Back!

Back in the office for the week, and it's kind of like an oven. Maybe that's why I rarely spend time here... :) They turned on the heat on Thursday, and it's had plenty of time to warm up now. I think I may have to switch to water instead of tea before too much longer!

St. Louis was a blast, and I got to spend time with just about everyone I wanted to see. I never did see Uncle Joe, and Thor was too ill to make it up on Sunday, and I got a message from Shawn wanting to hang out AFTER I got back to Seattle, but otherwise, good trip. We got to do Laumeier and the City Museum, as well as the Schlafly Brew Pub and Johnny Brock's Halloween Dungeon. The picture is from the City Museum, taken from the ferris wheel on the 11th floor of the building. Megan, Vanessa, Bryan, and I all rode it, while Jeremy and Cindy took pictures of us crazy people. :)

We proceeded to spend most of yesterday running around, trying to get everything that we would normally do on the weekend done. We also made a couple of extra stops so I could start getting things for my Halloween costumes. I'm going to have 3 or 4 costumes this year. One of them, Columbia from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, I'm borrowing from Megan (assuming she sends it to me on time), and only needed to buy a new pair of fishnets for it. Another is the Twisted Belle costume, which I am piecing together from a yellow homecoming dress and some other yellow fabric.

I'm still a little up in the air for the last one or two. I want to wear my Ice Princess costume, which I've done in various iterations in the past, but I'm not sure when I will actually want to wear a corset for my Halloween activities. That costume may also get remade into a Tin Woman costume (think Wizard of Oz with a twist), since it's shiny and silver. We also saw a cute "Wednesday Addams all grown up" costume at Johnny Brock's, and I'm pretty sure I can reproduce that mostly with stuff I already own. And my Dark Lily (from Legend) costume from a couple of years ago was super fun (and I still have the dress).

Between SteamCon rapidly approaching, then Halloween, and then AmberCon NW, I'm just full of excuses for costuming. Good thing I like doing it! :)

Back in Seattle!

I spent the last week in the Kansas City area for work, and managed to not have a lot of time for the internet while I was there. Frequently this was related to having dinner with other folks from my company and other companies who were working out there, and one night was dinner at my sister's house, for a chance to spend some time with my niece and nephew.

My nephew recently told my sister that he wanted to be a pirate for Halloween, so of course she turned to me for advice on his Halloween costume. So the first thing I did, naturally, was to send her a link to my article on the topic. We also tried to ask Peter for his opinion on what he needed for his pirate costume, but he had a moment of shyness and didn't end up telling us what he wanted. (He seems to do this a lot when he's asked what he wants, which seems odd to me. Maybe I just have known a lot of opinionated kids. :) ) Sarah also thinks she might dress Lila up as a pirate this year, since Lila most definitely does not know what she wants to be for Halloween. Well, I suppose she could know, but she certainly can't tell anyone yet. :)

I think Peter got one of my pumpkin hats when he was itty bitty, or I'd send another one to my sister for Lila to wear. The little cutie in the picture above is the son of a friend, who was only about 3 months old for his first Halloween. The nice thing about the pumpkin hats, though, is that I bet Peter can still wear his... the cutie in the picture, however, has since grown a head full of curls, and I don't think his hat would fit over them any more... though I'd love to see a picture of him wearing it today. :)

I am so totally gearing up for Halloween in my brain. I've been telling myself no Halloween decorations in the apartment until October 1st, but we do already have a couple of special edition Halloween themed nutcrackers from Target, and I bought mini pumpkins for our desks last night. Going to take the latter to the studio tonight to paint faces on them, and then put off the rest of the Halloween decorations at least until after this weekend, if not until after we get back from St. Louis in 2 weeks. Especially since a visit to a big Halloween store is on the agenda for St. Louis, I think that may be when the Halloween stuff goes up. :)

Sooner than you think...

Or at least that's what I like to tell myself. Halloween, that is. Yes, it's technically still 3 months away, but that doesn't matter to me. I hear the craft stores already have Christmas stuff out, so chances are good that the Halloween stuff is out as well. (No, I haven't been to the craft stores in a while now. Shocking, I know!)

I haven't a clue yet what I'm doing for Halloween, costume-wise or other. I think Katie might borrow my America McGee's Alice costume, which is good, because it means I can (and should) make myself something new. What that will be, however, remains to be seen. If you've got any suggestions, let me hear them. I think about the only thing I've pondered in the slightest would be a Harley Quinn costume, but I've been pondering that for a LONG time, and have never gotten anywhere with it...

I'm just excited that Halloween is a Saturday, which means there COULD be something going on that night, and I can dress up. :) Anyway, I think I like thinking ahead to Halloween right now because by October, it should be a lot cooler. Right? :)

Back to the land of the rain and gray...

Okay, so it's a bad take on a Led Zeppelin lyric, but it's true. We're back. It's rainy, it's gray, and we LOVE it!

Southern Illinois is a veritable hotbed of pollen and other allergens at this time of year, so both Jerome and I were struggling to not end up with sinus problems during our trip. As soon as we were in Minneapolis, Jerome said he could breathe again. My sinuses are still trying to get rid of all of the gunk from Illinois, but I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed being back in the damp air of Seattle when we walked into the parking garage last night. :)

The trip went very well, though. We got into St. Louis on Wednesday night and spent some time with my mom and her cat. Thursday, we made the drive down to Carbondale, got to have New Kahala again, and got to catch up with our friends at the rehearsal and dinner, and then play Rock Band with them till the wee hours of the morning.

We didn't do much of anything on Friday, except play Bang! with most of the same group of people, while we tried to avoid the insanity that is Halloween in Carbondale. No riots, as far as I know, though I did hear snippets of a story of 200 people in drag outside of Bryan and Vanessa's neighbor's apartment, I suspect after the bars closed.

Saturday was the longest day ever, with the whole getting up around 6:30 and not getting back to the house until after 1 a.m. Well, we were back for a bit in the afternoon, but it wasn't a particularly long stretch of time. I actually slept for about 4 hours at game, and still went back to the house and slept about 10 hours that night. But the wedding was lovely, the reception was fun, and the portions of game I was awake for were great. :)

Sunday was mostly spent sleeping, and then shopping, and then eating. Cindy had asked Thor to make egg rolls, and I asked Jerome to make stir fry. Because there are vegetarians in our midst down there, this entailed making a bit more food than originally anticipated, so they could eat with us. But it was all thoroughly delicious, and we're already planning meals for when we visit at Christmas. I've been tapped to make my spaghetti sauce, one version with meat and one without. :)

Monday was up relatively early, and then on the road to return home. We had a fun little bit when the road I wanted to take was closed, so we had to take a detour. I was convinced, however, that I knew this area well enough, so we took our own detour off of the detour, and eventually got back to the road we wanted to be on. :) The flight from Minneapolis to Seattle was exceptionally bumpy, but we got back safely, got a cab, and were whisked home FAR faster than the bus could have gotten us there. Totally worth the extra money for the cab. :)

So now I'm back at work, and it's election day. We're headed to the polls after I get off work, then dinner, and then buying groceries, as we have nothing to eat at home. Jerome decided that he needed today off work too, so he gets to take care of all of the laundry. Hopefully we'll be all back to normal by the weekend, just in time for me to run off to Kansas for a week. Whee!

What day is it now?

I guess I do know that it's Halloween, which makes it Friday I suppose. Vacation has a very funny way of totally warping my perceptions, though. :)

So we spent most of Wednesday in transit, stayed at my mom's house overnight, and drove down to Carbondale on Thursday. We spent the rest of the day catching up with Thor and Cindy, our friends who we're staying with, and then doing wedding related activities. We had the rehearsal in the freezing cold chapel, and then went to dinner at a pretty decent Italian place. After that, everyone decided to go hang out Bryan and Vanessa's (groom and bride) apartment, because Michael (one of their roomies) has Rock Band. :) Of course, said roomie wasn't home, but that's okay. If the game is in the living room, it's fair game. :)

Today has been mostly sitting around like bums. :) We're getting ready to head back over to Bryan and Vanessa's for an abbreviated Halloween party, due to the fact that we have to be ready for wedding pictures at 9:15 tomorrow, and the chapel is about half an hour from here. Keep in mind, too, that we're staying with one of the other bridesmaids, whose husband will also be at the wedding. So that's 4 of us that have to get up, showered, and ready, by like 8:30. Ugh. Their other roomie is lucky--after we leave, he'll have the whole place to himself, and a good hour and a half to get ready.

Recap!

So I haven't been legitimately BUSY this week, I've just been not on the computer as much as I usually am. You can blame the vast majority of that fact on Rock Band 2. It's pretty sweet. :) I've been directed to start learning to play guitar on there, however, as apparently Jerome wants to sing sometimes. :)

Other than that, I haven't done a whole lot. I only crocheted a bit on Tuesday night, when I decreed that we should watch a movie so I could get SOMETHING done. Of course, I only worked on Christmas gifts that night. :) I'm planning to get a bit of craftiness accomplished over the weekend, though I'm not sure how much of it will be for my shops, and how much of it will just be for fun. Either way, though, it'll be good to get something done. :)

We're also getting ready for the trip to Illinois for Halloween and Bryan and Vanessa's wedding. My dress is cleaned, and I figured out which shoes to wear with it. Jerome's kilt needs to be washed, but that can go in the regular washing machine. And he's got Tuesday off to take care of the last minute laundry and such, so that I can pack when I get home that night. :) We also found out we get to LARP while we're there, so that's an exciting addition to the trip... and I think Cindy and I will hit the after-Halloween sales on Sunday, since the wedding is early on Saturday.

Once we're back from that, I'm not in town for long before I run off to Kansas for a week. This is the trip to NOT the good part of Kansas, though I will get to hang out with one of our friends from Seattle who moved to Lawrence while I'm out there. So that makes it a little better than middle-of-nowhere Kansas. :) And then after that trip, I might actually be in Seattle until Christmas... of course that's just wishful thinking, I'm sure. :)

Oh, and End of the Work Week Wisdom?

"They ate all the cupcakes. They're going to come out and be like 'oh, that was a bad choice.' They'll have icing smeared all over their faces."
--Me, explaining why Apocalyptica took so long to take the stage last night

And speaking of, I'm not sure I like Showbox Market.
1) The only place where you can be up higher than on the floor is in the bar area.
2) The only place where you can sit is in the bar area.
3) The bar area is COMPLETELY packed during an all ages show.
4) The floor BOUNCES when people start jumping around.

Honestly, it's prettier on the inside than El Corazon, but I'm really prefering El Corazon. They at least have a narrow little wall that's raised up that I can sit on. :) Of course, having seen Showbox Market, I'm really dreading our excursion to Showbox SoDo, or as Anandi calls it, "ConcreteBox."

Frank's famous! :)

I got a message last night from Paige of Handmade Horrors, letting me know that she had spotted one of my items in the Halloween gift guide on Etsy. This is one of those super mega exciting moments for me, because a) it's a pretty prominent feature on Etsy right now, and b) I am the girl who lives for Halloween!

So since Frank is famous, he may not be making the excursion to the Handmade Arts Show with me on Sunday. That's okay, though, because his brother, Stein, will be there. Now maybe it's just me, but I think Stein is even cuter than Frank. Stein's just camera shy, so he hasn't been photographed and posted yet. (Or maybe it's the Seattle sun that's camera shy, though it seems to be out and about while I'm at work all day!)

And there's a hope that the family will be expanding, as I used all the beads I had to make Frank and Stein. But Julia of Entangles said she'd check her bead stash for me. I think I'd better take all the stuff I need to make more to the show with me on Sunday, cuz I don't think Stein will last long before getting bought! :)

Happy Halloween! :)

Not dressed up much today, but ah well. Stripe-y tights are always fun. :)

We watched four episodes of season 2 of Rome last night, and man it's getting good! Too bad there's only one disc left, and then it's over. That makes me sad.

I'm getting a little bit nervous for the show at Stir tomorrow night, which I don't think I've pimped here yet... the information is here, but for those too lazy to click the link, it's 5-10 p.m. tomorrow night, at 216 Alaskan Way S. I would really love it if people I know came by to see my stuff. I would love it even more if people bought my stuff (and I don't care if they know me or not, in that case :) ).

After tomorrow night, I get a little bit less busy. Well, marginally less busy, or at least there is a slighly perceptible difference. In reality, I'm sure I'll just fill up my time with other things that I've forgotten that I was going to do. I know I've got articles to write for Shop Etsy and other projects, and I have a relatively short list of crafts that I need to work on for various activities. (Of course, what did I spend last night doing? Making more cards... because that's what I DON'T need to be doing. :) )

Oh yeah, and then at some point, I get to do Christmas shopping! Whee!

Ta-da!

Here's the Dark Lily costume, in all of it's glory. I suspect that I look more like a vampire or goth chick, but whatever. I had the makeup done PERFECT. :)



The dress is a Goodwill find from quite a while ago, the solid black cloak is store-bought for Jerome's costume last year, and the patterned cloak is something I made a while ago. Gotta love keeping WAY too much costume stuff lying around, right? :)

Just spent about 20 minutes on the phone with my uncle, who is buying his own house in St. Louis. Yay! :)

Of course, this means that I have gotten no writing done yet today... argh. My day is all chopped up by blocks of scheduled things (taking Jerome to work, going to Stir with Katy, and picking Jerome up from work), with small blocks of "free time" interspersed throughout. Sadly, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to make much out of the "free time." I've got a small custom order to work on, and the apartment is in desperate need of cleaning... *sigh*

Is it Friday yet?

Wednesday already?!

This week is flying by, which is kinda good, but also kinda bad, because I have way too much stuff to do, and never enough time. I've got 2 interviews sitting in my inbox right now, and possibly as many as 6 more coming in!

The good news is that my costume issues have been resolved, because we already had a cloak with a high pointy collar on it! So I won't be perfectly authentic, but I think my costume will get the idea across, and I'm gonna do the makeup as perfectly as I can. :)

We're going to go look for a suit for Jerome tomorrow and/or Friday, so cross your fingers that I can find something in purple. If it's his size or too big, it will work... it's only if it's too small that we won't be able to work with it. And with his beanpole-ness, too small is totally a possibility. *sigh*

I taught myself a neat new stitch pattern last night, and I'm thinking I'm gonna just pull the matching hat and armwarmers from my Etsy shop and keep them for myself. Because I made a little scarflette in the same yarn, and the set goes with my pirate coat... so I could totally wear stuff I made all winter. That would rock! :)

I suspect I'll be experimenting lots with this new stitch pattern, though. It's fairly simple, but it makes for very textural pieces, it works up quickly, and it seems pretty adaptable as well! Neat! :)

Ooops...

So the front half of our bathtub is a sort of greenish-blueish color now, at least until I get some Magic Erasers. In related news, Jerome's hair is now green. And I have to find him a purple suit by Friday. Blargh. I really need to plan Halloween a little bit better. :)

I also need to try to make a really interesting costume piece for myself by Friday. If you've ever seen Legend, I'm trying to make the Dark Lily costume, or at least a version of it. I just need to work out the collar part that sticks up behind her head. (Oh, and my dress is a bit more modest than the one she wears... cuz yeah... a neckline that goes all the way down to my navel?! Um, no.)

I just had my best idea yet for the collar, too. It may involve wearing a coat hanger covered in black nylons attached to the back of my dress, but hey, that's what a lot of people do for fairie wings! :)

Yeah, I'm totally only wearing this collar for a picture or three, and then it's getting tossed... no sense in putting too much work into it. :)

At least my other real costume (Poison Ivy) will be pretty easy, and I'm either wearing my black velvet dress with stripe-y tights or a pirate outfit for work on actual Halloween. I still don't know if people here dress up. (If I haven't heard by Friday, I'll ask.)

Argh...

I spent the whole weekend being marginally sick, which means I was sick enough to feel kinda cruddy, but well enough to get a few things done. Of course, after doing much of anything, I then had to rest for a while. I probably should have just cancelled everything and curled up in bed with a book, but I can never make myself do that!

So instead, I found the Fred Meyers in Ballard, which is like a super Wal-Mart, only not. We got the desktop in the living room switched from a pile of suck to "oh my god this thing is fast." And I also ended up picking up a few colors of yarn, because of totally coincidental stuff conspiring for me to actually NEED both the blue and orange yarns that I mentioned before.

And I had a Halloween showcase slot on Etsy yesterday, and got a sale... I think these two things are related, but who knows. I'm saying they're related to make me feel better about having the showcase slot. :)

Okay, this week, I have a little bit of writing to do for a freelance job (yay!) and that's about all I know of for sure. Of course, I have plenty of other stuff that I can do, and probably will. :)

Nope, I haven't posted in a good long while. I can't say that I've been particularly busy or anything, either. I just haven't posted.

Part of the reason may be because of the recent dearth of articles by either Cindy or myself. Cindy has been working on other projects, and I just didn't have anything to write about. But I do have two new(-ish) articles:

The Craziest Christmas Party Game - The Mad Santa Gift Exchange

Irish Film Disco Pigs: Early Cillian Murphy Film Shows His Acting Talent

I should make a note here about some of the crazy links in the first article. I didn't put them there. Associated Content has introduced a concept called "interlinking," which involves a program inserting links into your articles when you use certain keywords. Unfortunately, this program is so far in beta that they really ought to call it alpha. The site admins are promising fixes for it, but they rolled it out yesterday, two days before Thanksgiving. I seriously doubt we're gonna see many changes for at least a week...

Anyways, if you've got nothing better to do, read through some of my older articles and find all of the out-of-context links that they've inserted. "Running" is my favorite, as it appears in several of my articles.

Or you can count how many times they link a specific phrase in a single article. The Christmas and Halloween articles are great for that, as they link EVERY mention of the holiday, and also my article on belly dancing...

Right. So I have more stuff coming up soon, and I just hope they fix this soon, because it makes my articles UGLY. In fact, if you are a regular reader of my articles, and agree that it makes it ugly, why not let the head honchos know? E-mail admin@associatedcontent.com and tell them what you think of it. :)

Moi, devious? Never.
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Two new articles from Cindy:

Limbaugh's Statement About Michael J. Fox: Crass but Not Malicious

Which was an "Editor's Pick"! Congrats to Cindy! :)

How Much Money You Make at Associated Content is Up to You

And I concur wholeheartedly with this. I do this mostly to give myself a little bit of extra spending cash, particularly with the holidays rolling around. If I plan things well (and stop buying silly stuff), I may be able to do almost all of my holiday shopping just with the money I've made from writing. That would be pretty kewl. :) And it would mean I can spend my money from crocheting on tattoos. :)

Seriously, though, if you're interested in making either a little money or a decent amount of money through writing for Associated Content, E-mail either Cindy: lgunnin (at) hotmail (dot) com, or me: scarywhitegirl (at) gmail (dot) com. If you know Cindy in real life, use hers; otherwise, you can use mine. Yeah, we get a little bit of money for referrals, but once you're started, you can refer people too. :) And you can invite us to be your buddies, too. :)

You get no articles from me. Because I had a week of being a slacker when I didn't write much. I should have more coming up this week, but as I'm off work from Wednesday through Friday, I doubt you'll see anything about them till next Monday.

::..::

Halloween is tomorrow, and if I am ambitious tonight, I will have quasi-Bride of Frankenstein hair tomorrow. This involves putting all of my hair into braids, and Jerome laughed when I asked him if he knew how to braid. Ah well. :)

Wednesday, I'll be headed out for my after Halloween sales (YAY!), and Thursday, we are off to the distant frozen northlands. This is also known, to most people, as Chicago. Jerome and I will be hitting the Art Institute on Thursday night, the Field Museum on Friday afternoon, and the Placebo concert (with Jesi and friends) on Friday night. Then on Saturday, we get to get up early to make the drive back. Well, I can cross my fingers and hope that perhaps they will give Jerome Saturday night off, in the hopes of him working Sunday morning, which will allow us to not leave Chicago super early on Saturday.

And in other news, Vlad has been sick. :( He goes to the vet this afternoon, to see if she can determine something is wrong with him, or whether it's just a case of upset kitty tummy. If it's the latter, I've already got some possibilities on ways to fix that, so that's a relief. It was not nice to hear him start hacking, and then backing up, before upchucking onto the floor. I'd be upset about the mess, but I'm more upset because he made a horrible little mewling noise right before it happened, so he's obviously not a happy kitten. :(
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NOT an article post! Yes, they happen occasionally! :)

In fact, this is an End of the Work Week Wisdom post!

"There is only one kind of cake, and it is tasty."
--Jerome, explaining that cake donuts are still cake

This was a late night conversation, that for some reason was revolving around donuts being in chili. I dunno, I rather prefer cornbread or the bizarre peanut butter on bread combo that my sister introduced.

As an aside, cans of chili should really include heating instructions. Chili Man chili does not. Bastards.

::..::

In other news, hurrah for pre-Halloween games and then Halloween! :) I've got three costumes planned, two for the games this weekend, and one for actual Halloween.

For tonight, I'm going to Ashes dressed as Mina Murray, from Dracula. My costume is largely inspired by the green dress that Mina wears in the Francis Ford Coppola movie, though mine is red. But I finally have a tiny top hat... of DOOM! :) Okay, so it's not actually of DOOM, but I can pretend, right?

For tomorrow night, for Riddles, I've got a Queen of the North sort of costumes... all silvery and icy and cold. I still need to do something with my wand to make it snazzier, and I have to figure out what's going on with my hair, as the flapper headband is great, but a bit too small.

For actual Halloween, I'm doing a quasi-Bride of Frankenstein costume. It's a dress that Megan mangled a while back, and I will probably draw some stitches onto my face... though I just realized that I need to find some white eyeliner or a white makeup pencil if I'm going to do it well...

::..::

In other other news, it's raining cats and dogs today. I really wish that we had a big golf umbrella... failing that, though, I think I may just put my costume into a bag and dress at the Student Center. It's only my costume for tomorrow that I need help getting into.
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This week has taken a bit longer than usual to get going, though that may be because my car was being a pain in the ass on Monday, and thus I stayed home that day.

At any rate, Cindy has three new articles today:

Foley, Reid Should be Investigated, Prosecuted If Laws Were Broken

Fall Wedding Beset with Problems Still a Happy Affair (Once It's Over)

Misadventures in Energy-Saving and Winterizing My Apartment

And I have four new ones, from the course of the weekend:

The Life and Times of Michael Alig as Told in Popular Culture: Party Monster and Disco Bloodbath Tell Part of the Story

For those who don't know who Michael Alig was, don't feel bad. I didn't either until I saw the movie version of Party Monster. I guess perhaps if you were in NYC in that time frame, he might be better known, but to Midwestern teenagers, he wasn't a big name. :) Of course, now I've watched the movie, the shockumentary, and read the book, so I know a good deal more about him. :)

Where's Neil When We Need Him?: A Tribute to Neil Gaiman

I started talking about this CD MONTHS before it came out, because it was a whole ton of bands that I love, all on one comp. This CD rocks. You should totally get a copy. Whoever you are.

Treatment of Gypsies in Early Industrial England and Nazi Germany

A school paper, one that I presented at an undergrad conference, and of which I'm still very proud.

A Comparative View of the Maternalist Welfare State

Another school paper, this one for grad school.

::..::

In other news, Drunken Pumpkin Carving last night was a grand success, and no one lost any digits, to my knowledge (I left a bit early). I did manage to destroy two of my brand new pumpkin carving tools. They should really make the pokey things out of metal. :) I didn't break the saw/knives, just the pokey things. :)

Any rate, my pumpkin, Spooky, is happily ensconced outside of our apartment. I may start taking bets on how long she lasts. I don't give her very long, though...
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Two new articles for both Cindy and I today!

Cindy's:

Illinois Wine and Wineries Offers a Variety of Tastes at Low Prices

AustraLearn a Great Help for Studying in Australia, New Zealand

Mine:

Beowulf & Grendel: An Epic Worth Watching

This is a new-ish movie that we rented, and I really liked, even if it wasn't quite the "Beowulf" that I read in school.

Holiday Gifts for College Students

Because cash and alcohol aren't necessarily what you want to give them, even if that is what they want. :)

::..::

We haven't had any End of the Work Week Wisdom for a LONG time... not like I have any today, but I just thought I'd comment on that fact. :)

I plan to thoroughly enjoy my weekend of not having to sell crafts. :) Of course, this means I will probably spend at least a decent amount of time tomorrow working on crafts... at least in between trying to write some more articles. :) Practice makes perfect, and all that. :)

The hopeful highlight of the weekend, though, will be taking a drive somewhere, as the leaves are starting to get good... only barely starting, but depending where you look, they can be very beautiful...

At the very least, we're gonna go to the Halloween store in Marion either Sunday or Monday. w00t! :)
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Three new articles by Cindy:

Talon Falls Haunted Theme Park is the Best Haunted House in Paducah

The Best Halloween Party in St. Louis is at the Haunted Lemp Mansion

Missouri Voters to Decide Stem-Cell Research Future

And three by me:

Pros and Cons of Living in a College Town

Crimson by Alkaline Trio: Punk Band Heads Towards Musical Maturity

Visiting Laumeier Sculpture Park

I've also got book reviews up, but I think I'm gonna make a book review page, and then link that here... :)

::..::

In other news, the first craft fair of the year went tolerably well for me. Here's hoping that the rest will go even better! :)

Ren Faire this weekend. My project for this week is to crochet small bags... that can be used for dice, tarot cards, or carrying stuff around when your outfit has no pockets... :)
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Two more by Cindy, five more by me.

Cindy:
The Top Ten Songs by Green Day

Of course, that one ends up being all the more amusing when you realize that I wrote an article last night, which probably won't go up for about a week and a half, talking about how 1,039 and Kerplunk! are the best Green Day albums... :)

New York Times Bureau Chief Defends NSA Wire-Tapping Story

Me:
Top Ten Songs by Type O Negative

Top Ten Songs by They Might Be Giants

The 21st Annual Lemp Mansion Halloween Party

That's my other two top ten lists, and an article about something to do in St. Louis for Halloween. Because I had to write at least one more Halloween article, and I've got a couple more weeks to write some more... :)

And then, two more book reviews of mine:

Review of The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions by Evelyn S. Rawski

Review of Hired Swords: The Rise of Private Warrior Power in Early Japan by Karl F. Friday
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Two new articles today, one by Cindy, and one by me. :)

Cindy's: Is Doctor Envy Hampering Your Diagnosis?

Mine: So, You Want to be a Pirate for Halloween?

Eventually, I will have articles that aren't about costuming... really... :)
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