One Day at a Time

I really do hope that I'll get back into a "normal" one of these days. This last week has been one of my worst weeks ever with migraines. I've had severe migraines for a long time, but I've never had this many acute episodes all together before. I've been to ER twice now and I'm running on narcotics. Really frustrating. Talking to doctors more next week and hoping we'll come up with more that we can do to stop these. In the mean time...

I haven't been getting much done at all crafty-wise lately. I've gotten some writing done (you can hear me talk about that at my jedi blog) but that's about it. I did get a pattern designed earlier this week though! Yay! It's going to double as both a book mark and a bead woven bracelet. Really excited about that because it's a vampire themed piece and I figure that's likely to sell right now with all the vampire hype going around. Well, more likely to sell than my other pieces maybe? We'll see.

I'm also working on a new commission right now that's similar to this one. It's actually for the ladies daughter! I'd take a picture and show you where it's at in progress, but I'm at my parents house doing laundry and I don't have my camera with me.

Hey - I guess blogging is a start at getting back to normal right? Now if I can do it tomorrow...

A different type of Crafty Work

The last couple days I've been working on a different type of crafty project - I've been working on decorating my apartment! That's right...I'm finally putting my pictures up!

This is what you see to the left when you first walk into my apartment, they aren't hung crooked, I just took a crooked picture :P My cousin painted them as a present for me!

Day one was putting up the clock and a few small pieces. Day 2 (today) was getting the big pictures put up with the help of my evil twin and brother, and a few more small pieces. Tomorrow (Day 3) I plan on doing the rest of the small pieces and working on cleaning. Then, once things are clean, I'll take a bunch of photos! I plan on doing a "virtual tour" of my apartment on my other blog (http://ajedismusings.blogspot.com) so keep your eyes peeled over there.

It's been really nice to get my pictures up! We did get a few pictures up at the last apartment, but we never did get fully settled in there. Here, we are truly settling in, and it looks like we'll be here awhile.

I have been working on my normal crafty stuff as well. I actually didn't get much sleep last night, I woke up at 4:30am for some bizarre reason, and even though I've tried, I haven't been able to nap today! So I've done some knitting (the scarf is 11 inches!), made myself a hemp bracelet (I'll show it in my next ADD post), and started on my piece for the current Etsy Bead Weavers challenge :) The only thing I haven't done is cross-stitch...and I think I'll work on that some after I'm done posting this and checking in with my teams...

Yes, I'm ADD, and an over-achiever...

Summer Equals Smoothies!

It's time once again for the Etsy Bloggers Carnival! What's that you say? I haven't done one on here in awhile? Well...that's true. See, I'm the kinda crazy girl who runs THREE blogs. So my blog carnival entries end up on which ever one I deem most appropriate for the theme. Lately that's been my Jedi Blog because the options I've chosen have involved more personal stories than anything to do with art. Since that's part of the realm of that blog - it goes over there! I also do a lot of book reveiws over there and share some of my writing. If any of that sounds interesting to you, be sure you check it out!

One of the options for this weeks theme was your favorite summer recipe. Now it's hard for me to do a recipe because I tend to mess with recipes. I very rarely cook anything exactly according to the original recipe, and once I start cooking something regulalry I often abandon using a recipe at all. I sometimes even abandon using measuring tools. I blame my mother. Which is aweful because I used to complain to no end about her cooking like that because it made it harder for me to learn to cook! Don't worry, I've since forgiven her now that I understand ;)

My hubby and I discovered during our first year of marriage that we LOVE drinking smoothies during the summer. (I can say that! I'm on my second year! LOL) In fact I get kinda sad during the winter because it's usually just too cold to want to make smoothies. Of course then I make lots of coffee and other hot goodies... Anyway, I payed close attention when I made smoothies to go with dinner tonight (chicken burritos!), so I have a "recipe" for you!

Needed:

1 blender

Juice

Fruit

Sugar

Ice

Yes, I know that wasn't measurements. I'll give you rough one's in the recipe - be patient!

1. Set up your blender :P

2. Pull out your juice. I usually use a citrus based juice. Pineapple, Orange/strawberry/banana, Mango/orange, take your pick!

3. My blender measures liters. I usually put in just over 1/4 a liter of juice. Now here's a secret - putting in extra juice is MUCH better than putting in too little! Too little and it won't blend well. So be generous!

4. Add your fruit. What fruit? What's in your fridge? During the summer I tend to keep strawberries in the fridge and that's my mainstay. I put 6 big one's in tonight. If they are big I usually cut them once or twice to make things easier on the blender, and don't forget to cut off the stems! You can add anything you want though, bannana, mango, blackberries....be creative!

5. Sugar. I don't put much in, maybe a two and half spoons? Tends to be just a little too tart if you don't add anything though.

6. Blend breifly until smooth.

7. Add ice. How much will depend on how big your ice container is. I tend to put in about 3/4 a tray. Experiment until your happy - these are yummy experiments!

8. Blend until smooth. This could take a bit. Depending on your blender you may need to stop it at some point and kinda shake or stir the ice down towards the bottom. This is where having used extra juice can help!

9. Pour and enjoy! (Serves two large cups)

Aren't you jealous of my nice Dollar Tree cups? You know you are!

Don't like my recipe? Too imprecise for you? I found a whole web-site of smoothies called Smoothie Web! They even have a section called "Crazy Smoothies" - I may just have to experiment :D