An Afternoon

Needed to make something today.  I'd thought about it last night, but I put it off.  Then finding myself with nothing to do in the afternoon... well okay, I had plenty to do, but nothing that couldn't be strategically "rescheduled" for later... ;)  Decided to pull everything out and mess around with art stuff I haven't touched in years.  You can definitely tell I don't remember any technique from when I was like 10 and learned this stuff, but oh well.  It was fun. :)

At the outset.... So many choices.

I think we have our decision... :)

I had an idea and I just followed it as it went along.  Just wanted to slap some color down, and then I decided I wanted something underneath the big sheet of newsprint like cording or something, a little like making a rubbing only not really.  Then I thought of Christmas lights... go figure...  Did the whole thing on top of a messy strand of Christmas lights.

I started with a lot of green and some patterns and directions started to take shape... seemed like grass to me, dunno.  I just kept going, pretty chaotic. :)

At the end... the cool thing about newsprint and lights is it can do this afterward:

I love this picture below:

And actually in between there I did something really rapid fire with the pastels but I didn't take pictures of it in process, my hands were ghastly... so skipping on to the watercolors...

And after a few hours, I was left with these:

Well, I had fun. :)

Snow Day!

Yet again, my first day of school is snowed out... This makes two of the locations where I take classes.  I have been out of school for over a month now.  Going stir crazy, that's for sure!  If I'd known I'd be stuck inside so much over these weeks, I'd have started some big project to work on, but the plan was to be back in classes two weeks ago!  Now I keep saying, "Oh, I'll just clean something or read something today, no point in starting anything big because class starts in three days."  Noooo beans.  Looks like I'll be moseying around another weekend, reading, guitarring, watching phys lectures online from MIT... which I actually prefer to my own phys class. :)

Last night I was again bored so I started fiddling around with some stuff and made a few things that are pretty much worthless but were fun to make anyway. :P  

First was a bobby pin with a daisy on it...  Will have to make a few more of these for the sisters. :)

 Next was a headband.  Now that I have shorter hair (which I love, I am NEVER going back to high-maintenance inches and inches and inches!) I'm wearing more headbands and scarves since there's not a whole lot else I can do with my hair...  Anyways, this took way longer than I expected haha, you never expect the circumference of your own head to be so...large... :P

 And then another headband, this time experimenting with crocheting with beads!  I've never done this before, but I've heard of it and I knew the general idea. What you do is thread the bead you want to use onto the string BEFOREHAND.  Then you make a slip knot and start working, pushing the beads out of the way until you want them.  At the right stitch, just slide the bead close to the hook and crochet it into the stitch.  Pretty darn easy. :)  

I am very much aware that I look evil in that picture... bwa. ha. ha. ha. ha.

I also did some experimenting with crocheting around a plastic ring.  I put a lot of gold beads into the thread before I started and just added one every ten stitches as I went around.  

At least the snow is pretty!  I'm still a fan of the snow, very muchly. :)

Much colder and wetter, I present my pictures from outside...  Got quite a dusting and it's frigid!  Sorry for such a long post, but it's mostly pictures and I haven't posted in awhile anyway... :)

Two Posts in One Day

Because I didn't wait long enough and just took some more pictures.  Apologies. :)

On another note, and I won't say much about this because it's really just dawning on me in it full glory... I was wrong about people.  And relationships with them.  They will hurt you at some point, whether they mean to or not, even if it's just the fact that you may lose them eventually.  That's not what gives people and relationships value OR what takes it away.  The point is that in the process you're learning and giving.  I thought I got that, I  knew it in my head, but it doesn't click until you find somebody that's more important than you are.  It stops becoming, "What can this friendship do for ME?  What can I learn that will make ME a better person?  What can this friendship help ME do/endure/acquire?"  You progress to a stage of, "I just want to be a better person so that I can EARN this friendship.  Like somehow I can deserve this amazing blessing in my life."  Then you find a point where you're not even in the picture anymore, it's about them.  The sooner I can take myself out of the picture, the better it is for them--complications go down, the focus can become outward instead of getting bogged down in the confusion going on in me.  I don't know if it's possible, but I want to be the kind of person they somehow see in me.  Believing in people is a really powerful weapon, so DO NOT underestimate it.  I may not ever really deserve what I've experienced, but I can sure as heck work my tail off trying to make their life better.  I'm getting off myself for once, or I'm trying to.  Forget me, I'm not the point here.  I want that to stick in my head and change the way I'm living.  There's no room for anxiety if you just don't really care what happens to you, it's about the other people.

Snow

I like.  Still going strong.  Feels really warm out.  Snow day at school.  It could be muuuuuuch worse. :)

Outgrown?

At this point in life, everything seems to be going about three hundred miles per hour over the speed limit.  "Now everybody, we're going to keep this down to a safe, steady pace, with lots of time for looking at the scenery and checking our instruments!"  Life: Riiiiiiiiiight.  *careens off anyway*  "Ladies and gentlemen, please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times... I'll be trying to keep on the track but it's going to be a wild ride!"

If it were a straight line, it'd be aaalll cool.  I can handle that.  You can look back, see where you've been, and look forward and see where you're going.  And everyone else around you can as well, and you can pick up with them where you left off quite easily.  Life: But what fun would that be?  Instead I'm making very imprecise turns all over the place, things changing rapidly and sometimes changing back.  I can't keep up with it all, much less communicate it to people!

Which is where the problem is.  Friend take a lot of work, if you haven't noticed lately.  They require frequent check-ups.  If you neglect this maintenance, you wind up broken down on the side of the road and nobody knows what the heck you're talking about anymore!  They're still back traveling a straight road and you've taken the exit ramp and are about four states away... cue an awkward conversation.  I've been there a dozen times.  Then they call you up, "Hey, where are you?" and you're like, "Well, I changed my mind... and then I changed it again, and then I changed it again... I'm a totally different person now... how's YOUR day been?"

Let it go a couple of months and then suddenly there's nothing to talk about.  No more shared interests, which is about the only fuel I'm capable of running on.  Sentiment is fine, but completely lost on me.  Which probably you all know already, haha.

I never thought like this before... never considered that friends could be "outgrown" and phased out.  I planned on being best friends with all my best friends for the rest of my blooming life.  And I still plan on being friends with all my friends, at least parting kindly with good memories, but I'm waking up now.  To the fact that people change.  Especially me right now.  And also that other people don't always like turning around to find a stranger at their backs.  So I need to do that gently.

I won't always have the same connections with everyone that I once had.  As I lose hobbies and pick up new ones, as my entire life really shifts gears in what I have to admit has been a short short time span, it's going to be difficult to pull that old-me out into the open and make her exercise her social skills.  I used to be a writer. I used to be a history buff.  I used to be into art and music mainly.  I still LIKE art and music, and I still like history to an extent.  Writing... I'm losing it.  It's not such a part of me as I may have thought it was.  But I'm definitely not guaranteeing it won't come back someday when I'm forty or so, haha.  But the point is my interests have changed.  It's not stories running through my head now, or accents or poetry.  Not for the most part.  It's equations and concepts and problems to solve, scientific facts and really random extremely nerdy trivia.  People don't like to hear that.  They expect you to get excited and bouncy about creative pursuits, or a new book coming out.  They do not expect a "fangirl" reaction to, say, implicit differentiation.  It will, repeat, will earn you blank stares.

So I spend all these years of my life building friendships with people who want to talk about and do things that are so far from my mind right now... it's hard to motivate myself.  Catching up is hard, since everything moves fast and gets away from me.  It would be the event of an entire afternoon to bring one person up to date sometimes.  And sometimes I don't want everyone up to date.  Sometimes I can't handle that kind of exposure.  This is the difficulty when very very important yet very very private things happen to me.  They change me but I can't explain them.

Bottom line(s):  It's hard to tell people this and do it without hurting them.  I'm not trying to hurt anyone.  I am always, repeat, always ready to listen.  Send me emails.  I read fast and I will write back.  Listening is not the problem.  The problem is me not being able to put things into words I'm ready for the world to hear.

It's hard to keep up with myself and everybody else.  It's hard to go back and play a role that I'm just not anymore.  A rock and a hard place.  And I'm still, if you'll recall, going three hundred miles per hour over the speed limit I'd prefer.

This is my explanation, my apology.  I'm not actually writing this to anybody in particular, but I know there are some of you I've hurt, completely unknowingly and unintentionally, by this distancing.  I don't want it to be like this, but I'm lost for a cure, at least for now... bear with me, okay?  Thank you.

AMZi

Merry Christmas!

I feel a great urge to speak Russian.  However, I do not speak Russian.  So you are spared. :)

Merry Christmas everybody!

Greenery and bows notwithstanding, we have no snow.  After two years of White Christmases shockingly, we appear to be back to your normal Kansas weather.  Gray.  I am not complaining.  Yesterday it was the right kind of gray, and Mom was all like, "What gloomy weather!" and I was surprised.  It hadn't occurred to me to dislike the weather.  Some of you will know what the right kind of gray means. :) :)

I love seeing our family doing the gift exchange.  You can definitely tell where the priorities are: Books and guns! What more can you want?  Lots of books, guns, and also music.  Which just goes to show the awesomeness. :)  Speaking of the guns, el hermano got a big airsoft assault rifle.  That's cool in itself, the thing is wicked accurate and besides looks intimidating!  BUT also, the manual is written in Chinese or something with THE most hilarious online-translator English version! Ha!  The best parts are as follows:

• ONLY FOR 18 YEARS OLD OR UP: Operation of this air gun for competition use is restricted to users YOUNGER than 18 years old.  
• ATTENTION PLEASE READ IT BEFORE USE IT.  It is for your to enjoy the fun of shoot that this soft ballistic gun is made.  
• [instead of "bullets" it always says "ballets"]
• Those who shoot mischievously or train the gun on people or animals will probably be punished by law. [but you might get away with it!]
• Your eyes will be hurt if the BB ballets shoots your eyes by chance, it is very dangerous.  So don't look close to the muzzle at any time.  [accompanied by illustrations :P]
• THE MUZZLE SHOULD BE DIRECTION AT THE SAFE DIRECTION!  [thanks for clearing that up...]  
• [there is a lid to cover the barrel of the gun when not in use] Shoot casually will cause great danger, so please shoot before you take away the lid [?? I think not!] and aim at the object.
• THOSE INCIDENT, DANGER, HURT, REPAIR CAUSED BY THE WRONG WAY OF OPERATION, READJUSTMENT, DISMANTLE ARE CLAIMED TO BE THE RESPONSIBILITY.
• Maintaining your fingers on the trigger may cause sudden discharge for some reasons, which is dangerous.
• Because of the design of the air gun, there are places subject to entanglement of your fingers.
• [next to a picture of the gun] The charming shape of gun!

Ha. ha. ha.  Anyways, remember what Advent's really about. :) It's rather amazing, if you think about it long enough. Good thing to do the loooooong Christmas Eve night when the dogs are barking and the lights outside are reflecting on the walls.  

Amzi

Been a Looong Time

I'm going to try and blog some over Christmas break.  Bit of a blogging failure, amn't I?  Sadly it's because I don't do anything bloggish or blog-worthy during the school year.  I've said before I doubt if y'all want to hear of my exciting (to me) escapades in calc and physics... :P  Oh well!

I'm trying to knit some lately, trying to finish that one last annoying sleeve and stitch together the sweater, so there may be pictures of that in the nearish future.

Mainly now I'm on break I'm just all about music.  Mainly my guitar.  Thinking about getting a mandolin... been wanting one for awhile, and I can haz Christmas money... :)  We'll see what happens!

Hospice today was...interesting.  I'm not sure why I do this to myself, it's a bit of a shock getting more involved after so long keeping to myself in the front room.  And always with the residentials.  Oh well, it's what I'm there for.  And I'll tell ya one thing, working there at all pretty much murders any sense of awkward/squeamish you have, but gently.  It's a real neat place like that. :)

Yep, seems like there's not much to say here I haven't already said to other people... and if you know me you know I CANNOT repeat myself.  Ever.  I can't rewrite, I can't edit even very much, and I can't re-tell stories I've already told.  I will try to keep that in mind in the next two/three weeks and remember to come here first. :)

Merry Christmas y'all!

AMZI