Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Dream Log

I was too stressed to sense if it was important.

There were quiet a few mini-dreams before this one; however, I don't remember any of them. There were also a few dreams afterward as well but I don't remember them either.

I'm not going to go into a whole lot of detail. I really debated even typing this up. I get anxious just thinking about it.

There was my husband, my siblings, my mother and myself. I don't know where my dad was. Probably off on work. We started out in the middle of nowhere in the west with lots of trees and lush grasses and a bunch of animals. The wind was unbelievable. The birds were all waddling around with their wings closed and their bodies tight to the ground. I picked one up and it freaked out so it's wings opened a little. The wind practically snatched the poor thing out of my hands and would have whisked it off to who knows where.

Somehow, there was a huge flat panel TV hooked up to a cliff face for us to watch. Someone had invaded the US and had taken over Washington and multiple other major cities. There was constant footage from the view of a hand held camera of various people getting killed. My family held a little meeting on what to do. There was no where in the US to go, all the cities either had been taken or were, in a very short period of time, going to be taken. So we decided to do what just about every American says they're going to do but never does when they don't like what is happening in the US: we went to Canada. Or, rather, we tried to get to Canada.

There was some concern over how far we would have to walk through uninhabited areas and we had no provisions and one set of clothes. Someone suggest stopping by an old military base near by and, if it was indeed abandoned, taking some stuff from there. We were split in opinion but the majority wanted to try. So we hiked through more trees and lush grasses with animals moving in droves everywhere. There was a door in the rock we took to get into the base. We climbed up flights of broken stairs through darkness and sometimes had to climb around great holes in the stair by grabbing the various piping.

Inside we found Sam, the brother of a friend of mine. He had gotten separated from his family and found his way here. He decided to come with us. My husband, brothers and Sam all made their way ahead of me while my mother and sister followed way behind. Suddenly, I walked through a door and found myself facing a group of military men all laying around on the stairs and piping. They didn't move and I wondered if they were dead but when I said hello their eyes moved toward me. I asked if the base was inhabited, they didn't answer. I told them Washington had been taken, they said they already knew. A man dressed all in black began to quickly make his way from where ever he had been toward me. I told them we were heading to Canada. They all sat up with fear in their eyes, "NO!" they cried, "Do you truly wish to be dead!?"

From above I heard a door scape open and a coarse voice cry out a halt. The men around me froze in fear. Some more shouting, my husband yelled, "Sam! NO! No, Sam! Don't Friar!" I knew in my heart Sam was being killed and my family would follow. I thought of my brothers all caught at the door with no escape, of my mother and sister so far behind and all the men around me whose hiding place had been exposed. Feet began to descend from above and I looked below me. I hung from a pipe over a great hole in the stair and could see all the way down to the place we had come in, hundreds of feet below me. I let my hands slip. I did not wish to die. But dying from a fall was a better fate than watching my family be murdered. We had no escape and I knew it.

Just before I hit the ground, I remembered reading that people were unsure if you died in a dream if you might actually die in real life. I woke as I felt my feet strike the floor. I couldn't breath, my arms were numb and wouldn't move, my legs felt like they had been set on fire. When I finally did regain control over myself, I stumbled to the bathroom and found I was gasping for air and shaking terribly. When I came back to bed I didn't want to fall back asleep but I was so completely exhausted that sleep eventually came.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Victory!

I am pleased and somewhat surprised to announce the campaign has been successful. After a brief conversation last night, Dustin agreed to take me shopping in the near future. His valiant and gracious concession held only one stipulation: we shop sales.

See you at 7am at JCPenney's. :D

Thursday, November 20, 2008

A Christmas Present

This was one of my projects yesterday:

I hope its intended receiver will like it. :)

On the Campaign Trail

I need new clothes. Rather, I need more clothes. I finally admit it. I'm a girl and it's just hardwired in. Need. More. Clothes. Must. Have. More. Clothes. To. Play. With.

And, in all honesty, it's just wrong for a woman's husband to have twice as many clothes as his wife. Really, very wrong. Not to mention the shoes. Geez.

So, I'm campaigning, in a very passive aggressive sort of way. (FYI, my husband reads my blog, so it's not like this is going to be a secret.) For the next seven days, I'm going to wear the most outlandish things I can pull together from our combined closets. Yesterday was one of his shirts belted with a pretty black scarf over a black skirt with ridiculously high heels.

Today, I've altered some of my clothes and stolen his, um, crown. :P

First off, I bought the green skirt a while ago but it has always annoyed me. It was a wrap around skirt that tied in the back; however, because it tied higher or lower than the actual waist of the skirt, the hem was always lopsided at the bottom. So, I rolled out of bed this morning, hunted down some scissors and cut off the ties and opened up the waist band, threaded the longer tie through the waistband and can now tie it like any ordinary gathered waist skirt. I left the side seam open so you could see...

The black skirt. I made the black skirt out of some heavy twill a last month-ish. I wanted a floor length, full, winter worthy skirt. I've been quiet pleased with it (with the exception of the zipper, but no one ever sees that). It also doubles as a petticoat, as seen here.

The corduroy shirt was a clearance find and I love it. It's really comfy but isn't obviously 'relaxation' clothing. Dustin found the belt at Goodwill and used it as his crown for Halloween. After the party he took it off and explained what it actually was so, naturally, I attempted to fit it around my waist. He made some remark about my waist not being as small as his head when *click*, oh, look, it is. :P

The green tie at the neck is just the shorter tie from the green skirt. Somehow I can't help feeling that Bob would be proud. The shoes are just there to 'mix it up'. Isn't that what all the fashion designers say when they know their clothes don't match?

Now, all in all, I don't really expect this campaign to be successful. It's not like we don't have a budget that we actually have to stick to. BUT, it's worth a shot, right? ;)

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Dream Log

No weight, just weird.

My dad and I were driving along a country road and I was looking up stuff on my laptop (on the Internet, don't ask me how I had access on a country road). I was at a site that looked much like Hulu.com and found some episodes of the evening news (because in dream land they decided the news wasn't exciting enough and turned it into an action adventure series). They had some mini-commercials comparing two of the actresses and I clicked on one labeled Needs to Learn. Apparently it was universally agreed that the in station news anchor wasn't nearly as cool as the ground woman who, in this TV Action series, in addition to giving the news also helped solve the mysteries. Woohoo. So I clicked on Solving a Problem and watched a short clip of an episode.

The ground woman stepped out of a military jet with a clip board and began interrogating people. She stopped by an army medic who was looking at a dead soldier and quizzed him for details. He was indeed dead, the medic rambled off a bunch of stuff I didn't understand, and then, poisoned. The woman looked concerned and asked if all of them were the same. The man nodded. Her eyes grew wide and said something to the extent of, "How can this be?" as the camera pulled back and showed that they were standing in the middle of a field covered in the bodies of dead soldiers who looked as though they had simply fallen asleep.

I was unsurprised when I looked up from my laptop to find my dad and I were driving right by that particular field and could see the jet and the mounds of bodies. We also saw thousands of people dressed in stereotypical 'savage' type clothing and carrying spears come running towards the jet. Above them was a large grey cloud and behind it was a light that reminded me of when you close your eyes for a really long time and then open them, there's a bunch of little white 'explosions', except these explosions were black. My dad asked me if I though the jet would escape and I said I did, it was mostly air tight so if the cloud had poisoned the soldiers they should be fine and I was pretty sure the last bit of the episode had shown everyone standing in surprise and then running into the jet. Dad pointed out that we might want to pick up our pace a bit, just in case the hoard of people saw us and changed targets. I was all for that.

Then I was with Dustin and he was driving an abandoned school bus. He swerved around children who were trying to poke our wheels with spears. It's strange, trying to live and not kill your enemy at the same time. Some how, seven or so of the children became normal? were normal? I don't remember. They were normal children of the crazy people so we picked them up and headed toward the nearest city (we figured there would be enough people there that could defend themselves, provided we all didn't get poisoned). I began talking with them and asked how this had come about. They didn't know. One minute their families were fine, the next they were donning animal skins and fashioning spears. There were no histories of mental illness, their families were well educated, no they didn't want to go back, their families would just spear them. They didn't really think we would live either but were willing to give it a shot. Another reporter knocked on the bus door and Dustin let her in. She asked if he wanted to stay somewhere safe and he said no, he didn't think the spearmen would be able to take Hilliard. She nodded and then came back to speak with one of the children. That's when I noticed that six of them were under the age of seven, the seventh was at least fifteen, I wondered why that might be but never found out. I encouraged the reporter to interview the children, they were the only 'inside' information we had. She agreed to do so.

I woke up and wondered what was going to happen, I wandered to the bathroom pondering the cloud and the black explosions. When I came back to bed, Dustin lifted up the covers for me. As I climbed in I asked, "Where's Hilliard."

"Um, west."

"Oh, okay." I had been pretty sure it was an actual place.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

The Dress

My morning's work (and half the afternoon, too!):


I'm very pleased with how the dress turned out! Although, I'm pretty sure my hands are going to permanently smell of metal if I continue to crochet at this pace.

What I've been up to

Alright, then. Sorry about the long pause in posts, I really don't know why it happened.

I've been making some actual progress on my story this past week. Hm, let's start with Halloween, actually.

SO, the big Halloween party was a blast. Mom and I got everything decorated and the massive amounts of food made and on the table in time (as in, after I spent two full days doing nothing but cooking and baking, we were slicing up the chicken and setting it on the table as guests arrived). Everyone showed up in pretty impressive costumes, although Matt gets the prize for his Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas costume. Too bad he had to change after he got murdered. Two of my brothers successfully staged the over throw of the Egyptian Queen and the twins did a marvelous job with Dustin and me as the Fae Court. Even my dad had a good time (we were worried, acting's not generally his thing). He got to go around and intimidate everyone as the Phantom Inquisitor. I just wish we'd had more time :( But, all in all, a grand time.

Since then I have inherited a massive amount of yarn from my in-laws and have been busy making a blanket and a baby set (I'll post pictures when I have them). BTW, the baby set is not for me, no I am not pregnant, no we are not planning on children in the near future. I seem to be getting those types of questions often, lately. I prefer to make baby clothes and blankets because they use less yarn than adult sized things and because they take less time. Plus, they're really cute!

Finally, after the madness of Halloween, my story has been pulled off the back burner. I'm really pleased with the progress I've been making. Yesterday alone I did six pages of character profiles and four pages of actual story. I love how the story seems to develop itself. I do not mean that it writes its self, trust me, lots of effort here. But that if I want my characters to end up in one place, several other events must take place before they are emotionally or geographically able to be in that place. Every so often another piece to the puzzle just pops into my head. I am beginning to understand that old light bulb metaphor. I'm also surprised to find that my characters change, or that a stock character I want to use just won't fit any more. Sometimes that makes me sad, some of my characters have existed in my mind for years and I was really excited to use them, but mostly the change in character makes sense and I just have to deal with it. Besides, I'll always be able to use them in another story. :)

Friday, November 7, 2008

Snippets

For those who wonder what happened to the lengthy dreams, I'm still dreaming. However, they are in short snippets and shift often to other unrelated snippets and are harder to remember and, quite frankly, not that interesting.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Woooohoooo!

6 months after graduation and a positive net worth. Not bad, not bad at all.