Surrounded by another person's memories

When I'd seen my late friend last , she told me that she had a bunch of her bellydance stuff that she wanted me to have. Her husband got all of it together, got in touch with me, and I went over there this afternoon to get it. He showed me a picture album of her when she was bellydancing. She was so beautiful! I could tell from the pictures that she knew what she was doing and was very graceful and elegant.

What's more, she taught herself how to bellydance, made all of her own costumes, taught other people, and set up her own business delivering bellygrams!!!! She was a single mother with two kids, working somewhere and doing all of this to try and make ends meet. I looked through the things she left me and I have all of the jewellery she made and bought (the earrings! headpieces! neckpieces! sterling silver!) as well as all of the costumes she made, including the bras, belts, skirts, and veils, and the leftover embellishments. I also have the books she used to teach herself, the books on costume design, *and* all of her music. I was so excited when I looked through it! It was like finding the perfect pair of shoes (some of you have seen that reaction and you know how obvious it is).

Ok, all of this stuff is from the late 70s and early 80s (and the music is on cassettes), but in a way that makes it even more valuable and interesting. It's not just bellydancing costumes  and information passed from one bellydancer to another - it's a piece of history, both hers and the bellydancing community.

I wish I had known how much bellydancing she had done - I knew that she had bellydanced but not that she had done everything else - and I'm sad that I didn't ask more about it. I wish I had told her how much I admired her.

Tonight I went out with a group of people for dinner to celebrate my friend's life. We toasted her and conducted ourselves in the fashion of which she would have approved: lots of laughter, food, wine (for those who drink it), and yummy desserts. At least we could give her this. 

A bellydance workshop

I went to a workshop today on American Tribal Style (ATS) bellydancing. It's a new style of dance that's only been around for about 20 years or so and which borrows from several dance disciplines including bellydance and flamenco.

Conceptually, ATS is really cool because there's a limited number of moves, each with varying extra layers that can be added. A unique "key" move is associated with each move/layer combination. There is a "leader" at the front left on stage and that person indicates with these key moves which move is coming up next. This way, it looks like the troupe is moving as one, but really it's a completely improvised dance each time. The leader changes throughout the dance as well so everyone in the troupe gets a chance to lead.

It's a very interesting dance and one I'd love to study. The guy (yes, the instructor was a guy and yes, that's unusual for bellydance) will be giving ATS classes on Wednesdays in September. It would be awesome to take the class but I'm a bit worried about my lower back.

My goodness, I must be getting old. I have aches! And pains! I have degeneration in my lower back, possibly from when I first started paddling, that can hurt when I'm dancing if I'm not very, very careful with my posture. The posture used in ATS is different than that used in regular bellydance, with the arms at shoulder height or above the head and the chest held up and out with the shoulders slightly back and new. Keeping my back long during this new posture was tricky.

So I'll see how much my back hurts tomorrow and if it doesn't hurt too much, then I'll think about taking the class either in the fall or some other time.

How much is too much bellydancing?

Four hours of bellydance in one day might be a bit too much! I did two workshops today and I'll tell you, my belly is a bit tired :) My undulations were pretty pathetic by the end of the afternoon. I learned a lot and enjoyed the workshops very much; I'm looking forward to the next class in both series.

This evening, Ian and I watched Diary of the Dead, a zombie movie by George Romero. It's one of those first-person video movies, so it has a couple of people with a camera filming what happens when suddenly the dead rise. There are some flaws with the plot (would all the people really disappear in a day or so?), and the acting wasn't always the best, but I liked that the ending was left unresolved. Yes, there are zombies, but we don't know what happens to our people. There was a bit of humour in the movie, too, especially with regard to the zombies being killed.

I was looking at patterns for sale this evening (this is something I do - surf the internet looking for patterns or fabric) and I came across this one:


What I love best about it is that it's really only two pieces, each cut on the fold. I love the way it looks as shown in the stripe. The back is vertically striped and the front diagonally striped. I like this pattern although it would be a pain to grade and alter for my height; it's also most likely unprinted, and I've never used an uncut, unprinted pattern before. I might also want to shorten the sleeves a bit. I'll think about bidding on it.

My bellydance recital went well

Sorry I didn't write anything yesterday - a headache started yesterday afternoon and came back twice as hard after the Advil I took wore off. I went to bed at 8pm and I couldn't read or anything; all I could do was sleep until I got up at 3pm today.

I'm feeling mostly better, thanks. I still have a bit of a headache that comes (it's here now) and goes and I'm still very tired, but I'll be ok.

The bellydance recital went really well. I danced well enough, as did the people who were in my class, and many of the choreographies were interesting. I don't totally understand why one choreography was repeated twice, though. The funniest thing that happened was that the pink pailettes on my new pink hip scarf left pink on my stomach after I'd been wearing it for a while :) I had to go and scrub my belly off and then I applied some bronzer, which masked the pink. My head-jewelry left divots in my head, too :)

Just sitting around

We just finished watching the Across the River to Motor City mini-series. Yes, I know that it aired back around Christmas, but it takes a while for us to get around to watching things that we've recorded. Anyways, we both thought that it was quite good. There are several intertwining stories told in a series of flashbacks between the 60's and 2001, set in Detroit/Windsor. The first episode wasn't great but the series got a lot better with each episode.

I didn't want to do much today because tomorrow I've got my bellydance recital. It's sold out! I'm in one of the last choreographies, so I hope that people stick around to see me :)

Bellydance practice

I practiced my bellydance routine today. It turned out that I was a little off of the other two doing the choreography and so I have to make a couple of adjustments. I don't mind doing that as long as the choreography looks good. I'm going to wear my new pink top and hip scarf :)

The recital is on Mother's Day - this coming Sunday, from 2:30-4:30pm. I'm looking forward to it. The night before is the Funkabelly dance - I sort of want to go but I don't want to go by myself. We'll see. It might not be an idea to be out late with the recital the next day.

Lots of sewing but less for me

The core needle biopsy area is still sore, but at least it's stopped bleeding. I think it's slightly less red, too, which leaves me feeling quite relieved!

Someone is asking about a messenger bag from me and while I hadn't planned to do any bags like that for a while, well, I'm not going to turn anyone down, am I? I took pictures of the different outer fabrics and linings that I have. I'll edit them tomorrow and put them somewhere so that the person who's interested (as well as anyone else) can choose from them.

I've also planned to make some drum bags for the upcoming open house on May 4 at the bellydance studio. That way, people can buy them if they want to. That would also be a good day for my class to practice the choreography for the recital on May 11 :)

Of course I decided that I wanted to make a dress out of the fine cotton fabrics that I bought :) Some of them shrunk quite a bit in the prewash! I've got a pattern adjusted and I've decided on a layout; the actual sewing should be quite straightforward, I hope.

Reading about bellydance costumes

As you might remember, I ordered some bellydance costuming books. They came today, a whole week early! All of the books are by Dawn Devine Brown and they cover everything from the technical aspects of making a costume to the design elements that emphasize or minimize things. I'm reading them all, cover to cover. Next I just need to design my own costume. So exciting!

For all that I have no compulsion to sew, I've been sewing a lot. I'm working on this great shirtdress right now out of a tan fabric with black embroidery and black tulle accents. I'm using black for the collar and sleeve bands and black buttons and the dress is coming together quite nicely. I actually managed to get the collar on properly!!!!

The way I did the collar was first to stay-stitch the neck and the clip the neck to the stay-stitching to make it fit around the collar curves. I add drops of Fray-check to the points, but since the seamline is outside the stay-stitching, it's unlikely that the fabric will ravel through on those points.

Tomorrow I get another Pamidronate infusion; I wonder how long it will knock me out this time?

Sleeping, sleeping, sleeping

Sorry there was no update yesterday - I was pretty tired and my back was very woogly. I couldn't even read my book and ended up sleeping until almost 4:30pm, or about 16 hours. I still wasn't feeling fully awake and so just watched tv this afternoon. Later I got up enough energy to do some sewing.

One thing I did yesterday was to buy some books on making bellydance costumes. They were very expensive on Amazon.ca (one was $65 which is what I paid for all 3!) so I bought them from Amazon.com. They're due to arrive around the beginning of May. I'm doing more and more bellydancing and thinking more about costumes, so I'd like to be able to some good ones. I can't afford the $500+ to buy a beaded costume that will need significant alterations anyways. So we'll see how things go once I have the books. :)

FunkaBelly fun

Last night some of the Haft Vadi students headed to Toronto for the FunkaBelly dance. It's a monthly party thrown by one of the instructors in Toronto and it's full of bellydance music, dancers, and fun. There are some performers and a nightful of dancing. I had a great time! I didn't love all of the music they played, but I definitely loved the performances and the opportunity to dance with and meet people that I had seen but didn't know.

I'd been really nervous about what to wear and ended up wearing one of my long, black, bellydance skirts and a black top that I love. I didn't bare my belly because I didn't feel like it but the top and skirt made me look really curvy. The theme of the party was "An Homage to Plumage" and I bought a red feather boa out of which I made bracelets and a choker. I also wore my usual bellydance scarf.

Some people looked really awesome!!! One woman had closely beaded a bellydance belt out of iridescent sequins and it looked really amazing. A friend of mine also sewed sequins onto a bra and it looked fabulous! I'm so proud of her :)

More on the recital

I got some rest last night and feel MUCH better. I was able to go out to lunch with some friends, go and get more materials for drum bags, and go for a walk.

The bellydance recital was great; I'll be doing the same choreography on May 11 in that recital. There were a lot of different instructors and their students there, which was interesting. The atmosphere was quite a bit different from other recitals that I've attended; everything felt a bit colder. Most of the groups of students ignored the others. I was lucky and managed to talk (in passing, at least) with quite a few people. That was good, at least.

One of the best things was seeing all of the different styles of bellydance. There were little kids doing a simple choreography, an American Tribal group (there are different tribal schools out there, and the biggest studies something called American Tribal - apparently there's quite a bit of controversy there), some cabaret-type dances, and others.

I'm going to make another drum bag prototype for Wednesday. I need to change the one I made to be about an inch shorter and to have a pocket in front. They also want a bag for clay drums that has a half-inch padding throughout to protect the drum. I got the foam padding and some plain black broadcloth for these drum bags. The broadcloth is the same as is used with the quilted broadcloth that I'm using for the other drum bags.

Bellydance Recital

My recital went well today; I felt like I performed well. I saw a lot of different styles of dance, too, which was cool.

This is the second early day full of physical activity and I'm exhausted. I'm heading for bed (yes, at 7:30pm!) and I hope to have much more to say tomorrow.

Curling all day

We curled all day in a bonspiel; we ended up coming in second in our draw which was awesome! We all curled pretty well and the last game was so close that it could have gone either way. Needless to say, we're very tired. We did win 1L of maple syrup each plus another random prize so we came away ok. Hopefully I will be well-rested enough for my bellydance recital tomorrow.

Anti-depressants have made a HUGE difference in my life and I wish I'd found them earlier. I'll write more about that tomorrow, though, as I need sleep.

A fun shopping day

I got up early this morning to go to the Fabricland in Stratford. Vogue patterns are on sale for $5.99 and I wanted to go through some other discounted patterns and buttons. While I was there, I ran into the friend I went shopping with on Saturday and she helped me look through everything. I ended up getting a bunch of buttons, patterns, and trim on sale. We had a great time.

I took the drum bag to bellydancing today and construction-wise, it's fine. I need to shorten it by an inch, though, as it is a little long. And although the original specs were with no pocket, now I need to add a pocket that will hold a folded sheet of paper or two :) Also, there are some clay drums that are very fragile and break easily. They want bags that have 1/2" padding in them for those. The bellydance term is over for a couple of weeks and I'll have something ready when I go back.

Finished a drum bag

I finished the drum bag prototype for the bellydance studio today. I'd been meaning to do it but then wanted to sew only for me. Over the last few weeks I've had some ideas in my head and I was finally able to get it done. It's made of black quilted cotton broadcloth with piping and straps.

The bag is smaller at the bottom than the top, to accommodate the shape of the drum. For my first pattern, I just took the extra off at one end of each side of a rectangle to form a trapezoid... but then I realized that this wouldn't work because the seams wouldn't meet at right angles. The way to draft the pattern is to start with a big rectangle and then fold small, evenly-spaced darts out of one side to make an arch-shaped piece. This was perfect.

Then I realized that I'd included too much ease and had to trim it down a bit. Fortunately that wasn't too hard. I'm quite pleased with the bag, overall; I've serged and top-stitched my seams for strength and attractiveness. And now that I know how to make the bag, it would only take a couple of hours at most to make another one.

Hopefully it will be the right size and design and the studio will like them. If I were to sell ones like this myself, I'd probably sell it for $25. If the studio wants to sell them, I'll sell them for less (bulk orders get a discount, of course :)

Shopping, bellydancing, and Rock Band

I went to the new Fabricland in Stratford with a friend of mine - I haven't seen her in ages and was very glad to have seen her today. The Fabricland is bigger than the one I go to in Mississauga - in fact, it's about the same size as the Fabricland I used to go to that closed down in one of the malls. I did buy some fabric at 50% off and I'll be able to head there this next week if I want any Vogue patterns for $5.99 (which I probably will).

Even with all that shopping and chatting, I made it to bellydance to practice the choreography for the recitals April 6 and May 11. After that we did two hours of rather intense bellydance heart/chest movements.

I don't know if you knew, but people here were asked to turn their lights off/down for Earth hour between 8 and 9pm. Our sacrifice was to lay Rock Band in the dark with no lights or unnecessary machinery running. Lots of people around us turned their lights down, which was cool. And an even of Rock Band is always fun after a long shopping and bellydancing day.

Where did the snow come from?

I finished the dress in plenty of time (and I think it looks awesome, even though I know it isn't perfect) but the weather turned against us. Snow started falling around 3pm or so and by 5:30 we had almost three inches of heavy, wet snow. The roads were slick and we decided that we shouldn't risk ourselves by driving to Stratford. We will have to remember Kevin in our own ways instead as we can't make it to the funeral tomorrow.

I was looking forward to seeing the team, even though the circumstances suck, but that will have to wait. I hope to see one or more people this weekend; that Fabricland is having a 50% off sale for members. I have a membership for Mississauga and I hope that it can be transferred to Stratford.

Tomorrow I have my Pamidronate infusion and if all goes well, they'll be using my port for the first time. It's really healed well, except for one end where the stitch came up. It hasn't dissolved yet so they'll have to take it off tomorrow. It's going to be a long day, as I arrive at 12:40pm for bloodwork and then I have the infusion starting at 2:45pm. If it started earlier, I might make it to bellydance, but there's no way that I'll make it there in time. I hope the infusion goes well tomorrow.

Yesterday was also port-a-cath day

Yesterday wasn't the best day ever. Not only did my friend die, but I had to have my port-a-cath put in. If I'd had a choice, I would have postponed it for a day when I was feeling stronger.

The best part about yesterday was when I was telling the nurse about everything that was going on. She gave me a big hug and when we both had a few minutes, she came and talked to me. She'd been a palliative care nurse and so understood the emotions I was feeling. I am very grateful to her for taking the time to talk to me.

The port insertion isn't all that complicated; the two main steps are to put the catheter part into the jugular vein and to put the reservoir part into a "pocket" that they make under the skin. To do all this they give local freezing.

You may not know this, but local freezing and I do not get along. It hurts like crazy when it goes in and I usually need extra because I metabolize it strangely. So the anaesthetic portion of my adventure was pretty awful and filled with howls and screams. Some would say that I'm a big baby when it comes to local freezing pain, and those some would be right.

Things got better after that. I felt a lot of pressure and things felt weird but they got the port in without any problems. I had to spend four hours in the recovery area but that turned out ok, too. I had a big, big nap :)

I now have a gigantic bunch of padding and tape over the incisions and I'm not allowed to get that area wet, so no shower for me until at least Monday :( The area is fairly tender to the touch and is stiff when I wake up. I'm taking tylenol for the pain and stiffness; I figure there's no point taking Percocet if I don't need to. Home-care nurses are coming in on Monday and again later in the week to change the dressing and make sure things are ok.

I'm going to my bellydancing workshop, although I missed the class at noon because I slept in. My plan is to take it very easy. Tonight is the juggling festival show and I'll be going to that, too.

Tomorrow is my friend's visitation in Oshawa; the funeral is Monday starting at 11am but I can't make it to that because of the home-care nurse coming in. I hope to make it to the visitation tomorrow; Ian's offered to drive me but there are juggling people in town and it would be better if he could spend time with them.

A lazy bellydancing day

I went to bellydance today for the first time in a while. I discovered that I don't remember the choreography, but that's ok. There are classes on Saturdays that are doing this choreography and I can take some of those to make up for the ones that I missed.

I've been meaning to do some sewing but I haven't been able to figure out what it is that I want to sew. You know how that is? I spent the afternoon looking at my fabrics and trying to think of what to sew. Nothing is shouting out at me, though, so maybe I should leave it.... but I feel like sewing. I guess it's good that I have a project to work on :)

I've also been wasting time over at FreeRice. It's a vocabulary game where for each word you get right, 20 grains of rice are donated through the UN World Food Programme to help end hunger. So my time isn't exactly being wasted if it's for a good cause, right? :) I encourage those of you who haven't played this already to start... it's quite addictive.

I want to make things

It is some kind of cold here in Edmonton! Between that and the change in altitude, I'm really tired. At least I've been sleeping. :) I'm hoping while I'm here to maybe find a bellydance studio that accepts drop-in students so that I can keep up some of my dancing. I'm going to wait on that for a little while, though.

I have almost all of my beads here in Edmonton (funny, at the Waterloo airport I watched them search my suitcase because of all of the little bits of metal in that bag) and I've pulled them out this evening. I'm hoping to create some new pieces as I've been itching to really make things. This happened when I took all those new background photos for the earrings - I realized that I loved making things and I wanted to be able to make more things. It's a vicious cycle, I tell you :)

Anyways, I'm hoping that I'll make some things while I'm here. I'm also hoping to edit my current items for sale with the new photos! I'll let you know when I do that, though - if you were to have put any of those items in your cart before I edit them, then you will have to remove and re-add the items when I'm finished editing in order to actually purchase your items. It's a little "quirk of etsy's.

Dancing Queen

I danced in my bellydance recital tonight. I had a little bit of trouble with the veil choreography when my sleeve got caught in my hairband but I got that sorted out pretty quickly. Ian said that some of my movements with the veil were choppier than they might have been. Still, I thought that I danced well in that choreography.

I danced very well in the second choreography if I do say so myself. It went very, very well. People told me afterward that I smiled a lot and that I looked comfortable, happy, and enthusiastic. Coincidentally enough, I felt that way :)

At the very end, the organizer invited all of us on stage to dance to this one song. Somehow I wound up in center front (which wasn't very far to the front) because no one wanted to be in front of me. Most of the people were dancing at the sides of the dance area so that people wouldn't see them. I just wanted to dance. I used to go out dancing a lot - not bellydancing, of course - and I miss going out and just shaking it to the music.

I tell you, the recital is the best part of bellydancing :) I'm already looking forward to the next one. Oh yeah, and pictures of me in my costume minus the hip scarf - I drafted and sewed the skirt pattern and also lined and re-sparkled the top - are here.

What will I do in January? And how will I get rid of this pain?

Ian and I were talking today about my activities. This fall, I was bellydancing twice a week, curling twice a week, going to Well-fit twice a week, and swimming once a week. That was a lot! I ended up not able to do that much and stopped swimming early on. I missed quite a lot of Well-fit, bellydancing, and curling this fall as well. With the pain up and me feeling overwhelmed, I need to cut my activities even more from January - April.

I am going to quit Well-fit and Monday will be my last. This is partly because of the time it takes, but also because I really like to be pushed at the gym and when I get pushed I end up exhausted or with sternal pain. It's also $150+parking for three months which I could put to better use.

If I take any bellydancing, it'll just be one choreography or one drum class and no more. There's no way that I can do two classes.

I'm going to try and go to curling twice a week since I've paid for the two leagues until April. But if the pain gets to be too much I'll cut one of the nights out. It's tough to figure out which night I'd give up. I love the people and we have a lot of close relationships on Fridays, but the curling is better - and I'll get better - on Thursdays.

I saw my family doctor today as a followup to the new pain meds. They weren't working well so he's started me on the next dose of the fentanyl patch. If that takes care of the pain, then I can start playing with the dosages to try and reduce the amount of oxycontin I'm taking. Hopefully this will work.

I'm sparkly

I was up last night because of the pain (it's not gone after all..... wah!!!!) and thought that I'd look at my bellydance top. Some of the sparklyness had rubbed off in the dryer and while working with it and whatnot and I thought that I could add some sparkly back. Those who know me know I love almost all things sparkly.

So I got out the glue and traced around the flowers on both front panels and just around the neckline. And then I took my fine red glitter and sprinkled it over the glue. I did put stuff underneath the top so that the glitter didn't get all over the table.... but glitter did get on the floor and on me. I guess some people might have expected that this would happen.

In the process of cleaning that mess up, I used one of the soaps downstairs. We're using glittery soap now. I never did get all of the glitter all of the floor, either. I wore the top tonight to practice and managed to get glitter all over my coat, me, and the studio. When I went to my group afterwards, someone commented on how I had lovely red sparkles on me. It's like they're everywhere.

On the bright side, my top is sparkly and will be gorgeous onstage on Friday. :)

Optometrist appointment and even more bellydancing

I got to see my optometrist today. She's monitoring me every six months because it looks like I have a cataract on one or another eye. She hadn't seen that spot before this past July and so it's almost certainly a new development. The Femara that I take for my cancer can cause cataracts :(

Also, I'm at the very beginning stages of needing bifocals :( The very lightest bifocal can help my reading, but for now I can get by with just moving my glasses around. I feel kinda like an old lady. Sigh.

On the bright side, I was able to apply false eyelashes today!!! I went to the Well-fit party this afternoon and I thought I'd give the lashes a try. I put the subtler ones in and everyone just said that I looked really nice (well, some people just said that I cleaned up good, which is practically the same thing).

I'll definitely be wearing false eyelashes with rhinestones as part of my costume for the recital on Friday. I've been practicing and practicing and practicing my choreographies. Every time I have some time I go through the steps. I hope it pays off as tomorrow is the last day of classes for me before the recital.

The recital is this Friday at 7pm sharp at the Hespeler Memorial Arena at 640 Ellis Drive (just north of the 401 off Townline Rd). Doors open at 6:30pm. Tickets are $7 in advance and $10 at the door. Tickets won't be reserved at the door so must be picked up in advance. Not that I expect any of you to come, of course, but you're welcome to see us all dance. Ian is definitely going to attend the recital :)

My bellydance costume is ready

I finished lining my bellydance top. I'd used both the sparkly red and nude lining but the sparkly red fabric didn't stretch enough. That's ok as since I put the nude lining to the bottom of the top so it doesn't look like I'm naked underneath. The top had some sparkly stuff glued to it when I bought it and a lot of that has come off. I'll probably just leave it even though I have glue and glitter.... I could make it way glittery :)

Now that this is all done, I can sew for myself. I'll start tomorrow by making something out of the silver fabric. Even though my New Year's Eve plans aren't confirmed I'm going to go ahead and assume that I'm going out. Hopefully the dress will work out :)

Oh, and I've figured out how to put my fake ponytail on so that it looks good and is stable and won't come off. Whew! Now I don't have to pay my hairdresser $20 to do it for me.

Movies and more about bellydancing

We saw The Golden Compass today. It was ok. It is aimed at the teenage set so it didn't have the depth of plot that we usually see in movies. Still, it is pretty good. The story is entertaining, the CG is good, and the story is fun. Nicole Kidman is very good as the evil woman, as expected :)

I made a second bellydance skirt today. I made the first one out of slinky fabric and it was nice but it wasn't quite what I wanted. I made this second one out of stretch velvet and it is much nicer - it's a deeper black and clings a bit better. The slinky knit stretches and looks kind of shapeless when I'm wearing it but the stretch velvet keeps its shape much better.

I still need to alter the top. I want to change the neckline to be less of a V (which, although Vs usually look good on me, looks funny on me) and to be more of a sweetheart. I also need to shorten it as it is too long. While some people wear these tops out to clubs and stuff, I won't wear it for anything but bellydance.

I must line the top because it's sheer and I'm uncomfortable going to a performance wearing the top with only a bra underneath. I have some red sparkly fabric and I'm thinking I could line it with that. I also have nude-coloured fabric with which I could line it. At least my bra wouldn't show then, although I'd still look mostly naked underneath. Still, not showing my bra would be an improvement.

Bellydancing, bellydancing, and more bellydancing

I think I've almost got both bellydance choreographies learned. I'll keep practicing them, though - it's important to know the dances well enough that if I make a mistake I don't have to go through the next steps to catch up.

I'm quite pleased with the skirt I made. It's sort of mermaid-ish: it hangs straight to the knee and then flares out. When I turn, the bottom flares. I think this style looks much better on me than a wide skirt. I bought a top before and I'm going to make some alterations to it. It needs a lining as it is a sheer lace and I'm not willing to go on stage with it as-is. I'm also going to change the neckline a bit to make more sweetheart-like and less V-like. I know that the costume shouldn't be that important, but, well, it is to me :)

I'm quite pleased with my fake hairpiece. I've figured out a way to wear it - with a headband that wraps around the head - so that it looks natural. The hairpiece wants to tangle all the time, though. I was reading that it's possible to wash these things and so I think I might do that and then use some kind of light conditioner on it. I also have a shine styling product that detangles as well that I could use. I'd like the hairpiece to look its best on stage, and all tangled up isn't its best.

A whole lotta shopping

We decorated our Christmas tree tonight. Yes, for the first time, we bought an artificial tree. It's a 4 1/2 foot tree with a pot (so it could sit outside) and has mini-lights on it. Our decorating scheme is blue and silver, so we have silver bead garland and silver and blue balls. It looks nice - I'll try and take a picture of it for you.

I've done a lot of shopping lately. I bought a backup New Year's Eve dress as even though I plan to make a dress, if it doesn't work out for any reason I want to be able to wear something. I got this dress, and I got it at a great price because it didn't have the sash. I don't need the sash anyways because the dress it looks nice on me as-is. The best thing about this dress is that it is a little black dress (LBD), which is something I didn't have before. LBDs are the right things to wear on many, many occasions; they are a wardrobe staple.

I also bought stuff for bellydancing. I got two beaded crochet scarves, a variety of headbands, some big sparkly earrings, some more sparkly hair stuff, and some shoes that I can wear. Some people are wearing slip-on slippers from Isotoner but I don't really like those. So I'll wear shoes that are at least as comfortable as those slippers.

I also bought a beautiful polka-dot shirt and two blouses that fit me really well.

Whew! I'm done with shopping for me. Well, except that there is this longing inside me for new shoes. Tall ones. With a platform and stiletto heel. Sigh.....

Anyways, tomorrow I'll finish my bellydance skirt. From now on when we go to class we're supposed to wear whatever it is we'll be wearing to the recital. The recital is at 7pm on December 14 in Cambridge. Tickets are $7 in advance and so if you're interested in attending, please let me know soon so that I can buy tickets for you.

A great weekend

Thanks to everyone who shopped at my sale - I did pretty well, all things considered. That makes me happy :)

This past weekend was wonderfully relaxing. I started sewing the skirt I'll wear for the bellydance recital; I expect to finish that by Wednesday. I also got some bellydance practicing in with the class. Now all I have to do is practice on my own :)

We saw Beowulf in 3D on Saturday and I highly recommend this film. Apparently it's supposed to be the story that could have inspired the Beowulf story. The story told in the film itself is very good; Beowulf is a hero, but he is also human and isn't perfect. He must live with the consequences of his own choices even though he didn't know what they would be when he made those choices. In this respect, the film is very good.

The film is also animated, and the animation is very well done. There were times when I didn't know whether or not it was animated or filmed; they can be that good. The animation wasn't always that good, which is a shame; in some places it looked more like a video game than reality. Still, it is a step up from other films.

The 3D aspect of the film is believable for the most part. There were some times when something would come towards the audience in a blatant display of 3Dness. We liked it better when the 3D action was happening in a box in front of us, as though it was a live theatre. Still, it was very good.

If you get a chance, go and see this movie.

Things that made me happy today

I listed the custom laptop bag today. Before listing it, I took some time to really think about its construction. You might remember that I had a really difficult time finishing the last laptop bag - I think it took 3 days to sew 5 seams. This time, I'll be putting the padding in and then need to sew only 2 seams. One of them will be next to the padding and I'll make it quite short and the other one is not next to the padding. Hopefully it will take a lot less time to make this bag.

I got my fake ponytail today. It's awesome! It is very close to my dyed haircolour and looks and swings very nicely. It's got a weird smell from the packaging, though, and so I'm airing it out right now. I'll wear it after this week.

I also bought some creme eyeshadow, and I love it!!!!! It goes on sooo smoothly, blends easily, and lasts. I bought some brown colours and some gold, with a midnight blue eye crayon thing (which is also very nice, easy to use, blends well, and lasts). I think I can get a good smoky eye out of these :)

Feeling like a teenager

I'm feeling a LOT better today. I think that most of the overwhelming fatigue over the weekend was caused by the flu shot I received on Friday. Those shots are very hard on me and I end up sleeping a lot and feeling really awful. Last night Ian sent me up to bed at 9pm (after I started falling asleep on the couch at 7:30pm) and I didn't get up until 11am today. I actually felt sort of good when I got up. Whew!!!

For the upcoming bellydance recital, I want to wear false eyelashes and have a smoky eye look. This afternoon, I played around with makeup and false eyelashes. I sort of felt like a teenager playing with her mom's makeup and trying to replicate the looks in the magazines.

Unfortunately, today's experiments failed. I had trouble with the false eyelashes because I think the adhesive I'm using dries too quickly and because I'm clumsy when it comes to applying them because it's not something I have done before. I must practice this more because I really, really want to be able to use them. My features don't exactly stand out in my face, especially on stage, and false eyelashes will help. Provided I can get them attached correctly - false eyelashes that are falling off are not the right look. :)

I tried doing a smoky look with black and grey eyeshadows and it didn't look right, even though I thought I put everything in the right place. One problem I had was that the shadow went everywhere. I think I need to work with less at a time and with a different brush. I may also prefer to wet the shadow or use a cream shadow. I'm also wondering if the traditional smoky eye colours are right for me - they're black and grey. Since I'm so fair, under stage lights my eyes might look a touch too skeletal. I'll have to look around. And practice, practice, practice.

I was also reading something that said if you're pale (like me) to use bronzer on the face and all exposed skin (like the midriff) for the stage. I hadn't thought of that. It would be nice to be less... ghostly? glowingly white? up on stage. :) I'll have to see what I can find.

Busy and overwhelmed

On the days that I'm not sleeping all day, I feel like I'm crazy busy. I feel like I'm rushing from place to place with barely any time to just stop and breathe and I think that's starting to get to me.

Take today, for example. I got up, sorted some laundry, went for lunch with a friend, bought a mirror for the sewing room, worked on the belt thingy for bellydance, sorted more laundry, went to bellydance, and then curled. I didn't watch any tv or surf the internet or do email or anything that I would normally do for downtime, because there was none.

I can tell that I'm getting stressed, too. I lost my car key at bellydance; thank goodness the building manager brought it to class. I forgot to take my street (non-bellydance) clothes to change into after curling. I lost one of my favourite pairs of non-curling socks at curling - I know I put them in my locker but I couldn't find them. I think that maybe the kids who have their stuff spread out all over the floor in front of my locker covered up my socks. Sigh. I'm just not doing a good job of keeping it together, you know? And that's a sign that I'm overwhelmed and need a break.

When I got home from curling I had (am having?) a big meltdown because I'm just feeling so overwhelmed and rushed and pressured and stressed.

Please don't get me wrong; I love doing every single thing I do, on its own (and I really do need to spend more time with my friends), but I feel like I'm doing WAY too much. I don't know where to cut back right now, but I think that I will be missing one or more physical activities next week.

It turns out, by the way, that the group wanted changes to the belt thing - I was going to make a different style completely based on discussions with the group, but we've decided to order crocheted sequin scarves instead. Sigh.

Bellydance notes

My bellydance veil arrived today!!!! It's beautiful and I am so happy with it. There was a fairly noticeable spot of the wrong colour dye on it, but I had to shorten the veil anyways and that spot isn't there anymore. I took my veil to class today and everyone oohed and aahed over it. It turns out that I'll only have a one minute break between my first dance and the second at the recital.

I did manage to get up and get a bunch of stuff done this morning. I am almost finished my prototype belt-thingy for tomorrow's bellydance class. I'm quite pleased with the way it's coming together and I hope my classmates like it, too.

It's been a long day and I'll be going to bed early for me - at 10pm, which is what Ian calls bedtime. :)

Fabric shopping!

The best part about learning to bellydance is doing a recital at the end of term. I'm learning two choreographies; one with the veil and a second, more complicated one, without a veil. We've decided in the second class that we'll all wear red tops and black bottoms and that none of us will match that way. We figure that if we all have the same belt thing around our waists that our looks will be pulled together.

Since I'm not working, I volunteered to do the belt thing. My classmates want fringe and metallic mesh in either gold or silver. I checked the local fabric stores but they don't have any fringe so I went fringe shopping today in Toronto.

I started with my favourite fabric store, Designer Fabrics. They have a lot of fringe :) I wasn't sure what length of fringe to get but I figured that since the belt thing will have only one tier of fringe, I could go with a longer length. I settled on 10" long fringe in gold. It's not metallic but it looks gold-coloured enough.

I went to a few other fabric stores after that and got some gold mesh fabric (it won't be enough, but it's a start)... and then I started shopping for me :) I bought some teal knit fabric, some green rayon jersey, and some red knit fabric. I am a sucker for a four-way stretch, I'll tell you :)

I'm not exactly sure how I'll do the belt thing. I think I'm going to have to bring the fringe at least around to the front so that it doesn't just stop and look weird. I could also trim the fringe so that it angles up at the front so that it doesn't look so weird. I'll have to think about this.

Magazines and shopping

The second magazine I subscribed to - Fashion - arrived today. It had three perfume inserts, and I've emailed them and asked for perfume-free issues. Elle Canada did respond and I will receive non-stinky issues of that magazine beginning in January. Whew! I am prepared to cancel any subscription that can't provide scent-free issues, but I do like reading those magazines :)

I went shopping today, and would you believe that I didn't buy any clothes? Yep, it's true. I did go to Fabricland and buy some fabric, though :) They have a lot of fabric on sale - their silk charmeuse is 50% off, and Vogue patterns are only $5.99. I didn't buy any of that. I bought some black stretch crinkled velvet and black knit for bellydance skirts, and I bought some swimsuit lining and flesh-coloured stretch mesh for bellydance costumes.

There were some beautiful fabrics there... a stretch berry red crepe that I loved, brushed yarn-dyed cotton plaids, embellished velveteens, corduroys, houndstooth fabrics... I love them all. Unfortunately, I have no real use for any of those fabrics :( If I bought them, they'd end up sitting there and wouldn't be made into anything.

Ian's away

I woke up very early see Ian off; he's gone to California for training. Yes, training - he's starting a job tomorrow :) He'd taken a break from school in the summer and then had interviews in the early fall. He'll be working at a high-tech company in the city. I'm so very proud of him :) I hope he likes the job.

I meant to go and do some bellydance workshops later in the day, but I didn't. I made a conscious decision to not go to the first workshop at 10:30am in order to sleep. I'd planned on going to the 1:30pm workshop but I didn't get up until 3pm. Sigh. I guess I needed the sleep.

I did make it to the Bewitching Bellydance Ball this evening, though. I dressed up in costume; you can see it here. It was a lot of fun - if you're in the region during the last weekend of October next year, you should definitely attend. It's bellydancing set to other kinds of music and that tells a story. Of course most of the stories are ghoulish and spooky :)

Bellydance costume

We came home to Waterloo today. Thursdays are quite busy; I have bellydance followed by curling, and when Spirituality and Healing groups are meeting, I have that before bellydance.

We're learning the choreography for the recital in December. We actually spent a bit of class figuring out what our costumes were going to be. Funny though, our instructor doesn't care at all about costumes; it's those of us in class who are interested in our attire. We've figured out that we'll all wear red tops. I'm going to look at the market and see if there are broomstick skirts there. Personally, I'd rather go with a black skirt - then I can make it to be more flattering on me. Because I'm short, I'm better off with a skirt that is more mermaid-like or form-fitting than with one that hangs straight down from my hips. The latter widens me and makes me look shorter.

We may also make some scarves to wear around our hips - something with some mesh and long fringe. I was going to try and make a sample as well. I rather like the idea of fringe, as long as it's pre-bought.

Anyways - my instructor was not impressed with all of this talk as she'd be happy if we danced in jeans. It certainly entertained the rest of us, though :)

My curling is so much better

I went to the curling workshop tonight. It's the first time I've been on the ice since April; as I'm sure you can imagine, getting used to the ice takes some time :) Interestingly, since last April I've been able to improve my balance quite a lot with bellydancing and working out. At Well-fit, where I work out, I do some exercises on one leg or else while standing on those half-dome thingies while doing arm work. For example, I do ball wall squats, where I lean against an exercise ball against a wall and squat on one leg so that that knee is at 90 degrees. Yes, that's as difficult as it sounds.

Anyways, having better balance has definitely paid off as far as curling goes. I'm much more secure on the ice. For the first time ever, I'm able to slide out of the hack without holding on to any rocks! That's a huuuuuge accomplishment for me. This isn't to say that my rock delivery is perfect; I do have a lot of areas that need attention, as I found out tonight. They videotaped me and others and then later critiqued the delivery. It was very useful.

When we got home, there was a call from the person who organizes the Christmas in Ancaster show. I tried calling back but no one was home. I'd sent in my application way late (they were still accepting them) and I was put on a waiting list because there were already some jewelry people. I'm hoping that since the organizer called I might be in the show. Cross your fingers for me! It's not a cheap show - $165 for me - but I'm hoping that means that it would be a success for me. Here's hoping.....

Bellydancing!

I got to go to bellydancing today! I wasn't sure if I would because I've been dog-sitting the last few days. I'd planned to take a ball stability class on Tuesday nights but it's been canceled so I'm taking a veil class!!!!! I'd wanted to take the veil class before but I couldn't justify taking three bellydance