Right now, my life is a bouquet of stress. Many different varieties of stress.

1. My little brother got married this weekend. It was a pretty good trip, despite the long, long, long hours in the car, and the fact that there is nothing my digestive tract hates more than traveling. Doubly so now that I've been on a relatively low-carb diet for two months. All of the rich/carb-y food of traveling/the reception have been wreaking havoc on my stomach. Not to mention, it cost us $500 to travel to the wedding. I was glad I went, but we are buying a house right now, and that's $500 I didn't really have.

2. Did I mention homebuying is expensive? Jesus christ. And the paperwork. The paperwork has given Jason a whole swath of new grey hair. We are going through a CDA loan because it gives us an extra $5,000 towards closing costs. Unfortunately, CDAs are bonkers. We have had to file paperwork to certify that money transfers from one spouse to another do not constitute "gifts," but rather "here's my half of rent/BGE/Verizon/etc." They are going over all of our finances with the finest of fine tooth combs.

3. Our being away apparently threw the cats into tailspin. Nox puked everywhere. Olive poo-sploded the second we got in the door (which was not later than her usual bathroom time). Mim developed an acute UTI, and we have a vet appt for her at 4:30. She's currently unhappily chilling out in a crate with a tiny little litterbox, and peeing tiny dimes of pee every five minutes. I caught it relatively quickly-- the behavior started about two hours ago-- but still. More money. At this point, I am resolved to never again leave the house, because inevitably, one of the cats requires a vet visit within 48 hours of my return.

4. It's a good thing I had a sale pre-set to go and began advertising it last week. So far, it's been modest, but assuming I can actually get some work done this week amid a stream of constant interruptions (not even exaggerating a little), I will be putting up 40+ new pieces and that should be nice money if some of them sell.



20% off of everything at Sihaya Designs, and 20% of all candles at Sihaya And Company. Yes, there are deals for combined shipping if you want candles AND jewelry. Yes, there are deals for combined shipping if you want earrings tonight and a pendant on Friday. Details are here.

5. I also had to unexpectedly buy a new computer battery & charger, because mine straight-up died last week. JFC, I feel cursed.

6. In the realm of cool-ish news, last week, I was dealing with the kind of insomnia that left me greeting the sunrise. So instead, I channeled it into a project: The Black Tapes Mysteries Resource. It was really neat when The Black Tapes tweeted it out to their followers. I've gotten a fair readership in a relatively short time.



I think that's all that's fit to print. I desperately need a shower, so I'mma go do that before I lose my ever loving mind. Or cry. Crying is becoming more and more of an option.

Be forewarned, there are lots of spoilers under the cut.

( STAR WARS SPOILERS UNDER HERE.Collapse )

Due to a small snafu, I actually have a second day off in a row. It's pretty nice, considering I've been too busy to do much self-care lately. Business has been decent but very busy-- I've been working on back to back wholesale orders.

I have something like 4 candles left from my sale. The candles sold fairly quickly, and now I'm trying to decide if I'm going to bring any of those scents back for the next round. I feel like it's too early to start working on fall formulations, but that's what I really want to do!

I desperately need to clean my bathroom-- everything is seemingly covered in a fine layer of glitter and pink hair, and then I was thinking of indulging in a fancypants bath.

I did write a long, rambly essay about lit crit techniques as applied to popular media (movies & tv) yesterday. 3,000 words, because I'm wordy and can't help it. It's here: http://sihayadesigns.tumblr.com/post/122221220658/death-of-the-author-criticism-and-popular-media

Many things! In bullet points!

-- Mainly, I worked a bunch. It took me 4 hours to pack orders on Saturday. So many steps, omg. I also did some pearl knotting work, ordered supplies, and did preliminary work on custom orders.

-- Saw ParaNorman. Full disclosure: I tend not to be too into animated films. I don't think they're inferior or childish by any means, but they just don't often grab me like live-action films do. Anyway, I loved ParaNorman. I think it should be required viewing for all schoolkids AND their parents. Parable-ness aside, the animation was... interesting. Definitely a gorgeous film, but in a lot of ways reminiscent of old-school stop-motion, even though it had a distinctly new-school Coraline stop-motion vibe. Anywhoo, it was a good movie.

(I was glad that Laika didn't end up making a Tim Burton-esque film, considering the horror elements. I mean, I like Tim Burton and all, but his last five years of movies have been so tired and repetitive, both in terms of aesthetic and theme, to the point where he's treading water and not making any new headway. I have no desire to see Frankenweenie because it looks SO stereotypically Burtonesque.)

-- Went on a mini shopping spree. It's been a while since I had any fun money, so I did splurge a little bit for myself. I took advantage of the $5 for $15 antibacterial soap sale at Bath & Body Works (Warm Apple Cider smells amaaaaazing) and picked up some Autumn Leaves oil from Yankee along with a handful of Pumpkin Apple votives. I now have a handful of home oils (including Slatkin & Co's Leaves, Cider Lane, and Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin, plus BPAL's Samhain is WONDERFUL as a home oil) that I use to re-up scent in my wax tart burner... it's like getting two tarts for the price of one. Picked out a few nail polishes at Ulta... their house brand's Sun Of A Gun (a non-fluorescent orange creme, the closest I could find to a pumpkin spice in a creme finish), Shag by Butter London (a bronzey foil), and Every Month Is Oktoberfest from OPI's Germany collection (a pretty wine purple). I still need to find new riding boots for fall, but so far, nothing has struck my fancy.

-- In the realm of Stuff Adults Do, we steam cleaned the carpet. Ahhhh, stain-free carpet makes my inner Virgo VERY happy. It even got up a stubborn stain I've scrubbed many times. Very happy with the result.

-- TV Sunday: True Blood and Breaking Bad. Two of my favorite shows, but for completely different reasons. Anywho, while watching True Blood, I simultaneously heard millions of people scream [Spoiler (click to open)]"OMG IT'S BILLITH" at the same time. And a minute later, it was trending on twitter. Haha.

-- Today's plan: I have two pearl knotting assignments to do, I have to run the piece Verve is doing for the Inappropriate Hafla, and then I am curling up with a book. Maybe I'll finally get through the last 1/3 of Outlander.

-- Speaking of the Inappropriate Hafla... it's Sept 8th this year. I will be vending again, as will Minxes's Trinkets, Belle Nova, and Venus Out Of Bounds. If you're coming, bring $$$. There will be shinies to suit EVERYONE.

J and I are HUUUUGE Breaking Bad fans, and we now have our game-ending theory.

( Spoilers!Collapse )

This post also has some awesome theories.

Now, Weeds.

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Oh Marvel. The whole series of pre-Avengers movies and The Avengers itself has swallowed me whole. I've always had sort of a thing for superhero stories, even if I was never hardcore into comics themselves-- mostly because awesome women can be slim pickins when it comes to the comics I grew up with, and partially because I am one of those people who, when entering a fandom, needs to know every last detail about the world's mythology and history. My obsessive need to know things can be exhausting at times. It's the Virgo in me.

As a tot, I was all about Rainbow Brite and She-Ra, then after I passed through my All Star Wars All The Time phase (trivia: I first dyed my hair red because I loved Tenel Ka so much I wanted to be her), I found Buffy, which may have actually saved my life in a slightly melodramatic, yet entirely truthful way.

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But then came Iron Man. It had a complete character in it. He was engaging and funny and so terribly imperfect, and he figured out the kind of man he wanted to be without it ever feeling stale or predictable. It didn't hurt that he looked like Robert Downey Jr. And there was also Pepper Potts-- calm, collected, competent Real Adult Pepper Potts-- who stood by him but didn't fall in love with him while he was acting like a self-absorbed jackass. She wasn't just the prize he got at the end of the movie for doing the right thing. He actually had to change. Nor was she the love interest who dies solely to motivate the hero. DOUBLE WIN.

( And lo, my love for the Marvel-verse was born. What follows is reasonably non-spoilery.Collapse )

In conclusion, I just wrote 2,300 words about why Marvel is eating my brain right now, and illustrated it with gifs from one single post on ONTD. I really should get to bed, as I need to be functional in the morning, and I'll edit this behemoth then. I just have so many FEELINGS.

I don't know how involved I'll be in the fandom-- it is INTENSE, yo. I mean, some of the people there can't tell the difference between actor and character (or indeed, the actor, who is an actual person, and their own personal fantasies) and it is making me side-eye in the fiercest of ways. I will probably fangirl from afar, where I can keep my dignity mostly intact.

But! I will leave you with one final gift. This lady does character analysis via wardrobe, and her thoughts are well worth reading. TA.

My girlcrush on her is growing by the day. Must get Black Widow icon.

-- Just over 24 hours to use the coupon code SDFF2012 for 20% off your Sihaya Designs order!

-- MACARONS. I have discovered macarons, and I may be just the tiniest bit obsessed. I must taste ALL the flavors!

-- This just in: Joel Stein is a pretentious windbag. Memo to Mr. Stein: I read adult books. I read YA. I read fiction. I read non-fiction. I read literature. I read smut. I read wantonly. I read whatever I feel like reading. Please do fuck off.

-- So, I said I would write up my opinion of The Hunger Games, but then I got busy and that didn't happen. Overall, I liked it a lot! The things that they had to change for the adaptation to screen made total sense to me, and didn't take away from the story very much. Jennifer Lawrence was pretty great at conveying to the audience what was happening in Katniss's mind even though she didn't emote a whole lot, which was, of course, perfect for the character. The other standout to me was Josh Hutcherson as Peeta-- I will be the first to admit that I was a bit nervous about it, partially because he's, like, six inches shorter than J Law. But he was peeerrrrrfect, start to finish. Charismatic, funny, soulful. Woody was perfect. Lenny was perfect. Elizabeth was perfect. Stanley was perfect. Seneca Crane's beard was extra-perfect. It was kind of a perfect-palooza, and the reaping scene? Tears running down my face. The only casting I'm still not sold on is Liam Helmsworth as Gale. My reservations about the Seam's racial casting aside, he seems too jock-ish. Way too muscular. And frankly, way too low-key for a character that tends to have a powderkeg personality. Perhaps we'll see more of that in the movies to follow, but he was the only main character who wasn't quite right, imo.

I had very few criticisms of the film overall, my main one being ( Cut for spoilers.Collapse )

-- I've been watching Once Upon A Time with J. The show is hammy as all get out, but I have to say, I appreciate it for what it is. There are ladies on the show with positions of power, who talk to one another about things other than dudes. There are complicated relationships and friendships and all sorts of things that are woefully under-represented on tv. There's also some subversive stuff happening, which I really like-- I mean, nothing edgy or groundbreaking, but considering this is Disney we're talking about, I'm still pretty impressed. There's room for improvement, though-- there aren't nearly enough non-white people in Storybrooke, and quite frankly, I don't know if Disney's going to have a gay character on the show ever. But for right now? I'm enjoying the ride, and Robert Carlisle chewing all the scenery.

-- Tangentially related: Scottish accents are to women as beer goggles are to men. Discuss.

-- Been siiiiick. Typical spring cold, but the kind that makes it impossible to actually do the kind of work I do. Kind of hard to do detail work when my eyes are misted up and I'm dripping like a faucet. The upshot is that I got to spend most of yesterday on the couch with a book, which is a luxury I don't much get these days. Today I'm starting to feel mostly normal, despite a lingering swollen throat and constant sneezes. It's progress. I am probably going to get back to work after lunch.

-- Last weekend, I went down to DC to do some museum hopping. Saw the Slavery at Monticello exhibit in the American History museum, then hopped over to the Natural History museum for Written In Bone, the forensic special exhibit that uncovered how several early settlers to the Chesapeake region died. It was a really cool exhibit-- the first half was a modern forensics education, showing how we can tell sex, age, etc of skeletons, complete with several kinds of causes of death visible. The second half was several skeletons found in the Chesapeake during early settlement, and detailed how forensic anthropologists identified the skeletons that were often buried without markers. Very cool!

-- BPAL is making Labyrinth scents now! The first set were released last night, along with a Tanuki series. :)

( Spoilers for last night.Collapse )

Honorable mentions for The Most Annoying Thing About The Walking Dead award:

-- T Dogg. Not T Dogg himself, but basically how he is seriously fucked over in terms of the cast. He gets, on average, one line per episode. He might as well stand around and say "shit, daaaaaaaamn" or "that is whack," because he's basically a one-note token. Beth has gotten more screentime than T Dogg. It's racist as helllllllll. (Also, they're around Atlanta and he's the only black guy that survived? BULLSHIT.) This show needs to be re-named White People Problems With Occasional Glenn. I secretly hope Irone Singleton is just really busy being awesome somewhere, but considering how the writers treat basically everything else, that is probably just wishful thinking. I intend to try to call or write in to Talking Dead next week and ask (as they have asked one of my questions already this season!).

-- Lori. Again, more the writing. I understand her, and I like that they let her fuck up in more or less the same ways that, say, Rick does (dashing off into the fray). That said, last week when she went all Gender Stereotype Get In The Kitchen to Andrea? I wanted her off the planet. Part of the problem is that the writers are playing the women SO goddamn stereotypically that it's infuriating.

-- Shane. Look. Shane needs killin'. He's a loose canon who's proven that he will put the group in danger if he feels he's not being listened to (control issues ahoy). Andrea was bang on when she said his decision making is sound, but his execution is not okay. The problem with this show is that no one has any goddamn sense. Shane can make logical decisions but then his temper fucks the execution. Dale makes well-reasoned additions, but he's so annoying and preachy it's hard to take him seriously. There is a woeful lack of leadership on this show. Plus my pet peeve: Jon Bernthal's marble-mouthed acting. It has gotten stale to the point of mock-ability. Recipe for ShaneSpeak: mutter intently, look away and down to the side, shake head, mutter more, re-establish eye contact, raise voice while muttering, look down and away again. So. Freaking. Predictable. And to add to all of that? I will NEVER be a Shane fan for one simple reason. ( Spoilery for end of last season.Collapse )

Baaaaaasically, I watch this show for the effects makeup, because the writers are dropping the ball in a huge number of ways. The actors are doing okay-- Andrew Lincoln's southern accent is often hilarious (did he learn it by watching episodes of Deputy Dog? Inquiring minds want to know), but on the whole, they do create good tension, even with their reality show squabbles. If there could be more like the "two men walk into a bar" scene or the "walker horde on the highway" scene and less of "Andrea should be doing the laundry," it would be an exponentially better show.

So much squandered potential. Let's just kill most of the cast and have the Glenn, Maggie, and Daryl show, okay?