Late night

I made a bunch of drinks from my sister's Bar Book for all of us to sample tonight. Most included tequila, because I just bought a bottle of tequila tonight on a whim. It was pretty fun being a bartender. 

I've been busy getting everything ready for my little pet boutique. Moving this business from wholesale to the people. I just have a feeling that when it's up and ready I'm going to be overwhelmed with orders. I'm already trying to fill orders constantly while getting this shop started. I guess that's a good thing.  

Honestly, after all of the shop is up and good to go... I'm ready to take a little time off (besides shipping!) and have some time to myself. Next month I will be house-sitting and have a full week all alone. I don't even know what to do with that time! 

Stressing

I have recently started work on a major project - a friend's new business venture. Well, not necessarily "new" since it has been in the works for ages, but it's something I have recently been a part of. 

I have learned some things from doing this...

1.) Don't let your friend be your boss. If you're going into business together, be equal partners. 

2.) Make sure to have meetings with everyone in the process. Go through everything 10 times if necessary. 

3.) Know about the business - and others like it. 

I'm working with people starting an online clothing shop that haven't even shopped for clothing online. For the design of the website, I have done research on many other similar websites. You need to know what to feature and how to feature it. Also, know the audience. 

They have had two years to do this research and I've only come into the picture recently. I feel bad about sharing my ideas, because it's not what they want from me. Basically they want a website without product descriptions, one size per item, no sizing charts. I'm going to have to do what they want. 

I'm thinking about dropping out on the project altogether. My deadline to get everything finished is Friday, but the amount of things missing from the website is going to continue to bother me. 

Didn't mean to post ranting blogs on here, but today has been super stressful. 

A lot has changed

I haven't written a blog in so long that I was surprised at how much this website has changed. I'm kind of ashamed to admit that it took me a good five minutes to actually find the post button.

Recently I've decided (for the millionth time) that I am going to write blogs again. I forget how much I like writing, but I only forget it when I'm not writing. Strangely enough, I have actually been looking so much forward to NaNoWriMo that I'm probably going to do the summer camp in July before the big one in November. Last year I didn't really have anyone to "compete" with, so I didn't get a lot done.

Blogging shouldn't be a challenge... it should be something fun. I can't do it every day, but I feel like I should do it more often for myself.

Yeeeaaauuhh!

Getting my Etsy shop all ready so that it can go live tonight! I have been working on a lot of stuff for it and have way more ideas. After this first batch of charms I will be doing some awesome custom shirts. Today I'm getting the rest of my shirt designs finished for the upcoming weekend... not available in my shop. They are going to be awesome though!

It is a busy, busy day. I really need to get back to work but I wanted to write a bit over here. I am trying to get back in to writing more often. The next blog will probably be more pictures though. I have some awesome stuff that I want to share... sooooon!

Science Fiction Double Feature

It's exciting that I will be taking a class in science fiction and fantasy literature, because it works perfectly with my reading goals! This works out for me better than the 3 day science fiction workshop. There is going to be a lot of reading... 10 books in 8 weeks. Plus I will also have to write essays. I think it's worth it though.

Today I have been refreshing myself on a lot of graphic design stuff. It has been a little while since I went over a lot of the books and terms. I have been concentrating more on illustration lately. I might actually take courses for illustration on top of the graphic design classes, but I'm not sure yet. I will be back to school full time again in January, so I have a little while to figure that out. It is only four additional classes and I think it would be worth it.

I really don't know if I'm up for staying up nearly 3 hours through The Dark Knight Rises tonight. I am going to be so exhausted... I can feel it already!

Nommm

I think it's fine that I'm downloading a bunch of fonts and looking at butterbeer recipes for my Harry Potter party because I finished my whole list of work yesterday. Wait... there is another list today? Yeah, I'm procrastinating. Again.

I can't wait until my California trip and I'm pretty sure I'm going to make some sort of candy calendar for that. Plus what is exciting is that by the time I get back it will almost be the time of the year when it really cools off. Autumn is my favorite season. The first cool breeze after a hot summer, making scarves, drinking hot tea... and pumpkin everything. Baking is another thing I'm really looking forward to. Cool weather means turning on the oven and making some good treats. Oh, and stews and soups! I think I am just hungry right now.

Greek food...
Sushi...
Clam chowder in a bread bowl...

Okay, okay... I need to get some food...

Summertime, feelin' fine

Making more polymer clay charms today! Finally I'm back to my normal self after a weekend of dehydration. Lots of water, lots of broth, lots of Doctor Who. Now I'm not only hungry and ready to start cooking normal things again, I am ready to start creating things again. I have a really big list of things I need to make. The problem now is where to start. There is a lot of coffee in my system now, so I should get a lot done today.

Ready for conventions to start! I just realized that the first is in less than three weeks. Time seems to be going by fast and slow all at once. Trying to prepare all of my stuff that I'm going to be selling. It sounds easier than it actually is. I really should be doing that instead of writing right now.

I need to get the first chapter of my novel edited as well so I can submit it for a writing class. So much to do!

Back again!

Wow, I haven't written in my blog since November! I was busy writing my novel... which I finished before the last day of the month! Still haven't gotten around to editing that, or even reading it over. When I was done, I was done. I am at the point now where I feel I should come up with a good plot for my next novel. I've got about four months to figure that out, so I should have enough time to come up with something good. Eventually I'll go back and edit my novel from last NaNoWriMo, but I kind of feel like I would be taking a lot of time rewriting bits of it. It really should have been a short story. There was a lot added into it.

Now it's Summer! The first official day of Summer seemed to have brought on the 100+ degree weather. I am not into it right now. I haven't gone swimming yet, but I've practically been dying to. I hate my feet getting burnt every time I go barefoot outside. I have to wait another two months for my California trip. That has been killing me too. It seems like it is just going to take forever. Once I'm there I'm going to be at the beach for sure. A two week vacation is something I definitely need.

Mainly my time has been spent going back and forth from city to city and trying to get a bunch of business work done. I have taken the weekend off from that and I've gone completely nerdy with my time. I have been finally watching season 6 of Doctor Who, catching up on My Little Pony, watching a bunch of YouTube videos. I'm also finally reading Mockingjay! I just got it two days ago and I'm about halfway through it. I had to stop reading for a bit, which is why I'm writing this, because I started getting a little emotional. I wasn't expecting that to happen to me. This year I was planning to read 50 books, but I have been really busy and this year has been going by super fast. I think I'm going to take the number down to 25 or quickly read a bunch of short books in December.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving! Friends, family... and the children having prank wars.

It has all been fun, but now I am exhausted. I drank two (large) cups of black coffee, a caramel macchiato (yeah, MORE coffee) and a red bull, but I'm still tired! I guess it doesn't help that I just drank beer.

I have gone through 2 out of 3 Thanksgiving dinners and I may not make the third. I'm not too worried about it though, I think I have ate way too much already.

This week has been incredibly busy and I have still managed to get past 40,000 words for NaNoWriMo. I can't believe I'm so close! Less than 10,000 words away from the goal! I'm really happy that I have been able to find the time between these adventures to actually get some writing done. Most of it is actually done in about 5,000-6,000 word spurts. It's so exciting to be this close to the end. Then after writing comes editing, but I'm pretty sure that I'm going to take a break before I start doing that.

This upcoming week isn't going to be any less busy. I have about a million things I need to do. Hopefully I will be back home before December! I need to hibernate or something. Getting 4 hours of sleep a night is not something I can do forever. It had kind of been hard to get anymore sleep than that though, because I want to spend as much time with my friends that I haven't seen in a while.

My one day at home this week was spent working on stuff, writing or on the phone. So that wasn't all that relaxing. Tomorrow I don't have to get up early, so I will most likely sleep a very long time. I skipped out on the whole Black Friday thing to get some writing done, but I'm ahead, so I'll probably just sleep!

It's hard to keep my eyes open right now, so I think I'm off to bed...

Just me talking

This past weekend I worked at the Austin Wizard World Comic Con. Two days and crazy amounts of photos. I was happy that I was able to sit in on the James Marsters panel after I got photos. The line outside of that was amazing and I'm kind of glad I didn't have to sit there waiting in line. I also got to talk to him the day before when he was doing his signings and he's pretty cool. There were a lot of really awesome artists there, some I recognized from other events and places, others I got to discover and talk to.

I kind of wish I had seen the Star Wars movies before I had gone though. All of my knowledge of Star Wars has come from the Lego Star Wars games and my friends who have told me about certain parts. Oh, and probably the internet. I did recognize Peter Mayhew (who plays Chewbacca) probably because he's over 7 feet tall. I actually went outside and smoked with him, which I have now crossed off my "done list". Then there was Daniel Logan (who played little Boba Fett) who kept hitting on me. He did it throughout the day and ended up calling me a bitch because I turned him down. It made me laugh.

I'm about 18,500 words in to my NaNoWriMo novel and should be able to get to where I should be soon. One of the things that has helped me get more words is that I have changed my character's name to a double name. The story is going a little bit different than I originally planned, because my original story was more of a short story. I really don't know how I've gotten so many words written, managed to work the whole weekend at Comic Con and have read 2 1/2 books just in the last week.

Speaking of books, I finally got around to reading Paper Towns by John Green. By "finally gotten around to reading it" I mean that my library had it again and I was able to get it. Anyway, I thought it was a really good book. I read it the first thing in the morning after I checked it out of the library. Now I'm reading Looking For Alaska, one of John Green's other books. So far I like it, but it hasn't really got my attention as much as Paper Towns did.

I'm also re-reading the Harry Potter series. Last night I watched the last movie on DVD and yelled at it a bit less than I did the two times I saw it in theaters. I also watched The Goblet of Fire and half of The Order of the Phoenix the night before. I'm not going to watch the movies again until I'm finished re-reading all of the books. Although I do have to get all of the DVDs within the next month because they are going in to some crazy vault of doom... but it doesn't mean I have to watch them right away.

Apparently I have a lot to write about over here. It's probably because I haven't written a blog in a while. I should be taking all of this writing time over to my novel. It is going to be another busy week. The comedy series is finally going to start filming and I need to get a bunch of my ideas written out and organized...

Fall back!

The time change is really messing with me. I can't be tired at 9pm. I just can't be. I do have to get up at 5am, so with the change and everything it's actually like I'm getting up at 6! I had to go get a last minute vaccination for school today and I'm so glad I was able to get it. The problem was that for some reason the school offices were CLOSED and I couldn't get my paperwork in. So tomorrow I shall get up bright and early to submit my papers before registering. Hopefully all goes well.

I'm at 6,688 words right now in my novel and I think I need a lot of conversation fillers, which is becoming hard for me to do. Just a little bit behind on the word count. A little. A few thousand. I'm just ready to move on to the crazy action in my story! I may have to spend a bit of time rethinking things so I can get it a little more interesting. The first 4,000 words or so came so easily (the first 2,000 happened within an hour on the first day) and now I'm just stuck. I'm starting to get a little annoyed with my story at this point and it sucks, because it's only day six. Some parts of my story are probably going to drastically change. Oh, and another thing is that I keep getting distracted by other things on the internet... like writing this.

Time to stop procrastinating...

NaNoWriMo!

It's already November 3rd and NaNoWriMo is going amazingly! I'm hoping that I'll be able to stay this interested in my story for the rest of the month. Right now I'm at 5,862 words! This is actually more than I wrote for the entirety of last year's NaNoWriMo. I remember forgetting (and not having enough time for it) and ended up stopping about two days in. Also, I didn't think much about my story last year. I had my whole story for this year plotted out in mid-October.

It all seems to be going well, but I will probably be going back over the story a few times before I think it's ready to be read by anybody. I like how it's going so far though, although earlier today I was questioning my story. Tonight I got a bit more written and started to get excited about it again. Hopefully I won't decide later on that I want to write a completely different story. Pretty sure I'm stuck with this one now.

Other than that, I'm getting pretty excited about doing photography for Austin Comic Con the weekend after next. It's going to be a lot of fun. I've got to clean my camera though, it's been through a lot in the past year. Changed purses and bags, random stuff has seemed to have gotten on it. I clean it every once in a while, but it is due for a full on cleaning.

The upcoming week is going to be pretty busy. I'm registering for classes on Monday. I'm really ready to get back in to school, but at the same time I'm a little bit nervous. For the most part, I'm really excited though!

Writing and Writing

I wasn't able to complete the blogging every day for a month thing. I was out of town in a place where there was absolutely no internet or 3G on my phone. I was doing so well! The reason I went out to the middle of nowhere was to move my stuff to where I'm living now and have been living the past 9 months. For some reason or another things kept preventing me to get my things before. I had the opportunity last week and took it. My belongings aren't all here yet, but I've got most of them. I'm happy to have my photos, Harry Potter books, many other books, craft supplies and much more back.

I still want to continue to blog often. When I started this blog, I said that I wanted to update it at least once a week (I believe) if not more. I will be busy throughout this upcoming month, but I think I will have more interesting things to write about. Busy is one thing, but I will most definitely have internet and I think that is what is important.

A month of writing. Again. November 1st NaNoWriMo begins and I will probably start writing at midnight or in the early hours of the day. There are a lot of writing events going on and I am trying to figure out which I can go to. I have my basic story ideas written out, but there's a lot more I need to work on. The outline of the story came to me pretty fast in the middle of the night last week and I've written out the plot skeleton-majiggy. The hardest part for me has been figuring out names for my characters. I have been on name websites the past few days and haven't been able to find many I want to use. I still have six days left to figure that out.

Failed

So, I didn't post a blog yesterday. I have been super busy and it slipped my mind. I'm still going to try continuing as much as I can.

I'm going on a mini roadtrip (3 1/2 hours) today. Up to the land of Breckenridge! That's where my dad lives along with most of my stuff.

I think the most exciting thing (besides hanging out) will be staying in my old room for the week. I'm going to be going through a lot of my things and figuring out what I'm taking with me this trip. All of my photos! My movies! My PS2!

I've barely got any sleep in the past few days so it's going to be nice to hop into my old bed.

Zoe and I had adventures this weekend. We kicked it off with quidditch at UT. It was so much fun! I think I will be going there often. They even had a Harry Potter themed concession stand. I had butterbeer and chocolate wands.

Then yesterday I went to pick up the free pumpkin ice cream I won from Amy's. So tasty! Today I got a giant tempura fish taco from Fuzzy's. Also really tasty!

I'm crazy sleepy right now and it's hard staying awake. I feel like taking a nap here outside. The weather is amazing right now.

October 14th

Oops! 11:58! BloG! I went to quidditch tonight! It was awesome!!!

October 13th

I almost forgot about blogging today! So this is really last minute. I'm going to be pretty busy for the next week and hopefully I'll have time to continue this.

Watched Bridesmaids tonight! It was pretty hilarious. We were laughing so hard pretty much the whole way through. The recent movie choices have been really good.

Tomorrow Zoe comes over. We're going to go watch a quidditch match. Snuff Box DVD also comes in the mail tomorrow so we will have a little viewing party.

Hopefully everything goes well this week with my plans and I can get some things done that I really need to.

October 12th

Working on a few portfolios tonight. Hopefully I will have a basic website uploaded in the next few days. The hard part for me seems to be compiling and categorizing all of these things. I keep organizing and losing certain folders. I don't know how I'm doing this, but somehow it keeps happening. So, before anything else, I must get all of these files in the same general area on my computer.

I wish my printer didn't run out of ink within like 5 minutes. I need to print some things out and make some poster type things. Also, I should have a hard copy of my portfolios. There isn't any black ink! Why? That's what I need the most! Hopefully I will be able to get a better quality printer some time soon.

This is going to be another short blog, because I have about a million things open on my computer that I need to get done. At least I'm still doing this!

October 11th

Conventions! I am going to be doing photography at Austin Comic Con in November and SXSW in March. I may do photography for San Diego Comic Con next year, as I plan on already being in California for VidCon. The only one I'll actually be paying for is VidCon, but I'll probably still take a bunch of photos and videos. Maybe I'll throw a couple more local conventions in there too. It's going to be really convention-y.

I'm excited to actually get a SXSW badge this year. I've been going to the free parties for the last 5 years or so, I'm always without a badge. I just need to figure out where I'm going to crash for about 10-11 days. All I need is a floor to sleep on and a shower. There are a few people downtown that may be able to help me out with that though. It would also be nice to find a place to stay during Austin Comic Con, but I think I'll just have to journey there for the four days. Not too much of a problem though, because it's only about 20 minutes to get downtown anyway.

October 10th

Ideas for my NaNoWriMo novel are brewing in my head. I don't think it's going to be as hard to do as I thought the first time I tried. Last time I tried to write a novel in November, I kept changing the entire story. I would get a little bit done, then I would go back and rewrite pretty much everything. I'm just going to go with it this year. I want to see what can come out of my brain. What is probably going to happen is a lot of coffee and writing at night, then turning in to half zombie mode during the day. Lately I have been really committed to writing and finishing projects.

Earlier this year I tried doing the 365 photo thing and it lasted 35 days. The photos I took would tell something about the day, to me at least, I don't think I did too well at captioning. I really wish that I could try it again, but I really don't think I could do it every day for a year. Taking photos every day isn't a problem for me, it's just uploading them daily. Things happen in life sometimes where you just don't have the time to do it. Also, I usually end up leaving photos on my camera for a few weeks. It was hard for me to finish because I was just starting college and was extremely busy.

I can't wait until I can start college again. It's all really up to the math portion of the placement test that for some reason I have to take again. Ugh, I hate the process of transferring. I wish that all schools had the same tests and stuff so it would be easier. I also wish that my old school would have actually put all of my scores on the official transcript. There is no real reason to feel so stressed about things though, I have to take the test no matter what. Random panic attacks are never good, I keep telling myself it's something I shouldn't worry too much about. So, I will get that done this week if I can find a way there. Here's to hoping that I will have transportation!

Two weeks until Brandi's birthday! Three weeks until Halloween! Four weeks until I can register for college! Mondays are apparently where it's at.

Here's the unfinished 365 project I was talking about http://www.flickr.com/photos/momhe/sets/72157623001126547/

October 9th

Submarine was a really good movie. It makes me feel creative and want to start making short films again. The film was beautiful, it was really nice to see a style that looked different from every other movie out there right now. It was funny in a different way too, subtle funny, but usually that's funnier to me than completely out there funny. It's good to see a movie like that, most of the time I just watch random stuff on Netflix.

This weekend I watched Night Watch, which was kind of trippy, but an interesting movie, wasn't bad. I didn't really read the description beforehand, I guess, but I really didn't think it was going to be a vampire movie. The whole thing didn't really seem like it was one of those vampire-y movies though, if that makes sense at all. Apparently it's the first in a series and I'm kind of interested in the others, so I might check them out, but none of them are on Netflix instant. Then I watched I Saw The Devil, which wasn't bad either, but it was really long and it was pretty gory. It actually had a pretty creepy storyline. I find things that could actually happen scarier than the fantasy type horror films. Still, I didn't think the movie was too scary. Maybe I've just lost the ability to get freaked out by movies. I think the creepiest movie for me is still Cape Fear... the Robert DeNiro version. Stalkers always give me the heebie jeebies!

I also finished Torchwood: Miracle Day. I'm happy I actually felt like finishing that season, because I was so uninterested in the first half. Everything really came together in the end and I thought it was pretty good. Nothing made much sense until the last three or four episodes. I think it could have been a little more interesting at the end. I'm not giving any spoilers, but the whole blessing wasn't as exciting as I was hoping. The very end of the show was actually pretty cool, although it was pretty predictable. Most of the last episode was predictable for me though. The only thing I really don't like is the whole Starz involvement in all of it, I really wish it was just BBC. The new characters turned out to not be as bad as I first thought they all were. Still, I just want them to go back to Wales!

I have some ideas for my next vlog, YouTube video, whatever it turns out to be, but I don't know when I will actually be able to film it. The house is pretty crowded, it's raining outside (so that's not really an option) and I have to keep studying for the math test. This video is going to take a bit more work than my previous videos and I'm actually going to upload it in HD. I'm going to take the extra time, which really just means leaving my computer on for like two hours to upload. So, yeah, the uploading could be going on when I'm doing other things. The actual filming may take a little while though. I think I may just do a short video this week, because I want to do something and then do the other one the week after or something.

Pretty sure the upcoming week is going to bring a spurt of creativity. I have really needed it for a long while and I have been wondering where it has gone. In the past week or so I have been writing in my actual journal about two pages a day, along with writing here. It's a bit different in there, it's the really random ranting that I just like to write out and not really make public. There aren't any super secret things inside, I just like having a place I can write to myself. I really don't read it back too often, maybe every couple of years. I have mountains (okay, small mountains) of used notebooks from journals past. I probably have about 35, I would guess. They're all in boxes now and it's been a pretty long time since I last read any of them. I think it would be interesting to look back at teenage me. That would probably scare me more than any of these horror movies I've been trying to watch.