeks, I finally settled on a simple, elegant, and lovely design. It's vintage inspired in colors but perfect to wear nowadays to a theater performance, dinner, or just to work.

Speaking of Little Rock, I'm heading back down there tomorrow with my mom and my sister for my mom's follow up appointment with her surgeon. I'm not sure we'll find out much on this trip - they will do a new MRI and let us know where we stand at this point, but I think it will be the next round of MRIs that will tell us the stuff we need to know to move forward with cancer treatment. Have I mentioned lately that brain cancer sucks? I feel like we're just waiting around for someone to tell us something and we can't actively go find that something ourselves.

In other news - we have a new president and I can quit pretending I was from Canada. President Obama's speech was so motivating and really has me looking forward to our future. I'm holding out hope for a speedy recovery from the 8 years of hell that my country has gone through.

Happy Tuesday everyone.

Something New

I broke out of the box today and made this:It's a wall hanging and I'm not sure if it is done yet... I'll look at it again tomorrow and think on it then.

I knew I wanted to do a patchwork style background. I used fabrics to represent the ground, green grass, the sky, etc. I then attached an embroidery hoop to give it some "depth". I knew I wanted a tree and bird theme but did not want to embroider the tree so I found a stick that looked pretty tree like to me, and attached it with some thread. I embroidered the spring leaves and the blue birds and viola - a wall hanging inspired by nature.

Singer and Craft Magazine are hosting a contest and if I still like this tomorrow, it will probably be my entry. It was fun to do something different for a change - perhaps I do this more often.

Hey kids... what does the Storque bring?

It brings my bracelet for all of Etsy to see... or all who read the Storque.

Go see the article here: http://www.etsy.com/storque/how-to/shop-makeover-series-feature-friendly-photos-3222/

I'm really excited that they chose my before and after images and am doing a happy wiggle in my chair.

For those who have followed my shop from the beginning, you know that I've gone through a few picture schemes. The first ones were so bad that I get embarrassed just by looking at them in Flickr. But I leave them there, they are part of my seller evolution. I went through a couple of other styles before landing with the white, sunny background that I have now for most of my items.

I've been playing around with lighting and props lately on some of my new designs. Perhaps another change is in the future for my shop pictures?

At Mom's

If you read my last post then you know that I spent this past weekend out at my mom's. She lives on the old family farm which is nestled in the woods, over looking Beaver Lake. It's very quiet out there. You can spend minute upon minute sitting out side listening to the birds, to the wind in the trees, and to nothing, all at the same time. You can gaze at the bald eagles that make their way down here this time of year, and dream lazily of hikes off through the trees. It's a wonderful place, it always has been.

I did help my mom out with some small projects, but mostly I reset myself. I was able to spend time with my mom, talk with her, laugh with her and gossip with her. A few months ago, those were things that I honestly didn't think I'd be doing right now. It's amazing what our family has been given with the progress my mom is making and I needed, really needed this past weekend with her.

Nothing profound was discussed, nothing amazing discovered, we just sat, talked, I knit, I did some cooking, we watched tv, read magazines and just spent the weekend on the farm.

I spent evenings in awe of how bright the moon was this weekend and spent nights sleeping under the comforting quilt in the pictures here in this post. It was vacation just 15 minutes from home.

I wouldn't have traded this past weekend for anything in the world... except for my mom to completely beat this cancer.