Lazy Couch

I've been on this couch for a two days now and I feel so lazy!! It sucks being sick because you can't even do the fun lazy things a person normally would do when off. I got a cold/flu somewhere along the last few days. Maybe I can blame my friends who were in the house this weekend or when I was out last weekend shopping. I hope that person is feeling better by now :-9

Yesterday I got pretty excited because I got a call from a job I applied to a long, long time ago! Of course, how nice it is that I am now sick and will be all sniffly to go to the interview tomorrow. Well, for now all I can do is try to get better and make sure I have all of my materials ready to go for tomorrow. I plan on leaving early in case I get lost and for the obvious reasons. Getting some good news really got me motivated, so even though I started getting sick yesterday, I still made homemade ham bone soup and cleaned a bit. The soup turned out great!! My mom was on the phone yesterday and kept telling me it wouldn't work since the ham was already cooked. She's never really had much faith in me anyway, so i went for it and it worked!!! In your face MA!!! My boyfriend came home and picked up some awesome garlic breadsticks from the store. They went great with the soup. We ate soup and breadsticks and I watched him play Fable 2 the rest of the night and slept on and off.

I can't wait to play Fable again, I think I'm going to buy a house in town since I have enough money now! Has anyone noticed that none of the males in this game are attractive??? I was looking for someone to marry or flirt with, but they are all ugly for the most part! LOL. Since it's a video game I think it's okay to be a bit stingy!! ( WOW, about ten to twelve deer just ran past my window!! That was crazy, they were going fast! I just caught the first one out of the corner of my eye.) Well, i'm already on the couch, but i'm going to lay down. I am concentrating on a speedy recovery so tomorrow goes well.

The picture is from two days ago. We actually had a very light dusting of snow here in good ole Clarksville and I got so excited about it, I took a picture of it in this pot where I planted basil and cilantro last summer. It's so sad that I got excited over such a tiny bit of snow. Wow, I'm really missing home sometimes.

Chains, Jo-Blows Pizza, Where's the Taste??

My boyfriend and I had to drive out of town last week to see a friend in the Hospital, who got into a terrible car wreck and we ended up missing visiting hours. So we found a restaurant and ate dinner. We ended up finding this amazing restaurant called the Tin Angel. Crazy but I actually said, "I would love to find a dark lit restaurant with a fireplace" and it was like my wish came true!! It was all there! Not only that, the food was amazing, the atmosphere was great and the waiter sounded like he was a cook on Food Network! My boyfriend of course makes fun of me all the time because I want these completely crazy requests when it comes to a restaurant. I totally thought of my friend Barbara when I was there. Barbara is a great friend of mine who moved away and she was always so much fun and would love trying new places. She was always the one you could call up and get all dressed up with, go out, have a blast and still be in an elegant setting. It's really sad when great friends move away and you can't share those simple moments, like laughing over a great meal! Miss you lady :-)

Anyway, I have to complain because the town my boyfriend and I live in only has crappy chain restaurants and minimal unique dining experiences. This would be Clarksville, TN. There are maybe two or three places that I consider unique and that I would miss, but that is it. There are lots of towns that lack a great dining experience, so I'm sure lots of people can have the same argument about where they live. Don't get me wrong, I love going to Olive Garden once in a while and I really enjoy the Habachi Grill and Chinese Buffets!! I am guilty of loving Chinese Buffet and Clarksville does have some of the best, still... I'm from PA and there are not, per say, fancy restaurants in my hometown, but many privately owned or family run restaurants. I haven't been home to stay in a long time, but I truly, truly miss the fantastic Italian food and it's nice just to have a great butcher in town and a great bakery. It really surprised me that it's warmer here and there are no farmer markets in town and back home we have four to five farmers markets I know that fresh fruits and veggies can be bought. I don't like a lot of store bought vegetables, once you've had a fresh tomato, just picked, you don't want to go back to the store!

Another part that goes into my food rant, is some restaurants you go to just don't seem to care and the food is old, the place is dirty, the service is sloppy. I just don't understand how someone who is a restaurant owner and this is your career, your life, how could you not want it to succeed and be the best in town! I guess once you've been to a great restaurant, once you know how wonderful it can be, you want that all the time!
I guess I have a lot to bitch about the subject of food and restaurants, I can go on forever! So I think I'll chill for now. If anyone has anything they want to add, I would love to see your comments :-) Good night all!

Unemployment Pick Up Lines??

It's a new year and so far it's been pretty rough for everyone it seems. For me as well, but among all the craziness, I wanted to share a story from my afternoon, last Wednesday!Here is a bit of my background first: I quit my job at the end of November after struggling and stressing with my job for 3 years. I know what you're thinking...., "What the hell, in this Economy?" Well, I thought about it for a long time and with the support of my boyfriend, I went for it. I would never have quit unless he was in agreement and he was actually encouraging it in November. There are many reasons I left, but that's a whole other story. Of course it has been a difficult job search and I expected it. Now I understand the saying, "Finding a job is a job in itself."

So during all this job hunting I keep checking the web page for the Career Center in town, in some areas it's known as "The Unemployment Office". I absolutely hate going there and every time I have, I get nothing out of it. All of the city jobs go through them, so it is worth checking out. The other day, I go through my normal routine of writing down the jobs I want to check out and drive out there. I park and creep in there, feeling like I crawled out of the gutter with all the other gutter kids sitting in there filling out paperwork. This time all I needed was a fax number for one of the jobs and the secretary still makes you wait with everyone else. So I sit down and wait. This dude with a black sweat shirt hood and knit snow cap, smiles at me from two tables over. I just smile and keep starring ahead. He walks over and grabs this stack of religious magazines off my table. I thought, he must have been sitting here before me and I took his seat. Funny, he didn't look like the religious type! So 15 minutes roll by and he walks over and smoothly slides this piece of paper across the table towards me and then walks towards the door. So he writes something along the lines of, "I was too shy to come talk to you, but I think you are very, very cute! Please call me sometime - 999-867-5309."

Really??? Really???...... WOW. Picking up chicks in the unemployment office is the new thing now?? Did I miss something? Hell, I have no job, you have no job, we have something in common!! WHY NOT! Imagine how sweet that first date would be?! Walking through the park, sharing a small fry at MickeyD's with the dollar change you found in your pocket. Anyway, I'm sure this guy could have been a nice guy and just took a chance, but I still think it's funny.

I ended up waiting 30 minutes for that stupid fax number which I'm sure I won't get called back on. I didn't know what to do with the note that dude gave me and there were people all around me, so I shoved it in my job folder I was carrying. I was messaging my friend, Chris, about the humor of what just transpired, when here he comes back into the building! He sits down at the other side of the table and says, "You got it locked in?? You got it locked in?" (referring to his phone number in my phone). Then he started looking all around for the note he gave me. He said, "You threw it out, didn't you?" I just kept smirking and texting and he was just smiled and walked away sayin', "You're gonna call me right, right??"
Well shucks, that just makes me want to go back there even more!!

This is the Way the World Ends!!

(PLEASE click the picture to see it in entirety!!)

The world isn't really ending, I'm just quoting Cortana in Halo! It took me way too long to get this Post up (the story of my life). It didn't take me long to edit, I just procrastinated and also being an intermediate user of Paint Shop Pro, I had to figure out how to approach the image and what exactly i wanted to do.

So here it is, the end result of my costume, my portrayal of Cortana from Halo 3! If you've never played Halo or have never seen Cortana, click this link. I am happy with how it turned out. I came up with the idea 2 months before Halloween and then put it together within a month. I was painting it up to the last minute and went to two Halloween events. My friend Mike and his buddy Wolf had a huge party which was a lot of fun and I attended the Wags to Witches Ball. It is a Halloween Costume Ball to benefit the local Humane Society. At the ball there was a lot of older people there, so this meant no one plays video games and no one knew who I was. Then again, a lot of my friends didn't know who I was either. Haha. I was know as "Blue Girl" all night. Of course I got a lot of looks just being a woman in a skin tight unitard!! Lol.

This is the first time I technically "made" a costume. I have received a lot of compliments on the costume and I really appreciate all of it! It really made me feel good to hear how people were impressed with how detailed it was and they couldn't believe I actually did it myself. If you ever search the web for Cosplay, you'd find that I am definitely not the first to portray the sexy A.I.!! I would love to wear the costume to a Sci-Fi Con and I want to put some more into the detail of the costume. I also want to do more detail with my makeup next time. The hands and feet took longer than i thought they would and the makeup would come off my lips and hands. Of course that is to be expected. Now if I only knew how to use a sewing machine. I would love to learn so I could make my own costumes. It would be great to incorporate this with making jewelry. The possibilities!!!

Anyway, if you've never seen my blog, the most recent posts show the progression of making the Cortana costume! So it's kind of backwards ;-)

I am your Shield, I am your Sword....!!

Here you can really see the brush strokes on the costume. I must give credit to another Cosplayer on the internet with this arm pattern. I used the same pattern for the lower part of the arm. I'm not sure where she got her idea, but it was simple to do and looked great. If you go to www.Cosplay.com and search "Cortana"you will see the other girls who were my inspiration to do this costume!

Non-Playable Character

I kept a lot of the basic patterns the same from viewing images of Cortana. I had to get creative with some of it and i made up my own patterns. This view of the arm is one of those moments! The arms and legs have some of my own ideas and i'm happy with the results!

I have defied Gods and Demons...

These photos are not in real time, but it has been a crazy last few weeks! I still wanted to show the progress. More painting! At this point i start to realize how long this is probably going to take. Maybe i should have started during the summer months. Every night after work from Nine something till after Midnight i worked on this for about two weeks. I'll have some actually calculated hours figured at some point. People who do Cosplaying all the time keep track of how many hours they put in. I suppose it makes you feel really fantastic or really ridiculous for spending all that time. I am really enjoying how this is starting to look so i feel good :-)

I heart Sticky Grenades!!!

I used fabric paint to fill everything in and i did this very carefully because this stuff dries fast. I like how starting from the edges gave it a nice brushed effect. The fabric marker, which is the light blue lines seen, wash away with water. For the most part anyway!!

No Needlers yet....

The next step was to dye the unitard light blue. Of course since i have never dyed anything before, i had no idea that Polyester/Lycra was a material that was resistent to dye. Yet, some how it came out exactly how i wanted it. Since i am basing the costume on Halo 3's Cortana. This is the look i wanted. She was more purple in the past Halo's. I was inspired by some other ladies who cosplayed as Cortana (seen online). I knew since i started fairly early on this i should be able to get pretty detailed. I started to do a few sketches and then used measurements to keep some of the patterns balanced, but drew most of the patterns free hand.

"I know you, I know your past,....your future."

Here we see a lonely unitard hanging on a shower curtain....
It has no idea how many neck breaking hours we are about to spend together!!! I didn't even know what a unitard was till a few weeks ago. All i knew was the sound of it make me laugh a little everytime i said it. I enjoy being creative and i get very determined when i get an idea in my head. It can be a good thing and a bad thing. Because once i have decided that i am doing a project like the Cortana Costume, i go all out and get crazy with it.

Ghosts, Ghouls and a 5th of Vodka

When i was a kid, this was never my favorite time of year. But i guess moving to TN and it being hot all the time, made me miss home (PA) and the fall weather. It has actually been cool for almost two weeks and it is so great. It definitely put me in the mood for some Hot apple cider, leaves falling, Halloween and ghost hunting.

The last two years i have went all out for my costumes for Halloween. My love for Sci-Fi & Fantasy has, for some reason, never entered into my costumes till i started watching Anime. I'm sure it all links up somewhere. When i was younger my backup costume was always a black cat. I would wear a black shirt, black jeans, a tail, ears and paint my face. Started getting old at some point, but i never thought to be a Star Wars character or a character from Legend or a Rainbow Brite. Also as a kid you don't have the money to put into a costume like an adult would.

Two years ago i was Arwen from LOTR and you can imagine how much that cost! I can't believe now what money i spent on it. I purchased a real metal crown from Ebay and had a lady make me the dress (also found online). Last year i was a Lolita school girl. This is more along the lines of Japanese/Anime. It was a beautiful Black and white school girl shirt with a black shirt and petty coat underneath. It's so much fun feeling different and being someone else for a night! I had no idea people, young and old, got so crazy with costuming till i started looking at Cosplay websites online. It makes me really wish i new how to sew and make my own cloths and costumes. To the outside eye it would look crazy or geek ridden. I think it's a lot of fun and i have seen some amazing stuff out there! It does kind of hurt when you see some who wear outfits they shouldn't or who just put little effort into it. But then again, i've been lazy plenty of times. No matter what, it should just be fun.

Since i have gotten older i have learned that the old saying be yourself, is truer than ever. Screw those people who are too cool to do certain things. I am lovin' my geeky hobbies and I'm starting to really get into them.

So, this year i am going as Cortana from Halo 3. I didn't realize she was different in each game till i started Googling images of her and reading other peoples' articles about Cosplaying her. She used to look very purple and now is more blue. The black lines are also different. I like the Halo 3 version and have of course been playing this game since it was out. I'm no Officer, but i love playing online and off. Unfortunately when you are on Xbox Live every asshole and his brother are on there playing. Little kids with attitudes or people who shit talk. Although i do enjoy my friend Michele talking it up, he's hilarious!

Okay, i'm back from my tangent :-) I am very excited about this costume because i have almost everything i need already. If i can take my time, i can get it very detailed. I ordered what is called a unitard, wig & make up. I think it will be awesome! I am going to dye the unitard and get fabric paint for the black lines. I also have an idea for putting fiber optics in the wig to make it look like the lines of her hair. I bought a particular wig with advice from some online forums and i am going to have a hair stylist cut it for me. It is super long right now. I will be writing about my progress and put some photos up later. If anyone has any tips, i'm open to any suggestions! Wow i wrote a lot! I'm out.

Oh and yes i will be having some crazy vodka drink this weekend, while sitting around the fire at my friends house! Cheers!

Me,... Untitled!

Hello everyone!! This is my first blog ever so if i don't write in blog style, i will learn. I am very happy to write on here because i don't have be censored with my opinion. I can say what i think and i hope i will have the courage to do so. Please let me know what ya think!

Well i want my identity to be somewhat of a mystery. I'm sure i will blunder somewhere along the way and let too much slip. I tend to go off on long tangents, you will find out ;-) I guess one of the real reasons i decided to make a blog is to VENT!!! It's fun. But it is also fun to just blab and talk about what is going on right now. I am originally from PA and right now in my life i found that i am more of a geek than i thought i was. The true thing is i love it!! I was always seen as someone who was in the background, quiet, the dork or tomboy. I never minded who i was and enjoyed things that i think others wouldn't admit to then(Now, now wipe away those dirty thoughts). Since the Internet has exploded and everyone can communicate however they want or say whatever they want, it's not as big a deal.
With all my hobbies or likes i still feel i am well balanced. I never said i was normal, but that i still love sunlight and socializing with my friends! I'm all over the place :-) Thanks for listening.