Vampire Bite Choker – Be Smitten. Get Bitten.

This is my latest creation. It’s a wide black velvet ribbon choker necklace with crystal drops hanging down like blood from a vampire bite.

It’d be a great Halloween costume piece or for cosplaying at cons. I wear mine around town. Why not? Some days I pretend I’m a vampire slayer who got a little too close to a dark and sexy fangboy. Some days, I’m little more than a willing slave.

This year has been a crazy one for me. Between the success of my husband’s new audio company, Schiit, the continued success of Twilight’s Fancy and all the writing I’ve been doing with my best friend Jen as Ashleigh Raine, it’s been awesome. Although, I gotta admit my favorite part has been getting to call my husband a SchiitHead. Like, he really is…and he doesn’t get mad when I call him that! How awesome is that?

When I’m not building vampire chokers, I’m soldering circuit boards. But next year… Well, let’s just say that Jen and I have many, many plans we hope to execute. I for one have many costumes I’d like to build, too. I just hope I can find the time to do everything I want to do.

I gave Jen a vampire choker for her birthday. It just seemed fitting since our friendship started around when the Lost Boys premiered in theaters: October of 1987. We met in 1988 and one of our favorite things to do was watch Lost Boys-—on VHS!—-at my house because Jen’s mom wouldn’t let her watch R rated movies yet. I think I wore out that video tape. Seriously. I used to put on that movie nearly every day after school while I did my homework.

Alex Winter played Marko and wore a like totally awesome jacket with patches and chains—-oh, it really hit my fashion-ometer as far as incredible coolness. It pegged it, actually. Pegged it so hard I chose one of my denim jackets from my closet and set to work embellishing it with rhinestones and chains and all sorts of craziness.

I still have that jacket.

It weighs about ten pounds now.

I just got my husband to finally take a picture of me wearing the infamous Dragonlady jacket. Some of the stones and whatnot have fallen off over the years, but that gives it the proper worn look…like Marko’s jacket.

I just find it incredible that because of my experiences, all the 250+ hours I put into that jacket, when it came time to do the vampire choker, not only was it a natural extension of my love of vampires, but I also already knew how to do all the components…and make it reversible. Yeah. The blood dangles can go on the left or the right without having to unhook anything. Just turn it around.

I love how certain things have stayed with me over the years. Certain events, people, experiences never really age as far as I’m concerned. There are things that I still talk about as though they happened yesterday. Things that I did that still feel like yesterday. And I wouldn’t change a thing…well, perhaps I’d blog about it all more…

In any case, if you’d like to get your very own vampire bite choker, click here!

The Schiit has hit the fan…

My husband decided he wanted to get back into the Audio biz. Back in the day, he designed some quality amplifiers for a company called Sumo. I guess you can take the boy out of engineering, but you can’t take the engineering out of the boy.

Meet Asgard… a limited-production, hand-made headphone amplifier that was designed to make even iPod earbuds sound amazing–and to drive high-dollar headphones to audio nirvana. To see all the specs and even place an order, click here.

In one of my early college years, I started to take a basic electronics class. I had already taken a year of electrical shop where I learned about residential wiring as well as fundamentals that helped me do complete rewires of theatrical lighting fixtures. At that time, theatrical lighting was moving further and further toward electronic light boards, so I figured an electronics class or two would be a good investment of my time.

But I got sick right as we were getting into practical applications. I’d learned how to read schematics, but got sick right as we were starting to do lab work. I fell behind and never quite caught up. My teacher took pity on me and didn’t flunk me, he gave me an incomplete. During that semester, I was taking Auto Shop and various Stagecraft classes–none of which had the kind of homework and tests that Electronics had, so falling ill didn’t really change my grade or participation.

I never did go back and complete the coursework.

I suppose I’m getting the real world equivalent, though!

My husband designed the whole thing inside and out. I designed the production line. I knew my limitations with such basics as remembering what the colored stripes on resistors mean and the fact that I’d never actually soldered more than a connection or two on a circuit board. (I’ve done tonnage of cables including 19-pin Socapex and various XLR type audio cables, but my experience with circuit boards was fairly limited.) So, working within those boundaries, knowing I’d become more proficient at everything with each unit I put together, I developed a flexible system so that as I figured out better ways or a better sequence, all I had to do was rearrange, not restructure.

I went from about an hour and a half per board to under an hour within my first 20-25. After that, it’s just a matter of nuts and bolts aside from testing and packaging.

We’ve only barely launched, but sales are already picking up. The Asgard even made it into the Top 20 on TrendHunter!

Yeah, I really feel like we’re on to something here. To me, one of the funniest things is that when I do the listening test, I use music I know very well and love to hear and I sometimes forget that I’m actually working and I’ll spend twice as long just listening because it sounds. SO. AWESOME! through Asgard.

Our follow up, Valhalla, is nearing full production and I’m excited to take what I learned designing the production system for Asgard and apply it to Valhalla. It’ll be my first time with tubes as Asgard was my first with MOSFETs. Life loves me and I love life. It sure is sounding great these days.

How to make a ribbon choker necklace

I’ve done a bigger, better tutorial at ribbonchoker.com about how to make a ribbon choker necklace or ribbon bracelet.

I’d like to thank  my wonderful husband for taking all the photographs without too much grumpiness. That was very sweet of him. I suppose it helps that he’d just gotten a new camera and was excited to use it. I know that while he loves me, shooting me building ribbon chokers isn’t likely his favorite pastime, so that new camera came in handy.

Although, he ended up using my camera for much of it. Anyway, this was a project that took me about a year to complete, but I only recently got the domain name. I dunno why I didn’t think of it sooner. I nearly fell outta my chair when I saw that it was available. The tutorial here on this site is okay, but ribbonchoker.com is far more comprehensive, with better pictures that open up into larger ones so you can see what I’m talking about.

I’ve got a lot of other things going on in my world right now. One I can’t talk about yet, a few I’ll be able to talk about soon and one that I can more fully announce any day now.

If you’ve followed my twitter feed or have friended me on facebook, you might occasionally read that I’m soldering circuit boards. It’s no secret that I’m a multitalented chick-a-dee, but for instance, the day we photographed the tutorial, we also moved a few more units through production. My husband has designed a solid state headphone amplifier and we are just about ready to start shipping units.

Once upon a time, he was a high end audio engineer and I guess he sorta missed those days when a friend of his gave him a headphone amp. After listening only once, I started hearing him say that he could do a better one…with mosfets. (New to electronics? So am I. In fact, don’t tell him, but I don’t exactly know what a mosfet is, but I know where the go on the circuit board and how to solder them in place and attach them to the heat sink.)

Anyway, while he was chugging away at the design, I was putting together my ribbon choker tutorial. Occasionally, we’d meet somewhere in between and help each other out. He’s terrible at making ribbon chokers, but I’m really good at soldering circuit boards. We make a great team.

When we’re really ready to make this officially official, I’ll announce our company name and website. These amplifiers make my favorite music sound awesome. I listen while I solder.

I’m also still selling vintage sewing patterns, ribbon chokers and Twilight’s Fancy necklaces in my ArtFire shop.

A Little Late…

…But the man was legendary, so I suppose my tribute can’t possibly be too late.

I learned recently that the man who taught me how to properly swab a deck and cuss like a sailor died this year.

Read the obituary for John Delaney, Former Scene Shop Foreman of San Joaquin Delta College, here

When I arrived in the theater department at Delta College in 1992 because “I’d taken a theater class in high school and thought maybe I might like to try it again”, I was lucky enough to also be in the cast of Spoon River Anthology. (Not a whole lot of surprises here. It was a cast of 78 and I think 79 or 80 auditioned.)

Because we were all required to procure a chair for us to sit in on stage, I was escorted into the bowels of the theater. But someone had already snagged the chairs cushy enough for the rich Dora Williams (Yep, I played a murderess) so I went back upstairs into the scene shop.

JD hooked me up with a chair carcass and then proceeded to show me a thing or two about a thing or two and that I’d need to get some fabric and some stuffing, but he had the upholstery tape I’d need.

Ummm… Okay, JD. I’ll take your word for it. I ain’t never redone a chair before, but what the hell?!

Over the next week, JD showed me how to use the old rotten fabric to be a pattern on the new fabric I got. He showed me how to use wood stain. He showed me how to use that upholstery tape across the frame so my butt wouldn’t fall straight through the chair. He showed me how to cover the bottom and staple it so that it wouldn’t be ugly.

In turn, I showed him I can build anything I put my mind to.

During opening weekend, I got laid off from my little craft store job. John White noticed I was upset and at the end of the conversation, told me not to worry because on Monday I would be on the clock in the scene shop.

That chair JD showed me how to recover was what got me the job. I still have that chair. I’ll never get rid of it. That thing reminds me how far I’ve come and how much farther I can go with just a little bit of help.

Over the next three years, I learned how to build flats, cut steel pipe, wield a saber saw, safely use a pneumatic nail gun, paint without dribbling, get straight on every screw, sew backdrops, use the fish on the table saw, build banisters, properly mop a stage, hang scenery, use a chassis punch, operate a band saw with incredible precision, lament about and fix old cars (namely his old Dodge truck and my ’68 Mustang fastback), use a wood lathe, tap and die nuts and bolts, wash paint brushes and cuss like there was no tomorrow.

But even through all the scenic conundrums we faced, JD always had a plan of attack. He always knew how to approach the project even if he didn’t know for sure how it’d work out.

And then there was one time when I was a Master Carpenter for our production of Hair. The director wanted two puppet heads made for Mom and Dad. Their mouths had to move…only powered by the jaws of the actors who’d be wearing the heads.

The small head had a diameter of about 2 feet and was only 2 feet tall. The other was almost 3 feet tall. They were molded by the costume department and built from papier mache.

Once dry, they were brought into the scene shop. They were now officially “our problem”.

Me: Hey JD, the heads are here.
JD: Shit.
Me: What kind of guts are we gonna put in them?
JD: Well shit, they got nothin’ in ’em?
Me: Yeah, they’re just shells. What’re we gonna do?
JD: Goddamn. I dunno.
(I was stunned. My jaw dropped.) Me: What? You don’t know?
JD: No fuckin’ clue.
Me: But…You don’t…I don’t…How are we… You’re just fuckin’ with me, right?
JD: Nope. I dunno how we’re gonna do it, but we are, goddammit. Somehow. Even if we gotta stuff ’em with goddamn Kotex, these bastards are gonna work.

We brainstormed for a few days. JD had the idea to take a couple of old hardhats we had laying around and affix all-thread to them and flush mount it through the heads with j-nuts (or them other similar nuts that are escaping my memory at the moment but mount flush and press fit so as not to turn).

So we got the hardhats in there okay, but that didn’t solve how to hold them to the actors’ heads nor did that solve how to make them talk.

We bounced a few more ideas off of each other. Heat setting, self-adhesive velcro worked as sturdy chin straps. But again, how to make ’em talk?’ We were running out of time.

JD took a box cutter to the mouths and then pondered the shells he’d cut out.

JD: We need a fulcrum…and something to mount these pieces of shit to. Maybe a hinge.
Me: Ummm… Okay, but these are hollow and we still gotta figure out how the actors can make them talk.

The light bulb went on above his head and he retreated to the tool cage for some two-part foam. He filled ’em up and we shaped them a little so that the actors could still get them on, but all the while, we kept wondering what kind of hinge and mechanism we were gonna build to make them actually move with the actors’ mouths.

Somehow the next day while I was putting some finishing touches on something else, the idea came to me.

Me: JD! I figured it out! Did you figure out how we’re gonna make ’em talk? How we’re gonna attach the mouths?
JD: Nope, the bastards are still sittin’ there.
Me: We can use lightweight fabric for a hinge.
JD: Well goddamn. Yeah, we could.
Me: And with all that foam in there, we can shove a couple of pieces of coat hanger into it and put a piece of cardboard on them to hold ’em steady.
JD: Shit, let’s try it!

We did. When I put that first puppet head over mine and made the mouth move, we were both so glad…well, relieved anyway… It was only a day or two before dress rehearsals, but we’d come through even without having any idea how we were gonna make it work.

As you can tell, I look back fondly at my days in the scene shop. I learned so much about stagecraft and even more about life. I don’t freak out during crises. I don’t. The show must go on and there’s always a way to make it happen even if you don’t know how.

Goodbye JD. And thank you for EVERYTHING!

My New Friend

This month was pretty tough for me, pet-wise. Most has turned out okay, but not all.

First, I’d accidentally left my garage door open without knowing that my big tortoise was in the garage. Of course he wandered away. And tortoises are not smart enough to come when you call them. Or at least mine is not smart enough!

So, I started checking the LA County Animal Shelter website because they post photos of animals in real time as they arrive at any shelter in the county. When I first went there, I saw a few turtles, even a Sulcata tortoise, but my guy wasn’t there.

I was kinda surprised, though. I didn’t really think the shelter would have turtles and tortoises, I was just out of options and figured I’d exhaust my resources before giving up.

A day or so later, one of my water turtles bit a tankmate and did enough damage that I had to put the poor little fellow down. RIP, Piggy.

A week later, my neighbors found Toad (my big tortoise) frolicking behind their house. Yay! But obviously, nothing can bring Piggy back.

Although the ordeal did give me an idea.

Obviously, there were troubles in the turtle tank that still needed to be resolved… My two girl turtles had always been aggressive. The Piggy incident was not the first time they’d bit another. Usually, no damage was done, but that was also back when they were smaller. Turtles will bite anything…dead, alive, tied down, floating…they’ll bite it. That’s why you can’t put plastic plants or anything non-edible or small in a turtle tank. They’ll eat ’em anyway and likely hurt themselves because of it.

As it turned out, our boy turtles are all mellow, but those girls…those crazy girls who grow faster than boys have always been rambunctious. We’d even noticed in the last few months that the boys almost always kept their tails curled in–as though if they didn’t they’d get bit. The girls were so much bigger than they were and therefore stronger and tougher.

Well, how about the animal shelter? I kept an eye on the website, waiting for a boy turtle to show up. My two girls would be fine together, but they just didn’t play nice with the boys and they ate all the food before the boys could get two pieces down their necks. They’d be great for a family other than ours.

So when the first boy turtle showed up on the site, I made the phone call to show my interest in him. Within an hour later, I put the girl turtles in a bucket and headed to the shelter that had the boy.

I was the first incoming and outgoing turtles for a couple of the clerks there. I guess not many people know about the shelter for adopting turtles. They’re only $10! Incoming and outgoing, $10 each. Yeah, way cheap!

I went there with two in a bucket, I came home with one. He’s about the same size as the two girls combined, but mellllllllllllllow. I suppose that might have something to do with him being abused.

Someone painted him. A lot. I can’t tell for sure what kind of turtle he is because I can’t see what his shell looks like. By the rest of him, he’s probably a Pacific Pond Turtle, but I can’t be sure until I clean all the paint off. It’s gonna take days, maybe weeks because I can’t do it all at once for fear of killing him with the toxicity.

However, last night my husband held the turtle while I cleaned off a couple scales. This morning, Graffiti ate breakfast with his two tankmates. I think he’s gonna be okay.

Vintage Sewing Patterns

As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, I’m not only making beaded jewelry, I’m also back into another of my loves: vintage sewing patterns.

My best friend got married over ten years ago, I’m not sure exactly which year in the late 1990s because that part of my life is kind of a blur, but anyway, I was to be one of her bridesmaids. The dresses would be easy because we all went on a shopping trip and found what we needed. Tons of fun. However, there was still the rehearsal that I seriously did not have a dress for.

This was back in my hardcore theater technician days. I wore all black jeans and t-shirts, all the time because it was easier. I even carried my wrench in my back pocket, flashlight and multi-tool on my belt. I spent more time backstage than I did working on my car or doing homework. I did not own any dresses.

But I love shopping at thrift stores.

And at one of them, there was a vintage sewing pattern for 29 cents. It was for a cute, 1970s full-length dress with little flutter sleeves. It was a size too big for me, but whatever. It was so cheap, it didn’t matter.

Oh yeah, did I mention I couldn’t afford to buy new clothes? Let alone a dress that was in brand new shape to wear to the rehearsal?

Anyhow, I hit up the discount fabric store and got some floral fabric. It was lightly tie-dyed navy blue with very small pink flowers on vines. I didn’t have the money for a long zipper, so I planned to do some kind of front closure. I didn’t know how to do button holes on my thrift store sewing machine, so I found some snaps on the sale rack.

From there, I cut out the pattern, didn’t adjust it properly to fit or to accommodate the snaps. Whoops!

In order to resurrect the dress, I just went with it and added a tie to the waist to pull it in. Once it was on, no one could tell that I’d screwed up the pattern. At least I couldn’t and I got a ton of compliments on that sweet dress.

But then it shrank when I laundered it and since I couldn’t wear it anymore, I donated it back to one of the thrift stores I frequented. Sometimes I wish I’d kept it just for the memories.

Now, I still don’t buy new clothes and I wear mostly vintage…

And now that my Etsy store is full of vintage patterns, I can make whatever I want…and modify it properly for a change! I’m not selling that flutter sleeve dress pattern, though. One of these days I’m gonna redo the navy blue dress…the right way!

I’m a Busy Girl

It has been awhile since last I blogged. I got a little busy. Being a one-woman show, starting a business can be time-consuming.

Since last I blogged, I’ve started regularly having a booth at the Santa Clarita Open Air Market (aka The Saugus Swap Meet at the Saugus Speedway).

At the moment, I’m there on Saturdays, Sundays and Tuesdays, but I might scale back a little because of another venture I’ll get into later in this post.

I’ve been having a great time out there. I’m always looking for deals, so my work is priced accordingly and I’ve always got stuff on sale just for the fun of it.

Plus, I make jewelry while I tend my booth. You can pick out beads and have me make them into something for you (earrings are only $5!) or I usually bring some from home and fill custom orders while I’m there. I also make ribbon choker necklaces and ribbon bracelets.

There isn’t much I cannot do…one way or another.

Okay, now for the bit I said I’d get to later in this post…

In my Etsy store, I’ve started listing vintage patterns…mostly from the 60s-80s. See, my closets are full of clothes from those decades, too. There are a lot that I’m just not wearing, so I’m photographing them and also getting them listed at Etsy. If all I’m doing is looking at them, why not take pictures (which are grrrrreat to look at!) and let the clothes move further on their journey?

Don’t get me wrong, I still wear mostly vintage:

But I’ve got racks and racks of such great stuff that it’d take me a few years to wear it all if I wore something different every day.

Yeah. I’ve got a lot of clothing.

And vintage patterns go hand-in-hand with the clothing. I’ve got about 150 patterns listed and at least 300 more ready to roll. It’s just a matter of time. Being a one-woman show, I don’t have the army I’d need to get everything posted, but that’s okay. It’s nice to have something to show for all my hard work.

Plus, since I enjoy vintage clothes so much, seeing the patterns is just as much fun. I’ve held back a few so that I can make outfits out of them. Some will be out of vintage fabrics and some will be out of later stuff, but all will be fun and well worth the time invested. The plan is to use those as the vacation, the treat, the celebration of things to come.

Forsaken Talisman

While the cat’s away, this mouse tried to play, but ended up working anyway.

Oh well. I’m glad for it. The print galleys for Forsaken Talisman arrived. It’ll release in paperback in February 2010. In the mean time, Jen and I are working on the next in the Talisman Bay series, Eternal Talisman. It’s gonna be awesome.

During my read through of Forsaken Talisman, I remembered so many nuances and hints of things to come and just so much fun stuff. In fact, after I finished reading it, I ended up reading what we’ve got so far of Eternal Talisman.

I just can’t wait. While Jen’s on vacation, I’m tasked with drafting the next scene and I’m so glad I read Forsaken Talisman before I dove in. Just so I can have fresh eyes. It takes Jen and I so long to write full length novels that it’s easy to forget details if they aren’t in the outline…or if I don’t get the “what were you thinking? Did you forget?” phone call that follows me sending a scene to Jen! I dunno why, but she’s just that much better at remembering what’s been written, what’s been outlined and what we’ve got planned, but aren’t gonna write into a book just yet than I am. I get them all confused. Oh well.

In February of 2010, Ashleigh Raine’s Forsaken Talisman will be available. We’ve added over 20K words to it. Yeah, several new scenes, a few new takes on existing scenes, lots of changes. It’s hardly the same book that it was the first time around. And we’re so thankful for the second chance.

Here’s the blurb:

Kidnapped and mind-wiped by the Shadow Walkers’ greatest nemesis, Skylar has no memories of her own, except for her name. All she knows is what memories she does possess belong to someone else—as does her face—and that she can’t trust anyone, including herself.

Shadow Walker Dusty Clements goes against direct orders to rescue Skylar and take her into hiding. It’s the only way to get to the truth, and keep her out of the hands of an enemy who could use her to wipe out the entire organization. The last complication Dusty needs is to fall for her.

As Dusty and Skylar work to uncover the secrets of her past, they discover a mystery more than twenty years in the making, and a love they can’t deny.

The enemy has one more trick up his sleeve though—a magical kiss capable of probing the deepest secrets of the mind. All he needs to bring the Shadow Walkers down is to get his lips on Skylar one more time…

To read more about it–including excerpts and deleted scenes–click here to go to the Ashleigh Raine website!

It ain’t the greatest

I really need to remember to snap more pics while I’m building stuff. In this case, I didn’t snap any. Although, given that I did make 4 ugly shirts on the way to this only slightly less ugly one, I’m not real sure I should sear your retinas with all that ugliness.

Anyhow, Here’s what I wore to the New Kids on the Block concert last Friday. It’s not the best picture and it’s not the best outfit, but I always build something when I go to their shows. Not because I think they care what I’m wearing, but because otherwise, I’d never actually make anything for myself. I used to make outfits for when I was a seatfiller. My Grammy outfit is still in my closet and I’ve worn my American Music Awards quite a few times since then, too. It’s all incentive to stay the same size.

Admittedly, there are certain things I like to do… Stretch pants, stretch velvet, parts that flow when I spin around. I dunno why, I just like those things. And I usually like to show very little skin. That’s probably why I flailed so much on the concert outfit. In comparison:

This was what I made to wear to the Grammys.

Back to the concert outfit… The fabric is burn-through velvet. I got a few yards in 1999 because it was just so awesome to me. Then, in 2004, I found a partial bolt for $1/yard. I bought the whole damn thing…figuring of course that I’d use it for ‘something’. Well, that something had arrived.

I’d designed it in my head for about two months prior. Nothing actually turned out like what was in my head. I even screwed up the pants. They were supposed to be a little longer. Whoops. Oh well. My seatfiller boots went great anyway.

Initially, I was going to do this cute half shirt on the top and make a bunch of tassels to hang down just above my knee somewhere. Then, that morphed to a tank top…to a long shirt similar to a dress…to a backless, but longer top. When all was said and done, I ended up with a short halter. It’s okay, but not my best work.

I’d never built a halter before and I didn’t have a pattern to pull the shape I wanted, so I just had to guess and drape and make it up as I went along. I only had a few days to get my act together, so once all my important parts were covered, I pretty much had to be satisfied.

Yes, the necklace is holding up the center of the halter. It actually looked better that way rather than letting it hang.

The necklace was also an experiment. It’s my first triple-decker. I might make more, but not necessarily out of crystal unless I receive special requests. 90% of the beads in this particular necklace are upcycled from my grandmother’s broken necklaces. They’d needed restringing when they were given to me in high school (some even earlier!). I kept all the beads around for ‘just the right’ necklace.

That was the only part of this whole outfit that turned out…and was even better in person than what I’d dreamt up in my head. The sparkle on that thing was incredible. It also weighs a lot, though.

I mis-measured the waistline and cut the elastic too big. Luckily it was snug enough not to look too bad. The skirt isn’t really a skirt. It’s just a bit of fabric attached to the waistband and I cut it to give some nice folds. I’d feel better about the skirt if my sewing machine had gotten along better with it. The bobbin kept barfing. I almost gave up, but again, I was pressed for time. The halter top was already done. All I needed were the pants.

Because of the burnthrough aspect of the velvet, I needed to use two layers in a few important spots. I suppose the outfit might’ve turned out better if I’d had more time, but I’m not positive. The good news is that I learned soooooooooooooooooooo much from this adventure that I’m betting the next outfit I make from that fabric will be a billion times better. I already have a few ideas.

I still wanna try the tassels. I’ve never done them. They’d be the same as the ties on the back of the halter…and those went off without a hitch. Here’s hoping I can do a better second rendition.

Or at least use up the remaining 17 yards on the partial bolt!

I Can’t Stand It Anymore!

It’s after 1AM and I just gotta get blog. I just gotta. I’ve gone too long since my last post. There are many really great reasons for that, too, though.

I’ve been making lots and lots of necklaces, developing new designs, even selling them at swap meets just to do that inevitably fun ‘something’ with them this time around.

I just got home from a New Kids on The Block concert. They were awesome as always. I even met them ahead of the show. Tonight was my seventh time. Back in the day, I went to 9 concerts, but was never able to meet them. I suppose I’m making up for that now and I’m sooooooooooo glad for it. They were absolutely worth the wait.

Because I’m too lazy when it comes to myself, I use the concerts as incentive/inspiration for me to create more outfits. I haven’t even twittered the last few days because I was making a little halter top and pants/skirt. I’ve never done a halter top before, so that was quite an experience. I didn’t even have a pattern I could fudge from. I just had to do it on the fly. The pants were easy, though. Yoga pants. I can whip up a pair of ’em in less than an hour. Then, I draped a quasi-skirt over the top.

Yoga is another thing I’ve been doing more of. I barely talk about it on my blog here, but I absolutely love yoga and all that it allows me to do and feel and be. Bending, stretching, twisting…and building tons of strength…while really taking control by doing the poses and in turn, they do me, good golly, I wish I could live on my mat.

I built another website. It’s not completely finished yet, but it’s damn close. Tomorrow, I’ll be helping out at a TAPS boot camp. I absolutely love being a TAPS member. Ghosts were people, too. There’s no reason to be afraid of them. Yeah, strangeness abounds when they’re active, but that’s only if you refuse to admit what your senses are telling you. Some of the most interesting people I’ve met are dead and I plan to meet many, many more.

It seems I’ve got my hands in a little bit of everything these days and I wouldn’t have my life any other way. In fact, just the other day I was telling someone about how even two years later, I still have trouble believing I was paid to drive a Lamborghini Gallardo, a Porsche 911 Turbo and 2 Ferrari F430s. These are the kinds of things that happen in my life and I wouldn’t trade them for the world.

However, I really should blog more about them!

Anyhow, a few weeks back, at a swap meet, I scored a composition ball-jointed antique doll body. It needs to be restrung, but so do several of my other dolls–some are even on display smashed between two others so that it’s not obvious their arms aren’t really attached. Hell, some of them, their heads are just sitting on their bodies. One good earthquake and they come trembling down. Is it wrong for me to find that hilarious?

Anyhow, I wanna blog about restringing. I’ve never done it before, so I wanna see if I can do it.

My cars need some work, too. I’ve had the replacement speaker for my Prowler over 2 years now, at least. Plus, I’m finally sick of the manual switch on the fan in my ’68 Fastback. Well, it’s not really a switch. When I go to drive the car, I have to plug the fan in or it won’t turn on at all. Heaven forbid I should leave it on while I’m in yoga class. I’d come out to a dead battery and that would be very, very bad. I’ve got the proper thermostatic relay switch. I just need to install it. The wiring is already done and everything. I dunno why such a quick job has gotten backed up in my queue.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll also be doing a lot of writing. Jen’s handed the current few chapters to me. One to rewrite/edit/change, the other to draft. Eternal Talisman is gonna be an amazing book when we’re through with it. The characters come alive. They live, they love, they fight, they laugh, they lead very tumultuous lives, but yet somehow they pull it all together and help each other through.

If I can’t be back at the New Kids on the Block concert right now, I’d like to be in Talisman Bay. Maybe I’ll dream myself there tonight. That would be awesome. Have a wonderful weekend!

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