Working

Finished carving on the whale tail yesterday, after 2 days of ...well, I guess I can call it sanding, even if it was done with steel wool. Looks like I can get it sealed today, as the weather is alright. Started this spring's batch of lilies last night, as well.

I'm not sure what I'm gonna do about a base for the tail. There are so many possibilities. I could leave it without or put it on a basic wood base. Have been thinking, though, that it would be fun to put it on a base that looks like water. That means polymer clay - which I hate - or maybe trying out 2-part urethane. I tend to like my lungs and hands, so that might put urethane outta the picture. Might be fun, though. The possibilities are interesting. I may have to try it out.

I'm dizzy as hell today, and am kinda waiting for the weirdness to start. A few times lately I have had an odd tightening across one shoulder and a one-sided numbness happen in spots. I have an appointment next week with the neuro and likely a subsequent MRI pending. I find it ridiculous that this is going on in my early 40's and, really, damn well resent it. But I want to remain intact so this has to stop. And, in light of this, it looks like I am gonna take it easy and work on lilies today.

WIll post pics or a link to the sealed whale tail in the next couple of days.

Yay for the intarwebs

Ordered stone today! Will say I'm excited even if it makes me look like some kind of off-the-charts nature geek for being happy over a rock. Yes, I love the intarwebs, because I can order anything in the world. Even rock, if I am in the mood to spend my money on such a thing.

Ordered more translucent alabaster, as I am running low. The last order I made was for regular white alabaster from Sculpture House. Had never ordered from them before and my regular place apparently went out of business or lost their webhost or maybe fired the only person in their office who understood how to turn on a computer. In any case, I only ordered the regular alabaster to make sure that Sculpture House was a business I wanted to work with - and it turns out they kinda rock (no pun intended - really).

The only problem I had making the order is that the trans. alabaster is the only one listed that doesn't show the state it will arrive in. The others do: nice clean blocks or cylinder forms. The trans? No clue. I could get some malformed rough chunk that I have to wade through in order to work with it instead of the beautiful cylinder I am used to. We'll see.

I have a whale tail to finish out in the next couple of days and a passel of lilies to attend to. Am running short of those and it's spring, so, time to make lilies.

The whale tail makes me think that I need to order urethane to make a water-like base for it. It's either that or look into cutting multiple layers of plexiglass for a water effect...

Put together and ordered the kewlest business cards last night. They will take forever to get here, but they are amazing. Will post a pic when they get here. Wahoo for Moo Custom business cards !

Got stuff up on Etsy finally, even if it's just a few items. I said I'd never do it, so maybe I've finally succumbed to peer pressure. WIll see how it goes for a bit. Take a look. What the hell.

I need to go get dusty now.

balance

I am finding mine again, finally. I am finishing stress bunnies. I have done a couple of trials of new things in stone. I am back on DeviantArt (http://stormcarver.deviantart.com/), and am exploring other people's work, which is fun, therapeutic, and mind-expanding. I have a trip planned for the latter half of April that will have me visiting people I haven't seen in way too many years. I am going by myself, which, for someone with traffic phobias, is a little skeery, but I'm going. I need to. The reconnections and the time are both way overdue.

Next week, J and I are going to visit a friend who is, within the next few months, going to die. She is leaving a partner who will have a hard time continuing without her. We are going to enjoy some time and say goodbye and to let them know that we are there for them. We love them both very much. It's going to be a damned hard few days, but we couldn't possibly let one pass without seeing her, and can't let the other go on without knowing we are there for her.

I know that I have been out of touch, with many things, for quite some time. I also know this can't continue. It's not good for me, or anyone around me. I just have to remember, no matter how hard things get or how much my body may fight me, I am still breathing. I can still do what I do, even if I have to change the way I approach things in order to do it.

So, today, while I may look askance at the weather that tries to kick my ass into submission, I find something that I can do. I am not happy with it, because I would rather be doing something else - something I had planned to do. Not very Zen...yet. I will get there. I am just beginning to see center again.

dammitdammitdammit!

I tried to do a small bit of editing on the web page last night (www.stormcarver.com) and ran into a snag. See, the last time I did anything with it was before Apple updated the OS to Snow Leopard. I know, badbad me. Anyway, I quickly found out that the saving process has changed. A lot. Half an hour later, I finally managed to figure out that it only took a little click here and there to fix what I was looking for. However. Ya, however. When I uploaded the changes, things didn't work right.

When I tested links, things were a real mess. Going from one page to another, it was like I had a cache issue that kept bringing up bad, old pages. I killed the cache, tried another browser, and no change. Apparently, not everything was such a smooth transition from the old Mac OS to the new one, like I had innocently thought. Well, hell.

I have spent today redoing my web page. Um, yay? I do like it better than the old one, I have to admit, although many of the old elements are still there. It's easier to navigate, for one thing. It's also a touch more dramatic, graphically speaking. I only hope that the damn thing works once I manage to get it all uploaded. It works in theory. At least I have that going for me. Reality is what I have to specuate upon while it uploads. I am not good with the patience issue, especially when I was up until 5 this morning trying to fix things before I finally realized that I was going to have to almost completely rework it. The cursing was spectacular, I gotta tell ya. Only 70 Mb left to load, the slow son of a..gah! Lalala...

Updated my DeviantArt page while I am waiting - still waiting - for some page elements to upload. So far, everything works, but I also haven't yet loaded the index.html file, which was incredibly wonky last night. It kept pointing to a page that hasn't existed for months, for some untold, stoopid reason. It really shouldn't work like that, and I am hoping that a new one, uploaded after everything else, will fix the problem. But we all know that hope, like shit, floats, right? Only 10 Mb to go now.

Thank all the gods, it works! Go look. Let me know if anything is messed up.

wishes

I always said I wouldn't ever want to "go back." I wouldn't take that wish to return to being a kid if given the chance. I don't know if I can say that anymore.

Getting older means I, having been hit (through no fault of my own) in four auto accidents, hurt all the damn time. It means that I am seeing age beginning to touch my friends. It's in their faces, their voices, their bodies. I'm starting to lose people to things that I associate with "old age," not with people in their 40's.

Granted, we're not all supposed to live forever, but I wish I didn't see lines in the faces of the people I went to high school with. And I sure as hell wish I wasn't going to lose someone I love, someone in their early 40's, to cancer.

AT&T

Sucks.

That is all.