Unicorns

Siri, our current expert on all things pink and sparkly, is here to answer your questions and fill the gaps in your knowledge. Today's topic: unicorns.


Q: When did the legend of the unicorns start?
A: I don't know. Last year.

Q: Is there any truth to it?
A: What?

Q: The legend. Of the unicorns. How much of it is real?
A: Unicorns are real!

Q: Where do they live?
A: They live in South America, on a farm where horses live.

Q: What do they look like?
A: They look like brown horses. They are white. They are white and pink. They are 20 feet tall. They have very long twisty-tidies with pokes at the end. The twisty-tidies are pink. Pink is my favorite color! But some unicorns don't have swirly things, twisty-tidies. They might have mistletoe! They have very big hooves, and they wear shoes on them. The shoes look like cat toes. Like cat-unicorn toes. Babies are two feet tall and have little paws like kitties.

Q: Okay, thank you. Um, what do unicorns eat?
A: They eat hay. And chickens. And they drink! Unicorns drink!

Q: What do they drink?
A: They drink water.

Q: What do unicorns do?
A: They go gallup-a-trot, and dance (here Cami did some head-banging and break-dancing), and some of them sneak, like cats, but sometimes they have to sit on their body or curl up so people can get on them. They go up on their hind legs, but magically, right up high like a little bird. Unicorns tip over, and guess what they can do? They walk on two legs, up high and down low, and then their sharp, their poke, it gets sharper. They can freak out. And they wave good-bye at their very own friends.

Q: Wow, that's -
A: They can go to unicorn parties. They eat horse food, or they can eat somebody else's food. And they grow up and up and up. And they will have problems, if they don't have the very sharp ones on their heads. Give them a drink and horse medicine, and take them to the unicorn doctor. The unicorn doctor will check out the throat and the tummy, and check out what things look like.

Q: Uh -
A: I saw a unicorn, far away, by Timpanogas Cave, and it ran like a blur far away all the way to the end. Unicorns neigh like horses. But they can't talk. And they go to school, and they can have fun at school! And they have to go to the bathroom. And the unicorns have a big, big unicorn computer.

Here I distracted her by mentioning princesses, then trapped her in the closet. She eventually talked herself to sleep.

It's Coming Along

Also: listened to 45 minutes or so of radio, with stations being changed every 10 seconds or so, and recognized 10 songs. Yeah, that's right.

Epic Bracelets at Market

I last worked on the bracelet in question at Saturday's market. Mondays I ship orders, you see, and so far today I haven't been able to get much done for various reasons. : (

I have finished the e in ethan, and started the c in charlotte.


Lena made a cute little piggy! (Not related to my bracelet, but it's cute, so I'm sure you'll forgive me.)


I hit the stopping point for the day; the c in charlotte is finished and the t in ethan has been started.


My dad's car stopped working on Thursday, so we had to use my mother's car. And we had to be picked up. So Lissi had to sit in the back among the flotsam of our book. She was nearly killed by a large table and had to sit in the car until I pulled several things away.

The Epic Bracelet: Part One

I am undertaking a rather difficult bracelet, by far the most difficult one I have so much as thought of. A friend of mine commissioned it for her sister. Read on to see just how difficult this bracelet will be.

Here are my materials: seven skeins of white, four of pink, three of red, and three of green. Will I need it all? Probably not, but it's good to be prepared. Nothing like trying to finish a bracelet on a deadline only to find that you've run out of a specific color.


Here are a couple of terrible pictures trying to show my sketchbook - graphbook- whatever - where I have mapped out what has to get done in this bracelet. Yes, I do have to fit all three names in the large alphabet.




All of the currently needed threads cut and ready to go. So far I have used two skeins of red, two of pink, and I'm on my second skein of white. The green will come into play later.


One row done. I've made 31 knots so far. And now I must undo them, because I left out one pink string. : (


All correct now. 32 knots (I don't count the ones I have to unpick).


Three rows in and just under 100 knots. Also, fun facts: the biggest bracelet I have done, aside from this one, had 34 threads (one more than this bracelet) but was only 17 knots across (this one is 32 knots across).


And the stopping point for now. Not very much lengthwise, but I'm up to 224 knots.

Come Home, Mommy!

This is Camryn.

She was being rather funny yesterday. That is, she was being funny in between bothering my brother's poor puppy (who will always be a puppy no matter how old he gets) and generally misbehaving.

It started at lunch. She had found a clip that we use to hold salad bags closed, and decided it was a phone. She sat next to me, sharing my cucumbers and carrots, and occasionally making phone calls.

"Hello, Mommy. Say hello to mommy!"

I said hello, adding that I was eating lunch and couldn't talk right now.

"She can't talk right now. But mommy, you need to come home now. Okay. Bye."

Cami put down the phone and informed me that mom was on her way home.

Several more phone calls were made, and they started to all sound the same; she changed "Mommy, you need to come home" to "Come home Mommy" and "Mommy, come home." Why is that change significant?

(Skip ahead to 0:44 if you don't want to watch the whole thing.)

Later she told my brother Dano that she was going to build a "zapinator" that would zap mom back to our house. Then mom would ask, "Cami, why am I here?" and Cami would say "I made a zapinator to zap you back home!" Then mom would say "Oh, how sweet! Why don't you come with me?"


This is Caiti. She's 2.

Around dinner, Ben took the kids for a walk with Perry (the aforementioned puppy). When Caiti came home, she came up to me, told me something about the walk, craned her neck to see what I was watching on my laptop, and said, "Whatcha doin'?"

Market Adventures: Week Three

May 29
Week Three

Hooray for mild success! We sold over $30 today. Nowhere near what I would like it to be, but better than we have done before.

We owe much of it to Lissi. Her duct tape rings were the most popular item on the table, at least as far as actual purchasing goes.



The item that got the most views was the duct tape tie.

We have a couple of ideas why the tie didn't sell: there was only one, and, while cool, people didn't seem to realize it was wearable. We're going to fix this by having several next week, and having at least one of them that is actually tied for people to see and try on. We will not, however, lower the price, which is what a fellow vendor snottily suggested. *angry face*

Our setup overall looked better than last week. I'm constantly learning and changing things. I only wish we could afford real displays instead of cobbling them together with fabric and boxes.


I'm excited for next week, as usual, and hope that things will continue to get better. I'm sure they will, in fact, especially if I can get Lissi to stop looking for monologues and start making more duct tape items.

Market Adventures: Week Two

Here I am! And I have excuses for not posting this until Wednesday. They involve cats, driving, grumpiness on the part of myself and others, and a boyfriend who thinks I should hang out with him all the time or something.

Anyway. On with the show.

May 22
Week Two

The good news: despite terrible weather in the morning that I was sure would prevent any buyers, we set up and did manage to sell a bit.
The bad news: We made just enough to make our necessary stall payment, with no money for new supplies or even for change for next week.

However! Like last week, I am still optimistic; still sure that things are going to get better.

We changed our set up from the get-go, see?

It did do us proud. We got lots of people who were interested by different things. Some stopped to look at wish bracelets. Some noticed one or the other displays of my bracelets. Some noticed the bowls of discount bracelets. And some noticed the duct tape item.

Item, yeah, only one so far. But a good one. Lissi sat there with her tape and her clipboard and made a tiny rose, then attached it to a simple band. All duct tape. She made a tag, set the price as seven dollars, and put it in a bowl on the table.

It sold in five minutes.

Yeah, I'm glad I have her along. By this Saturday we're planning to have several items: more rings, a couple of ties, some flowers to carry and look pretty, and a couple of smaller flowers attached to headbands or barrettes. I'm excited. : D

And we have Lena's stuff now!

Aren't they pretty? I want one, and I don't even know what I'd do with it! When we have money for supplies, I'm totally going to get some of that string stuff for making bracelets.

All in all, it was an okay day. We did better than I expected, though we did have to suffer in the cold.

I was the one taking pictures, so I'm not in this one, but I was also wrapped in a blanket. Mine had Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, and Donald on it. : D

And there's one thing we brought home from Market that made me really happy.

This tiny little bundle of joy is a beautiful tabby/calico mix with lots of energy. Her name is Bamboo and we love her. Well, Yuki doesn't think much of this little intruder, but the rest of us love her. Hopefully Yuki will calm down in time.

Here's to high hopes for next week!

2nd Market To-Do List

Tomorrow is the second week of Market! Here's what I need to get done today:

Load everything into the car again, but better this time, so I don't think I've left things behind

Find the other tablecloth

Make business cards or something

Start about five bracelets, including two custom orders

Buy stickers

Make a cover page for the animal shelter photos so people don't ask us if we're selling dogs

Remember to eat

Get to bed on time


Looks like I have a couple things that will need to get done every Friday. Also, I need to remember to take pictures of things.

Market Adventures: Week One

May 15th
Week One

The good news: we made more than any week last year.
The bad news: that’s only about $27.

But I still feel optimistic. Want to know why? I hope you want to know why, because I’m going to tell you. I mean, you don’t have to read it all, but why wouldn’t you? We all know that I am a wonderful writer and hold you entranced. Yep. I’m going to go with that.

Item number one: our set up.
I’ve been reading up on good stuff to do for markets and shows, and though I do ponder all advice, I don’t always follow it. One thing I didn’t follow was that it was strongly suggested that the table with merchandise be completely in view of the passers-by. I rejected this because I didn’t want the table to be between me and potential customers. However, after most of the day and most of the Market-goers simply passing by, I moved the table to the suggested position. We didn’t get any more sales, but we did get a lot more people actually stopping to look at stuff instead of walking by with only a glance.

Item number two: our neighbors.
There were several problems with them. They were too darn nice, for one. Also, they both had the set up I at first opposed. Also, they both had interesting items (one was chainmail jewelry, the other hair accessories in an uber-popular style) while our most visible items were our simple wish bracelets. Sigh.

Item number three: timing.
The morning was chilly. It was the wrong kind of first day, i.e. the first day where everyone doesn’t even know about or forgets it rather than the first day where everyone lines up to see.

Item number four: displays.
Yeah, I need something better than fabric wrapped around cardboard boxes. One of our neighbors had this gorgeous set up with vintage picture frames with fabric inside so they could pin products to it, and lovely trays for rings, and all sorts of stuff. : P

Item number five: personality.
We… usually… said hi to people to who passed, and sometimes even asked them how they were doing. I need something better. Lissi, who is usually so outgoing, kept her head bent over her work and relied on me to call out first so she could look up and say something too.

Well, I figure that’s enough to work on for one week, especially since I do have more merchandise to make and I need to quit ignoring my Etsy shop. Sheesh!

But I’ll say it again: I’d rather do this than work for someone else.

Today's Adventures with Food

-Siri poured herself a full cup of juice, drank three mouthfuls, and dumped the rest of it in the sink.

-Why am I eating Pop Tarts for breakfast when my sister asks for them by saying, "Cookie, please"?

-Lunch? What's lunch?

-Oh, fine, maybe I'll eat something. And by "something" I mean "two helpings of potatoes when I should have eaten only one, followed by enough cookies to make me sick."

-Siri poured herself a cup of ranch for her veggies, then put the (full) cup in the sink and stole dad's.

-Small spoon + large spaghetti sauce jar = wow, I'm not going to dig that spoon out. Good job, Ty.

-Siri nearly dumped the entire can of spaghetti sauce onto the floor. Both Ben and Ty had to help her.

-When no one was watching, Siri opened the 'spoon' side of the parmesan cheese and dumped a good half cup onto her spaghetti. We put the large chunk back in, and then dad shook the excess cheese onto his and Boo's spaghetti.

-Ty dropped the second spaghetti spoon into the sauce.

-Apparently really really old chocolate milk turns white when frozen.

Siri

Yeah, so, Market update when I am not so flippin' tired. But here is what Siri said to me as we walked to church:

"Let's walk and talk. Do you remember when that family came to stay with us last year? And poof! They burst into flame. Hey look, Ginny's here. And do you know what I saw? I say lots of birds flying everywhere!"

Yep. That's why we keep her around.

Stay tuned for her interview on unicorns.

My To-Do List

It's the day before the first day of Market, and here's what I need to do today:

Keep siblings from killing each other.


Take out the seats in the car.

Load everything into the car.

Finish a whole bunch of bracelets.


Remember to eat.

Get pictures developed at BYU.

Wash all bracelets.


Build one last display.

Make and print off signs.


Sleep in my own bed.

Not stay up with Caitlyn.

Oh Please No!

As of this typing, there is ice on my brother's scooter.

Ice.

Hey, did mother nature forget what time of year it is? It's almost May! May!!! This is no time for ice! This is no time for cold!

I mean, yeah, I do stay in the house most days, but I wouldn't if it was warm! I have loved the couple of times I've moved my work to the front yard or even a park and watched the kids play. But it seems for every day it's possible to spend in this manner, we get a week of sweatshirts and shivering.

And another thing! Market starts in about two and half weeks. Market means getting up at six on Saturdays to eat a bit, make sure everything's gathered and out to the car, pick up a friend, cut roses, and head off to the park to set up in early morning sunshine (assuming there is sunshine), where we then sit for several hours. Are you telling me I'll be sitting in the cold? I don't like being cold.

I haven't been working on my fingerless gloves because I've been assuming it would warm up. I never managed to make a new hat either. I do have blankets and even a fur cloak, but that's a lot of extra to carry and I can never get anything done when all wrapped up. Plus no one wants to wander and shop at leisure when the weather is cold. Bleh.

In unrelated news, my mother is biking for seven hours today and has commandeered the TV, meaning I either get to watch Gone With the Wind or I can pump music into my ears via headphones.

Meh

"Mom, why isn't the printer working??"

"Well, have you plugged it in?"

*blink blink*

"Arrrrrg!"

I keep saying this stuff about "updating my blog" and "being interesting" and all that stuff. Well, really, I WILL. I'm... I'm working on it. You know. Working. On it. Like a lot.

"Please don't tell me you haven't memorized your part yet."
"Sorry. I haven't."
"Joss! How can you possibly go through life like this? You're late to important meetings, you don't listen to instructions, you don't finish any of your work... what am I going to do with you?"
"Fire me! Oh please, Megan, please fire me!"

The problem is that I've finally learned to Be Efficient and Get Work Done, so instead of goofing of by writing blog posts or short stories or starts of stories or anything I'm actually working. I'm doing at least 5-6 hours hours of work every day, and when 'work' means 'sitting in the same position while knotting little threads over and over and over,' it is not only sometimes tedious but painful. But still! And then there's the picture taking, and the internet stuff, not to mention that I am an unpaid Mother's Helper to my mother...

Then it gets to be after ten or eleven at night. As those on the Board Board know, I get a little loopy and/or incoherent after nine. So here I am, making stupid decisions because I'm loopy (not going to bed is one of those stupid decisions), and I think to myself, "You know, I'm really not that tired or anything. I should... write stuff! Yeah! Like, blog posts and crap! I need to get a lot of writing done if I ever want to have a presence on the internets again, and having a presence on the internets is very important in this day and age..." Thankfully I am much smarter in the morning, though being smarter means I end up having nothing to post.

Cat Charms!

I have a page for the custom orders I have done, to show prospective customers what I can do. So I figured I should have a page for the charms I have in stock, so that people can choose charms too! But I have too many to put on one page and still have it be at all reasonable, so I'm splitting it up.

Here are the cat charms I have:














I tried several things to put numbers to each of these but have failed thus far, so if you want one of these, it will have to be a "this many from the top" kind of affair.

...hi

I wonder, now, if any of my old readers have held on this long. I mean, for me, when someone quits writing I forget about their blog but keep it in my reader, so if they do ever start up again I do see it. "Oh yeah," I say, "that person exists." So I suppose that unless people do spring cleaning, I'm still hanging around. At least for those who use reader or something like that.

I returned to my blog here for several reasons. One: I have a topic! I'm pretty dang excited to announce that we're going to Provo's Farmers Market again this year, and this time we'll start at the start (May 15) and go to the end (October sometime I think) and we'll even have a permanent stall!

Which brings me to number two: Holy crap I have to work my butt off this month. The store averages less than $100 a month, and even last month, a huge upswing in sales, only got us $161. And that's before fees and tithing and such. And the monies for Market are due the 30th of this month, and it's $375. ...yeah.

Number three: Die-hard friends and readers of mine will know that I love to complain. Well, for once it isn't about being sick! I spent all afternoon and evening working on bracelets, and I don't mean making them. I only worked on actual knotting before noon. Then I set out all my bracelets, recorded how much I was selling them for, counted and recorded every single knot in every single bracelet, and used this knowledge of knots to work out how much the bracelets should be if I want to have the price cover both the cost of the materials and pay me $4-$5 per hour. Yeah, that's right, $4-$5 per hour. Fun fact: my biggest bracelet, now priced at $20, has over 1100 knots. Yowza.

Number four: You should totally buy bracelets from me. 'Cause they're awesome. And, as I mentioned, I need the money.

Number five: I believe this is easily known by now, but I'll say it anyway: I'm hoping to use this blog to get more customers to my shop and/or booth. Aside from earning the $375 this month, and then earning that and hopefully more over Market, I really really want to show my brother that I can earn money doing this. He's been very annoyed by me not getting a 'real' job.

That's all for now, I suppose. Hopefully I'll get my book/writing blog back up too; I miss writing!

What Else Needs to Happen???

Teenagers. They're a despised class in pretty much every generation, even more so now. They're lazy. They dress funny. They have no values. They don't care about work or future. They hate their teachers and detest homework. They sit around on iPods and internet all day without a care in the world.

So when a bunch of them stand up, stand together, and protest budget cuts that will end in the firing of a whole bunch of teachers, what is the response of the administration?

“We appreciate the passion. We appreciate that they love their teachers. I think students will get behind any cause that impacts them, and I think that’s a good thing, but I just think that their efforts are a little misdirected. I think the best way they can show passion for their teachers is to be sitting in class. They need to be in class. They need to allow their parents and their teachers to fight this battle because that’s where it really lies.” - Melinda Colton, district spokeswoman

In other words, they got patted on the head and sent back to their rooms. No, don't fight this, kids. Leave it to the parents and teachers. Leave it to the adults. Leave it to the adults who probably fully support the actions of you kids. Leave it to the adults, because when layabout teenagers start protesting with shouts of "save our teachers!" you get a lot of attention and we'd really rather solve this our way.

You see, we want to raise taxes and yet make budget cuts. We administrators need to afford our nice suits when our teachers are taking second jobs. And, above all, we need to avoid doing this the obvious way. ("...a legislative committee voted down a proposal that would have equalized funding between the Canyons and Jordan school districts, created by a split last year. The measure would have helped fill a 30-million dollar budget deficit faced by the Jordan School District." - Barbara Smith, abc news)

This protest, which came to my attention by watching the news tonight, was only a reminder of an old source of anger. But I'll get into that tomorrow, and leave you with a link to the article I got my quotes from. Jordan high school students walk out in protest

My Bracelet Adventures

I have, by now, created several custom bracelets for people. Unfortunately I didn't get pictures of all of them, but the pictures I did get I will put up here, and add to it as I do more orders. This will be the link I give when people want to see examples of my work. Hooray!

This one I made for a young woman to give to her friend. It was, at the time, the biggest bracelet I had attempted. Very wide, very long. But it turned out really well!




"Lambie Pie" "nishreen" and "THE NIAM." No, I don't know what the last two mean, but they look pretty good, don't they? The middle one uses rather difficult alphabet, one that does not at all translate from paper to knotted thread. I had to mess with every letter, some of them extensively, but it came out well.



These... are not the best pictures in the world. But I have to go with what I've got! Anyway. Two bracelets, one saying "you'll never" and the other "walk alone." Only no full stop there, but I have to put one there because of grammar. Yep.

I made this one for my cousin. It made me very happy to be able to finally use this alphabet. I'd been looking for an excuse to use it since I'd discovered it.

And another bracelet that I was happy to undertake for my own reasons! I'd been wanting to try out switching colors for a long time, but didn't have enough drive to create my own project. So it was a happy day that presented me with the chance!

An Etsy friend of mine requested this bracelet because the charm reminded her of her cat. She told me his name and that he was grey and white, then we set a price and she told me to do what I wanted. So I did the cat's name with cat ears on either side of it.

The Middle of December

Christmas is in a week, a week from today, and I work that day. And I'm excited to work that day. I only wish I worked in the Magic Kingdom, but Downtown Disney is good enough. And on that day we'll have Santa Goofy coming to Downtown instead of regular Santa! We'll get a character!

Oh, look, there are now three ornaments on the tree that don't have anything to do with Disney.

Back home, Siri cut her hair again and has it boyishly short, my sister is assistant stage manager in her school musical, Caiti is talking all the time... I miss those guys. I miss them all. I miss my room, my cats, my books. I miss having my own vehicle and being able to go to the store without having to take up two hours of my day. But I'm going to miss this place when I leave.

I can't stand to think about the fact that whatever new show comes after the castle show will not be seen by me (at least not in person) for at least a year, and probably a year and a half. I try to forget that I will soon be leaving my roommate to film cute mouse moments by herself. I'm heartbroken that my days off will no longer be spent meeting characters, watching shows and parades, and riding rides. And I hate the thought that I will have to get a job where telling stories, dancing for no reason, playing with remote control cars, and making magic will no longer be in my job description.

When I first got here, I was excited, but I couldn't help wondering how on earth I was going to survive away from my family. Now my time here is almost up, and I know how I survived: I grew to love this place almost as much as I love home. My family will always be of utmost importance to me, but I'm starting to learn that other things can be important too.

And there's also the fact that I'd much rather sweat than put on two layers. : D