Pretty much every morning I come downstairs, have a look around, and feel completely overwhelmed by the “stuff” on the floor that shouldn’t be there. Everywhere I look I see little bits and pieces, shoes, toys, books and clothes all over the place.

This morning I gathered some of it together for show and tell. I’m willing to bet you’re giddy with anticipation! Well wait no more because here it is!

Items that weren’t picked up in the camera’s eye:

a broken piece of chalk, plastic lemon, 4 zip ties, caitlin’s shoes, (I forgot to lable) 1 of Jason’s shoes, plastic grapes, more trashy bits I don’t want to think about and so on and so forth.

This isn’t even all of it, but it’s a pretty good sampling. I see more shoes and more of Jessalyn’s clothes. There’s also a laundry basket with clean clothes waiting to be taken upstairs.

It’s a losing battle staying on top of everything here. But I’m not going to complain, not today anyhow. Instead, I’ll just get my daughter the juice and food she asked for, and then clean up the mess. Shouldn’t too hard since it’s all in one spot now.

Have a fantastic week everyone.

May your floors be floss free, just like mine will be in a few minutes!

I don’t know what it is exactly, but the desire to work on something, anything during financially unstable times is strong. The problem is that when cash is super tight, I get a wild hair to do something new. And it’s not like I know I can supplement our income with my creations. I’ve never made something that I could sell on Etsy. Or maybe I have and just don’t know it. Everything I make I look at and think, “this isn’t good enough, no one in their right mind would pay money for this.”

The last time Jason was laid off, I started making jewelry. I even sold quite a few items. I didn’t sell them online, but I ended up selling about $75 worth of stuff. Unfortunately it wasn’t until after Jason was employed and so that $75 didn’t do anything to help with the financial struggle that comes along with the only employed person being out of work.

Three months later and we’re back in the same boat, and he’s unemployed. And once again, I’ve got the strong desire to work on crafts. This time I want to try my hand at resin casting. Resin casting isn’t exactly cheap. First you have to get the resin, and the molds, and the wooden stir sticks, and the mixing cups, and then you have to know what you want to do with it. Well the only part covered there is what I want to do with it. However I’m not even sure what I want to do is something I could even try to make money on. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m obsessed with Twilight (we know, we know, shut UP about it already!) and I’d really like to do some themed pendents. However, I’m certain the book artwork is protected by copyright and so it’s not legal to use those images. And I highly doubt it’s legal to take stills from the movie and use them in something I want to ultimately sell. Plenty of people do just that, but I can’t exactly risk a lawsuit.

That leaves embedding other items into the resin which is cool its own right. But the problem is I don’t want to spend money on the supplies. I *think* I could do a good enough job that I could make a little money on it, but I’m not sure and so spending the cash on it seems irresponsible.

There’s just something about crafting during a crisis that comforts me. It makes me feel like I’m doing something, even though I’m really not. I guess it keeps my mind busy so I’m not jus tthinking about how scary life is at the time.

What kind of coping mechanisms do you have in place to help you through those dark days of instability, be it financial, health, whatever you may face?

Dearest Jason,

Thank you for being such an important part of my life. I love you more than anything. Happy 31st birthday my love. You mean the world to me.

And now for something completely different!

25 Things

(Times 5 and a day early)

It’s like the Friday 5, only BIGGER!

So there’s a meme going around Facebook and my girlfriend Kelly tagged me. I thought I’d go ahead and post it here since I haven’t had much to say lately.

25 Things You May Or May Not Know About Me

1. I’m obsessed with the entire Twilight Saga and unlike Kelly, I actually liked the movie, a lot.
2. I love brussel sprouts.
3. I haven’t maintained contact with any of my past boyfriends. (ex husband excluded because we have kids together)
4. I have over 40 shot glasses in my collection, and I won’t display any that I didn’t pick out myself.
5. Halloween is my favorite holiday and not because it’s my birthday.
6. I don’t have any tattoos.
7. American Idol makes me want to stab my ears with red hot pokers.
8. I drive a luxury vehicle and got it without the luxury sticker price
9. When we’re finally ready and able to buy a house, we hope to settle on the west coast of Washington State.
10. My oldest daughter has reached the point that I struggle when it comes to helping her with homework.
11. My favorite class in high school was Biology.
12. People say I have Flintstone feet, meaning they’re pretty squared off.
13. I’m 3 years and 3 months older than my husband.
14. I’m not a “let’s go to the movies” kind of girl.
15. I have something like 6 email addresses.
16. Out of every reading assignment I was given in high school, the only books I read cover to cover were The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck and Catcher In The Rye by J. D. Salinger.
17. I’ve never made zucchini bread even though it’s one of Jason’s favorite quick breads.
18. I can’t stand vanilla or cream cheese frosting.
19. Orange “flavored” (as in artificially flavored) drinks as well as orange creamcicles  totally gross me out.
20. I’d rather scrub toilets with a toothbrush (no, not MY toothbrush) than wash the dishes.
21. I’m a morning person. I wake up and it’s instant on.
22. I much prefer taking a bath over a shower.
23. Penguins are my favorite animal.
24. I used to want to be an astronaut until I discovered you had to be good at complex math.
25. My oldest child is attending the same Jr. High my mom and I both attended, and come September she’ll be at the same high school I went to.

Oh my gosh! That was crazy hard. I started it last night around 8 and gave up for the night after #7. Then I started it again around 6:30 and it’s now just after 8 a.m. Who knew it was so hard trying to come up with 25 things about me you may or may not know. Of course I tried to keep it interesting, but I know some of those probably fell short.

PLEASE please please feel free to leave a comment and let me know how many of those you already knew about me. I think *that* would be interesting. Also, were there any you didn’t know that surprised you? If so, do tell!

The Friday Five

1) What is your favorite orange colored food?

2)What’s the best way to drink orange juice?

3) Which orange colored candy’s pieces taste the best?

4) What are your feelings about orange soda?

5) When did you last wear an orange item of clothing?

Ok, you caught me. This is another post about Twilight. I can’t help it.

So this morning I woke up and checked my phone like I always do. A twitter message had come in.

First off, please excuse my husband’s glaring typo.

But at that moment a light bulb turned on for me. I’ve been kind if struggling with the fact that I seem to be more than a little obsessed with the Twilight saga. It was an uncomfortable feeling, because there’s nothing that I’m really fangirl about. Well until now. As I said last time, I devoured the books. Life was kind of put on hold while I tore through the pages. Now that that’s over, I’m going back through and picking up a lot of things I didn’t catch the first time around.

So anyhow, the epiphany.

Twilight is to me what WoW is to others.

Like Star Trek

Like Second Life

Like Star Wars

It’s something that clicked with me, that I love, and it doesn’t matter that I’m crazy over it. I’m no different from anyone else who’s a big fan of something.

Jason jokingly asked me if we should book my ticket to TwilightCon09. Wiseguy, that husband of mine. I wouldn’t go that far, yet.

What I’m trying to say is that there’s no reason I should be bothered because I’m so into the story. So what, I’m ok with it.

And just because I think he’s completely delicious…

yum