Crafty Carvings

Finally carved jack-o-lanterns yesterday. This year may be the latest I carved them. Less than a week before Halloween. At any rate, here's the result:

The smaller is Devon's. He chose that design, and I carved. (Has a totally lopsided grin, but sometimes those are the best!) The larger is mine. Not my favorite design. I didn't put as much thought and effort into it this year. But, I tried making up for it a bit afterward with a bit of creativity.

Cannibal Pumpkin says "You're next, Gourdo..."

I plan to make up for it next year. Maybe have a design that matches the intricacy that my Beetlejuice required. Or, if all else fails, just do the Ghost with the Most again...

Been at my housecleaning job for over a month now.

Oh! And I made one of the two recipes I posted about awhile back. Pappardelle alla Lepre. Ribbon pasta with rabbit sauce. While it could've had more sauce to it, it had a very good flavor and it went over pretty well.

Time To Gore The Gourd!

Hey there. Hope this finds you well. I met my newborn nephew over the weekend. Quietest baby I've ever heard. Barely cried. One of the first things he and I did was sit down and watch Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Good times! Nerdy aunt for the win.

Currently in the middle of my fourth week at the house cleaning job. While there are some elements I dislike, as you'll find in almost any job, I'm quite liking it. Perfect schedule, and I've already gotten a 25¢ raise. I get paid weekly, which is a big difference from the once-a-month that the school system had. But... I'm making about $200 more, monthly, than they were paying me.

Also over the weekend, we caught most of "Autopsy: The Last Hours of Phil Hartman" on tv. So now I'm getting ahold of the show NewsRadio, all 5 seasons. He died in between the fourth and fifth season.

Bought my yearly pumpkin today! Haven't sketched out a design yet, though.

Actually... just drew one up. We'll see whether or not something better comes along.

Excited it's October. Though once again, not getting in my quota of scary movies. I'll work on that the next two weekends.

Here's to many scares, fewer cavities, and fantastic autumn days... and of course nights!

Break It Down, Now...

Five days ago, I was employed by a hotel, working 2-3 days a week for very little money, half an hour away. Not very satisfied with how things were, but unwilling to return to unemployment, AKA Square One.

Four days ago, I received a call from a local business I'd applied for some time ago, and given up on.

Three days ago, I went in and talked to the manager/owner of this business, and agreed to start the next day. I left that meeting, went home and grabbed my hotel uniform, and drove the half hour to return it.

Two days ago, I started my Monday-thru-Friday day job cleaning houses. And I'm much more satisfied with where I am now.

So... Yay!

I keep listening to the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album. Really like it. The last song is currently playing. I like the rhythm to it. But also, cool beginning, cool title... "Dreams of a Samurai." Reminds me of "Death of a Martian" from their Stadium Arcadium album, which has been a favorite of mine for some time.

Alright, so... "Death of a Martian" just got more meaningful. Apparently, the band's bassist, Flea, had a dog who died during the making of Stadium Arcadium. So, the song is about and dedicated to Martian the dog. Now that I know this, certain lyrics make more sense. "Make room for Clara's bare feet"... Clara is Flea's daughter. "Chase lizards, bark at donkeys"... "She caught the ball"... And to be honest, I never appreciated the last part of the song - it seemed out of rhythm to me - but now that I know it's intended to be a poem, I appreciate it a hell of a lot more.

Here's a bit of background on the song...

Hope this finds you well. Happy belated first day of autumn/Autumnal Equinox! I'm excited, but apparently the swarm of mosquitoes outside my front door hasn't received the memo. Beat it, bloodsuckers.

Oh, and I'll leave you with one last note, and it's in regards to the Chili Peppers. It's not so new, so you may have seen it before. If so, I hope you liked it enough to enjoy watching it again.

Tis What Tis

Third day of Front Desking (yes, desking, why not?) under my belt. There are still ropes I don't know the threads of, but I'm getting there. There's a lot more to Front Desking (yep, deal with it) than I ever knew. Like I told the manager training me, I'm good til a curve ball gets thrown. Which happens frequently.

I miss being a paraeducator.

First day of fall in just a few days! Time to start thinking about Halloween and baking my pumpkin chocolate chip bread. Gotta get my playlist of season-appropriate movies lined up. Beetlejuice, Hocus Pocus, Trick R Treat, Halloween... the original, not the remake. Speaking of scary movies, if you enjoy scary and/or creepy, watch V/H/S. It's from 2012. I watched it last year, I believe, and it freaked me out a bit. (Maybe more than a bit.) Some may find it more weird than scary, but I found it creepy, disturbing. If you're into that stuff, get ahold of it. See what you think.

And now I'm re-acquiring it. Glutton for punishment, this one.

So uh, not sure how legal it is to not have a lunch break but... yeah. Manning the front desk for 8 straight hours is how it goes. Guess it's great for getting paid a couple dollars more and maybe losing a few pounds... Shrug. Snackage it is.

I started a new art project. A jukebox in colored pencil. I'm discovering a few things. Colored pencil is great for precision, but not for shading or blending. The color isn't very solid, a lot like pastels. As opposed to oil paints. Kinda stuck right now, because the chrome... joints? plating? not sure what the right word for it is... is difficult to achieve. Might have to find a way around it for now.

Anyway... Here's what I've done so far:

It's not sellable quality, but it's not bad, I guess.

Tonight's playlist includes the RHCP album I mentioned in my last entry, the soundtrack from Rescue Me, and now the Strangers To Ourselves album by Modest Mouse.

One perk of my new job, I have half an hour of music each way. It's pretty enjoyable to be driving down the highway/freeway to music of your choosing, and not only listen to a song and a half. Either my trip to the interview, or my first day there, I looked through the CDs I had in the car, and put in Limp Bizkit's Results May Vary. GREAT album. And when I tire of it, I have CDs I burned over the summer for the vinyl-seeking road trip I went on. John Grant, Queens of the Stone Age, Metric, Massive Attack, Glitch Mob (ooh, they'll be next), Elbow... Oh yes.

Well, hope this finds you well. I'm working on a rum & cola, certainly not my first of the night, and trying to adjust myself to the 3-11 shifts I have this week.

Oh! Quick addition: A song from the Modest Mouse album I'm currently listening to was in a Season 3 episode of The Blacklist! That was pretty exciting. And not only that, but it was my favorite song from that album, "Wicked Campaign." The rhythm to that song is the perfect mix of fast, yet smooth.

Agents of Red Hot Picture Shows

Had issues with my last post. For some reason, the font is way tiny. And every time I try to increase its size, it either stays the same or gets smaller... So I apologize if it's unreadable. We'll see how this one turns out.

Update: I'm employed! But don't get excited. Not sure if it's going to work out right now. Little pay for a job 30 minutes away. Gonna see how it pans out. I enjoy the work, and they seem pretty flexible on my schedule... We'll see.

How it happened: I got interviewed two days ago, and received a call about 2 hours later with a job offer, and a request to come in the next day to start training. Which I agreed to. So yesterday and today were my first two on-the-job-training days.

The position is Front Desk Agent at a hotel. And the whole time I'm there, I'm waiting for my moment to make Tim Roth proud. (Watch the movie Four Rooms. So great!)

Red Hot Chili Peppers came out with a new album a few months ago, and I just heard about it in the last week or so. It's called "The Getaway" and it's pretty good. What really got my attention was that it was produced by Danger Mouse. Danger Mouse was one half of Gnarls Barkley, with CeeLo Green being their other half. You probably know their song "Crazy" if nothing else. He also produced the Demon Days album by Gorillaz, which has Feel Good Inc on it. Great album (I like to listen to it when I mow the yard). But, what made him popular before all that was when he released The Grey Album. In it, he combined Jay-Z's vocals from his album The Black Album with the instrumentals from The White Album by the Beatles.  Anyway, this album marks Danger Mouse's first time with the RHCP, and he replaces the band's former producer, who had been with the Chili Peppers for 25 years - and 6 albums.

By the way, typing RHCP is dangerously close to RHPS (Rocky Horror Picture Show), so if I ever slip up either way, you now know why.

Listening to "Feel Good Inc" now... great song to groove to.

Tis all f'now. Ta-ta.

Daft Novels & Blacklisted Pastels

Since my last entry, I've started watching The Blacklist. And I'm hooked. In love with James Spader. He's amazing. The slow, slow revealing of the main character's past and her connection to his character, Raymond "Red" Reddington, is damned frustrating, but I think that if they were to reveal the truth in its entirety, the show would lose a chunk of its following. "Well, now I know, so what's the point of watching..." So I understand. But I'm quite looking forward to that reveal, whenever it shall show itself. (Probably the series finale.)

I'm considering starting on some jukebox art. Either oil paint on canvas or colored pencil on paper. Nice contrast of neon with dark undertones.

OR maybe the Daft Punk guys.

Kinda phasing out of pastels.

Amy Winehouse in the ears as I type. Her Back To Black album.

Started reading Forrest Gump a few days ago. The novel is pretty different from the movie. It's a bit of a slow read, I think mostly due to it being written as he would write it. Example: "We foun a place to put the gun an stayed there till it got dark - an all night long, too, but nothin happen. We could hear all sorts of shit goin on everplace else, but we be lef to ourselfs. Sunup come, an we hungry an tired, but there we is."

I may have started reading Hannibal by Thomas Harris at about the same time, to balance things out a bit, grammatically and intellectually.

There are two meals I'd like to attempt sometime soon. One from Captain America: Civil War, the other from the Hannibal TV show.

Chicken Paprikash

and...

Pappardelle alla Lepre

(Papparedelle with Rabbit)

Yum. Times two. Actually, dunno about the Paprikash, but I know I'd like the pappardelle. (Which is really wide, flat noodles.) AND, as luck would have it, I was recently given rabbit meat. Score.

Them Crooked Vultures now.

I recently found a really cool picture online. I was browsing Cthulhu pics on Google, and found this one:

How cool would it be to be driving down the freeway and see this looming in front of you? Or maybe in your rearview mirror?

I know, I'm odd. But really... It'd be pretty cool.

This one is pretty awesome as well. A brilliantly made gif...

Alright, gonna wrap things up. Take care. Hug a cephalopod. Buh bye.

Winey Goats

So, I drink rum on a close-to-nightly basis. Takes 3 or so pint glasses of the rum & cola mix for me to start feeling the effects. Keep in mind, pint glasses means they're doubles.

Then one evening I enjoy some wine with my husband. Two glasses in, I'm in that same state that requires 5-6 shots of rum. What the hell?

Ha! Get this. I was just playing Goat Simulator, and gained 3 different achievements. Unintentionally. Airtime Easy, Airtime Normal, and Airtime Hard. In other words, get your goat as much airtime as possible. And I apparently achieved all three consecutively, due to getting my goat's head stuck in a fence in midair. Win!

Time to be employed again. As much as I'd like to be a stay-at-home mom, it's not me. I gotta work. Gotta stay busy. I'm more structured when I'm employed. Fall into a reclusive homebody funk when I'm not.