I bought a Hoop!

lol!
I kind of learned to hula hoop over the weekend... sorta but I had fun doing it and it felt really good on my abs so I bought a hoop tonight to practice a bit. It's just a cheapo one so it probably wont be as good as the ones I used, and it doesn't seem to go quite as fast but it still works :)
I found some youtube tutorials too so once I get the basic timing down I'll try out some of those :)
At least it will get me up off the couch!

Snaaaakkkessssss

I found myself a bona fide Snake lady not too far from me, she is part of my local herp society and offered to show me her collection so I accepted!
I had never held a snake before so I'm sure I seemed pretty silly and childlike with giddiness but I just thought it was so amazing! I got to hold a Ball Python, Eastern chain kingsnake, Russian Rat snake, Black rat snake, multiple corn snakes, and a teeny tiny zippy little Rufous beaked snake that kept poking me in the eye with her tail and sticking her head in my ear.

I liked the Black rat snake the best, his name was Sid, he was around 12 years old and he hung out with me on the deck for like an hour. He only tried to really get away from me when I would sit down cause there was lots to see on the deck. He layed cosy and still in my lap for awhile, but mostly wrapped himself through my tshirt and bandana lol He also made lots of cute huffing noises in my ear and gave me kisses on the nose. I didn't get any pics of him though cause I forgot my camera up in the snake room. But yea, it was amazing :D The best part is that Sid and his girlfriend Mouse had babies in June so I think I'm going to get one :D
Being able to handle all the snakes really helped me to understand their sizes, most of them were a lot bigger than I expected, as with the Black rat snake. Although, perhaps I'm just smaller and weaker than I thought lol
She had some boas there, but they had just eaten so we didn't want to disturb them, but that was ok because I found the ball python to be stronger than I expected so I didn't think I could handle the boas.
Over all though it was great, :) I held most of them for quite a long time, and so when I went to bed last night I could still feel the sensation in my arms and shoulders.
So hopefully by september or so I'll have my first snake, I'm so excited :D

.......blub blub.....

When it sprinkles it monsoons.......

You know those people who consistently have places to go, people to see, things to do? I'm not one of those people. No I sit at home most of the time either working or spending time with Jason and our zoo of pets. I quite enjoy my life that way, a small taste of the life of the social butterfly was enough for me. Still, some days I wish I had somewhere to go and people to see, some days I also wish I had a job.
There's some cliche out there about wishing for things, but I'll refrain from saying it.
I have a non-stop weekend lined up that looks something like this:
Friday-
5pm - Supper and groceries with Jason so he doesn't starve over the weekend
7pm-ish - packing the car and driving one hour to Danielle's, meet and greet with the other ladies, set up my tent on her lawn, wine, bed

Saturday-
-wake up, breakfast, pack lunch, carpool with other girls one more hour to workshop site
-1st workshop 10-12
- lunch
- 2nd workshop 1-3
- back to Danielle's to get ready for the show that night
- back to workshop site for show 7ish-10ish I believe
- aftershow party
- sleep?

Sunday-
- wake up, breakfast, pack lunch, pack up tent and all my stuff, load car, drive myself the one hour to workshop site
- 3rd workshop 10-12
- lunch
- Drive an hourish down a road I've never been to, to a place I've never seen to visit a new friend with her jungle of snakes!
- drive alllll the way back home...
- sleep?

Great! Lovely, sounds like a blast. But what should come up at the beginning of the week? A job offer! Great wonderful! But while working on that project, she also offers me another project..... for the weekend. OI
Turned it down of course, told her there was just no way. Alls well, she understood. Sent her my first draft, was rather pleased with it. She didn't like it.
:S sigh
Scrambling now, 7 hours before I have to leave, to get her a better draft. I really need this job, as it's semi constant work, please oh please oh please let things work out!
Somewhere, my inner hermit is screaming.

where to begin?

I've been away from here for..... too long! lol But omg..... I don't even know where to start.
Jason and I are all caught up in this house buying business, and I hope hope hope that it all goes through and we get the place!!! *fingers crossed* Also I have still be trying desperately to find ways to provide myself with an income, have had some interesting prospects, but nothing solid so far. This is especially frustrating in the face of having to scramble to come up with a down payment for this house. We *think* we can get it together by the 15-days-before-closing-date that the mortage broker asked us for, but it's going to be close. We've basically been trying to sell off anything that's not tied down, including a couple extra computers. I've been spending a lot of time just feeling overwhelmed, as is normal for me, by what has to be done, what we have to wait to happen, and what is looming in the distance once things start to get seriously moving.

Dancing? I feel like I've lost it. I'm still going to the big weekend workshop with Nana Candelaria at the end of this month, but I had to cancel my solo. I just don't have much time to practice lately, plus I find it extremely difficult to be 'outputting creativity' in two fields ie: design and dance. I find I can either spend my days obsessing about one or the other, but not both. I hope I can still attend classes in the fall, but it will honestly depend on our financial situation. Am I still in love with Belly Dance? Of course! And I know once I step into that workshop I'll really 'feel it' again, but I think my inner self has purposefully tempered that passionate desire to dance all the time just so that I can focus on other things for a while. It's a little sad to see my lovely costume go unfinished, but I know I will pick it back up again, eventually.

As for now, I just need to keep plowing ahead with this graphic design venture, and not let my lack of confidence get the better of me. I was very close to getting on with a website developer to do logo's for his clients who wanted logo's with their website packages, but alas, it fell through :(
To quote a certain Pixar movie...... "just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming, swimming, swimming...."

Woot! :P

So I got this in the mail today :D Yay! I'm officially a Graphic Designer. Now if only I could start making some money off it :P lol
I took down my previous website post because I decided to redesign it.................. again to the power of 10........and though it is currently on the server, I have discovered that my web hosting sucks so I need to get a new one. So if you happen to visit my site, you'll probably find that it loads p a i n f u l l y s l o w which sucks because it means you have to wait a looooooong time to see my pretty pages :( Hopefully I can get it fixed soon though :)
I found a good Canadian hosting company that has 100% green energy to power it's servers so WOOT again, I'm switching to them :)

Video Aid

Three blog posts in one day?? What's the world coming to?
Ok so now that I have figured out this video thing, I have discovered a new use for it. Help me with a costuming issue!
Below is a video of my new dready things that I made. They are going with my new white costume that I'm in the process of making. You can see how they are being attached to my head, on that little headband and my hair is pulled into a bun. The problem is, as you will see, they falls... fall off the bun lol
Even when I tried just wrapping the elastic headband around the bun it didn't stay, and the falls were almost a foot longer of course because I made them to fit over my entire head.......... any suggestions?
ok here's the link, complete with hand gestures of frustration :P
s161.photobucket.com/albums/t240/jibs18/

*Deep Breath* [Insert Contented Sigh here]

*ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh*
I feel so much better today.
After days of feeling in a funk in more ways than one I *finally* feel better. Not only has the confidence issue in previous blog posts still been nagging at me, but since my last dance class last Tuesday I haven't danced or even exercised once. Until today. I put some music on and just started doing moves. At first it didn't seem to be going well, and then I tried some belly rolls in time to a song I hadn't danced to before and I was happily surprised at how good they looked! It's hard to like your own belly rolls when there are so many big names out there who do them so much better lol But I am trying to take Nicole's advice from a few weeks ago and stop comparing myself to others, and *tryyy* not to 'pre-apologise' for things. That said, I may work up the courage to post a little video of how my belly rolls are coming along.
Anyway that was the boost I needed today. I then decided to run though a routine I'm working on, and for the first time in I'd say at least 10 or so run-throughs I really 'felt' it again. If I can just remember how to put all that energy and emotion into it when I go to perform then I'll be set :) AND on top of that, I did a 6 minute non-stop shimmy drill which made me feel really great. I don't know why but I have the hardest time finding the right 'position' to really get into a shimmy. I made sure I memorized where my feet were and how my legs felt so hopefully I'll be able to duplicate it again.
And on a different but equally positive note, my website is finally starting to take serious shape. I gave up on pressuring myself to learn everything about Dreamweaver and CSS so quickly, and instead opted to modify a template, and so far it's looking pretty good :) I mostly just have to decide how I want to upload my work samples and tweak a few things and it'll be ready to host.
It's kind of funny because I just realised that Sunday night as I lay in bed trying to sleep I inwardly asked my spirit guides to share some of their wisdom and courage with me in my dreams. I don't really 'practice' shamanism persay, but I have had many moving experiences with certain animals in both the conscious and unconscious world, so I do believe in their healing energy (whether it is an actual animal 'spirit' or just a deeper power of my own subconscious I haven't decided). I didn't remember any specific dreams yesterday morning, and in truth I had forgotten all about it until now, but yesterday was when things started to 'brighten up' and I got a lot of work done on my website.
:)
Now I think I'm going to make myself a nice pasta/veggie salad and go eat it in the sunshine :)

What are you eating right now?

This is a must read/see article. I was in the middle of lunch when my boyfriend showed it to me. Made me eat my apple a little slower.

www.dailykos.com/storyonly.../70/522670

Life and Money

I'm a new breed of Hippie, I have my roots in the Earth, my hands in Technology, and I view the world half through the window beside me and half through this 17" LCD monitor. I'm constantly conflicted between wanting the world to 'go back to the way it was' when there was LESS technology (and humans) to harm the earth, and desperately wanting both humans and technology to progress to the point where we can save our poor little planet, and I believe it can be done. However, the one thing I hate the most about today is Money. If it weren't for my love of techy things (my inability to actually travel through time not withstanding) I WOULD have the world back to the old bartering days.

I don't know if it's the weather, the stars, or just me putting too much pressure on myself or what but I can feel the downward slope into a very deep funk. Housing prices are starting to rise here and that is scary, because if we want to get a house it means we need to get one NOW but we can only *just* afford it without me making any money. I am going to try as hard as I can to get design projects, but there's no guarantee of me making any money at all every month. It's got me thinking about the ways that people bring in money these days.

I remember when I started highschool they were telling us about picking a career and sticking to it. Then half way through it's like they were suddenly updated on the current world situation and they changed to 'diversify'. What? I didn't even know what that meant then. But now I think I understand. It may not have been exactly what they were talking about, but I keep getting this feeling that my future income is going to be made up of a bunch of tiny amounts coming in from different sources. I plan for Graphic Design to be the brunt of it, but the more I've been thinking the more I wonder. I've been considering Etsy style things of course, but then there's also belly dance itself. I think one day (one faaaaar off day..... lol) I would like to teach, even if it's just a 'hobbyist' class, because there are so few teachers in the area, and I love dancing so much. So maybe in a few years that could be some small source of income for me. And then there are ways to cut costs as well which is just as important I think. For example, if we had our own house we have already decided that we would have a vegetable garden so that we wouldn't need to buy our produce (holy expensive in my area, yeesh).
And then my train of thought just dies........ Ever have that happen? You start to write a blog and then you realise you've been staring out the window for 10 minutes and you can no longer think of a suitable way to end your thought?
erg
I guess I just want to say how much I HATE MONEY............. but without it where would I get my spingly belly dance stuff? 0:-)
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