Category: presents

My Heart is in Southern NM

And I’m wearin’ it around my neck.

About a month or so ago, the internet burst forth with the story of mega-corporation Urban Outfitters (who I won’t link to) stealing Esty artist Stevie K‘s wonderfully successful “The World/United States of Love” line of jewelry.

The concept is simple yet beautiful silver pendants depicting states and countries with a tiny heart inside. Stevie makes the pendants out of precious metal clay and sells them through her tru.che Etsy store. This beautiful concept was successful enough, Stevie was able to quit her job and pursue art full time.

Since I’m no stranger to having my creative work ripped off on a much smaller scale, I was of course incensed by this blatant abuse of an artist making her way in the world with her creative work.

So I decided to support Stevie’s work the best way I could. I went to her online store and bought this:



It just arrived today.

Lovely, isn’t it? In the posting for the New Mexico pendant, the heart was placed over toward the eastern side of the state, somewhere around Portales. Well, Portales is a fine town but it’s not where my heart is at. I asked Stevie if she could move the heart more toward the center of the state, and she obliged.

My heart is in Las Cruces where my real heart resides thanks to my two beautiful godkids. I will wear this necklace with pride both for where I come from and in support of independent artists everywhere.

I notice that Stevie has put her store on pause while she catches up on orders. Apparently I’m not the only one who wanted to support an independent artist who had her ideas ripped off.

But she’ll be back. If you want to show your love of where you’re from, keep an eye on Stevie’s store.


The Big Blue Chill

Ok, I’m bouncing back from complete blogger lock up yesterday with the assistance of the idea generator.**

Today’s topic: Name five things in your freezer

So without further ado, here are the first five things that came to mind while sitting at my desk at work:

1. Green chile

Only a small amount, but those few bags of the good stuff make me ridiculously happy.

Roasted it myself!

2.A bag of really, really good coffee

French roast. Ground for a melitta. Just. Yum.

Honestly, I’m not really supposed to drink coffee. It doesn’t agree with me or my tummy (or my esophagus, actually).

So when I indulge, it better be the ding-dang good stuff.

And this is it.

Served with real half and half and brown sugar, if you please.

3. A bottle of Siberian vodka

Hand carried to The Good Man by our friend who grew up in Siberia and made a visit home to see family. We coddle this one bottle of the good stuff like a colicky baby. It’s deeeelicious. Smooth. Perfect.

Best when sipped straight from the freezer.

4. Frozen fruit

I’m a little bit obsessed with making smoothies. Fruit juice, almond butter, a little egg white powder for protein, and a bunch of frozen fruit.

Blend!

Totally addicted. Now…there is a LOT of sugar in there, so I have to limit it to only one or two a week. I could have a smoothie three or four times a day if I’d let myself.

Gah!

I get twitchy when we are out of frozen fruit. There is a Northwest Triple Berry Mix you can get at Costco that rocks the house. Marion berries, raspberries and blueberries.

Yes, please.

5. Several of those blue freezer thingies that you put in an ice chest.

What the hell is that blue stuff made of anyway?

Seriously. I’ve never had one break on me, but I always wonder what sort of biochemical hazard would occur if one of those bad boys was leaked out upon the world.

Hmm…maybe that’s the basis for my new blockbuster screenplay. A truck carrying a load of those blue packs overturns. Through a series of unfortunate events, thousands of the blue packs are burst open.

The blue stuff takes on the world! Freezing things on contact. Sort of “The Blob” meets Medusa meets Outer Limits.

I like it!

**The idea generator has been pretty maudlin of late. Questions of death and dying, faith, etc. It just wasn’t working for me. I need fun, silly and weird to get The Muse off the couch.

I love having new toys!

Especially photographic type toys.

Yay plastic cameras!

After lusting and longing for a while, I finally broke down and spent some money on a Fuji Instax instant film camera.

It’s like a Polaroid, only a Fuji brand. You know, *coff coff* a financially solvent company?

Anyhow, this fabulous little Instax makes very small instant photographs, they are 2 x 3.25 inches in size.

I LOVE that I have an instant photo camera again!

It hearkens me back to my youth. One Christmas holiday, I got a Polaroid under the tree. Oh what a fabulous present!

I could spend my allowance on buying Polaroid film, which was fairly cheap back then, and then run around snapping photos of whatever I saw with *instant* gratification!

Ok, sure, these days digital cameras provide that instant look at the photo you just took, but there sure is nothing like the sound an instant camera makes after snapping a photo. The motor engages and it shoves out the cloudy photograph. Oh the sweet agony while you wait excitedly for it to develop.

Gah! I love it!

So as I do with every new camera I buy, I take it out of the box, ooh and ah over the features, load up the film or memory disk, and then turn it on and point it at the Feline.

She’s my test model for all new photo and video devices in the house.

Ah, the long suffering Feline….

(scanned photo, not actual size)

And yet, she always manages to strike a pose. I really do think she’s getting better at this job of supermodel.

“I won’t get out of bed for less than two scoops of kibble.”

Such a Diva.

Harumph!

And yet…she sure knows how to work the camera.

As for me, I’m still giddy with the fabulous gadgety goodness of it all!!

Tis the Season

Yesterday was a weird day.

Sure, mid-December always gets a little bit dicey when going out to run errands, but yesterday was especially odd.

I had a list of things to procure and not a lot of time, so over lunchtime I started at the top of the list. First stop, Home Depot.

Oh Home Depot, I know so many people love you, but I rarely visit your orangey evil warehouse.

I needed some tools (I have a fun Christmas project for The Good Man’s little sister in progress). Since Home Depot is the Wal-Mart of hardware stores, and I wanted to spend only a little green, I decided to give it a try.

Wow, did you know there is some sort of force field going on in Home Depot? As soon as I set foot in the lumber aisle, I became invisible! It was really instant and rather startling!

The U.S. military should look into this!

The secret to a true complete invisibility shield!

A girl in the lumber aisle.

I found that on the tools aisle, I was only partly invisible. If I said, “hey, I need help!” then they could sort of see me. It wasn’t just me either, there was another woman trying to get help regarding a door knob she was considering.

She got the attention of one male employee who condescendingly answered her question then walked away…though she wasn’t done asking questions.

Oh, I did discover that in the gardening section, by the small pink canvas pruning gloves? They could see me fine.

Something about hardware and lumber.

Weird, huh?

My next errand was to go to the post office. A gift ordered online had arrived. Yay!

Well, it being mid-December and at lunch, the post office was crazy busy. We use a very small postal annex with only two employees, so that makes things an even bigger holdup.

It was a very, very long line.

Well, you know, this is to be expected this time of year.

Except for the cranky old man and the horribly cranky old woman in line behind me.

The old man kept cranking about how he can’t believe the lines and he had been there and hour before and the line was this long so he went and had lunch to wait it out and wouldn’t you know it the line is still long and how can this be!

You get my drift.

Then the lady chimed in.

“There are just too many people these days. Too. Many. People. You know why it is so crowded don’t you? Because of all the immigrants. Obama keeps letting all of those immigrants in. They all want the free stuff so those damn people keep coming in and it is just too crowded!”

Uh. WHAT!?!?!?

Crazy old bat continued on that line of rant for a bit longer, then went back to complaining about the line. She said, “Why is there only one person working, where is that [racial epithet redacted] who works here?”

I was horrified. Absolutely stunned into a horrified shock.

Evidently the “spirit of the season” is discrimination, racism and anger.

Once I picked up my package, I got in my car and made my way out of the parking lot. As I waited to turn out into traffic, I had the audacity to wait for a group of six kids from the nearby high school walking by on lunch break.

Audacity because the evidently impatient man behind me felt I shouldn’t have paused. So he laid on the horn and yelled “GOOOO!”

Well, clearly the spirit of the season has infected me as well, because I unrolled my window and shouted “WHAT THE F–K IS YOUR PROBLEM!?!?”

Tis the season to be assholish, fa la la la, la la la la……

Look at me pass on the season’s cheer….

I think I’ll hunker down at the house for the remainder of the year. It seems better that way.

*sigh* It just ain’t the same

While visiting with my godkids last week, I had occasion to lament how fast they are growing up.

The oldest of the two is soon to be ten. TEN! Wow. I remember when she was just a little preemie baby, yowling when the wind blew across her little face. She was adorable, tiny and rather sour of disposition.

Now she’s a bright, effusive ten year old, full of life and energy and fun.

She’s been facing some rather grown up issues at school, which breaks a Nina’s heart. I’d like to go to that school and give some folks the what-for.

Seeing my little girl growing up so quick made me think about a lot of things that change, drastically, as you age.

For example, I recall when goddaughter #1 was going through potty training. Her folks worked with her quite a bit to get that going. (pun sort of intended)

One evening, there were several friends visiting at the house, and goddaughter #1 came racing out of the bathroom right to the middle of the crowd. She had not a stitch of clothing on, threw her arms in the air and yelled, “I pooped in the potty!”

Well, we all applauded and congratulated and hugged her. It was a very proud group of adults.

This doesn’t happen when you are 40.

If I came racing out of the john naked, right into a dinner party exclaiming my poopy prowess, well…for sure I’d not be invited back to the party. They might even see about having me talk to a “special” doctor.

Ya get no applause for bodily functions when you get past the age of, oh say, five.

How about birthdays? When you are five, you get a pile of fun presents to unwrap, your friends come have a sleep over and when they put the cake in front of you, first you blow out the candles and then everyone giggles when you put your face right down into your cake.

RIGHT down into the frosting!

Nobody thinks it is funny when you have cake all over your face when you are a grown up. People just look at you like you’ve lost your marbles.

It isn’t fair.

Oh! And how about naps? When you are a kid, naps are required! Oh yes, much enforced! Must nap, do it now! Here is your special blanket and stuffed friend and a kiss on the forehead.

Today? A nap is a luxury. Stolen moments. Time I could have used to do something more productive.

The ubiquitous “they” say that being a grown up is a good thing.

Generally I might agree, but sometimes………..