It will (should) arrive tomorrow, but I have no fabric or anything yet.  Picked out a pattern for a dress for my daughter but, since I’ve never used a sewing machine in my life, I’m probably setting my sights pretty high.  It seems like a simple pattern, but knowing my luck it may not be.

So um, maybe I’ll find a pillowcase pattern somewhere and make her that first, instead.  Start easy and work up to the dress. LOL

I also plan on using it to make keychain fobs out of cotton (or polypropylene) webbing and ribbon. I decided I am going to try my daughter’s school’s Spring Carnival again this year and need something simple that might sell (hopefully?) so I at least make some money, since my jewelry and bows went over SO well last year (sarcasm).  Anyway those should be pretty easy as it is just stitching straight lines to secure the ribbon onto the webbing.  We’ll see though.   I have to figure out how to use the thing first.  I’m a ‘by the seat of my pants’ learner, I am.  Figure it out as I go, free tutorial searchin’, video how-to watchin’ kinda gal.  Hopefully by this time next week I haven’t tried to pitch it out my workroom window.

With an upheaval over at ArtFire recently with some new program that really sounds hokey (to put it kindly), I’ve decided it’s no longer the place for me.

As a result, I’ll be moving my items over to Etsy, and also over to Zibbet.

I’ve moved all of the hairbows I had listed at AF, over to Zibbet.  My polyclay items and jewelry, I’ll move over to Etsy, but it will be a slow process to keep my bill low.  I have two items listed so far, they’re over on the right side of the screen in my Etsy mini.  As I add more items you’ll see them appear over there, and depending on the size of the Mini, with enough items listed they’ll appear randomly.

Here is my Etsy link.

Here is my Zibbet link.

No you are not going crazy and seeing things. (not that anyone stalks this place that much, LOL)

Yes I did switch things around, I’m using WP again.  I know, I’m a glutton for punishment, but this program is so much easier to use than what I used before.  I just need to keep up the updates when they come out and hopefully everything should be fine.

(remind me again in six months when I’m screaming about my site being attacked, yet again)

Anyway.  Out with the old, in with the new right?  I know the page probably looks pretty bad, but I will work on getting it prettied up over the next couple of weeks.  Figured I should switch it over now and get it done and overwith, since I was toying with the idea of moving back for at least a few months.  Longer than that probably.  So yeah, off like a band-aid time I deemed it.  Back on WP it is.

I’m still keeping the other software installed and up to date, just in case.  Because I’m finicky like that.  Oh, and um, ignore all the duplicate categories for now if you would.  Byproduct of the export/import from EE to WP.  I’ll get it cleaned up later.  It’s tedious.

g’night!

Cast of characters:

• My husband – J
• My daughter – Z
• me
• Grandma

On the drive out, she asked probably about seven or eight times “are we there yet?”, half of which was asked before we had even crossed the state line, and the first being barely an hour into the drive.  Overall she did really good on the drive out.  We’ve been lucky with her being a good traveller.

We arrived in the early afternoon on Friday and got checked in to our hotel, slathered on the sunscreen, grabbed our cameras and tickets and headed over to the park.  Some of the rides we did that day – Jungle Boat cruise (Z liked), Haunted Mansion (Z did not like, too scary), Pirates of the Caribbean (Z was undecided on this one, kinda scary, but she liked the short drops the boat does), Star Tours (she liked this one), and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (she liked, as long as I held onto her).

We were there until after the first showing of Fantasmic, so probably about eight hours, and then crashed out back at the hotel.

We slept in a little bit the second day, had breakfast at the hotel, and went back to the park for some more rides, including Autopia and probably some others that I don’t recall.  But, this is the day we did Splash Mountain and were pretty much soaked from head to toe.  We made sure to buy the picture for this ride.

We left early enough to have dinner out at a restaurant, then early to bed, since we would be waking early for the Magic Morning entrance into the park an hour before it officially opened.

Being able to get into the park early on the third day, we were able to ride Star Tours twice in a row (hardly any wait), the Buzz Lightyear blaster ride twice in a row, and then Autopia once.  Then it was time to leave the park and head to the airport to pick up Grandma.  After picking her up (and Z having a cat nap on the way to the airport), we dropped her bags off in our room since it was too early for her to check into the hotel yet, slathered on sunscreen again and headed off to the park for more rides, this time with Grandma.

We did a few rides in Disneyland (Star Tours again, via Fast Pass for J, Z & Grandma) and then headed over to California Adventure for the rest of the day.  We did the Tower of Terror (I am not a fan of this one, but I went at least once to show Z it was OK), Soaring over California, Monster’s Inc (Mike & Sully to the Rescue),  and Tuck & Roll (bumper cars).  We also saw the Aladdin show.

We decided on the fly to pick up Fast Passes for the “World of Color” show later that night, which turned out to be their last showing.  Then we had lunch at Ariel’s Grotto, where we had been seated at the table nearest the “entrance” for the princesses as they arrive, so Z was the first child to get pictures with each of them. I thought that was pretty neat. 

By now, the three of us had three full days of walking under our belts, and I don’t know about my daughter, but both my feet and J’s were SO sore.  By the end of the night after standing with a mass of people waiting to see “World of Color” for at least an hour, and then another thirty minutes while the light show played (during which I held Z the entire time – all 50 pounds of her – O.M.G.), it was a struggle to walk back to the front of the park to the shuttle bus area to get back to the hotel.  It was all I could do to tell myself “left, right, left, right, left, right” to force my feet to move. LOL I half wondered if I’d get to the hotel and remove my shoes to find nothing but bloody stumps.  Even though Grandma had only been there the one day of walking, her own ankles had gotten puffy and angry, too.  It’s no wonder though, I think that day we had been at the park a total of thirteen hours at least, and that is not counting the extra hour and a half that J, Z and I had been there before we left to go to the airport.

The fourth day, Grandma, Z and I got to the park at about 8:30 to get into Toontown before it officially opened (which is normally an hour after the park itself opens).  Our timing was fairly ok, when we arrived the cast was just finishing up their Mayor Mickey opening act.  We got pictures with Mickey and Goofy (missed Minnie and the Chipmunks), and rode the small roller coaster while we were there.  Afterward we went off to ride Dumbo, the Teacups (only once and with little spinning – mommy can’t handle that!), and the Astro Orbitor.  Then while I waited on a bench for J to arrive, Grandma and Z rode the Carousel.  Afterward they joined me on the bench, and once J arrived, off we went for more rides.  The last day is kind of a blur, but first J & Z went on the Teacups again so J could spin them really fast for Z, then we bought Z some Minnie ears (pink & black) and had her name & the year stitched on, then we went to California Adventure so Grandma, J and Z could ride the Tower of Terror a second time (she liked enough to want to ride it again), then I think we watched Muppets 3D, and went back to Disneyland for ice cream and to go wait in line to see Rapunzel (which took about 45-60 minutes).  Then we called it a day to head back to the hotel and relax a little bit before dinner out.

The last day, was breakfast at the hotel again, then a little relaxing afterward before checking out, taking Grandma to the airport and then starting our drive back home.  Z only asked twice on the way back, “are we there yet”.  We stopped in Quartzite for some “Really Good Jerky” (and some sour gummy worms for Z), which we deemed to be really good.  If it’s not the consistency of boot leather, then it’s not good, but this was!  Then finally we arrived home and back to reality and two cats that seemed quite happy to see us.

I think I like this one better than the other though.  It looks more similar to how I write.

I still haven’t really gotten past the “wanting to” stage, but I have been rethinking whether I should stick with this CMS, ExpressionEngine (EE), or change back to….

WordPress.

Yes, I know.  That program frustrated me with the two times my site got hacked, and was the reason I switched over to EE.

But designing in EE was challenging, mainly because if one cannot find free plugins to do what one wants, or is not willing to cough up the dough to pay for a plugin that does do what one wants… One needs to be a software developer to make ones own plugins.  And I am not that, nor am I willing to cough up the money to pay for plugins that will do what I need or want them to do.  The free ones are somewhat lacking.

So between WP’s recent updates… and coming across some external tools that may help prevent the scenarios that led me to leave it in the first place, I’m reconsidering WP.  It has loads of shiny plugins & widgets, most for free.  From what I’m learning, using those that are kept up to date, is key.  Not only because there could be conflicts between an out of date plugin and WP when it does update, but also for potential security holes that a plugin developer may discover and patch.

I suspect I had a few plugins installed that were a little on the old side, which could have contributed to the issues I had.  I’m willing to try it again, being careful with the plugins, although I am not sure whether I should try moving everything from EE, into a fresh install of WP, or just play around in a test version.  Still contemplating everything, really.  But leaning toward moving it all back.

Hmm. Decisions, decisions.

On a completely unrelated note.. I think I want a stick vacuum for sweeping up the bits of cat litter that my cats seem to trail from the laundry room down the hallway.  Much easier to use than my huge vacuum, and quicker than using a stupid broom. 

I was kind of looking for something fairly cheap, probably this from Shark:  Shark VX1.  What do you think?  Any recommendations?

Done.

I like how they try to fake things by trying to make the comments look related in some way.

The lastest one even carried the same topic of their comment into a different post, like it was a continuation of their thought but they didn’t want to leave it on one post, they had to spread it around.

Psh.

You spam, you banned.
Enjoy reading all you want, Mr./Ms. Spammer, but you won’t be able to comment anymore! 

One day I decided I wanted to try making my own vectors, and downloaded a trial version of Illustrator.  Worked for several hours relearning it (been a while since I took classes), then maybe played around with it one or two more days, and haven’t touched it since.

Got some inspiration to try some techniques with polymer clay, but once I got to a certain point, inspiration went *poof*, so I set that aside for now.

Then I joined deviantART, and spent hours looking at various things – digital drawings (horses, dragons, etc), traditional drawings… found my fave watercolor artist and other new ones… then got inspired to start sketching again, decided I want to learn how to draw people (without tracing like I mostly did for my daughter’s still unfinished watercolor painting from last summer).  Hands trip me up – they’re HARD to draw!  Feet will be too, I imagine.

I couldn’t find any stock hand poses in dA that i liked, so I took some of my own hand, and when I have some free moments I’ll try sketching those.  That is my latest interest as of late.

Then…. THEN, I stumbled across a couple of mom bloggers, who have been doing organizing and even renovating/remodeling of their homes… and wouldn’t you know it, I started getting the itch to get crap organized around here.  But time – where’s the time?!  And I even started thinking… well, if the housing market is so awful around here that we’re upside down on our mortgage, we probably won’t be going anywhere any time soon, so we may as well start thinking about updating this place… But really, that is long term stuff and not likely to be happening any time soon.  I’ll be the first to admit, we’re not exactly handy-manny’s around here.  Can’t hurt to start getting ideas though.

Maybe this weekend I’ll find where my gumption went and have a go at some organizing.  Maybe. 

You’ll need to be seeing my blog in a browser to see the spiffyness, so if you’re peeking at this via a reader or FB or something, please click through and have a closer look!

Besides… I need for people to let me know if it worked! I know *I* can see it, but can you?