Bugs, bugs, and metal bugs

Its been a long time since I've posted anything. Having no camera really puts a damper on a lot of things, sadly. However I've found something nice for those of you out there who like the odd shiny metalwork.

Let us start with the strange, yet lovely video:


The style you're looking at is Steampunk, something I've been really enjoying the look of lately. This person designs some great jewelry and such. They have an Etsy shop if you want to look through and maybe buy something. The old jewelry maker in me loves looking at all the stuff there. The bugs are awesome.

Speaking of bugs. We got a couple of mantis egg cases we're going to be raising. Kid's excited. I hope we do a good job and they don't all eat each other. Ha ha. Poor sister of mine though, she wanted some adult ones and ordered as such, I think the seller mixed up on the orders. I kinda had a feeling something was off when we got the package and it was so small. No way any adult mantis could fit in there I thought and sure enough out came two egg cases. Oh boy what a surprise that was. Bratling needs a pet soon. She's getting to about that age.

What do y'all think of Hissing Roaches? Unorthodox pet for a first grader or what. Hee hee. She likes the idea and because they're well... roaches they are hardy critters. Plus where as her buddies will have mice, hamsters, and fish. My bratling will have her own hissing roach for show and tell. I love it. Now if only I can con Pa into agreeing with me...

Christmas Crafts

Some of us out there love to make our presents. Perhaps you do too. For the big time crafters the Christmas craft gifts should be started soon. I think I know what I want to make this year!

Crochet Christmas Tampons~!

Thanks to the Microblogologist sibling of mine for mentioning it. I'm pretty sure she got it from McMommy (you horrible influence you *). Naturally I 1upped the idea and brought it to a whole new level of wrong. What better gift can you give that weird group of friends that you don't readily admit to than this? It sure tops the very nonappropriate cards from last year. And if you're particularly sadistic, this will make a great family gift.

I'll have to try and squeeze this project in. Currently we're in gardening prep and that wears me out real well. Combine that with kid watching, I have my hands full. That and bratling doesn't need the talk yet for another four years. Though I guess it's never too soon to tell a poor girl what a week out of every month is going to be like come puberty to menopause. I think I'll wait till she's eight. School tells them about these things anyways come fourth or fifth grade if memory serves me correct. Just think though with a ball of yarn, a hook and some materials for the hat, I have the most adorably inappropriate gifts I could come up with**.

----------asterisks-------------

*McMommy isn't a bad influence, more like an awesome one. Lol.

**The most wildly inappropriate gift idea I've really ever had involved a jar full of embalmed squirrel heads... Yeah, I know I'm odd too.

Giant Cricket, On the Scene

Remember when bratling was afraid of crickets? I do. She found that old picture of a giant groady cricket that I had "autographed" for her by Giant Cricket. This lead to her getting depressed and whiny on an otherwise good day... She missed her cricket friend. I tried to cheer her up in a conventional way but she was in one of those kinda moods where nothing would work. Nothing normal.

I told her to stay upstairs with GRA whilst I looked into getting her a surprise and lo and behold thus began an experiment in elaborate yarn spinning. I "e-mailed" Giant Cricket, whom I told whelp moved to Florida. Giant Cricket emailed me back. It cheered her right up.

"Giant Cricket is real!"

The warm fuzzies fizzled about an hour later when she wrote a love letter to the family on the wall with my graphite stick and even further when she hid her dinner under the table. Oh well, Can't have everything. Let's see how far Giant Cricket'll go.

As for me, I'm pretty good. Not in the best of condition. Like my sister has said, "They don't make them like they used to." My wrists are messed up. That combined with a definitive lack of a camera has put me pretty much out of commission at the time. I just like to remind everyone that I am in fact still alive.

Housewife: 1 Bratling: 0

Kid came home from kindergarten to find me sitting on the stairs chowing down my mid afternoon breakfast of rice crispies. After our pleasantries of hanging out whilst she showed off her goodies from her take home folder and caught me up on the latest juicy kindergartner gossip involving so and so doing whatever with the whatsit and so on and so forth she determined she wanted a snack. The following conversation went as followed:

Kid: I want a snack.

Me: Lunch~?

Kid: No... Snack. Sssnnnn-ack.

Me: Lunnnnn-ch?

Kid: Snnnn-aaaaa-ck. I want a snack. A fruit roll!

Me: An apple?

Kid: Noooo a fruit roll, not an apple.

Me: Apples roll.

Kid: No they don't. I want a fruit roll.

Me: (Gets up, grabs an apple, and rolls it across the ground over to her.)

Kid: ...

Me: There. It rolled.

Suffice to say, Bratling enjoyed her apple afterwards.

The Devious Ingenious Look and Find

As per the last post where I mentioned the copious amounts of crud that had overrun the house and my efforts taken into cleaning it I shall update you all on the current status of Operation Cleanup.

My faithful reader, Nonna wishes there were pictures of pile Crapatoa* and believe me, I do too. I shall pull out my archives and find photo evidence of the once majestic, long gone mini mount to satiate curiosity. For morbid curiosity sakes I bring you an unedited picture of old pile Crapatoa before it hit its full glory

Now picture it about three times bigger.

There you have it, early Crapatoa. That corner space between the stairs and the garage door. It had a good year plus to grow since that picture and grow it did. Now that between rooms room is fully clean (it could use a vacuuming I'll get on that later today).

Pa helps out as does Gra as I have mentioned as well, today I came up with a devious ingenious way to lull Kid into joining my efforts. Look and Find~! It's one of her favorite kinds of books and also computer games that we do together. It started with some empty food boxes hidden about. It quickly escalated into plastic bags and socks. I'm excessively pleased with myself. There's even mini-games to go with our "game". Such as Bag-Bag** Bagsketball and Socks Matcher!. Now Bratling is begging for another round of Look and Find with me and I can not help but giggle within for how easy it was suckering convincing her that cleaning can be fun.

----that section again----

*I can name the mess piles if I want, thank you very much.

**Have a lot of bags? Put the bags in a bag to make a bag-bag! They double as a stuffed bag-ball for extra fun.

PreSpring Cleaning

Goodness have I ever been a busy housewife! I have taken it upon myself to begin cleaning the disaster area also known as my house. Now I know we can't be the only home out there that's in a state of perpetually messy. That fact doesn't comfort me much when some little friend of Bratling comes inside and looks around with an expression of fascinated horror and exclaims in a voice fill with the candid bluntness of youth, "Woah... Your house is messy." Yeah kid, we kinda figured that one out on our own but thanks for pointing it out anyways. As a housewife I must say this statement left me absolutely mortified.

As you may have recalled from an earlier post I mentioned that the messes around the house regroup after only a few days after cleaning it. Something I didn't mention was that a while back I kept the house clean for quite a long time through a strict maintenance cleaning regiment. Yes, the house was clean. I went to Iowa to visit Microblogologist, my sibling, and came back to a ground zero worth of mess. The place looked worse than before and it absolutely killed my drive to fix it. Bring things back to now, only the most half-hearted attempts have been made and I've finally gotten sick of it. I'm tired of the mess and I would like to Kid to finally be able to have friends over without the feeling of dread they dredge up. I began cleaning.

Downstairs level is now a good third clean . I encountered a mess that I shall now describe because I'm lacking a camera at the moment.

The "Where do I even begin" pile:

Characteristics: This pile is formed from a gathering of miscellaneous sources. Essentially it is a junk runoff point. It's whole-lot-of-everything look helps ensure its long term survival because no one can throw the task of cleaning it off onto another and they wouldn't know where to start tackling the pile first even if they did want to fix it.

Who made it? That is unknown, all that is known is that it is made from everyone's junk congregating into a pile of intimidating proportions.

Best way to clean it? Pick a specific type of item in the mess, like cloth for example, and clean it up before picking another. By breaking the mess down into its three main sources; cloth, garbage, and toys you'll find the pile looks less and less intimidating. Sure enough you'll find yourself vacuuming clean carpet before too long.

That pile made that area an embarrassing eyesore, now it's quite pleasant to look at. It's a good start. I recommend using a shop-vac for the initial vacuuming because it can pick up the bigger bits of debris, saving you the trouble of picking up every last tiny scrap on the ground too big for the regular vac. The plus side, and why I think this cleaning round will work is everyone is on board save for Whelp, who hates cleaning, and Whelp's bio-mom, who looks at me like I have a third head for cleaning at all. Maybe, just maybe we can pull this thing off. I definitely hope so.

Yay Me!

Finally I have arrived. I made money off of my art. I'm so disproportionately proud of myself for this. A while back I drew some graphics and tossed them into a Cafepress shop and forgot about them all together. Then I got a check in the mail for thirty dollars. I was downright tickled pink by this. That design, a streaked agar plate with bifido bacteria, hit it off with some science lover who went and bought a ton of ornaments and buttons. You can't get cooler than that. I'd like to thank the commitee for choosing this design and making me some bonus money.

It made me happy enough to go out and splurge with bratling at the store. We got a pack of post'it notes, Kid got two whole sets of teddy bear stickers, and I got my older-but-not-the-oldest sibling a rubber iguana that's a better pet than that real one she has. Kid got to fill out the deposit slip for me at the bank which even if it was sloppy like you wouldn't believe, the tellers thought it was so cute that they accepted it anyways. Bratling even swiped my card for me at checkout. It made her day. Now I get to look forward to finding stickers stuck to surfaces they don't belong but hey, makes her happy.

I did another design. I think I even showed it off here. If not I'll just show it off again.


Gotta love teddy bears. Kid loves this one so I might go and make a mini button for her. If any of you want a link to the shop here it is.* I was looking at etsy too but haven't made anything for it yet. In the mean time, I gotta go. Kid needs to bee relocated from the couch back onto her bed along with her mountain of plushies. How they got there the world may never know.

----It definately is copying someone copying somone spot----

*No I did not make a post revolving around pimping a Cafepress link. Just sharing it in case anyone is interested. I'm not a total sellout, that costs extra. ha ha