Eh....

I may post more on here again....but for now I'm going to do some work on livejournal because there are some cool add-ons you can put on there. We'll see.

http://violentshrinker.livejournal.com/

Updates are:

2. My job is going well, taking care of grandma is going well, and I"ll be taking some classes soon. Oh, I quit working at the phone company back in January and have returned to mentoring youth for DCFS.
3. Our new apartment rocks. It's so nice to be independent again!
4. Our new church got me wheat free communion wafers. Now, that's the love of Christ.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

Art Museum

Jeremy and I went to visit an art museum last weekend and to see the exhibit "Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur". They were treasures indeed. Intricate and costly jewelry, make up cases, boxes, bowls, statuary, instruments, all about 4,000 years old. Seeing these nearly perfect and stunning pieces of everyday life from so long ago really drove home to me how little people change and what a myth it is that the farther you go back in the past the more primitive the people are. I mean they had tiny, precise gold tweezers and eyeshadow cases! The tomb itself was a pretty gruesome find. Ur is now part of Southern Iraq and this excavation took place as a joint venture between Baghdad, London, and Philadelphia in the 1920's. Down in the tomb they found a number of dead women, children, men and animals who were all killed to accompany the Queen into death. They were killed down in the tomb after everything was arranged. I'm sure there are celebrities today that would be delighted if they could legally make such arrangements for their own deaths. The St. Louis art museum is massive and contains art from some of my favorites Zurbain, El Greco, Eitel. . . I didn't spot a J.L. David anywhere which saddened me. Jeremy and I didn't have time to visit the arms and armory, furniture, Asian, or American art. We breezed through the contemporary due to time restraints. We'll be going back, though. My souvenirs? Photos. A postcard. Oh - and I had a cup of coffee. . .

On the way back we stopped in a small town and visited a living nativity complete with a camel, multiple goats, sheep, a llama (of all out of place things), donkey and live actors. It was a nice little church. Driving around the town we spotted some great locales for future photo shoots for my artwork. 

Photo Shoot 2

Some of the highlights of the fall have been going on photoshoots with John Daemon (aeontriad on deviant art).

We took him down to the Empire in late November. Unseasonally warm weather has been plaguing the area for some time (although as of now we do have snow). But it was perfect weather for photos.

So we got shots of Drake (the wooded, creek filled farm area we own), The disused pottery factory and its surrounding grounds, and some of the old houses. It was great fun for hours of walking around oustide.

Someone had been trespassing on Dad's land and had erected a deer stand. We had a lot of fun taking it down (read destroying it).

Oh! And we found a huge old well (at least 110 years or more) that used to be utilized when the farm was mined for clay. John bravely climbed down to it and we threw lots of sticks and osage oranges in there to try to determine it's depth. The consensus? Deep. 

New Job

"We'll have to cut out your tongue" Quote- My Trainer

Right now I'm training for my new job. I hate training. It's like being in highschool. Girls around me glammed up and talking about who they slept with on this day and that. Older girls (40's and 50's) giggling non-stop. People are already saying things like "She's smart because she wears glasses" But I don't even talk during the class!! Most of them are nice though and I did get some compliments on my scary "I'm an anime Lolita outfit" Once the training is over I'm sure the job will be fine, but the training is for six weeks and then several months of transition.

So I've created a list of things about my job. If you're reading this consider yourself tagged to do the same for your job/school/housemaking, etc. Don't feel obligated to do this, though.

WHEN I HEAR MY TRAINER SAY THESE TERMS MY BRAIN BLEEDS AND I RETCH:
1.tushie
2.prozac
3.inspirational
4.FYI
5.BFO

WHEN I HEAR THESE TERMS I PERK UP IN INTEREST:
1.suicide bomber
2.Hell
3.babykillers
4.Jesus Time
5.Darth Vader

TERMS I HOPE TO HEAR THE TRAINER SAY IN THE NEAR FUTURE:
1.m*f****
2.basal metabolic rate (as in, mine has slowed to death levels from sitting)
3.Absinthe
4.Holy Spirit Time (hey, we've got the big J, already)
5.Excrete

BENEFITS OF MY JOB:
1. UNION
2. Paid Time Off
3. Getting Bitched At
4. Watching co-workers
5. Hiding from co-workers
6. Smelling alcohol that some lady's been drinking the bathroom
7. free coffee
8. A cubicle to decorate (yes, fear me!)
9. working with :aeontriad:

SATANIC ELEMENTS OF JOB:
1. Training (okay we need it and I appreciate the efforts and the humour)
2. No Coca-Cola products for sale within at least a mile of building (pepsi has wheat and I'm deathly allergic to wheat, more on that later)
3. Discouragement from using the bathroom outside of breaks (training thing)
4. Getting up (hopefully ONLY for now) at 7 AM

PEOPLE OF INTEREST (in my training class):
1. Awesome Christian Punk Dude who was formerly a TOMBSTONE CARVER.
2. Chess and Tae Kwon Do Master
3. Former Prostitute (okay I made that one up)
4. Two Hurricane Katrina Refugees

MY WORK PHILOSPHY IS:
-- To get the job done right the first time, to attempt humour to make people's days go by faster, but remain somewhat anti-social and mysterious amongst my co-workers.

WHAT I REALLY WANT TO DO:
- - Save up money to go back to school and get my P.hD and teach your future children. And subvert their minds with (rather than the usual rampant Marxist or Postmodern or Buddhist philosophies of most of my professors) the stylings of a terribly complicated and hopelessly devoted JESUS LOVER! AHAHAHHAHAHA

Music Foundation

This fall the brother and I spent a lot of our time working with 4-8th graders through his Music Foundation. The music foundation is financed through the United Way and generous donors. We were able to use the performance and practice space in a local college's art compound, so that worked out beautifully.

We had several workshops. The kids learned to sing new music, learned dances popular from diff. decades (including the full Saturday Night Fever dance), we taught them to write songs, and we had performances for their families. Our activities got noticed for two decent articles on the Front Page of the local newspaper, so that really made the kids days.

Next year in the spring we'll have a children's choir and a musical for them to perform in.

CLICK ON THE PIC!

If you would like to see where I spend most of my time click on the pic. I have been doing a lot of digital art lately. I'm also working forty hours, commuting ten, more on that later. 

The Costume Contest

Greetings. Here I am in my white(r) face fairy of the corpses costume. I had a black walking stick with long mourning color ribbons of moss green, pale purple, black and grey. Today I received a haircut which in this photo I have colored white for the evening jaunt to the Coffeehouse.

While a talented jazz duo played and sang I sat with a black caped wolfman and a heavily bearded frontiersman waiting for the costume contest to commence. Later we were joined by two lovely spirtes, one in lovely frothy pink and the other in a wonderful black costume with netted undergarments carrying a spinning spider wand she had made. After the jazz concert was over the musicians judged us and I won. Thank you all.

Sunday evening it's off to Springfield to attend a Rocky Horror Picture Show audience participation. At church on Sunday we will remember the dead of this year, those who have been cleaved from their shells on Earth to join God and await the glorious Resurrection and their new bodies to wear. 

Fiddling Away While Rome Burns

Drool. Drool. *weeping*. This beautiful 1941 Chevy is available for sale within a day's drive and for a mere 5k. . . This is the car that I someday want to own. There's nothing I love more in terms of autos, than the cars of the 40's. The color is perfect and the interior is in surpisingly good shape.

So I feel sort of, as the title not so subtley alludes, like a person who grasps for the temporal while the eternal struggle of pain and evil blazes around her. Earthquakes, wars, disease, and hurricanes. Oh dear God mercy!!

*******

In happier news we celebrated Luke's 19th last night at Outback SteakHouse and I gladly dined on their wheat free menu. This weekend Luke and I are putting on our first music workshop for the Foundation he works for. I'm presenting on the history that influenced the music of the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Luke and I will sing, teach them dances, and teach them songs from each decade.

Oh! And I keep cranking out the art on deviant art. Check it out. I've been customizing fashion dolls. Goodwill has them for 1.99 apiece and acrylic paint is in the .40 to .88 price range. Mom sent me a Jackson!! Hurrah! So I bought a new winter coat at the Goodwill, some winter shirts, and a couple of Barbie type dolls to re-paint and costume. Before moving to LA I gave away my winter coat and some of my winter clothing, so I'm restocking! 

Back to the Graveyard

"As you are now, once was I. And as I am now, you will be."

Jeremy is contemplating the shelved tombs at the big, romantic cemetery here in town.

Yesterday was John's 23rd and we spent the afternoon with him and his new digital camera with the dead. For hours we picked our way across the massive burial grounds. We must have walked around two miles all told. There was the creepy place called 'Baby Land' where someone had hung a child sized skeleton, along with other Halloween decorations on their baby's grave. Then we found Gov. Duncan's tomb and numerous impressive aged stones from men killed in the Civil War to people born in the 1700's and deceased in the 1820's, very soon after the town was formed. We also spent some time entranced by the mausoleum, a wonderful cool, echoing structure. Our chatter was filled with jokes about our own deaths, the Hollywood Forever cemetery (must go back soon), and all sorts of things. What a pleasant afternoon!! Go to John's art site to see more pics.

Later that night we celebrated with friends and they had cake and pizza for the b-day. Cheer! 

Mmmmm.

Well I can add these noodles to the list of ancient artifacts that I am willing to eat. After all these noodels are wheat free. See.

Living History

On Saturday evening after he was done performing at the coffeshop Luke exclaimed "The early 1800's village is having a candlelight tour!". This place is quite near us geographically and he offered to drive, but we despaired of going due to admission fees. When we got home a quick check on the internet proved the park was free!

So well past nightfall we traversed the country roads up to the village/park. It's an enclosed town from the 1830's to 1850's with many of the original buildings; most are rebuilt or refurbished. A crew of recreators is on hand at all times. We got there an hour to closing, at 8PM, and were shocked that cars were parked down to the highway. Visions of LA parking danced in my head as we saw cars parked up on medians and the grass. Happily we found a space and headed in.

Besides one small museum at the opening no electric lights were present and once you passed the gates to go in it was pitch dark with only tiny pinpoints in yellow glow here and there. Hundreds of people were walking around us but we could barely see them. Some had brought their own lanterns, but all we had was the DVD camcorder! We only visted a few of the many houses and other buildings there due to long lines to get in. A few of the recreators had pitched tents outside and there was even an army tent and a giant conestoga wagon. Inside of one building beautiful music was playing and it turned out to be a very talented woman playing a large, complicated dulcimer.

Back outside we looked up at the sky and were awestruck. Far enough away from regular civilization and electric lights we were in such total darkness that not only could we see the usual stars, but the starfields behind them that you usually only see in photos. Wow. I just cannot describe how beautiful that was... There were too many people trodding around for us to safely lay on the ground and stare at the heavens, though.

I cannot wait to attend this event again next year. Thanks God! Thanks Luke! Hurrah! 

Renaissance Faire

Here it is. We found our way back to my first ever Ren experience!! Thanks to the yardsale, gas money from my brother (who went) and gas money from Kristine and Phillip we were able to attend. Whew! No siphoning for us! Commandments are not meant to be broken. ;P

Sadly it was not as good as the year we went. Two years ago there were wonderful giant English lop rabbits at a petting zoo, an SCA rep, musicians, a medieval style food stand, actual sword fighting, mock sword fighting, and several awesome vendors.

This year there was a great group of Renaissance women musicians, mock battles with fake weapons, a soapmaker, a kick a** armoury, and a very wonderful calligrapher. The event was free, the other reason we were able to attend, but it was not as impressive. :(

Still I am so grateful that we got to go, as this was something we planned on with K&P back in Arizona. Actually we planned on going to five different faires in this region, but this was the only one within our means.