Poetry workshop

In response to Carrisa's invite, I wrote a poem using the rules of the workshop she attended.

First, I had Brett give me 5 words

Recumbent
fish
key
California
Sweet

Second, I picked a word to follow & correlate with that word

Recumbent BIKE
fish SOUP
key CONCEPT
California SUN
Sweet BRETT

Third, you replace the original words with with a word 3 letters down in the alphabet that goes with the new (second) word (recumbent=R>s, t,u. U= unforgotten)

(Recumbent) UNFORGOTTEN bike
(fish) INKY soup
(key) NAIVE concept
(California) FLIRTATIOUS Sun
(Sweet) VAMPIRIC brett ( I know, but it was the least boring V word I could think of).


Fourth, Write a poem using one of those phrases per line, (on a time limit):

As the flirtatious sun teased of dawn
an unforgotten bike lie drowning in it's oil.
Here, a boy watched his aberrant reflection in the inky soup
considering the naive concept that, in looking, he himself had been altered.
A friendless rain drop rippled oil across the lips of vampiric Brett.

Fifth, You flip the order of the lines in the stanza ( I cheated and changed punctuation to help with the, um, nonsense that resulted :

A friendless rain drop rippled oil across the lips of vampiric Brett.
Considering the naive concept that (in looking) he himself had been altered,
here, a boy watched his aberrant reflection in the inky soup.
An unforgotten bike lie drowning in it's oil
as the flirtatious sun teased of dawn.


According to my spell checker (and apparently my dictionary), unforgotten is not a word. Oh well, that's poetic license for ya.

Tuesday

On Tuesday you will find me sitting on my doorstep with milk and cookies waiting for the UPS guy.
He is bringing me 2 presents.


And by presents, I mean to myself, from myself, in honor of my continued existence.


He is also bringing this.



I thought about getting book 2 earlier, but decided it would be better for my sanity if the last book was waiting for me to read it when I finished the second one... just in case it is awesome.

I also concidered pre-ordering at Barns and Noble so that I could dress up like Catniss the Teenage Warrior Princess and read my book in the parking lot with a headlamp, but I saved something like $1.50 by buying both books on Amazon.

Sure it meant I had to wait an extra week (because the losers don't ship it until the release date) but it was worth it, because Barns and Noble wouldn't throw in a free box.

Truth be told I'd have waited 2 whole weeks to save $1.50 AND get a FREE cardboard box. Suckers

Smell like an old lady, and feel like one too: An essay on lotions

I love Eucerin. It's greasy, it's slow absorbing, but I can put it on once a month when my legs decide to shed like a snake (and you thought Charlotte was a spider) and it does amazing repair in 1-2 applications, allowing me to ignore lotion for another month. but it is like slabbing thick vasaline all over your body, so in the last year I switched to the pump-able kind.





Much better, but I still have two complaints:


1. Because of the Alpha Hydroxy, I have to layer sunblock on top of it, and continue sunblock for, like, a week, which takes the joy out of once a month or so applications.

2. Though my legs feel sexy when I stroke them with my hands, as I rarely do (as far as youuuuuu know), they are simply too sexy feeling, and horrible things happen when they touch each other. The world simply cannot express so much sexiness, and so instead, the sensation manifests itself as humid. That is right, my legs feel humid when they touch each other, and trapped— like one of those self-contained eco-systems in a jar. Yuck. This is mostly the case when I go to bed. I guess I am sexiest when I am trying to sleep.


So, If anyone has any recommendations for great lotions, let me know, and don't you dare say Love Spell.

Do you know where Love Spell comes from? They lather a bunch of pubescent girls in fruity smelling crap, send them off to gym class, then wait for them in the locker room, scrape off the top layer of their sweat, mix it with lotion, and sell it to idiots (I happen to absolutely love some of those idiots.) But really, that is what Love Spell smells like to me. It is the exact way my H.S. locker room smelt after P.E.

So the moral of this story is this: I used to always use Eucerin face lotion because I used Eucerin lotion, but I kind of hate how the sunblock in it gives my skin a slight purplish look, so I decided it was time to test out the world of face lotions. Not wearing face lotion is not an option for me. I definitely do not have oily skin —for example, my eyebrows can get dandruff. Seriously.

So this time I decided to try something new, and since I love Burt's bees lip balm, (regular, not pommegranite...lifeguard is ok), I decided to try the face lotion.



The first time I used it, I spent 5 minutes trying to define the smell...It is so familiar, and yet so unwanted. Don't you hate it when something has a specific smell, but you cannot pin it down? The best I have figured, so far, is that it smells like Potpori, or old lady rose parfume.

Not preferable, but on the plus side, it doesn't make my face look bluish.


So if you have a face lotion, or lotion you love (and Austin, that includes you tooo), let me know what and why.

Saturday at Lagoon

Last Saturday Craig had some free tickets (from work) for family to go to Lagoon. This was the first time I've ever been there, and I went with Carrisa, Austin, Tracie and Moby. As Austin explained, Lagoon is like an upscale fair or a downscale Disneyland.

She & Him - ‘Thieves’ (Live)

I'm debating whether to go see She & Him for free at pioneer park today. I like em alright, but their not my fave. It's free, but I have no one to go with.

So torn.

She & Him - ‘Thieves’ (Live)

When Lisa comes to town.

My mother in law was in town last week


Carrisa came with her, returning from spending summer with her mumsy in California. Naturally, brett wanted to do a puzzle with her, so he broke out the 3000 piece puzzle we bought at Lake Arrowhead. NEVER AGAIN. Even with the expansion leaf in our table, there wasn't enough room to spread out the pieces.




We checked out a few farmer's markets, of which Down town Salt Lake's was the best. At TG point though, we did get my favorite grass feed beef from Pleasant Valley Beef. We also got the last chicken of the year (first year they have tested the chicken market). Wasn't amazing, but Brett cooked it and it was good.

I love how much local honey there is in Utah. I HATE HONEY, but bee keeping is fascinating. Honey is facinating.
This place had my favorite Logo.




And even though the smell of coffee makes me nauseated, and even though I have strong feelings about coffee dependencies/addictions, I couldn't help but find this hilarious.

And that is all of our adventures in Farmer's market land.

Squash, squash, Squash!

less than a week ago, I found these on my squash plant, and I was very excited. This was the same plant Brett wanted to kill, once upon a time, because it was nearly dead.

Also last week, I discovered this surprise in the garden.



Basil! In the midst of the weeds in the neglected herb area, a basil was born!

Last week, I also picked my first Radish. It was LARGE and purple. I don't think it is supposed to be purple.



Today, I harvested my first 2 squash and my second (much smaller and red instead of purple) radish.



Here is a fork for scale

Wild Flowers

We have so many wildflowers around here that I have been wanting to make an illustrious boquet. Unfortunately, I never remember to bring scissors out with me when I walk the dog, so when I finally decided to rip 'em with my hands, the boquet was rather small and not very arrangeable.

I got some thistle, sunflowers, and queen anne's lace.

I love thistle. The plant itself is horrid, but the blossoms are so pretty

One of the thistles decided that the vase was too confining and that it was time to explode.

The Sunflowers were angry about me taking them away from their Bee friends, and decided to get revenge by dropping allergies all over my table.



I decided that it is time to get some scissors and attempt a prettier arrangement, but I watered my garden an hour ago, which, naturally, means that there is a blustery rainstorm in progress. I swear, watering my garden primes heaven's pump, just like washing your car will.

a scone

I did the best I could with a dinky flash, but here is a pick of my lemon poppy seed scones with some lemon curd. They look better in person, but I still wanted a picture of it.

I made them again for Sunday, but I don't think they were as good as the last two times

Make-it Monday: Spooning and Stamping

Favorite Friday: Hair rubber bands

The first non slip that actually works. Holds my hair up no matter how active I am. They do, however, eventually streatch out, and then they don't work as well, but in the mean time they rarely break on me and keep a nice high pony while I thrash around.

Self Portraits

So, when it comes to holding the camera away from your face and trying to take your own picture, I have a really really bad track record.

I rarely get my own face, let alone any of it in focus, so when I got distracted yesterday for 5 min taking my own picture, I was surprised not only by how many I managed to get my face into, but also by the fact that I didn't hate how I looked in many of them. You are supposed to hate 90-98% photos of yourself. That is just how it works.

Work-it Wednesday: August

I grew a witch's thumb.

I got curious and pulled up one carrot yesterday. it was a little fresher looking then, but oh well. I still think it is cute. not including the little curly whisp, it is about as long as my thumb.

Tunes for a Tuesday: Metric for all moods

I like Metric. That's nothing new, but this weekend I coompleted some of my albums on itunes, and I was reminded of something I really like about Metric: their music. har har har har.

No really, what I like (besides their music) is that, for one of their albums, they rereleased a handful of them on a seperate accustic album. As it turns out, I like both versions of a lot of these songs, their is one for the mellow days, and one for the work out days.

This is not my favorite song of theirs, but it is one of the new ones to me, so here it is, both ways.

Make-it Monday: He's My Man

The story goes like this

My mom comes to pick me up at the airport in april (march?), arrives early, hangs out in Rite-Aid (Right Aid was taken?), see's a lady with a shirt that reads I Love Larry, he's my man, and get's such a kick out of it that she tells me about it. Hence I decided to make it for her for mother's day ( but with my dad's name instead).

It's now august (almost my mom's bday) and I've barely shipped it last week... soo... um... happy mother's day.

Look for your bday gift around xmas.

My first silk screen attempt ever. It was a big deal. I'm kind of scared to try it again.

Favorite Friday: Scones

I discovered scones late in life, but at least I discovered them. Not all scones are equal, but my first scones were Connie Rich scones (wife of Richie Rich, no really, but he doesn't go by Richie, he goes by Richard). Connie Rich scones (or frankly, anything) are hard to beat.

But I L-O-V-E these scones. I made them 3 times one week (to bring to different dinners I went to) and haven't made them since. But, to be fair, that was only like 3 weeksish ago. I need to take some photos next time.

LEMON POPPY SCONE RECIPE

book 8 (of 12)

I finished this Sunday, so I am all caught up! 4 more books to go before New Years.

8: Suzanne Collins :The Hunger Games (I have a copy you can borrow, if you like).

It has been quite some time since I have read a book this quickly.

As far as writing style goes, it's good. Not mouthwatering, but I have nothing to complain about. It was simple, but it was never cheesy or insulting to my intelligence. I also appreciate that it was clean. A book I wouldn't worry about recommending to a young reader. Unless they are sensitive about violence.

It isn't graphically descriptive, but the whole concept is violent. People are murdered. Children are murdered. It is about corruption of power, and choosing between your life and being humane. It is futuristic without being too fake and spacie. It is about survival, hope, trust, empathy, revenge, love, and rebellion.

I loved the story. It isn't to kitschy, flows well, and reminded me of Ender's Game (which I also loved)... though the writing style was totally different.

Maybe 4.7 out of 5 stars? Mabybe 4.3? 4.5? I don't know! I do feel the style could be better, yet the story is way better than anything I've read in a while. I don't know why there are twilight fanatics out there when the Hunger GAMES deserves it so much more.

I'm tempted to pre-order the trilogy set, even though I haven't yet read the second book. I think I should wait until the last book comes out before I read the second though, because I don't want to sit around pining for the third book for a month.

Work-it Wednesday: July

I don't always like my covers. to be frank, sometimes they simply pic pieces that I hate. Also, I have to work around specific places text has to go, and sometimes they have these wild ideas about a theme they want. July, however, I liked. I personally would have nudged the photo to the left a bit, but I don't get to do the layout for the covers

Every month, I pick out 3 favorites to feature a detail of on the work blog. Sometimes, they really were my favorites. Often, however I don't have a favorite piece because, well, I don't wear jewelry much. Then, I pick them based on the fact that I don't hate the piece, but like the full size image of it, or that I really like the colors the person put together.

These are the ones I picked from our July issue.

Wordless Wednesday: Micro Harvest