Writing Again...

Well, for many of you who might read this blog, this isn't that interesting of a topic for you. Feel free to skip it. *smile* For my family who knows me well, you might be interested.

I used to write stories all the time when I was younger. Sometimes I'd even let my mother or another close family member read them. I'd usually get great compliments on them and told how wonderful they were. Then that little 'voice' would pop up in my head and I'd think, "They're only saying that it's good because they're my family." For years, I've been ignoring all the grades I've gotten on my stories in various classes (all A's in case you're interested).

The one grade that I'm the most proud of is the one I received in my Science Fiction class in college. For our final project, we could turn in just about anything. I elected to write a short story. I think I was one of the few in the class who chose that route. I was dumb enough to start writing that story maybe 1 day before it was due. We were told about these projects at the beginning of class and I start it the day before. Okay, I'm not the most brilliant person in the world. LOL Anyway, when I got the story back, my teacher, who was a published author himself, had given me my final A on a work of fiction that I have written. He pointed out a few problem areas and informed me that the ending wasn't any good. Well, of course the ending wasn't good! I had to print it out and get it turned in! LOL That was the last piece of fiction I have ever written from beginning to end. Odd that it's the one that I'm the most proud of.

So, here I am! I'm now 32 years old and I'm finally going back to a dream I've held since I was about 12 or 13. I want to see at least one book I've written in print. I only want one. I don't need more than that. *smile* I am now looking into what it takes to actually write one of those 200+ page books. I'm finding out that it takes more detail than I've ever bothered with before. More information on how a person gets from point A to point B and everywhere in between. This is an interesting journey. Maybe I'll even finish it one day. *smile*

Nails too long?

Did you ever think that was possible? To have nails that are too long? Right now, my nails are to the point that they're starting to get in the way, especially the last 2 on each hand. Makes sense as they're the 2 that rarely get bumped as they grow. Now my thumb and forefingers on each hand have much shorter nails. I sort of like it that way because it proves that my nails are real and not fake. I decided about a month ago to just let them grow until they break. Mind you, I thought they'd all have broken by now. Unfortunately (fortunately?), I started taking the course that the lady who has the longest fingernails in the world does. She does this every day, but I only do it once every 3 days.

I take off all my polish and wash my hands. I then take my "peach oil" (it's just jojoba oil and mineral oil with peach fragrance) and rub it into each nail and cuticle bed. When my nails have fully soaked it in (this can take upwards of 30 minutes to an hour), I put a clear coat on top of that. Right now, I'm using "Miracle Cure" by Sally Hansen. It's in a blue bottle. When that's dry, I then put a colored coat on top. When that colored coat starts to look bad, usually in about 3 days, that's my signal to take it off and do it again.

Yesterday, I tripped over a heat register at my in-laws' house. They have redone their floors and now the heat registers don't fit right. Anyway, I smacked my hand against the sliding glass doors right there and bent back my pinky nail. Oh, my gosh! That hurt!! It bent the nail back to the quick, but there's only a small crack on the side. I'm sure it will break off eventually, but I was impressed that it didn't snap all the way off. I guess that oil is the answer to keep your nails slightly flexible while the clear coat and polish keeps them stronger. Before, when my nails grew out, they were brittle and would just snap off if I hit them just right. So, this is interesting. *smile*

Would this work for someone with problematic nails that has a hard time growing them out? I honestly can't say. Unfortunately, my closest "test subject" likes her nails long so she just has them professionally done. Too bad she wouldn't be willing to try this. However, it has taken months for my nails to get this long and it only takes about 1-2 hours to have them made artificially long. It's just that my method is infinitely cheaper if you have the patience.

If you try it and you have brittle nails or nails that just won't grow, let me know if it works, okay? *smile* Oh, one note. You'd have to find a different oil or just make your own. I bought my oil ages ago through through some random vendor at a mall. I've never seen it sold in stores. The lady with the longest nails just uses plain mineral oil so I'm guessing you could too! I found an online store where that peach oil is sold. It's HERE. However, it would be cheaper to just make your own. You'd just miss out on the pretty peach scent. LOL

So there you have it! My nail beauty tip of the day.

Frustrated

You know, I don't have an actual blog where I can just sound off. So, keep in mind, if you want a blog on quilting, go somewhere else. I'm not in quilt mode at the moment so this blog is about everything but quilting. Quilting is just my main hobby and it made sense when I created it. How was I supposed to know that I'd go into "quilt lag" a little while later. Okay, I should know as it's a seasonal thing with me. As summer ends, and the heat abates, I will return to quilting. That's just how it is. *smile*

**Rant Warning - If you don't like it, don't read it**

I'm just frustrated over things I read. I'm frustrated over articles I read in the Army Times. I'm frustrated over seeing Obama's face every single time I turn around. I don't like the man, I don't like his views, I will not vote for him. So, I'm sick and tired of him. I'm voting for McCain. If you don't like it, tough. As a matter of fact, I'm the one taking the unpopular stance so who cares? It's my choice and you're not going to change my vote. Obama just isn't ready to be president. He doesn't understand enough about the issues to make a truly informed decision. You have to be willing to look at what has happened in the past, where the country is going, and make a decision. McCain does that, but no one wants to report on him. None of the reporters care what he's doing and therefore eliminate choice from the American people. Idiotical reporters.

I mean, how many of you know that Obama just wants to pour more money into a broken education system in the hopes it will fix it. That's what everyone does and it's not going to work. So stop doing it. I can give my children an exemplary education for about $500 each per year. So, what's wrong with the schools? They should be able to do the whole money thing better. He also wants to implement "voluntary" preschool programs for children. I homeschool so this really bugs me. It's only one step from "voluntary" to "mandatory." I have no desire to put my children into school when they're only 4 years old. McCain's view is much better. Put the power of education into the parents' hands. Let them change schools as they want every year. Let them take their hard earned tax dollars to the schools that do the best. MAKE those schools earn their money and help the students achieve their dreams and goals. That's called the "voucher system" in case you're wondering. Make the schools run like a business instead of some parasitic force in our country. It shouldn't be a place where we dump our children to get them out of the way so we can work. At least give your children a prime education so they can contribute to our society in the future. As it stands right now? I'm scared of the kids in our schools. They're barely learning anything anymore. As for homeschooling? McCain supports it 100%. You know... Obama doesn't mention that. With over 6 million homeschooling families in our country, you'd think he'd at least mention them.

I'll just avoid everything else that's bugging me about Obama. He's just not worth my time.

Now, I read the Army Times. I'm an Army Wife and I like keeping up with things there. Forget the dumb liberal reporters. They couldn't report a straight story if their life depended on it so I don't read the mainstay papers or watch the news. It's too painful. However, there is an article on the Army Times site today from the AP (which shows that it's going to be a dumb story) about the fact that there are few blacks in the upper ranks of the military. They're just attacking that one thing. Never mind the fact that not many blacks will enlist. If they do, few of them will go through officer training. Never mind the fact that they generally will not go into the jobs that will put them on the track for promotions. See? Stupid press. They love to ignore the facts and make the military look bad. If a person, black, white, or purple polka dotted, doesn't want to do a job that takes them up through the ranks, then there's nothing the military can do. They can't just hand them up through the ranks because of their color or religion or whatever. Talk about discrimination!!! That takes away promotions to people who have earned them because they don't want to "hurt someone's feelings." Get over it!!! Earn it or get out of the way and shut up!

I am currently raising 3 boys. Guess what? They're considered Caucasian. With all these new rules going in so that the other people who aren't Caucasian (or male) aren't discriminated against, they themselves are now being discriminated against. Let me know when this makes sense. What needs to happen is a blind hiring process. I swear it does. That way, it doesn't matter if someone is male or female, black, white, purple, green, or whatever. Only look at their training and the experience. Hire the best one for the job and call it good. If that means the best person was a white male over a black female, then fine! And don't you dare climb on me about this one. Don't you dare start hollering that the white male had more opportunities or jobs to get further in life. They have to work for it just as hard as everyone else. Anyone who sees a goal should go for it. Take the right paths to get there and anyone can succeed. Don't go off on me about a single family household and a mother who's never home (or whatever). We each make our choices. Break the chain or suffer in silence. Don't tell me about it! That's all we hear on the news anyway. It's getting OLD.

So there. You have my aggravation for the day.

Brunette Again

Well, I finally did it. I'm a brunette again. Last year sometime, my neighbor streaked my hair. She is a hairstylist and works for Great Clips. She's incredibly good at what she does, but misses working with color. Last year, she asked if I would be her guinea pig. *grin* She bleached my hair and alternated it with red dye. It turned out great! All for free too. Unfortunately, that is a very difficult style to keep up with. For awhile, I was using a color from Feria to keep my darker hair bleached out so it wouldn't be so obvious as my hair grew out. My hair naturally has red undertones so it was working out well.

However, I'm currently petitioning the Army to let us join my husband overseas later this year. I hope that we get to go. My neighbor is an incredible hairstylist. I'll miss her dreadfully. In the past year, I've grown my hair out and kept it in what she calls an "A-style" cut. Longer in the front than in the back. With the opportunity to go overseas, I don't feel like finding a new stylist. So for the next 2 (or however many) months, I'm going to let it grow without cutting anything. Then, right before we leave, I'll have her cut it all even. That way, it can happily grow while we're gone and I don't have to worry about anything other than an easy trim now and then to keep the ends looking good. With that in mind, I realized that it was time to ditch the dye. Lucky for me, Feria carries a color that's almost identical to my original color. So, this evening I dyed it back. That was a shock! After being a blonde (or a streaked blonde) for almost a year to going back to having very dark brown hair. There are a few sections where the bleached areas weren't happy about being dyed again. It turned a slight gray shade. It gives my hair an interesting color right there. It's not that noticeable... I hope. *grin* Apparently bleached hair does that when it's dyed too many times. However, my hair was more than happy to go back to being dark. Isn't that funny? The dye rinsed out in about 5 minutes instead of the forever the red took. I mean, I would still be rinsing out red dye a week after I dyed it!

So... I'm a brunette again. I wonder if I'll hate that or like it? I finally have come to grips with the fact that, while my hair is actually very thick, it's very fine and straight. Now I think it's time to come to grips with having dark hair again. I wonder if my hubby will be as shocked as I was? *grin* I have a web cam now so he'll see it tomorrow. Oddly enough, I like the looks of it in the web cam better than I did the blonde hair. Who knew?

Well, I suppose that's enough rambling. I could have left it at, "I dyed my hair from blonde/red to brown" and left it at that. However, where's the fun in that? *grin*

Shopping Bags Revisited

Well, here I am, again. I'm just totally fascinated by cloth shopping bags right now so don't mind me too much. Anyway, when I went shopping today, I took our 3 book bags with us. They're wonderfully sturdy, as many trips to the library have shown me. I will admit that I felt odd walking into the store with them and then handing them over to the checker when it came time to check out. She also commented on the fact that they were more narrow than the ones they sold. I did tell her that I had made them to be book bags, not shopping bags. I was just trying out using cloth bags for the first time after all. She was impressed that we needed such large bags for the library (we go about every other week), and that I had made all of them myself. These are pretty snazzy bags. They're fully lined and everything. One of them is even reversible. *grin* Anyway, I noticed that she preferred putting all of our canned goods and frozen foods into these bags. When I picked them up, they seemed lighter than the plastic bags even though they were holding more. Maybe it was because of the longer handles. I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm used to them holding several pounds of books. LOL Of course, my 3 bags didn't hold everything we bought. She did have to start loading up plastic bags.

When we got home, it was sort of weird. I started looking at the groceries I bought and what I unloaded from the book bags. I believe I kept at least 6-9 plastic bags from walking into my house. That meant that I saved some oil for something else, saved the land fill from getting anymore plastic bags in it, and it felt really good to hang up those bags when I was finished with them. They're definitely going with me every time I go shopping. Too bad I didn't realize I was going shopping this evening... I could have used one then instead of the paper bag the checker gave me. There is one pattern out there that talks about how to make a little pouch to fold your bag into that you can then carry around with you in your purse. My purse is really small. I'd have to just attach it to the strap. I think I'll have to start making a few bags and at least one needs its own pouch so I can take it with me everywhere. *smile*

So. I am now officially a shopping bag convert. I'm going to start making my own bags and taking them with me. One day, I will only use cloth bags. That makes me feel pretty good. *smile* I think, when I'm done with my bags, that I'll start making a few for friends. A lot of my friends are environmentally conscious so I think they'd really like them.

Shopping Bags

Well, I've noticed that the sewing world is starting in on sewing shopping bags. These are just like those fabric-type bags you can buy at Wal-Mart so that you can stop using plastic bags. I was on one page and read a lot of scary facts about plastic bags. Another thing that hit me, which I don't remember being on a page, it's just something I thought of, is that plastic bags are made out of petroleum products. Surely I'm not the only one who's been shocked at the rise of gas prices. If we're paying around $4+/gal for gas, why are we still using our oil reserves to make plastic bags so that we can just throw them away later? I don't know about you, but I'm being over run by the silly things. We use them to line a few trash cans and that's about it. One trip to Wal-Mart can keep us in enough plastic bags to line our smaller trash cans for a month, easy.

I haven't been quilting lately, but the urge to start sewing is sneaking around in there somewhere. I just want to make something easy and maybe spark that love again. I found a great pattern out at Morsbags that is a very easy one. It only takes a 1/2 yard of fabric (plus a little for straps). There also isn't a lining. It uses a double seam or a French seam to make it stronger. I dislike putting linings in bags so this is right up my alley. I think it's the perfect use for those fat quarters I bought ages ago that I have no idea why I bought them.

Just think. Every fabric bag we make, especially out of cotton, takes a lot of pressure off our oil reserves to turn it into a plastic bag. Once the fabric bag is finished, it can do a lot more than a plastic bag ever could. Not only that, but it supports our cotton farmers and our fabric industry. That's really important for quilters. We have to keep our fabric available! *smile* We also help out our favorite retailers. All together, about $4 billion is spent by companies every year to bring in those plastic bags. If we can eliminate the use of plastic shopping bags, then our food and item prices could go down because they're not having to hide that price in our goods.

SO!! Spending a little time in creating the bags now will help a lot in the long run. It really is a good idea. I'll just have to go ahead and start cutting out a few bags every evening. I know that I have 3 book bags around here now. They're so strong that I have to stop putting books in them why my shoulder can't take it anymore or when there's no room left. I'm not sure how a bag without a lining would do, but I'm sure it would be almost as strong. I can guarantee that my groceries aren't as heavy as my book bags are. LOL Once the bag pieces are set up, using Morsbags' instructions, it only takes about 20 minutes worth of time. I think it's worth it. What do you think?

Also... Did you know that they make great gifts? I've read where people love receiving them. They're a wonderful multipurpose bag. We use our book bags for toy bags when we go to the doctor's office or on a long trip. They hold so much and can take so much weight that we use them for lots of things. I'd just never thought of using them for our groceries. I have to go to the store today for a few things. I think I'll take our three bags with us and try them out. That will be several plastic bags that won't be coming home with me today!