So,

this week I will be setting some goals for my Etsy. I need some inventory, and I've had this urge to craft. Unfortunately the past few weeks have been hell, and I've been too lazy/tired/busy to actually do anything about it.

But I have a few projects that I want to do, and I think this week I will actually have time to do them. So I'm going to try to finish one project a day, starting Monday, for a total of 6 projects by Sunday night.

Wish me luck! :D

Some new shoes

I've always admired people who live fabulous lives with seemingly little effort-- The people who just get out of bed one day and decide to liquidate all their belongings and backpack across Europe. As an avid planner, I have to try excessively hard to be spontaneous (probably drives R nuts, who comes up with a crazy scheme to drive to Canada on one of his visits-- which we did, and it was amazing, but I would have never thought of that by myself in a million years).

What I lack in spontaneity I would like to make up for in fascination. I would like to be that interesting, well-rounded person in a social gathering that is talking about their latest art show and in the same breath how fun skydiving was. I'm terrified of realizing one day that I'm a boring person. I want something to always talk about.

So I was thinking on the MARTA today that I need a list of things to do after I'm settled in a 9-5, but before I get Alzheimers. Right now it's pretty short and vanilla, but I hope to let the ideas fester and eventually make it on to the list.

JILL'S LIST OF STUFF TO DO BEFORE DEATH

1. Have an art show
2. Write a book
3. Take skydiving lessons
4. Learn to sing (if at all possible-- I'm pretty bad)
5. Learn to paint
6. Take some photography classes
7. Go to somewhere in Asia (specifically Singapore, Japan or China)
8. Learn French
9. Go to a nude beach
10. Get my Masters degree and teach some classes
11. Leran how to ball room dance
12. Go to somewhere that it's seasonally light outside for 24 hours, and stay awake the entire time
13. Learn how to screen print
14. Get a Gocco printer and use it
15. Learn to sew clothes (things I'd actually wear)
16. Learn to be a masseuse

That's all I can think of for now, but I'll add more as I think of them.

The Adventures

It's been a whirlwind summer so far. I got back from England a little over a week ago, moved the day after getting back, and school is starting on Monday. In between all of my crazy inter-continental adventures has been work and general adult things. I also made my first legit sale on Etsy! Yaaay! (no offence, T :D And I still owe you a new keychain!!)

Anyways, I'll post some photos from the trip, sticking to the highlights since the rest can be found on my Flickr.


This is pretty much the quintessential English picture: The token tourist stands outside a red telephone booth while it's raining. The thing that broke the magic is that most of the booths are kind of old and dirty. I would fully expect there to be some broken crack pipes and needles chilling out in the piles of old fast food wrappers.



R took me to this little garden where you can get tea and eat scones with clotted cream. So English, I'm surprised they didn't hand me a passport with my scone. To get to this place involved a very pleasant walk through the countryside of Cambridge where we ran into some cows (!) and stinging nettles. It was probably the squeest day in my life. R knows how to show a lady a good time :)



We took the train in to London, and did all the touristy bits. Basically went up the Thames and then back down, stopping to ooh and ahh at all of the old shit. I'm still overwhelmed that I actually saw all of the famous bits. Like, this was stuff that I had only seen on TV before, and now I was prancing around it. This is me looking very smug in front of Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately, we had to decline the Queen's request to have some tea. We had a full schedule of stuff n' things to do.



Yes, I am awesome...



At the end of the Tour O' London (TM), we wandered through Hyde Park, and found the famous Rose Garden. R could not deny the calling of his English blood, and sat to contemplate difficult things on the garden's bench.



I was staying up in Cambridge with R, which is a nice college town filled with many many old scholarly buildings. We have Tech Tower, which is like, 100 years old or something? Cambridge was celebrating their 800th year as a college while I was there. One of his roomies had a kitty, who spent most of his days outside. I didn't have a back door key, so he sat and watched me eat my late breakfast and meowed to be let iiiiiiin.


While R was at work some days, I wandered around the town. They have a river that kind of meanders right through the city, and a little trail that you can follow all around the river. They have some squee house boats at some places :D There's also a ton of open fields and parks that begged me to spread out a jacket and read a book for a few hours.



That's all for now... I have some more of the days we spent up north with his parents. But alas, it's late and I'm hungry...

Yet another scheme...

So I've recently been analyzing my budget again, and there's this huge line item that seems to be looming over all of the other bills and what nots: birth control. With it being $40 a month, it's more than what I allocate myself for fun money. I've kind of not been keeping up with it since I haven't seen the man friend in almost 2 months, and I've just felt much happier that the hormones aren't coursing through my veins.

I'm just trying to justify spending more on contraception than I do for stress relief. I pay more to have myself hormonal and moody for three weeks out of the month, then horribly bitchy and crampy for another week. Continue cycle. It's very hard to rationalize.

With the impending move and increase in spending for "necessities"-- what gets cut out? Fun or function?

Finally

Managed to unpack all the boxes and get my room arranged. It only took me a little over a week...

BEFORE! (the disaster zone)







AFTER!








This is my little office nook, since I don't really have a proper desk. I can just pivot the monitor around to face my bed when I want to watch a movie.



I love all my little artworks! I forgot to get a shot of my little knick-knack shelf on the other side of the room...



I am soooo glad to be done unpacking!

The MARTA Bus

I've started taking the MARTA bus to work from my new place, seeing as how my car is still a terror to drive (will be fixed v. soon though). It takes about 2 hours to get there, with 2 trains and one bus ride. Somewhat not worth it for a 4 hour shift, but I have little choice in the matter at this moment.

I really don't mind where I am now (the working of fast food and taking public transportation). While hard, the work isn't stressful and I have a lot of free time to read while waiting for buses/trains.

But I'm getting completely bored with myself. I have nothing interesting going on right now. The most I can mention about my night is that I spilled a strawberry milk shake all over my apron. Sure, my internship was challenging and stressful (from the challenges and the constant diving into moral turpitude) but it gave me something to talk about. It made me sound interesting. I could be clever and witty, and mention something out of world news and relate it to something happening in THE INDUSTRY.

I miss sounding like a scholar, or at least an adult. It's like this summer has me working backwards. I'm back in high school, with a crap job and absolutely zero interesting unique facts about myself. I'm not the independent person from last summer with a car and a real job that had me wearing collared shirts on Monday. I yearn to be back in school, to be learning, and not sitting in the continuing stagnation of my mediocrity. I am Jane Everybody, with my name on my shirt handing you your chicken sandwich.

I am a boring person.

Do you at least want to hear about the milk shake that exploded? Yeah, that shit went everywhere. I'm STILL finding bits of strawberries in my uniform.

It's late, I'm whiny.

Feeling very stressed out. I kind of wish something in my life would be sure and constant. There's something comforting with the known, even in self-inflicted disarray. I think that if I create my own chaos, at least it's my own doing, not of circumstance.

Meh.

I would give 5 years of my life for just an ounce of creativity.

I like my job, but...

...it would be better if it weren't for the fact that I have to deal with people every day. As a fast-food cashier, I picked an awesome job to develop that mentality.

Don't get me wrong, the other aspects of it are probably better than any other job I've ever had. All of my coworkers are nice, sincere people that actually give a shit about the people around them. It's a fast paced job, so I'm never really bored.

I just don't appreciate the condescending attitude I feel I'm getting from the customers. It might be all in my head, but if I make a simple mistake I believe that I'm just reiterating the mentality that fast food workers are stupid.

I'm not stupid, none of the people I work with are stupid, but the attitude I get is simple disrespect and that I'm a lesser being. I can't go and scream at them, I'M SMART. I GO TO A GOOD SCHOOL. I'M GOOD AT 3 DIMENSIONAL CALCULUS. I WILL BE AN ENGINEER ONE DAY.

I don't think berating a customer is part of the 2nd Mile Service.

Maybe I'm just using my job as an excuse for my low self-esteem and insecurities, and how each day when I wake up I die a little more inside.

The Caveat

[via Apartment Therapy]

I know everyone says they hate open kitchen shelves. Yes, they're hard to keep nice looking, if you cook a lot they would get grimy, etc.

But I love open shelves.

I don't have a lot of kitchen gadgets and probably won't accumulate many. I like to keep my flour and rice and whatnot in matching storage containers to keep them fresh (and to keep the damn ants out). It just being me, I don't have a lot of foodstuffs.

I just hate the closed off look of drawers and cabinets. Maybe I'm weird, but I have no reason to be so ashamed of my dishes to keep them locked behind pressboard laminated wood cabinets.

May I introduce...

Om nom nom!




Monsieur Fraise Baguette!

A delicious little strawberry bread in felt form! Freshly baked and ready to stick in your pocket for an afternoon snack.

Will be on Etsy, perhaps. If I can part with his cuteness...

Omg Omg Omg

[via technobob]

Holy balls, that's amazing. I would probably do something with Zelda, or retro Mario. How hard is it to order custom tiles? :)

I finally have an Etsy!

Well, I've had one for a while, but finally managed to put some stuff on it!



Check it:

Urg...

It's 3 AM, do you know where your tiredness is?


P.S. Very excited about the international bake-off tomorrow. Just need to get some cake pans and ingredients from the store tomorrow... MUAHAHAHAHA--*cough*

Murrrr

1. The economy is a big pile of shit.
2. Need to be able to relocate ANYWHERE to get a decent job.
3. Have hourly minimum wage job at the moment to sustain me until I graduate (one that requires working on holidays and weekends).
4. Will be moving several times until graduation.
   
5. Still have a year of college left. And the EIT test.

I picked an awesome time to meet an amazing person and have a trans-continental relationship. Even WikiHow didn't know how to make this work.

In lighter news, a picture of me being menaced by a giant paperclip:

Just a little update...

I had a dream my life would be
so different form this hell I'm living,
so different now from what it seemed,
now life has killed
the dream I dreamed.

Where do I get a room like this?




http://www.purlbee.com/

Employment

Increasingly depressed about my employment situation. It's always been, if you're broke, get a job. If you're still broke, get another job. What if there are no jobs out there?


I hate life, I hate money, I HATE EVERYONE.


There, now I got the emo out of my system. Maybe I can begin to heaaaaal.

Just a Textbook Kind of Love

I was going through my endless piles of homework, rifling though textbooks and notes, trying to find answers to onerous problems. But inevitably a solution can be found. It all really depends on how determined I am to find it. The answer is out there, waiting to be googled, stumbled upon in a notebook, it was simply just written down and forgotten. But it's there.

Someone should make a textbook for feelings. They shouldn't be that much more difficult than a Mohr's circle problem. They should have definable units, measured quantities, and easy volumetric comparisons. I should be able to identify the parameters of my emotions, outline the equations, and formulate a solution to change my them into something practical.

I wish there was a solution out there, in a textbook, written out on some notebook paper.

BOLD the things you've done before.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea.
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma – tried!!
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Kissed a stranger at midnight on New Year’s Eve
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee

The Job Hunt

I've come to terms with the fact that I will not have an internship this summer. I think I must have had a permanent loogie on my face that distracted recruiters, but I haven't gotten a single call back out of the 15 or so placed I've applied to. Oh well.

My next plan is to start applying at some minimum wage "your name is on your shirt" jobs. I'm feeling it like Kevin Spacey did in the movie American Beauty when he said, "I want the job with the least amount of responsibility." This is my last opportunity to have a shitty job where the only consequences of fucking up is someone yelling at me to make another Venti Frappichino Light Whip.

To cover rent and food, I'll have to work a minimum of 40 hours at $6.50/hr. I'll probably have to work on two jobs at about 25-30 hours a week, since getting a full time fry cook position is hard to come by.

If I don't get at least one job this summer, I'm effed. But I don't want to think about that right now.

Holy crap, I really miss him.

Watercolor

I bought some water color paper over the holiday break last year, with the intention of teaching myself to watercolor. One of my failed resolutions, until now! I got bored tonight after working on a lab, so I randomly whipped out the 'ol cheapy Prangs and my water color crayons from about 9th grade.


The result:
















They're all really tiny, about 3" x 3".

Not too shabby for self-taught, I think... I'm still getting used to the transition from acrylic, where the basic technique was OMG GET IT ON AS FAST AS POSSIBLE BEFORE IT DRIES. With watercolor, you kind of have to wait for everything to dry before adding another coat. Takes patience. Meh.

V Day...

What are you going to get your SO for V Day?

A. Flowers - Because I love spending 3x as much for roses than any other day of the year.
B. Candy - Their ass needs to be fatter than mine so I can feel good about myself.
C. Naughty Undies - (Victoria's Secret) Too much disposable income; (Crotchless/edible) A meal + Undergarments? Now you're talking.
D. Nothing - Don't blame you.
E. Blowjob - Frugal AND thoughtful.

(P.S. Every time I think of Valentine's day, I picture Alice Cooper singing, "Beeee maaaaaah, Valeeeentiiiiine." I fail as a woman.)

Now...

...how does one go about getting $800 by the end of the semester?

Love letter

From Pierre Currie to Marie Currie - August 10, 1894

"We have promised each other -- haven't we? -- to be at least great friends. If you will only not change your mind! For there are no promises that are binding; such things cannot be ordered at will. It would be a fine thing, just the same, in which I hardly dare believe, to pass our lives near each other, hypnotized by our dreams..."

I thought it went, "Waste not, want not"?

I was reading this thread on a money forum (nerd, NEEERD), and the topic was, "What indulgence can you not give up in hard times?"

This struck me as very odd. I thought that as a necessity in hard times, all luxuries could be cut? That's why they're called "hard times"-- they're not supposed to be filled with weekly manicures, expensive shampoos, cable, fast internet, or $5 lattes. When you're financially desperate, the only things you really need to be concerned about are food, shelter, and clothing. Period. Away goes the HBO, bye-bye iPhone, so long leased Porsche!

I think the posters were thinking "hard times" was just a pay reduction, or an unexpected bill came up and things needed to be cut for a small amount of time. Not a job layoff, huge medical bills, or other extreme circumstance. At least I hope that was their mentality. It reminds me of a lady I was speaking to when I was permitting at the City of Atlanta. We were talking about Apple products, and she proudly stated that she didn't pay her mortgage that month in lieu of buying a new Mac laptop. Wha...?

I understand that you only live once, and you should have as much fun as possible, but this lady was risking being homeless just so she could get a silly electronic that will be obsolete in a month. I don't feel superior to this mentality of consumerism or that any luxury is a waste. Yes, if you're perfectly comfortable paying for the luxuries while maintaining your other obligations, than it is your right. But if you're deciding if you want to eat the beef or pork ramen for dinner while watching your 200+ HD channels on that 58" flat screen, you need a good shaking.

Circumstances change. All material possessions are liquid. I would be PISSED if I had to give up my monster computer, but if the situation arose where I was desperate for cash, it'd be on craigslist faster than you can blink.

Since I've been budgeting my money using the "this is all you get for spending each month, if you go over, TOO BAD" method, I've really had to take a hard look at my luxuries and frivelous spending. If the weather is bad, I don't drive to campus and waste the $2 + gas to park. Eating out is essentially gone (I'm cooking some bad ass meals, though). No runs to the craft store because I NEED something. $10 spent today means that's $1o I won't have at the end of the month when I need some groceries.

I've found that as time goes on, its getting much easier to just go without. If I just tell myself, "You can't afford that" the urge of consumerism goes away instantaneously. If I want to make a new dish, but don't have a certain ingredient, I have to find a substitution that is already on hand. It's almost like a clever little game, thinking of ways around a problem using only the tools that you have. There's no running out real quick just to grab one thing. I feel like a frugal MacGyver.

I realized that this just turned into a biiiiig rant about how I'm better than everyone else... And, really, I don't think I am. Just ahead of the game. I like to think that under dire circumstances, everyone makes the right decisions for survival. We're all pretty adaptable and dynamic when it comes to dealing with issues. People just need to have the right motivation to make the changes. Mine just happened to hit me when I'm 21 and in college, at an age when most everyone I know is still on the parental dole and the term "budget" is a foreign concept.

Should be doing homework...

Peak Rationale:
(1) Organizing data; realizing that workload was larger than anticipated.
(2) Realization that I have no clue what I'm doing; lab tutorials are of no help.
(3) Complete meltdown; have been in library far too long; hungry; tired; realization that no progress has been made.
(4) V called, had to decline hanging out; V has presents; feeling happier, less stressed about lab.
(5) Talking with BD; feeling v. happy; realization that lab isn't that important.
(6) Gave up on lab for tonight; will be back tomorrow.

EDIT:
Time Spend in Library = Time Spent in Library

Ohh...

Must... resist urge... to not part with money...

Busy little bee...

To help alleviate my poorness, I've finally decided to open an Etsy. It's probably the most roundabout way to get money and will most likely be futile, but I think that it's more therapeutic than getting a shitty desk job. I can do something I would normally be doing anyways, and getting money for it!

It started off trying to use up some of my felt by making tiny ninjas.

I started somewhat of a production line, and wound up with a hand full:

There's brown with pink flowers and gray with orange flowers. Phew! They're fun to make, but I think I might shift gears and do something else for a bit.

I also made some ninja earrings:

Aaaand poptarts:






I also made the squeest bag in the world, but no good pictures of that :( I'm kind of proud how professional it looked! All the seams were pressed, and I sewed all the lines so straight! I'll have to get some pictures of it in my ghetto-ass light box later...

But for now, back to reality...

:/

I have this weird obsession with fabric. Not cheap fabric, but expensive imported Japanese cotton linen. I have amazing patterns and ideas of what to do with it all, but somehow they never happen. So I kind of just hoard it all, pull it out sometimes and admire its squeeness.

I find myself surfing Etsy for cute fabric more often than is necessary. I think it'd be cheaper and more cathartic for me to just move to Japan and fill my tiny studio with yards upon yards of adorable prints. I would come home and dive into a sea of soft linen-y squishiness.


Yeah.

Knitting Graffiti

Never heard of it before, but apparently a popular thing. Now I REALLY need to learn how to knit.

Extreme knitting!


Next step: crocheting flash mob!

Househunting

I have this fear, that if I ever have the capacity to own my own place that I'll just go for the modern thrift store chic (TSC) look. I'm not really one for having matchy-matchy knick knacks thwapping you in the face at every turn. Nor do I have an affinity to flower tapestry couches.

Which brings me to this dresser:


I lust after it.

I don't have the $7500 to spend on a piece of furniture (or want to, for that matter) made of other bits of old recovered dressers, but I think the concept was well executed. Save for the ugly lamp, it pretty much exemplifies my design theory.

@_@

Lies! I just had inspiration for a brilliant, disgustingly cute idea that I need to work on NOW.


Er, after I read the next chapter in my NEPA book...


But just thinking about it makes me have blackouts from the sheer cuteness.

Next Project

I'm thinking of tying them to a balsa wood pole and THEN hanging them up, so it won't be a bitch to take down when I move. What I still have to work out is the materials... Paper sewn on ribbon? Fabric? Hmm.


The artist is Jill Bliss, so I think it's fate.


I'm inevitably going to wind up being a self-made small graphics designer that does local indie shows. I'm okay with that.


Really.




In other news, school is going to bend me over the desk and make me take it haaaard.

Orly?

I used to be totally knee-deep into that web design shit, and then somewhere along the way I just gave it up. Oh, it was probably that whole school/work/life thing. But I managed to get around to using up some of my school webspace with a design that has been a WIP for about 2 years. I like it; very simple and utilitarian but hard as a bitch to update (all hardcoded), but in about 2 weeks I'll learn to hate it. But I have since realized that I didn't forget how to code, and only had to reference Google a few times. It's like riding a bike or something, you just never really forget it. After about 10 minutes, I was building my own style sheets again. Yay!

www.prism.gatech.edu/~gth715e

Hung out with the Buscuits today, went shopping and bought a bunch of crazy 90% Christmas crap at Target. Didn't need any of it, but who can resist $0.50 box of ornaments?

Came home, realized that I was STARVING, and threw together some delicious tofu curry. Wish I had some pictures of the bubbling mass of deliciousness! But it was gooooood. I'll be eating tofu in pretty much everything for a while, seeing as how I have a metric asston of it. What else can I do with tofu? :/

School starts tomorrow... myeh.

Happy New Year!

My Goals:

1. Learn to knit (freakin' rad things)
2. Learn to crochet (really awesome things)
3. Start sticking to my damn budget again

Setting my goals real high, I know...