Oscar movies

We tried to watch Atonement tonight and gave up halfway through. It's supposed to be a great movie and it's up for a Best Picture Oscar award, but we couldn't sit through it. I had a hard time following the time transitions and the flashbacks confused me. I also didn't understand what was happening or when things were taking place. Once I read a detailed summary, I understood the movie much better but I felt that the movie should stand on its own.

After that, we watched Gone Baby Gone. It is also up for Best Picture and we thought it was better than Atonement. The story kept unraveling, which was interesting. I didn't much like the ending because the character's actions seemed incomprehensible to me. That character was not really developed well - there was no motivation for his actions throughout - and that made the ending difficult to understand and like.

My mom and I are both looking forward to watching the red carpet pre-show and the Academy Awards on Sunday. It's going to be quite a treat :)

Spring '08 summaries

Thanks to those of you who gave me some reassurance about the way I'm grieving. I'm beginning to think that I may have grown up a bit since I last experienced much grief. That, and I have many more tools in my toolkit to help me deal with it.

I've been asked to give a summary of current runway clothes - which is the Fall '08 season - and I still need to look at the collections to do the summarize. In the meantime, I thought I'd offer up my summary of the Spring '08 season for women. This season seems to be less about shape and more about colours and patterns.

Clothes

• the dress reigns supreme. Whichever colour scheme or style you want, you'll find a dress. There are still a lot of sheaths, trapeze dresses, shirtdresses, long dresses, flowy dresses, drapey dresses, lots of folding and gathering
• things made out of jersey and other fabrics that are drapey.
  
• wide-leg jeans
• waists are still going up. High-waisted pants and skirts are in for people other than me
• vests
• blouses - many are romantic
• tunics are still around
  

Accessories

• belts - on everything. Put them over a dress or a tunic. Skinny belts, wide belts, you name it. Most are black or natural colours. Some white and metallics are to be expected.
• big clutches - still. They came in for Fall '07 and they're still around, although they're less shiny and more patent
• big bags - in bright colours. These aren't quite as big as a few seasons ago, but you can still carry a big part of your life in them
  
• big sunglasses

Shoes

• gladiator sandals/stilettos/wedges - if you can cage your feet in it or lace it up your leg, that's good
• platforms
• ballet flats - especially Mary Jane-types with a strap over the instep
  
• wedges - sigh. And here I thought they were leaving. They're still around, but they are tending to be more natural fibres in the wedge than before
  
• peep-toed booties - sigh. I didn't much like the booties (an oxford shoe with a stiletto heel) before, although I'm getting used to them. Putting a tiny peep-toe in them looks strange to me.
• stacked wooden heels/platforms, as well as cork heels
  

Colours and patterns

• bright, saturated colours - bright yellow, orange, cherry red, royal blue, fuschia, kelly green - with almost a patent leather look/feel to them. Most often found in accessories, not clothes, although some clothes will be these colours. These colours are found in the floral prints, below. Pair with black.
• black and white together
• metallics - silver, gold, and copper - are still popular
• nude colours are still around.
• flowers - yes, flowers. Mostly on dresses, and in all sizes, from the small calicoes to big flowers. In all colours as well. There will be a lot of flowers.
  
• stripes - there are some nautical influences here, and the stripes are mainly horizontal. I read somewhere that narrow horizontal stripes are slimming. Huh?
• "painterly" patterns - soft washes of colour. Ombres, dip dyes, and ikats are examples of these patterns.
• ruffles, gathering, ruching, and some origami are still around - but not used as heavily with the flowered patterns.

I think that's it for the highlights. I'll take a look and see if I can come up with something cohesive for Fall '08.

Enough, too little, or too much?

My mom and sister made a duct-tape dummy for me. Once I get it home, I'll stuff it and I'll be able to use it as a dress form. I hope that by having this dress form with my shape, I'll be able to make better changes and drape things more accurately than I can right now. The process took about 2 hours and we had a lot of fun :) We took a couple of pictures during the process that you can see here.

I also saw Step Up 2 the Streets tonight with my niece. It was a fun movie with lots of dancing. I'm a sucker for a movie with lots of dancing. I wish that they'd had crews like that when I was growing up, although I suspecdt that I was too headstrong to work with people in developing a choreography. Anyways, watching the movie is not a bad way to spend a couple of hours.

Sometimes I feel like nothing has changed; that my dad is just away and he'll be right back. Other times, of course, I get very sad and remember that he is gone. I don't cry all the time, either, and I'm not always in danger of crying like I was a few days ago. It seems that if I'm around other people, things are almost normal... it's only when I'm alone that I realize that things are different than they were and even then, this doesn't happen all the time.

I don't have that much experience with death or grieving, but I'm pretty sure that in the past, I'd be a lot sadder for more of the time than I am now. I worry that this might be an effect of my anti-depressants - that they've dulled my emotions so much that I'm not realizing or feeling the true depth of my emotions. I don't want that to happen. I suppose it could be that I'm better at recognizing and dealing with my feelings so that they don't have to overwhelm me all the time, too - all that counseling and support groups had to have been good for something :)

I wish I knew how to figure out if the antidepressant is interfering too much with my emotions. Not that I mind not being in the depths of grief all the time. I guess I'm also worried that if I'm not sad or remembering my dad that I've let part of him go already and I'm not sure that I'm ready to do that.

Emotions are so complicated.

I'd like to pause the world, now, please

When something devastating happens to me, I feel like the world should just stop turning - that everything should freeze in place - until I've dealt with that thing that happened.

When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer back in 2000, the day I first met with the doctors was a perfect fall day. The sky was deep blue and the leaves were red, orange, and golden; the air was crisp and the sun was warm. I had a hard time believing that I could receive so much bad news on that one glorious day.

I feel kind of like that now. I'm amazed that people are just carrying on with their lives and that things are still happening. I know this is selfish, but I don't know how almost everyone else can keep going and live their lives when my dad has died and I feel so empty. I just want to withdraw and lick my wounds. I know I can't stay hidden away forever, though - not just because the world does go on and I'm a part of it, but because I have to get used to the fact that things are different now with my dad gone.

I know that I'm starting to heal a tiny bit when I can go out and be amongst people. Today my sister and her daughter and I went out to a fabric store. The store played easy-listening music and every time a song about loss came on I was reminded of the fact that my dad is gone.

I don't know how anyone else reacts in this sort of situation, but right now when I say that I'm reminded of my loss, what's happening is that I am flooded with sensory memories: I can see what happened and the smells and sounds come back and whatever I felt then pours over me, intensifying the ache I'm already feeling. It's an overwhelming experience at.

Today, instead of trying to shut off the radio (or screaming to block it out or running from the store), I'd stop what I was doing and just stand there aching for my dad while trying not to cry. I guess this is some kind of progress.... but it'll be a while before I'm healed enough so that I don't experience this sensory overload. Or have to fight the urge to cry.

Dealing with grief

Ian left today. He'd planned on leaving on February 14 but since my dad died the day before, he stayed an extra couple of days to be sure that I was ok. Ian is my rock and when I'm upset I rely heavily on him. I'm so glad that he could stay with us as he was able to help out with some of the practical things to do after someone dies. I miss him now that he's gone.... but I don't miss him nearly as much as I miss my dad :(

I'm not very good with death or grieving, but then I guess not many people are. I admire those that can work in an ICU or in hospice with people who are dying because I could not possibly do it. Right now, I'm a little puddle of loneliness and grief during and after and it's all I can do to get through the days.

One thing that I find helps me is to physically write down my memories and what I'm feeling. I'd tried to do this in another completely private online blog but that wasn't as good for me - it seems that I have to physically write my feelings. I find that it helps to get the memories out of my head. So often when I'm overcome with grief it's because I have these waves of memories washing over me. I end up feeling like I'm drowning in these memories. Writing them down helps me get them out of my head - I can still think about them, but they aren't clamoring for attention, you know?

Even so, my grief for my dad isn't going to just go away. He's part of me and his death has left a gaping raw-edged hole where he used to be. It will be a long time before I can think of anything related to him without it hurting and making me cry.

One other thing I've found is that it's easy for me to turn hurt into something else like, say, anger. So here is a small rant: I'm completely shocked and appalled at how expensive it is to die. The obituaries alone cost about $200 per paper per day. That's ridiculous! The death certificate costs $50, and then there are all the fees associated with changing things over to the survivors. My dad's body was donated directly to the University of Alberta's Division of Anatomy where he will help budding physicians, so we don't have to pay for cremation or burial. But if we'd had a service it would cost even more - it's crazy! I feel like these corporations and government offices are taking advantage of people at one of the most difficult points in their lives. (ok, rant over)

My dad

My dad died today at about 5:25pm MST. I am so sad :( I miss my dad so much already.

I haven't been blogging because of things here. Following is what happened with my dad.

We had come to Edmonton last week because my dad was having surgery on Friday, February 8. He had his femoral arteries replaced with artificial ones all the way from his aorta to his groin. He needed the surgery because he had no circulation in his feet and without this surgery, his feet would have had to be amputated eventually.

The surgery was very, very risky because my dad's heart was not good and he had hardening or blockage in all of his arteries. It's a risky surgery anyways - according to one of the doctors, it's about the biggest surgery they do - and normally 5-7% of patients die after it. My dad was given about a 50% chance of living after the surgery, which weren't good odds but my dad wanted to go ahead with it anyway.

The surgery itself went very well and my dad did have circulation in his feet. On Saturday, my dad was awake and lucid and we talked to him. That night he started to become very confused and disoriented. He pulled out some tubes as well and threatened the nurses. They restrained him then so that he couldn't do those things any more.

From then to yesterday, my dad became less and less responsive and was very unsettled. They finally got him settled down with painkillers, but during this time the heart damage was continuing - it never stopped. They also thought that he had pneumonia.

By this morning, my dad was completely unresponsive and his kidneys and lungs were starting to fail. His heart was still being damaged - it seems as though he'd been having a heart attack for five straight days. My dad was also on maximal life support and the best they could get him to was stable; his condition never improved.

My dad didn't want to be on life support if there was no chance of reasonable quality of life, so in accordance with his wishes, we had all the meds and almost all of the tubes (except the painkillers) removed.

He died about two hours later. We were with him up until the end, crying, talking, laughing, and remembering him. He was very peaceful when he died and there was no struggle. We were grateful to have been there with him at the end.

The people at the hospital were amazingly helpful to us during all of this. They gave us a private room in which we could set up camp. They were kind and beautiful and they made the administrative process easier. They made a terrible thing bearable.

Donations to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada can be made in his name, Craig James.

Rest in peace, Pere. I miss you.

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.

Made it!

We made it to Edmonton! Our cab was 45 minutes late picking us up to go to the airport and it took two hours to get there, but that was ok because our flight was dealyed about an hour and a half as well. Once we started traveling, everything worked out well. It was just getting going that was the problem.

This afternoon we watched American Gangster. It was pretty good, although we felt that it was long and we didn't always understand what the minor characters were doing. The ending was good but felt shorter than the rest of the film. Not that this was all bad :) It is a good movie and we would recommend that you see it, if you have some time on your hands.

Winter traveling woes

Ian and I were supposed to be flying to Edmonton tonight. We had planned to fly on Westjet out of the Kitchener-Waterloo airport, which is much closer than Toronto.

Traveling in winter can be unpredictable here because we get wicked storms here; flights can be delayed or canceled depending on what's going on. We had a ginormous storm come through today and this evening. Roads are closed all over the place and there are accidents everywhere. There was snow, rain, ice pellets, and freezing rain. As a result, the plane on which we were supposed to leave tonight couldn't land and was diverted to Hamilton, so our flight was canceled.

The Westjet people were very helpful. They booked another flight for us (which wound up on the wrong day, but we've just called and corrected it) to leave Toronto at 7:15am tomorrow. Westjet also arranged and paid for us to take a taxi home from the KW airport and gave us a taxi chit for the cab to Toronto tomorrow morning.

I know that not everyone was happy with how things went, but I have to say that I thought that Westjet handled everything very well. Within 45 minutes of the plane being canceled, everyone had worked out an alternate plan and taxis were on their way. And when we had to call and change the re-booking, the person was super-nice and helpful even though they're crazy busy because of the weather.

I highly recommend you fly Westjet if you can choose to over the other airline. Even though the weather makes traveling suck, Westjet makes it suck less.

My new oncologist

I saw my new oncologist today. I love her. She is so, so, so much better than my old oncologist! She is honest and open and willing to tell me things and just everything that I could hope for in an oncologist.

I'm going to see her every 2 months for now, we'll do tumour markers and other bloodwork before those two months, and I'll be going onto the Pamidronate instead of clodronate (the IV form of a bisphosphonate instead of the oral form). Although I have the littlest cataract in my left eye, since the Femara is working enough. And she will do scans every year, starting with this summer.

Her nurse even offered to put me in touch with the social worker. This is awesome!!!

I did find out something that made me quite angry. Apparently the her2/neu test for my recurrence was inconclusive and my old oncologist was going to order a more specific (FISH) test. My old oncologist never told me about this. Her2 status has a lot to do with treatment and is sort of linked with how aggressive a cancer is, and there's a particular chemo (herceptin) that is prescribed to treat it. If my cancer is her2 positive then I'll receive herceptin whenever I start chemo. We won't give it to me until then.

Her2 status is as important an indicator of cancer as the cancer's hormonal status, and my old oncologist didn't tell me that there was anything going on. We don't know if she ordered the additional test or whether she got results. I'm shocked and upset.

I definitely feel like I made the right decision to leave my old oncologist. This new finding cements my feeling that she was keeping things from me and that I couldn't trust her. But I love love love love love my new oncologist and at least I have made the switch!

Oncology tomorrow

I guess I needed sleep because I slept until almost 4pm again today. That didn't leave much time for photos, but I've managed to take a few today. I'm not going to edit them today, of course - I'm just trying to get all of the photos done.

One of my online friends suddenly developed brain mets. I'm so shocked - she had been normal until her last post last week. Apparently she had trouble thinking and talking andI guess it happened pretty quickly. Hopefully that isn't in my cards; brain mets scare me because the person's personality and cognitive ability can change. Of course most people with brain mets do really well as the treatments are quite effective.

I'd almost forgotten that I have cancer over the last little while - between this and my oncology appointment tomorrow, I remember quite clearly that I do have cancer. I have heard really good things about this oncologist and I hope they're all true. I'll let you know how it goes.

Superbowl Sunday

We went over to our friends' house for their annual Superbowl party. I'm not much of a football fan but I enjoy watching the big games, especially if I get to watch them with friends. There was very yummy chili in mild, medium, and hot variants, yummy vegetables, a cheese fountain, and assorted desserts. My friends put on a very nice spread, making the evening a lot of fun - thanks!

The game itself was great in the first and fourth quarters and kind of boring in the second and third quarters. The game was very close with a final score of 17-14 for the New York Giants.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers played a great half-time set; all of their songs were recognizable and there was no danger of a wardrobe malfunction - not that anyone would have wanted to see that with Tom Petty. It's amazing how quickly they set up and tear down the stage! I sort of wonder whether the show impacts the second half of the game, but I don't know how much the grass/turf will have changed and how much, if any, it would affect the game. It's not like curling, after all - put a stage over curling for a half-time show and the ice will be very different in the second half of the game :)

I do wish that we got a pure US feed for the game because here in Canada, we don't get the good ads; we get lame Canadian ads, and not all of them are new. I'm sorry, but the US has better Superbowl ads, and I'd like to see them in the context of the game, you know? We'll end up watching them later somehow but it won't be quite the same.

Overall, it was a fun evening; we watched a great game, talked to people we knew, played other games, and ate like royalty. I'm glad we went :)

More and more photos and a movie

I'm still working on photos for my jewelry - I got some more cardstock and took some more pictures today. This time I took photos of eight different pairs of earrings that are both light, dark, and combinations of light and dark, so I should have a good idea of what will work once I've edited all the photos. I'll be very happy once I'm only taking pictures on a few backgrounds :)

This evening we watched 28 Weeks Later. I thought it was nowhere near as good as 28 Days Later. The characters did some really stupid things and so I couldn't empathize with them as well as I usually do. Yeah, I know, horror movie characters are supposed to do stupid things, but they didn't do that in 28 Days Later or in some of the other movies we've watched. Even the stupid actions in Cloverfield were sort of understandable. The ones in 28 Weeks Later couldn't be adequately explained rationally or emotionally so I ended up thinking it was sort of silly in parts. It was sort of an interesting story. This movie is quite gory, so be forewarned, but it's not that scary; I hardly jumped at all and there was no danger that I'd dissolve in a puddle of fear while watching it.

Ian liked the movie because It was gory and had lots of action and it had an ok story. Maybe if I was in a different mood (as in, able to ignore the stuff I didn't like so much) I might have liked it as much as Ian did. I will admit that there were some good and interesting scenes, and I particularly liked the ending.

I'd say that 28 Weeks Later is good enough to see as a rental.

A fine dinner

Sorry about the lack of a blog entry yesterday. I fell asleep around 7pm and stayed asleep most of the night.

Tonight a group of 10 of us went out for a "non-dress-down" dinner, where we wanted people to not wear t-shirts and jeans. Everyone dressed up a bit and looked nice which was good to see.

I didn't finish my dress in time for tonight but that's ok. Instead, I wore a knee-length black pencil skirt and a black belt overtop a stretch black short-sleeved blouse with white polka-dots, along with black nylons and black patent heels. I looked awesome, if I do say so myself :) I might have looked nice in the dress I'm making, too, but I wouldn't have looked as curvy.

We had dinner at Wildcraft, a newish restaurant here in Waterloo. Dinner was very good; I had walnut-crusted chicken which was tasty. For dessert I had the peanut butter cookie which was divine - it was very, very, very yummy. Some people ordered the hazelnut chocolate mousse cake but it wasn't as good as the peanut butter cookie.

We really enjoyed ourselves tonight; I was glad to see everyone and spend time with them over a nice meal. Now I'm stuffed, sleepy, and satiated.

Game night, and more sewing

I was finally able to make it to a game night!!!! We had a great time playing Alhambra and Bang. Best of all was hanging out with some of our friends. Since I haven't been go a game night in forever, I haven't seen then in, well, forever.

I am still working on that dress. Sigh. If I ever finish it, I think it'll be gorgeous. But you know how you struggle to get something attached and then you decide that it's somehow not quite right? Well, I decided that I didn't like the fabric bordering the sleeves and on the collar. It looked like it had a greenish cast and it just didn't look right on the dress. So I took all of it off and have cut yet another set of these pieces out of a silvery-grey fabric, which should match the subtle silver stripe in the dress, and am starting to sew it all together. Again.

Of course I'd already trimmed and clipped my seams which makes re-sewing them tricky. I'm managing ok, though - I'm hoping that since I've done these seams already (and had trouble with them - did I mention that?) that it'll be comparatively easier. I hope so. I'd like to finish this by Friday afternoon so that I can wear it for dinner Friday night. If I don't finish it, well, I'll wear something else. But I'd like to wear my own made-for-me dress :)

A little shopping and sewing

I did a tiny bit of shopping today after getting my hair cut. I tried things on that were $7-10 plus 30% off, but I didn't like the things well enough to buy them. That's kind of a shame because it's rare that I get things so cheaply :)

I can hardly resist going into stores and looking at stuff but I am getting better at not buying things. I was on a bit of a spending spree for a while there and now I'm choosing to buy very little. Realistically, I have most of what I need for the winter and the summer, and I have a ton of fabric with which to make things.

Speaking of which, I still haven't finished the dress I'm working on. I finished sewing the collar and front piece on today - it took three or four tries. I ended up hand-basting it in place which is not something I like doing, but there was no way to get it to stay still under the sewing foot. I just have to trim it and apply the facing, then insert the zipper and finish the center back seam, and hem the dress. After that, I have some hand-work to do. I hope to finish it by Friday - if I get up early enough tomorrow, that should be possible.

That's a lot of sales!

I mailed out the bracelet I made and another pair of earrings that someone bought today. I've had a few sales since the beginning of January - enough that I now have 96 sales since I first started listing things at the end of February. That's pretty good for a hobby :) Seriously, I never expected to sell that many pieces when I first started making things. Thank you all for helping me get to this point.

I'm hoping to get to 100 sales by the end of February.... I expect that I'll be having a sale in a few weeks :)

Red carpet dresses!

I got to watch a 2 hour red carpet show for the Screen Actor's Guild awards. My need to see beautiful (and ugly) dresses has been satiated for a while. Whew! I feel a lot better now. Normally no one pays attention to these awards (certainly not their red carpets, at least not live), so it's a bigger event on tv than it usually is since the Golden Globes were cancelled. Apparently the writers gave a waiver for this SAG awards so that the it could go ahead. No word on whether the Oscars will go through.

In other news, I've listed my first bracelet. Someone bought some earrings and wanted a bracelet to go with them. The bracelet photos aren't my best ones, but that's ok. I hope the person likes the bracelet; personally, I love it. It looks really nice and I think I have just the right amount of darker accent beads to make it interesting.

Going to the movies

We saw Cloverfield today. It was awesome!!!!! It was also very scary and Ian had to hold my hand to make sure I didn't dissolve into a puddle of fear.

It starts with these people at a going-away party, and things go quite quickly straight to hell. As something is destroying the city, we follow the guy videoing the party and some others until they can't video any more. I found it very realistic - if things like those landed in Manhattan, people would react the way they do. They'd do stupid things, they'd scream, they'd hide, and they'd run. There's no soundtrack other than what we see onscreen and the sounds are right - the metal on metal, the buildings coming down, everything is real. It's like you're the one doing the filming, which makes it a more visceral experience than it might otherwise be.

It doesn't have a traditional Hollywood ending - the ending is less happy than traditional Hollywook movies, although it is much more fulfilling.

I'd strongly recommend this movie if you love scary movies like I do - there's not really any gore or violence but it manages to be suspenseful and quite frightening all at the same time. This is one of those movies I'll want to see on DVD because I'd like to see it again to figure more stuff out.

A slow day

I didn't do anything today.

Ok, that's not totally true - I worked on the dress I'm making. I stopped when I put a piece on backwards/upside-down. It actually fit that way but it wasn't right, and at first I couldn't figure out what was wrong. Now I know and I hope to fix it up tomorrow.

I also received a request from someone who recently bought earrings for a bracelet to match them. I'm pretty excited about this request and am looking forward to making the bracelet. I think(hope) that it'll look really nice when it's done.

And... that's it, I'm afraid.

Thank you!!!

Thanks very much for your thoughts and comments on the new photos! I really appreciate all of your help. I have to sit down and sift through the comments and stuff, and I expect to work on that this weekend. I meant to do some today but I slept in until 3:30pm so didn't have much time for anything.

Tomorrow if I'm up at a decent hour (and I should be because I need a doctor's appointment for some prescription refills), I hope to finish the dress I'm working on. It would be nice to be done with it! :)

Oh and by the way, the earrings in the second column of the earring photos are high-quality aquamarine stones; they are a very light clear aqua gemstone. They look completely colourless a lot pf the time with a hint of light aqua around the edges. Therefore, ideally, some light aqua colour should show up in the photos. If you look at the original listing for this pair, the ruler photo shows the aqua colour quite well.

Photo comments

It turns out that I can allow comments for the album and for individual photos of the backgrounds :) You need to be viewing the photo (not just the gallery view) to add a comment for that photo.

Feel free to add comments to the individual photos about what you like and don't like. Once again, the photos are here. Thanks very much for your help - I really appreciate it.

Edit: Photos have been rearranged so that the earrings are in columns. Thanks for the suggestions :)

Non-boring jewelry news!

I found an online source for surgical steel wire. I love the round earwires in this pair of earrings but I can't buy them anymore so I have to make them. I figure if I'm going to make them in sterling silver then I could make them in surgical steel, too, so that those of us with sensitive ears could have stylish earwires, too. I may also be able to make instead of modify surgical steel earwires for some. Yay! I'm looking forward to the wire coming in.

In even more exciting news, I have finally finished taking and editing photos showing some jewelry on different backgrounds. I chose four pairs of earrings that are difficult to photograph and photographed them on all of the backgrounds. I ended up getting rid of some because there was a moire effect in the thumbnail.

I'd like to ask for your help now. Can you please go and have a look at the photos over here? I need to choose at least two and preferably three different backgrounds. I'm only looking at replacing the first "arty" pic in my jewelry item listings as I'll keep the black hanging and white ruler pics. I just want an initial thumbnail for my earrings that makes the items pop more in a list of thumbnails.

So, which backgrounds do you like best? Not every earring is going to look good on every background - that's why I need several backgrounds - and so if you like specific background/earring combinations, that's ok and I'd like to hear about those, too. Please leave a comment or email me with your preference. I will consider all of your responses before making my final decision (and before re-taking all of my pics). I'd appreciate any feedback you can give me. Thank you for your help :)

Nothing much, I'm afraid

You know how some people have nothing to say, really, and write blogs anyways? I'm feeling like that today :)

Seriously - I'm still working on the dress and vacillating back and forth between contrast fabric banding for the sleeves and neck. I've cut out several different possibilities and I still can't make up my mind. I've left samples in the sewing room so that the next time I go in there I can be surprised by all of them again. Hopefully one will jump out as the best option.

And I'm still taking photos. I'm about to try and edit about 40 of them: 10 different earring pairs on 4 different backgrounds (well, 3 - one of them developed a moire effect at this close-up range). I'm using a wide range of earring styles and components to really get an idea of how things will look if I use them.

Robin, you might be the winner - the backgrounds I'm looking at are different shades of cream and brown :) The darkest brown is handmade paper and it has sort of a reddish cast so it's quite warm. We'll see - I still have a lot of photos to edit :)

More and more photos

I'm still working on the photos for the items in my etsy shop. The light source over the jewelry brightens it considerably. I'm also photographing the items with the camera almost resting on the table on which backgrounds are sitting. This gives the photos depth and interest.

I'm still figuring out which scrapbook paper will make the best backgrounds. I have a great cream colour with some very faint swirls and stuff on it that works for a LOT of the earrings. I'm also looking at some other brown or tan papers and an aqua paper (all with faint patterns) that might work as well.

All of this photography is pretty tiring, that's for sure. I haven't edited any of the latest photos but I'll do that tomorrow and post them somewhere. After I do whatever sewing I'm going to do tomorrow, of course :)

Thanks! (and more about my etsy photos)

Thanks for your comments, everyone. I like the crispness of the photos and I do like the darker backgrounds. I've managed to add an additional Ott-lite to the front of my lightbox that brightens up the ambient light and item to be photographed. This definitely is making a difference in my test photos.

I don't think that the dark backgrounds are going to work for all of my stuff, though, as much as I'd like it to. It's really hard to get the right aperture and shutter speed for pictures on the really dark backgrounds - I'm finding that the background colours aren't staying true but are being washed out.

Michael's has a sale on most of their scrapbook paper so I bought a bunch today in different colours and patterns. The one we like the best so far looks sort of like sand. It's tan with some different shading in it and that's probably why it works for different colours. Plus the fact that natural colours or backgrounds tend to look good with a lot of things. It seems to work for some colours. The lightest-coloured earrings do need a darker background, though (they're still not popping off of the sand colour) so we'll go back tomorrow and see if I can find some darker browns.

Thanks again for all of your opinions on this: I really appreciate your help. When I have a few more test photos I'll put them up for you to see.

Oh - I've left the Jewelry on Etsy Team. I've been thinking of doing that for a while and since they left my name off the roster recently, this seemed like a good time to actually leave. Honestly, I've felt consistently ignored by the leaders and that the team wasn't doing much for me. Also, the organizer behaves badly in the etsy forums and has been muted at least twice from the forums for poor behaviour. Hopefully I'll find a team that is more suited to me.

Etsy shop photos

I'm still trying to think of ways of re-do the photos on my etsy shop. Not that my sales are suffering; I'm actually getting sales from people I don't know. But I think that my photos could be better. Someone has suggested using quilt batting but I'm worried that they would come out too grey - although it might work.

There was also a thread about this on etsy, and there are some tips there: http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5419864

I've been looking at etsy and trunkt sites that I like. Here are a few:
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5472288
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5043503
http://www.trunkt.org/client.listing_more.cfm/id/1452
http://www.trunkt.org/client.listing_more.cfm/id/2940
http://www.trunkt.org/client.listing_detail.cfm/id/1482
http://www.trunkt.org/client.listing_detail.cfm/id/718

Looking at these, they all have solid-coloured, muted backgrounds. Some are grey to black as well. The lighting in these is very similar in that they each appear to be using at three or four lights and at least one is a direct light. Right now, I'm using indirect lights only.

So what do you think? Any ideas as to how I could make my jewelry pop in photos?

More sewing

I found a great site today from Burda. They have free patterns and people post their creations and talk about them and stuff. it's called Burdastyle and if you like to sew, I'd recommend this site. I actually posted a couple of the dresses that I made two summers ago. When I finish the dress I'm currently working on, if it works out, I'll post it, too.

So far the dress I'm making - Simplicity 3559 with the long sleeves in a grey stripe - looks really great and I'm hoping it'll work out. The pattern doesn't call for it, but I'm lining the dress because the fabric I'm using is quite lightweight and could use some body. It's also a bit itchy so the lining will stop that.

Ian's home today - I'm so happy to see him again. I like being on my own but I've missed being able to see him.

Growing up too fast

Today the Tyra Banks show (I watch it semi-regularly)talked about the trend to "hooking up". Apparently it's where people get together and do some amount of sexual activity. We used to call these "one-night" stands back in the day, but I guess you can't call it a one-night stand when kids as young as 11 are the ones getting together.

Yeah, they're starting young these days. Apparently "hooking up" can be anything from kissing to oral sex - performed by the girls on the boys. These kids are doing things they can't possibly be emotionally ready to do. Sigh. How can kids be growing up so fast?

I was searching the internet on this and came across the first chapter from Tom Wolfe's book "Hooking Up". It's worth a read - it says everything that I'm not eloquent enough to say, and puts this in curious perspective.

To sleep, perchance to dream

I'm still sleeping quite a bit - today, I got up at 3pm after attempts to get up at 10am, 11am, 12noon, and 2pm. I guess I just need all of that sleep.

I have to say, though, that sleeping that much isn't all bad because when I sleep that long I have really great dreams. They're the kinds of epic dreams that go on and on and on and on - it feels like they go on for hours or days. Some of them have scary situations but most aren't that bad.

A lot of the time it's like I'm living this other life - that I'm someone completely different - and I'm just going along and living. It's like reading a book or watching a movie, in a way, except that it feels more real because dream-me is doing things and the things are happening to dream-me. The storyline of these epic dreams seems to be fairly logical and people react mostly normally. The only thing that is really odd or dreamlike are the buildings and landscapes, and they're only odd because I haven't seen them before :)

The dream-emotions do tend to be very strong, as do some of the visuals. Some of those emotions and places can sort of carry over into the next day and that can be very weird.

I think I have a better understanding now of how Coleridge could have dreamed up Kubla Khan :)

No Golden Globes for me :(

Tonight was the night that the Golden Globes awards ceremony was scheduled to air. Since the writers are still on strike, they did a press conference instead. I totally support the writers here, because I do think that they should be paid for their work that appears in any media, not just TV or movies, and I think they should be paid DVD residuals. Film and TV are so much more than just a TV or movie theatre nowadays, and writers should be compensated for the new media.

But I'm still sad because I love awards shows. I love looking at the dresses, seeing who's wearing what, the shoes, the jewelry, the makeup, and the pageantry of the event. I'm not going to watch the live winners announcement because it's faster and easier to just read it online. I don't watch the shows for the winners. :)

Even sadder is that instead of looking at beautiful people in beautiful outfits, I had to watch Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star. It's funny and cute, and the song at the end is hilarious, but it's not the kind of movie I'd necessarily choose to watch. And it's definitely not a replacement for the Golden Globes.

I very much hope that the writer's strike ends with a fair deal before the Oscars.

An interesting meeting

I slept in again today - until 3:20pm! I was meeting a friend for coffee at 4pm and I made it :) I was 5 minutes late but my friend was later so that was ok. While I was waiting, there was a woman at a nearby table. She looked and sounded familiar to me. When she got up to leave, I interrupted my friend (who was there by then) and asked if I knew her. Apparently I didn't :) She said that she had been admiring our clothes and so we talked about that a little bit, and she left.

My friend and I continued chatting when all of a sudden this woman came back. She'd overheard me talking about someone I know who has bipolar disorder, and she apparently has it as well. She wanted to know if she could talk to me sometime. I gave her my card and asked her to email me and that I'd be happy to talk to her.

I know that some people might say that it's dangerous to give some stranger my card, but the card only has my email address and phone number on it, as well as my etsy shop. I guess I figure that if she was brave enough to ask to talk to me, I could make a little time for her like this. Email isn't much of a commitment, really, and I don't need to put a lot of energy into such a relationship. Besides, my intuition said that it was the right thing to do. I don't expect to hear from her, but who knows?

Sewing issues

I ended up not feeling well again this afternoon. I had leftover curry last night, and the other day that I wasn't well I'd had curry the night before, too. I'm beginning to suspect that my body doesn't like my curry :(

Since I wasn't feeling well, all I did was some sewing: I sewed a simple top together. There's something weird about it, though, because the collar doesn't look anything like the collar in the picture, and I just can't get it to sit right. The top has a wide neck and the collar kind of stands up on it. The collar is a big rectangle with one seam at center back sewn to the top neckline. It folds over horizontally so that it's only half as thick as the finished collar but there's no provision in the instructions to tack it down or anything and it won't stay folded down. It also has a very strange gape at the back that I can't seem to fix no matter what I've done so far.

The best way to fix the gape is probably to heighten the back neck and shorten the collar, which is a major alteration. I'd also have to re-sew the top. An alternative may be to re-shape the collar at the seam at the back. I'm wondering if decreasing the width of the collar at the top where it's supposed to fold over might work. I'll have to see tomorrow.

I tell you, it's kind of frustrating to work on something and follow the directions and then have it not turn out right. I think that there might be something wrong with the pattern. This does happen, I hear.

Something like productive

I had to get up early today so I set two alarms. It worked! I was up on time. Yay!

I filled my day with aimless wandering from store to store. Remember the dress I'd been trying to fix up for the wedding? It didn't work out, although I never posted that. I made a critical error and had to abandon it :( Well, an identical one was marked down to $19 so I bought it and will try again :) I also bought more sew-in rhinestones on a shirt. And I bought some stretch satin fabric on sale in some new colours.

That was really all I bought, which is pretty amazing considering the number of stores I wandered into. At one point I was looking at this gorgeous lace sling-back peep-toe platform stiletto JLo shoe in my size but I couldn't find its mate no matter how hard I looked. It's a store that has all of its inventory out so the shoe should have been there somewhere. I guess it's ok that I didn't find it because it wasn't cheap. But it was gorgeous.

I also didn't buy the other pair of JLo shoes I tried on that were marked down to $31. I loved them but they hurt my baby toes so I passed them up. See? I didn't buy a lot of things today. :)

Since I shopped pretty much all day, I didn't sew. I am hoping to sew tomorrow.

More and more sleeping

I woke up early to see Ian off - he's away for the next week - and then went back to sleep. I'd planned to sleep until 10am or so and ended up getting up at 4pm. The Ritalin only keeps me awake all day if I wake up to take it. :)

I ended up feeling kind of icky this evening so I suspect that I may be trying to fight something off. To that end, I'm going to sleep some more. Until tomorrow...

Sewing, sewing, sewing

I'm still in the mood to sew things for myself. I know I should be sewing bags or something but right now I really, really, really want to sew clothes, not bags. Today I managed to get a couple of small things done and a jersey top pattern cut out and ready to be sewn. I want to sew a particular dress - I've been planning to make it for quite a while and am really looking forward to it being done - but my waist measurement is ridiculously large due to pre-Christmas eating. I know that it will decrease over the next few weeks as my eating returns to normal and once that happens, I'll make this other dress.

Over the next week or so I'll sew a few more things. I have so many patterns and I want to make so many things... and I do have a lot of fabric in my fabric stash, after all :)

Eventually I'll get bored or frustrated with sewing for me and I'll go back to making bags. I have great fabrics for bags that I'd like to use... I just don't want to sew them this week. Of course if someone orders something I'll drop my own sewing in a heartbeat to sew the order up :)

I am getting sleeeeeepy

Some days I get up at a reasonable hour, and some days I sleep almost all day. Today was one of those latter day; I slept in until after 3pm, which means that I got about 16 hours of continuous sleep. That's a lot of sleeping.

I had this idea that I would get up at 10am or so and do things all day. That isn't how things worked out, though. Some people complain about being shaky after a nap and that's a lot like I feel when I sleep really late. Like them, when I sleep as late as I did I'm not able to really do anything for a while after I wake up. I wasn't able to start doing anything other than sit and surf the internet until 5pm. So I didn't do much today.

I do feel well-rested (although I am tired as it nears bedtime) so I think that I will be able to be awake earlier through the rest of the week. I guess I just needed a lot of sleep last night.

Etsy shop things

Members of the Jewelry on Etsy Team are setting up a couple of buys for the team at different suppliers. Going together on a purchase means that we're able to get the deepest discount on the products which is quite nice :) I'm in need of sterling silver chain in certain sizes and I've been trying to figure out where I can get it the cheapest. I think that I've found a supplier from which I can get relatively inexpensive chain. It's not cheap, really, what with sterling silver trading at $15/oz.

I'm also looking at possibly changing my photos for my etsy shop. Not all of the current ones are good; I'm not happy with the pink or purple backgrounds, for example. I'd like the pictures to feel warm, with warm-coloured backgrounds. I need at least three different colours: a light one for non-light earrings, a dark one for non-dark earrings, and a medium one for everything in-between. I'm not sure what the best colour would be - any ideas?

I'm thinking of going with fabric backgrounds, but my first tries didn't work - the fabric weave created a moire effect in the thumbnails and I wasn't happy with that. I do have some microfiber fabrics and some velvets that might work better. What do you all think?

Scary movies

I Am Legend is a very, very good movie. Will Smith is alone in most of the movie and he is able to carry it - there are no boring parts in this movie. The premise is that there's an event that wipes out most of the population and leaves the rest violent at night. Except for Will Smith, of course, who is immune. Much of the movie follows him in his daily activities.

I found the movie very, very scary; I was shaking with fear for most of it, which worried Ian because he could see that I was scared and he didn't know what to do. I don't actually remember being that scared at any movie ever before. Intellectually, I know that part of my fear was built up by the sound and music, but there was an instinctive part that was scared. As Ian said, the movie does a good job of balancing suspense-scary with "boo"-scary.

This movie is rated 14A but I wouldn't recommend it for children. There isn't really any gore or violence - it's pretty much all implied - but it could be quite scary. I'd recommend this movie to adults - although I was scared, it is really an excellent movie. Will Smith is alone for most of the movie and he really pulls this off; I hope he's nominated for something during the award season.

Later on, we watched a recording of Jesus Camp, a documentary that showed on tv. That movie was disturbing and scary for other reasons. It's about kids 5-13 years old who are evangelical Christians and go to this evangelical camp. I don't much care about which religion people belong to, but I don't think that kids that age should necessarily be indoctrinated in the way they were.

I do think that they were indoctrinated into this religion because no other points of view were expressed to them. During the camp, they were asked to come forward and share their sins publicly, with all of them crying. That's not really normal, is it? Later on, those kids were going up to people on the street and doing things like telling them that Jesus loves then and they could go to heaven. Personally, I don't think it's right to ask or permit children to do this.

One of the people who spoke to the children at this camp was an anti-abortion activist who taught them some slogans, put tape on their mouths, and led them to an anti-abortion stance. And led them to do a demonstration in Washington, DC. Again, I don't think that children - who barely know anything about sex and abortion anyways (of course they're told that it's murder, but without opposing viewpoints) - should be taught this sort of thing, let alone be allowed to protest.

The documentary did a really good job of showing just how far these extreme right-wing evangelical parents and churches are willing to go to use their children. In a way it was sad to see, because those kids have no idea what other viewpoints are out there. At the same time, it was frustrating because those parents and those people running the camps are using the children. It just seems so wrong - aren't children supposed to be innocent? What will happen to these children when they get out of the home-schooling environment and get into the "real world"?

This documentary is interesting and I'd recommend it. As Ian says, the scariest thing about it is that some of the people in the film will think that they're being portrayed in a positive light. They're not - at the end, what these people do to those children is appalling.

Almost normal

For the first time in a long while, I got up before my alarm like a normal person! I was awake at 9:30am and I didn't even have a nap today :) Not that I did much with my day, of course - mostly, I tidied things up in my jewelry area. I had a couple of sales that came in while I was in Edmonton and I got those shipped out today as well.

It looks like different people are planning some group buys from different places. This might b good for me as I need sterling silver chain. I don't have that much right now and I really need more of it. Before I order, I have to figure out which vendor will have the cheapest rates for what I want (or which ones have what I want at all). I'd like to start doing more necklaces, and those need chain. Hopefully I'll be able to get the chain I need at a reasonable price.

Home again

My flight was almost 2 1/2 hours late leaving Edmonton; I guess the stormy weather in Eastern/Atlantic Canada caused delays. I hung around the airport and read magazines, so the time wasn't a complete waste :)

The plane was only an hour late coming to Toronto but it took almost 45 minutes to get bags. Apparently there was only one baggage person working on that side of the terminal and so it took a while to get my suitcases.

Once I got home, I slept all day. I'm up now but I expect to sleep again soon.

Homeward bound

I've very much enjoyed my stay here in Edmonton but it's time to go home to Waterloo. My flight leaves later tonight - I'm all checked in and packed and everything and I'll be heading out in a couple of hours.

I got to visit my other sister this afternoon :) We wandered around one of the local malls, poking into the stores and chatting. It was a very good visit and I enjoyed spending time with her. I'm so glad that I got to see her before I left.

I stayed at my parent's house this time and I felt really welcome here, which made my visit here much more comfortable - thank you! I've really enjoyed your company this last week and so I will miss you both very much. I'm glad that we got to spend as much time as we did talking and visiting. I'll also miss the rest of my family and my friends. I was able to see everyone and while the visits tended to be a little short, I was happy just to see you all and check in.

Thanks, everyone, for making my visit awesome and memorable. I'm looking forward to seeing you all next time :)

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a great time last night while bringing in the New Year. My friend and I ended up getting all dressed up and going for dinner. The dinner was very yummy and my friend and I had a great time - we both also decided that we each had great company in the other :)

Dancing was supposed to start after dinner but didn't like the music so didn't dance. We did look at all of the outfits and we did see that there were some interesting outfits there. Some of those even showed two sets of cleavage! Others barely contained their wearer, and still others were not at all dressy. Looking at the hair people had, it seems that the rise of clip-in extensions is most likely going to bring a modified mullet back. What else can happen if you have hair shorter than your chin and you slip in 10" or longer extensions on the back and sides?

The music was hip-hop and since I don't listen to it all the time, I wasn't familiar with everything they played. There were a lot of hip-hop listeners there, too.... and I wasn't totally comfortable around them. It seemed to me that the men looked at the women as though the women were pieces of meat; that they didn't appreciate the women's curves because they belonged to women but because they liked the curves. And the women allow them to look at them this way, which I thought was sad.

Of course I haven't been in a club in a few years and some things are different - like almost all women take their drink and purse on the dance floor (it isn't safe to leave them behind). This makes for a very strange dance for some, mostly involving shuffling feet while simultaneously pushing the butt out and nodding the head. I also noticed that many people use their cell phone to take a photo of themselves or their friends (or random strangers) doing, well, anything. Aside from the fact that I don't like camera flashes, I'm not comfortable with the lack of privacy this rampant picture-taking implies.

We left that club at about 11:30pm. We figured that we shouldn't ring in the new year in a place where we weren't totally happy - it's better to leave those places behind and do something else.

That something else wound up being the fireworks in Downtown Edmonton. I guess the fireworks we saw last night will be the last big one for a while. It seems that the fireworks' launch pad is on property that will be developed this upcoming year. The fireworks were amazing!!!! There were swirly ones and big blossom ones in multiple colours! (I only remember those in at most two colours). If we'd had a slightly better view and a real camera instead of a a camera-phone, then we could have taken some amazing photos. The fireworks were reflected by some of the mirrored buildings and I think those shots would have been cool.

Overall, I'm glad I went out with my friend and I'm really happy with the way things ended up going. We had a good time and I'm hoping that this will be a reflection of the upcoming year.

I wish I could wave a magic wand for all of us that would make the illnesses and unhappiness out there disappear. Since I don't know when that wand will appear, I will settle for wishing that 2008 brings me, you, and yours an abundance of joy, good health, and peace.

New Year's Eve plans

My New Year's Eve plans almost fell through :( The first plans were to go to this one event, but the person who was supposed to get tickets didn't and they sold out. The second plans were to go to another place, but the person who was supposed to get tickets apparently thought they were dance-only (instead of dance+dinner) and so didn't get any. Sigh. The lesson we learned was "do it yourself" - if it's important that something be done, sometimes yu have to do that thing yourself.

Fortunately, my friend was able to get tickets for the dance+dinner tomorrow. Whew! It turns out that the suggested attire is all-black or all-white semi-formal wear... but I'm going to wear the red dress anyways. It doesn't say that it's a "black and white party" - only that the suggested attire is black or white - so I figure that I can wear other colours there.

Hopefully it'll be fun tomorrow. My friend and I figure that we shuold try to stick it out until midnight, unless we really don't like the music or it's super-lame... in which case it'll be fondue and movies at her place. In our fancy outfits :)

My family Christmas

My family Christmas went really well - certainly better than the last few years. Yay! The saddest part was that one of my sisters was much to sick (and apparently contagious) to attend and so she and her family drove back to Southern Alberta today. We all missed her and her family a lot.

When we got there, we chatted and nibbled on food a bit, ordered Chinese food, opened gifts while nibbling on food, chatted more, and ate Chinese food. After that, everyone else chatted while I slept on the couch. I think I had nibbled and eaten too much and my tummy felt upset. For some reason my body told me to go to sleep, so I did.

When I woke up about an hour later everyone was chatting and stuff. It was really nice.

I felt really welcomed by my family and it seemed that everyone else there felt the same way. I hope that this is the beginning of better Christmas celebrations for my family.

Oh! In case you were wondering what I decided to wear to the celebration, I wore my new red top and my long stretch-velvet mermaid skirt that I made for bellydancing. I wore some great Cubic Zirconia earrings, a grey headband with rhinestones on it, and a sparkly silver bangle. I looked quite nice, if I do say so myself :)

And just to clean up something else - I am keeping the extra pair of shoes (pair #1) that I bought the other day. They'll be useful.

A last little bit of shopping

I realized today that the only other purse I'd brought here, aside from my everyday one, was a cute little red plaid number. While it is an adorable purse, it doesn't really go with anything... so I bought two silver purses today. One is very simple with just rings and magnetic closures, and the other is a hobo-style (sort of) with that silver mesh stuff. It is big and it is shiny :)

The smaller purse is nicer for more formal wear, I'm sure... but part of me is completely in love with the other purse, and not just because it's shiny. It's big and will hold a ton of stuff - the other one will hold only a small wallet, keys, and maybe some lipstick. The big one would hold shoes, even :)

Other than that tiny bit of shopping, I didn't do much of anything today. I'm trying to take it easy because tomorrow my family celebrates Christmas. I'm a little bit nervous about it, even though we're not doing the activity about which I ended up crying. I'm also sure it won't be as bad as last year's bad parts or the year before's bad parts (I wasn't blogging then).

I'm trying not to think about how things could go tomorrow as I'm trying to let go of the outcome - things will go as they go. When I'm thinking about tomorrow, I'm actually spending quite a bit of time on thinking about what I'm going to wear. That's my happy place :)

Shoes, glorious shoes

Since I bought that great dress yesterday, I had to go out and see if I could find some shoes to go with it. I went shopping today for shoes and have bought two pairs.

You see, I found pair #1 - cream satin stiletto heel, cream mesh sides with some silver sparkle, and an open toe - which were comfortable and I thought that they might be nice, but I wasn't sure. They were on sale and so I figured that the price was right but I didn't want to buy anything that wouldn't be useful. I'm sure Ian is very proud of me for having learned to show some restraint in shoe-buying :)

Anyways, I put those on hold and continued my search. I found pair #2 - strappy leather silver stiletto heels - which looked good and felt fabulous and I thought they might be nice, too, but again I wasn't sure.

So I bought pair #2 and went back and bought pair #1. Both pairs can be returned as long as they're not worn outside and I thought I would look at both and return the ones that didn't work as well. Pair #1 is the kind of shoe I usually buy: it has nothing on top of the foot and so my legs look longer. This helps me to look a little bit taller than I am. :) Pair #2 has straps on top of the foot and fastens behind the ankle, which is not what I usually buy, but since the dress is ankle length I thought the straps would "fill-in" my foot below the dress.

I brought them home to my parent's place and tried them on with the dress. Pair #2 is the winner!!!!!

But now I don't want to return pair #1. I have had occasion to want shoes like this, and they were quite inexpensive. I have another beigh-y high-heeled shoe but they're a little on the small side and so my toes go numb after about 20 minutes. Today's pair #1 would work with just about any knee-length skirt or dress, which is what I usually wear. I'm going to sleep on it and make the final decision tomorrow about whether to keep pair #1.

If you're interested, this is pair #2. Pretty, aren't they? They look even prettier on my feet :) I can't find a picture of pair #1 as they're made by the house brand of the store where I purchased them.

Boxing Day shopping

Today being Boxing Day with lots of good sales, one of my sisters and I went shopping. We weren't really shopping for anything in particular; we just like looking at stuff and trying things on for fun. My sister made me try things on that I would never try myself.

One of those things was a gorgeous red satin/crepe bias cut dress (gown?). It has a very slight cowl neckline, a spaghetti strap on one side, and a thicker twisted fabric strap on the other. The dress is divided into panels so that it has a mermaid effect and the bottom has quite a lot of swing. The crepe side of the fabric is used over the mid-section so that it does not shine and highlight the lumps and bumps I have there. At the same time, its satin shininess at the top and bottom help to draw the eye away from the midsection. It is gorgeous on me :) Honestly, I think it looks better on me than on the mannequin in the picture, partly because it is a little longer on me. I did think about this dress for a long, long time (and walked around in it - people I didn't know gave me compliments!) before buying it. I paid less than half-price (including tax) :)

I will need shoes for this dress - certainly better shoes than the one on that link above - and my sister and I will be on the hunt tomorrow.

I also bought a cute black dress with white swirls on it. It had an elasticized belt with fake patent ends - the belt really makes the dress look fantastic. Of course I remember the last time wide elastic belts were in and I wasn't sure that I wanted to give in to this same trend again but the dress was way too cute to pass up. It was 50% off and it can be worn in the winter with tights and in the summer with bare legs. Accessories will also dress it up or down.

Finally, I also bought a red top with chiffon and velvet paneling and some beading just under the bust. It is here (in red, not cream or black). It fits really well and looks awesome and was also 50% off.

So.... I bought more than I'd planned but I love love love love love love love everything I got :) Next up: shoes!!!!

Merry Christmas!

I am flying out to Edmonton tonight and will be leaving for the airport in a little while. I have had a great time here in Mississauga - I got and gave great presents! Thank you all!!!

I've been doing some thinking and reading some posts with advice about how to protect myself. Of course I'm responsible for how I feel; that's part of me. But if at any time - during any event or gathering of any people - I'm finding my feelings hurt, I can tell the person that my feelings are hurt and I can walk away. I don't have to stay around anyone that I feel is hurting me. I know that this is obvious advice, but it's something that I never really felt like I could do.

I am not singling out any one person and I'm not saying that any one person will try to hurt my feelings. Since I had been feeling so hurt and scared, I wanted to share my thoughts and plan with you.

I love each person in my family so much that I'm very much looking forward to seeing my family at our Christmas celebration. I haven't seen them in some time and it will be nice to see everyone.

Christmas Eve

Santa comes tonight! I hope that all of you that celebrate this holiday give and get fabulous presents and that your celebrations are filled with joy and laughter.

I can't stop crying

I cried uncontrollably all day yesterday. I took three tranquilizers to try to stop crying and they didn't work. I'm feeling somewhat better now but am ready to cry at the drop of a hat. How silly is this? Christmas is supposed to be happy and I'm supposed to be enjoying myself. I'm celebrating Christmas in Mississauga with Ian's family and then I'm going to Edmonton to celebrate with my family.

So what's wrong? Well, it has been a really bad year for me and so I'm very emotionally fragile. I'm looking for a chance to visit, to see the people I love, and to enjoy myself. Without going into details, I suggested some proposed "ground rules" for one of my family's proposed activities that included things like people be respectful and not sarcastic during that activity. People very strongly objected and the rule now is that people can say whatever they want and if someone else is hurt or upset, they are not to say anything.

Every time I think about being a part of this, I cry and cry and cry. I love my family very much and I would love it if the people in my family weren't mean or sarcastic - but they can be (just as I can be). I'm too fragile to walk into a situation where it is possible that someone can be mean with no consequences.

You know what's worse? There are people that would say that this is my problem and that the gathering isn't all about me, so I should get over it. Which is sort of true, I guess - my feelings are my own problem. But if someone says something to hurt my feelings, then I need to be able to tell them that I was hurt by their statement. According to the rules for that activity, I can't do that.

Help!!! What should I do? Is there a way to protect myself in this situation?

The dress is a sack

I've been working on my dress lately, and I've come to a sad realization: it's not working out. I look like I'm wearing a silver potato sack, actually - and no, this is not the look I'm going for. Wah!

Honestly, the dress can be/will be a glorious dress! My problem is two-fold: the front needs more design ease and the back needs less ease and to be shaped a bit. I have a similar dress that almost works and I'll use that as a mode; to re-shape the dress.

Since I won't have much access to sewing machines while I am away, I must finish these major changes tomorrow morning. So I'm getting up around 6am.

Hair poufification

Ian's company holiday party was this evening at a local restaurant. It was a casual affair where everyone wore jeans. The food was ok; our only complaint was that there were too many people for the available seats and so we were squished together while eating. We were allowed to play pinball and pool for free.

They also bought Guitar Hero, which I tried. I didn't think that it would be that fun of a game, but I was quite wrong. It's great fun!!!!! I would have liked to play more if people hadn't been around. Maybe another time.

You're probably wondering what I mean by the title, aren't you? Well, those of you that know me know that I have very flat, fine, straight hair. It doesn't take a curl and even if I put in a curl, it will fall out quickly. That doesn't need to be the case for me anymore :)

I was wandering around the drugstore and I saw some Goody "volume" curlers. These are curlers with a fuzzy outside that sticks to hair, and there are 31 curlers in various sizes in a pack. The directions say to start with damp hair and add curl-enhancing product in it, so I dampened mine and put in some curl-enhancing gel I had.

I put the curlers in and blow-dried my hair. The directions said to let the hair cool for best results, so I left the curlers in for 2 or 3 hours while I was sewing. When I took them out, my hair was the poufiest it's ever been. Ian was quite surprised to see just how ginormous my hair was an hour and a half later :) I ended up smoothing down the back and putting my hair in a hairband. Now, 5 hours later, my hair is finally settling down. Had I used any other product on my hair - normally I would have put some pomade or shine stuff in - it would have stayed poufy.

Don't believe me? See the pictures here. I had to brighten most of them (we were in a hurry to head out to the party) so they're not great but you can sure see all my hair. It's good to know that there is hope to get poufy hair for those of us with fine, straight hair.

Trying my hand at domesticity

I spent the day at home doing domestic-type things. I sewed quite a bit of the dress and have decided to make a few changes. I had raised the armhole and it needed to be lowered a bit, so I've done that - now I just have to re-do some of the understitching. As well, the gathers in front and back go all the way across the front and back and I think they'd look better if they were more central. So I'll change that (I may even pleat it instead of gathering). On the bright side, the dress does look nice and the colour is perfect against my skin.

I also managed to do the dishes and make supper. These are things I don't do every day (well, most days) and so need to be noted :)

Ian and I made some cookies this evening. We made the chewy chocolate gingerbread cookies that everyone (including us) like so much. They turned out really well. It looks like we're finally figured out this oven because the cookie bottoms aren't burned or over-browned at all (not even the first batch!)

Even more shopping

I did a bit of shopping today. I know, I know, I don't really need to buy anything, but I had to exchange something (I got the wrong thing by accident). Naturally, since I was down there and the buses were running at random times, I thought I'd do some shopping.

I didn't actually buy anything until I got to Winners. It's winter now and I need some warmer tops. I don't always want to wear sweaters because I get too hot sometimes, and blouses need ironing. So I bought some long-sleeved tops that are quite nice and inexpensive.

You may also remember that yesterday I was wishing I had sew-on rhinestones? Well, I found a black cardigan that has sew-on rhinestones on the collar and placket at Winners!!! I think that there are enough rhinestones for the dress.... and even if there aren't, I'll be able to make it work somehow. Plus the cardigan was pretty cheap and I might be able to use it once I take the rhinestones off. Yay!

Snow day

There was a snow storm in Southern Ontario last night through this afternoon and so I spent the day lazing around. Well, I did some sewing since I'd washed the chiffon lining I'd bought, and I took some photos of new earrings I've made, but that's it.

The dress I'm making has a yoke in the front and back into which the dress front and back are gathered. Normally the dress has sleeves but I wanted something sleeveless so I took them out and raised the armhole. Leaving the yoke plain would be boring so I'm choosing to embellish it. I've looked at glue-on acrylic "rhinestones" (I can't find sew-in ones here) and silver paillettes..... and while I love love love paillettes, in this case the rhinestones really work.

So anyway, all I have to do is glue the rhinestones on and then finish the dress. I hope it looks good when I'm finished!

More shopping that I can shake a stick at

Today I shopped from 11:30am until 5:30pm and I'll tell you, that much shopping is exhausting. Most of the shopping was for Christmas gifts but I also spent time getting some fabric - I wanted some white chiffon to line the dress I'm making, and I got light and dark heavy flannel for bags - and looking at Winners. I was there, and it's a hard place to resist :)

So I'm almost done my Christmas shopping. Yay!!!! I picked up one wrong thing by accident so I'll return it tomorrow if the weather is ok and Monday if tomorrow is bad. I'm hoping to spend the bulk of tomorrow sewing and sewing and sewing. Well, except for the part where I'm eating a yummy prime rib roast that we got on sale today. Lucky me!

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 :)

Getting better

You know, I'm feeling less tired these days and I seem to have more energy. Today I got up at about 10:30am, put away three loads of laundry, did another three loads of laundry, hemmed some stuff, cleaned up some stuff, cut out and altered the dress pattern I'm working with (it's an easy pattern, but still), and started sewing. That's a lot for one day and yes, I'm tired, but I'm not exhausted. Hopefully I didn't do too much today and that I'm not exhausted tomorrow :) Over the last two days I've done a quite a lot as well but I haven't fallen into a puddle of exhaustion yet, so maybe things are turning around for me.

Don't worry, I'm not trying to push myself too hard. I do each task at a slow to medium pace, I'm not rushing things, and I'm not getting flustered. I take a lot of breaks from each task, too. And when I do get a little tired, I sit or lie down for a little while (although I haven't been napping like I usually do).

At the same time that I seem to have more energy, I think my pain is starting to go down. Yay!!!!! There are places that I can wear the fentanyl patches: my back and right arm/shoulder are good spot, for example. As long as I take my allergy medication on time those spots don't give me too much trouble, thank goodness.

I hope that the less tired/less pain trend continues. Wouldn't that be nice? :)

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.

More bags?

Someone new has contacted me about making a laptop bag made out of men's flannel fabrics. I hope that this bag will go through because I like the business although I had to tell her that I wouldn't be able finish the bag until about January 15 due to Christmas. Hopefully this won't be a problem and I'll be able to make this bag. I will need to find the fabrics before I start - she wants heavy nylon on the bottom, which makes sense.

This person also suggested that I make some laptop bags aimed at men because the ones out on the market are not nice. Honestly, I think that these bags are more popular than the jewelry that I make! I prefer making messenger bags but if laptop bags are going to sell, then maybe I should try and make some non-custom ones for sale. I did buy some great houndstooth fabric for bags so the idea of making bags out of menswear fabrics isn't new. Marketing to men is definitely a new idea.... although I'm wondering if maybe I should be marketing to the women who buy for their men :)

Pain update: I'm noticing that I'm quite sleepy and a bit dozy today on the new painkiller. This is not unexpected. I think the pain is starting to lessen a little bit but it's hard to say. On the positive side, the patch isn't bothering me too much yet.

Pain, pain, go away

I saw my family doctor today because the pain in my sternum has been steadily increasing. It used to be that if I was awake for about 12 hours in a day I'd take the oxycontin three times in the day and if I was awake more than 12 hours I'd take oxycontin four times in the day. Lately I've been taking oxycontin four times every day and that's still not enough to keep the pain under wraps. Sigh.

My doctor gave me a prescription for the Fentanyl patches again. We're starting with the lowest amount in hopes that it will take the extra pain away. If it works, I'll be upping the fentanyl and decreasing the oxycontin until I'm off the oxycontin completely. The only stumbling block is that I get welts under adhesives.

I talked to the pharmacist and apparently the fentanyl patches come in two generic versions, each with their own adhesive. Some people end up tolerating one brand over another (I'm not the only one with the adhesive problem). I'm trying one now, and if it doesn't work I'll try the other one. If that still doesn't completely work, I'll pick the one that works best. Reactine (an allergy medication) comes in prescription-strength and the pharmacist thinks that taking this should counter the allergic reaction to the adhesive (if I have one).

So even though I'd had those problems with this pharmacy before, I'm glad to actually know my pharmacist because she knows my situation and she tries to help me.

When I put the patch on, my pain did lessen. And I got kind of dopey :) No driving for me for a little while.

Oh - and remember that I wanted tall shoes? With a platform and stiletto heel? Well, I'd seen this pair of shoes a few months ago, tried them on, and loved them. They were $70, though, and I didn't really want to pay that much. Since then, I've been thinking about those shoes and looking for them everywhere. Tonight, I finally found them in my size and I bought them! They have a platform and a tall heel - it's not a stiletto, but it has a very strong heel. There's a tiny peep-toe in front. They're a pump and the front has rows of black sequins. The back and heel are patent leather. Yummy! This page shows them in brown, but those pics don't do the shoes justice at all. Imagine them with black patent leather, please :)

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.

SALE!!!!!

This weekend only, just in time for Christmas, take 25% off *everything* in my shop (excluding custom orders)! After purchasing your item, just wait for a revised invoice before paying. Sale ends Monday, December 3 at 6am EST.

That means you would pay only $187.50 for this fabulous hand-beaded handbag:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=5419304

... and only $18.75 for these delicious fuschia dangles:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=5467172

... and only $15 for these elegant labradorite and quartz earrings:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=7258434

There are lots more beautiful pieces in my shop. Happy shopping!

http://angelstuff.etsy.com