Friends

I've changed his name from Oskar to "Mr. Peepers", because Peepers is cuter and he likes to sing "Peeper Peeper Peeper PEEP" back to me on occasion.

He's also become a bit bolder.....


Mr. Peepers checks out the biznez


Mr. Peepers heads Top-side!


What is up here!?


I see something delicious!


OMNOMNOM Eyebrow preening!!!

(PS pay no attention to the box of boxes behind me...it's recycling day!)

As you can see, the birdie is progressing slowly...he now obliges to climb onto my shoulder and fly to me, but he will NOT under any circumstances "step up" on to a finger...fingers are for nipping unless they have millet in them apparently...

I'm not quite sure how to train him to step up now, since I think my previous attempts have lead to his current finger rage....Any tips out there for finger taming an aggressive lil jerk? ;)

Also I was recently informed by a local bird-er that parrotlets are the pit bulls of the parrot world and are naturally very possessive and aggressive. OH JOY! Why no one mentioned this to us before I do not know...but I see how it can be true, because Peepers has apparently decided that he hates my dog Georgia and dive bombs her every chance he gets. He's got a serious pair of green balls on him. I just hope it does not end tragically...:(

In other news...the Christmas spirit is creeping in!! I crave Christmas cookies and trees and carols! I wish I had time to put up our tree...but with my freelance and shopping and visitors, and the fact that we'll be leaving in less then a week makes it seem a bit moot. I have settled for tuning my cable to the "sounds of the seasons" channel and eating a candy cane. But all of this holiday joy is not conducive to working..LOL..

HO HO HO EVERYBODY!

WOW

So, last night I had a weeeird dream that a pipe had burst and was flooding our apartment and we had to put all of our stuff in storage while they fixed it. Then this morning, Matthew and I got up early to go to a doctors appointment, and we stepped out of out front door...into a HUGE puddle of water! There was a literal WATERFALL coming out of the ceiling in the hallway and running down the wall our living room shares with the hall. It was INSANE...apparently there was a BURST PIPE in the floor above us. It's just sheer luck that it didn't run into our apartment, we rescheduled our appointments so we could stay home and check everything over.

Obviously this means I am psychic.

I also dreamt I went to a Waffle House, so I'm looking forward to that coming true too...

In other news, Randy Owens watches me work....

Tell me that's not adorable!


Yes, that's a xmas bell bracelet around her neck; nice and loose. I'm quite sure she'll figure out how to slide it off soon enough. Her neck is too wee for a collar, but the birds (and us) deserve a bit of warning!

Happy Birthday ihavebigprongs Imissyou you big abouttobemurdered oneyear left father

Also, Happy Birthday ishie, who is slightly more non-fictional (OR MAYBE NOT?) x

...my fanboyhubby gave to me...

...a Rainshadow, cute as can be!

( click for more kitten cute! )

angelicvampyre brought to me...

Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington!
(he's a very British budgie!) ;~D


He was this close to being called Charles Emerson Winchester, but fanboyhubby was not content cos Charles was Bostonian rather than British. So youngest son suggested Sir Nicholas, and Sir Nick he is! (hopefully he'll not end up Nearly Headless!)

How's everybody with the season's celebration preparations? Reasonable and toasty?
It seems pretty quiet out there...

While I'm finishing up my holiday commissions, I thought I'd post something -


( A noble and most ancient house // Narcissa & Bellatrix )

By the way, I've dived into Merlin and have now seen all the episodes. More on this later - who here is a fan?

Hubby and I put up our fake tree last night and doused it with lights. It's pretty blinding - though perhaps with some more tampering I can push the non-blinky ones further into the tree so that the overall effect isn't as overwhelming. Loves me some bubble lights, I do. :)

Oliver has already climbed the tree twice. We'll see what he does when we get ornaments up. It's kind of difficult to be upset at him climbing the tree when he looks so @#$!% adorable peering out at us from behind the branches. Hubby yells at him while I grab my camera. Good thing we're not parents.

NEXT year I will have a menorah. My mother would light one when I was a child - that was the extent of her practice in Judaism, but I'd like to start it up again. I may not be a practicing Jew, but I am one by birth, and just feel...like it it something I should do. I want to do it.

In Losing Faith in Humanity news, someone vandalized the Ithaca College School of Music last night. That's where hubby works - he's the Coordinator of Facilities there, so naturally he's down there now surveying the damage with the police. About 70 pianos were damaged or destroyed, including a few marimbas. Even though I'm not a student there any more, I still feel a sense of ownership and indignation towards whomever did this. Why would someone do this? Thank heavens they didn't break into lockers and destroy personal instruments.

In Late to the Party news, I watched some of Brokeback Mountain for the first time. O.O. LOVE IT.

In Purse news, I gave up on fumigating the smoke hazard and purchased a simple dark purple purse. I love it. It smells nice. It's pretty. It has lots of pockets. It zips fully. Did I say it smells nice? YES. I tossed the other one in the laundry one last time, and am going to take it back. I'm not going to say it won the war, but I will say I gave it a good fight. And soon it will be someone else's problem. Unless they smoke. Then I suppose there won't be a problem, unless they are adverse to the smell of dryer sheets.

Has anyone on here completed Little Rocket Man achievment on HL2? How do you get through the last of a car chase?? FUCKING GNOME WON'T STAY IN THE CAR AND THE FUCKING COPTER SHOOTS IT AWAY FROM YOU SLDKFJSLKFJKLSDFJKL

( 2pic )

oh also!! Princess and the Frog is pretty old school Disney style and I liked it a lot so you should see it too.

So...I saw Frog... and I'm still making my mind up about it,,, HOWEVER....

( Heres to the new generation of Disney Princesses! )

Man, this is sad on so many levels.

I didn't know that Ellie Frazetta had passed away and that Frank himself was suffering from dementia (although that's something you can suspect from Painting with fire). If you've been around here for a while, you probably know that I really respect Frazetta as an artist - flipping through his books has often got me out of "artist's block". It's disheartening to see that it's ending like that. Now I sort of hope some foundation or public institution is going to come up and buy the whole museum once Frank has passed, it would be great if his work was on public display rather than scattered around private collections.

In other news, some guy in Venice is going around in Assassin's Creed II cosplay complete with hood and fake swords, and scaring people jumping out of hidden corners and such. There has been no aggression so far, so probably it's just an elaborate joke.

Is it possible to love an appliance? Because I think I do....


My parents got us a portable dishwasher for Christmas this year, and we ran it for the first time last night. OH MY GOD HOW DID I EVER LIVE WITHOUT IT?! It is AMAZING! I don't think our dishes have ever been cleaner...I want to wash everything I own now... And it was only $100 off of craigslist (best site EVER!) You know your old when a dishwasher and a roomba (which my parents got us last year) are some of the most precious things you own.. ;)

In other news I'm slowly getting excited about Christmas...mainly for the loooong vacation! I've also been dreaming of Christmas cookies...I've been entertaining thoughts of making some to bring to my parent's house for Christmas (in lieu of gifts since my family has agreed to have a low-key Xmas this year). Of course this all assumes that I will find some free time with my freelance...but I thought I'd ask you guys!


What are your FAVORITE Holiday cookies, (or cookies in general)...I have been craving the old fashioned sugar cookies that we used to make when I was little, cutting them with my grandma's cookie cutters and decorating them with colored chocolate chips and colored sugar...OMG NOM NOM NOM

yay xD

I believe this is the opening for Demo Solly update, no?

☃ *runs around catching all the frosted cookie snowflakes on tongue*

What fun! Thank you so much, friends and kind strangers ♥
I delight in seeing all the virtual, omnominous snowstorms on people's profile pages.

☃ REC: vikingcarrot's latest is hair-straighteningly scary - "Friendly," Greyback and Draco. The former squicks me for several reasons, but the composition and color scheme are so masterfully sinister, can't help but stare.

She also has some thought-provoking words on fandom and original art:

And everyone on my list who never cared about HP in the first place must find this excruciating.

But then I feel weird about posting original art as well, because it's original characters and concepts and oh god judgement from the public. Hoho, dilemmas and awkwardness - this isn't me whining for pats, by the by, just my thought process - and perhaps an implied apology to the people who wish I'd get over drawing HP fanart/slash/porn altogether. We artists are a strange bunch.

Hope you don't mind me quoting, oh sweet, insane Carrot.xo


☃ Speaking of original art, this is a very strange little not-a-self-portrait-maybe portrait mask sketch for my old pal copperbadge. A sort of overdue gift for no occasion whatsoever.

Still working on that illustration career post, Strudel-face.


( full scale )

...well. Anyway.
I don't think anyone should have to feel awkward about posting original stuff on ostensibly "fannish" journals. There's always that scroll button for uninterested viewers, right?

Gearing up full throttle for the season of giving! \o/

I had my first ever cavity filled this morning and now half my face is numb! It's so WEIRD!! I would SWEAR that half my tongue and the lower half of my face was swollen (even though it's not)..I keep poking at it to make sure it's there...so odd! I wish it would wear off because I'm getting hungry, but I can't eat until I know where my tongue is again least I chew it with my sammich...



I'm so sad I ruined my thirty year streak of never having a cavity..shame on me! It wasn't as terrible as I thought it was going to be but I'd rather not go through that again....

In other news, Matthew and I got new phones yesterday (our Christmas presents to each other LOL!). The plan was originally to get iphones, but ALAS they are expensive! I can't ever see a point in my life where paying $200/mo for a phone would be OK. Esp. for service that is less then stellar by many accounts! O.o so we stuck with Verizon and got Droids!! OMG THEY ARE SO COOL! Plus they were having a buy one/get one, so I got my lil wee Eris for FREE!



I am so in love it's not even funny. I spent all night downloading apps and games and browsing the internet and being a geek! I think a smart phone might just change my life y'all...

And now I'm playing around with the idea of getting an ipod nano...I might not be able to afford the seamlessly integrated life style that an iphone would provide, but a cut teensy lil ipod that could easily talk with my Imac would do very nicely...plus my Zen kinda weighs a million pounds.. ;)

HO HO spending money I don't really have! The holidays are truly here!

Big hugs and squeeful thankyous to americonedream , glockgal darlas_mom , kerryblaze , naadi , tbranch , coffee_n_cocoa , and rickey_a , and sun_chan for the virtual snowflake cookies! Nom!!! XD

Also logansrogue , bzzinglikeneon, kath_ballantyne , dream_wia_dream ,madam_minnie ,chickadilly , xingou , fools_trifle , xterm, and freckles42!

I'm sorry I didn't get to everybody I intended to!

Omygoodness! My design is a finalist in the Holy Clothing contest! *dances*


( summer version )

Dare I beg and ask you to vote for me? Would that be wrong? *really needs a new summer dress since she's lost weight.*

This is more like a note to myself, but just in case you're into Craig!Bond/M like I am:

Queen of spades, by astolat
Not rated, but I'd give it an R. It's also kinda awesome IMO.