I'm sorry, but this entry has absolutely nothing to do with crafting. Instead, it is a recap of an awesome dream last night. It was such a cool story, I thought I had to write it down. Unfortunately, I have no where else to "publish" this. I'm not even sure it warrants "publishing," but whatever - it's my blog. Read if you want, if not - keep on keepin' on....
The dream begins joining a story already in progress: It's around the 19th Century, probably in some part of Paris - somewhere dreary with winding, narrow cobblestone streets and dark corners, perfect for vampire mischievousness.... More on that later on.
In this dream, I am playing the role of a random woman that Lestat has chosen to keep captive for whatever reason. No one has fed from me [yet] and he has no intention of killing me [yet]. I guess you could say I was more like the hired mistress of the house, though there certainly was no payment and I was NOT free to leave upon my choosing. I cannot vividly remember Lestat as I do most of the other details, though I do believe he is in fact Tom Cruise as he was in the movie. In my dream, Lestat lived in an extravagantly decorated, fairly large house, much like the one from the movie - not the Colonial one in Louisiana, but the one before that in where he, Louis, and their "child" Claudia live. In this story there is no Claudia. Perhaps that is why I am in the dream - I replace Claudia's role as the extra torment for Louis. Ah, Louis. Louis is as he was in the movie, more or less, except for one major detail: instead of Brad Pitt, my Louis is played by none other than Alexander Skarsgard! I believe he is actually portraying Eric Northman, too, though I cannot be certain. I don't even remember if he is actually called Louis or Eric, but for the sake of this recap, let's continue to call him Louis.
Louis seems as he was in the movie: tormented about his new role in life - vampire. He cannot bring himself to drink from humans, as though he is loyal to Lestat, he hates him. Lestat is over-indulgent and has no value on human life, and Louis resents him for throwing him into this lifestyle. In my dream, we are already situated as a household: Lestat and his victims, and Louis and.... me. Louis loves me, but I am angry at the vampires and hesitate to explore my feelings for him. I am more of a companion for Louis, and a play-thing for Lestat, though as I said - neither have yet to drink from, though Lestat certainly threatens to often.
I remember sitting and having a conversation with Louis - He is remorseful and sad, and because of this I feel sorry for him... and maybe a little more than that. Louis softly asks me to try and forgive him, and maybe one day I could bring myself to love him. That seems to be all he wants in life - not to be feared as vampire, but loved as a man.
Throughout the dream, there are little events. For instance, Lestat bringing humans in and toying with them before he drains them: the humans acting as prey, running around the giant house trying to flee and hide from Lestat, their predator. When the hunt was on, I found I would have to run and hide too, else Lestat in his blood-lust might decide just to snack on me. Eventually, Lestat turns his attentions to me permanently - probably because Louis refuses to become just like him, and seems more affectionate to me rather than him. And so, Louis finds he must wage a personal uprising against Lestat, but to do that he needs more strength: whatever he is feeding off of is not human, and thus it makes him weaker than the already stronger Lestat.
Louis and I dash off in to town under, running through the dark, twisted corners to find some poor soul for Louis to feed from. The only candidate we find is a younger girl, dressed to the nines. He convinces her to come with him into a dark little stairwell where he proceeds to feed from her. I keep watch, for several people, albeit men with a different kind of deviant nature, have noticed our strange behaviour. I turn around to make sure Louis does not drain the girl to death. Then we make a dash back to the mansion, only to find the streets eerily empty. The few people we do see appear to be more zombie than human: they are pale and frozen in motion with nothing but the blood flowing down their upright bodies. We know something strange is happening....
This is where the plot gets a little hazy, I'm afraid. Instead of witnessing the dream through my own eyes, I am viewing as though watching a movie. Louis comes home to find Lestat cradling a corpse on the couch. His back is turned as Louis finds me - and this is where it gets ridiculous - as a lamp. Yes, I know - I said it was ridiculous! It turns out that Lestat has waged his own war on the entire town, because he was afraid they were catching on to them. He says they must flee, but Louis refuses to go. He is at my side as we are both crying - I profess my love for him and ask him to turn me so we might be together forever. Louis hesitates but then bares my neck and his fangs. However, Lestat stops him and tells Louis that I must die along with the other citizens - we are all to be burned so that it looks like a horrific accident. As Louis screams in protest, and we both sit there crying - I wake up.
I'm back!
After being absent for a very, very long time, I present my latest finished project:
It's a little wooden cupboard that I've re-finished as a house-warming present for my mum! Yes, it's Cinderella's Castle from Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom - she's slightly Disney obsessed ;P I have three of these cupboards and I plan on doing each park icon. The next one shall be the most important - Disney's Animal Kingdom, where both my mum and I work! [Notice what's on the television behind the cupboard? hehe FIFA FEVER!!! COME ON, ENGLAND!] *Ahem*
It's taken me a LOT longer than I originally planned, as I wanted to have it ready as a surprise for mum when she moved into her new place at the beginning of June. However, I severely under-estimated how difficult it would be! It took three coats of primer alone! Why? Because THIS is what it looked like when I got my hands on it:
Drawing it up proved to be a MAJOR pain in the butt. I used both a real photo of the castle and a children's colouring book image for line reference.... Unforunately, the children's colouring book image was slightly off from what the castle actually looked like, so I discovered about half-way through drawing the lines [in pencil, thankfully] that everything was just slightly off. Needles to say I killed my pencil's eraser. [I discovered it AGAIN when I actually started painting the lines.... grumble....]
So, I primed it, drew it, painted on the black lines, painted in the blue, painted in the grey - both of which took several layers, then painted in the detail work [bricks, flags, etc], then went back over with black to clean the lines up. I had such a hard time painting a straight line I almost threw this project away. The new medication I am on make my hands shake really, really bad, so there was a LOT of cursing and clean up to do. But now, the behemoth is finally finished!
Overall, I'm somewhat happy with it. There are a lot of fudge-ups so of course that's all I see when I look at it - that, and my shaky, shaky lines. BUT, Mum loves it so that's all that matters... as long as she's telling me the truth, haha.
And now, on to the rest of the photos:
I finished and sent off all the things I made for my partner in our World of Warcraft Swap. I sent off late Wednesday afternoon and MUCH to our surprise it arrived in Sweden on Monday morning! Holy crow, that's fast!
After seeing some of the other packages in the swap gallery, I was starting to feel VERY anxious that I didn't make enough stuff, but my partner insist her fiancee is happy with everything so hopefully she's not just being nice ;)
Anyway, now that she's received I can post what I made here!
First, I painted one of those cardboard book boxes. I tried my best to make it look like a rugged leather book - something that you might actually find in the halls of Orgrimmar. The idea was to make it Thrall's [the leader of the Orcs in Orgrimmar] little secret box.
In fan lore, it's believed he is "very close" with a Human leader named Jaina Proudmoore, so I stuffed the book with goodies from Disney and made it seem like they were sent to Thrall from Jaina on her trip to Walt Disney World.
I even made her send him a postcard.
Ok, ok, ok. I'll stop procrastinating and blog a little about the bag and show you how it turned out. But, because I'm a.) lazy, b.) troubled, c.) busy, and most of all d.) anxious to start gorging on the Girl Scout Cookies in the kitchen, I'm just pasting in what I wrote about it on Craftster.org. I added a little on the end... 'cause... well I was just trying to be cool and polite, so I didn't include much ranting. Fortunately, this is MY blog, so I can rant here! MWUAHAHAHAHA!
"A good friend of mine, and follower of the Church of the SubGenius practically BEGGED me once he found out I had a pattern for their icon, J.R. "Bob" Dobbs. He didn't care what, he just wanted something! I wasn't prepared to devote myself to making an entire sweater, so I just made a bag... a huge, oddly oblong bag.
The pattern came from the Domiknitrix book, which you can find more about here: http://www.domiknitrix.com
It was the first time I had tried knitting an image and the first time using multiple strands of different colour yarn... and it just might be the last. hahaha. In all seriousness, I'm glad I did it. I proved to myself I COULD, and know I have that knowledge under my belt.
Since it was the first time I was attempting translating and knitting an image, I wasn't even going to try and adjust the size... The original size being intended for a man's sweater. So, it was HUGE, took [what seemed like] forever, and made for a VERY odd shape. In hind-sight [which of course is always crystal clear], I should have just added more stitches to the sides and just embraced a MASSIVE, but proportionate bag.
The other thing I will never, EVER do again is use a sewing machine to sew something that took me weeks to knit. I just can't stand the pressure! My machine [Betsy] decided to have a hissy fit THE.SECOND. I started sewing the lining to my knit piece. I froze. I cried. I CONQUERED!
(back, after sewing up side seams)
BUT! I finally finished it! It's not perfect, but all things considered.... *pats self on back*
(I swear the top edging isn't as wonky as it looks)
(I added some pocket-age)
There you have it! Whatcha' think then??"
Some things I didn't mention in my Craftster post:
- I over-ironed the son-of-a-bitch. Bob, that is. I was trying to iron out the edges because they were of course curling under, as knitting does, but I over did it up by Bob's face and it came out all wonky. I kind of fixed it by sort of rubbing it back into shape with hot water.
- The comments I got on the post were quite sweet - things like, "Wow you're brave;" "Kudos, I would never try anything like that;" [both of which in knitting terms I think mean "what in the hell made you think you could do THAT?!"] "looks great;" and my personal favourite "Epic." Haha.
- And most important, let me reiterate : NEVER.AGAIN. Seriously, if anyone ever hears me say I'm going to start knitting something that has to be sewn, PUNCH ME. PUNCH ME HARD. I will never ever EVER again try to sew something with a sewing maching that took me DAYS to knit. It's nerve wracking. I almost died. Ok, so I'm exaggerating, but BETSY [my sewing machine] almost died!
I mailed off this bad boy on.... erm.... uh.... Tuesday? Crap, I can't remember. Anyway, he should have it by now. No word yet though. I swear to God.... if the mail loses it.... BEWARE.
Alright well, time for an update!
The relief that came from the emergency room visit and associated meds did NOT last. I went to my regular doctor, came out with a new load of meds, and still no real relief. He gave me a referral to a specialist, and I'm anxious to call and make an appointment. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it doesn't. Most of the time it's just an annoying ache. Other times it makes me want to cut my own head off. By the way, the day I went to visit my doctor, I developed a cold! So for about a week I was snotty, sneezy, heavily medicated, and just generally feeling shitty.
My doctor ordered me to get blood work. Did I mention that not only am I afraid of needles, but DEATHLY afraid of blood? It's a big deal, but, I am resolved to feel better, so I went. I had to fast from 9pm the night before until the time of my blood test, which I was aiming to be at about 10am. My body, as usual, had other plans. As it turns out, taking all of my meds and the usual ibuprofen and not having anything to eat for almost 12 hours does not work well, so at 7am-ish I woke up.... and threw up. I'm sure you all know what it feels like to throw up when you don't actually have any food in your stomach, so I won't go in to any more detail. So I threw on some clothes and off we went to the hospital for my blood test. You can imagine how awful I felt, from not only being physically ill, but also FREAKING OUT about the blood test. I was in and out much quicker than anticipated, but that doesn't mean it went well. It didn't go terribly, but I did get real ill and violently shaky. However, staying conscious is an achievement in my book, so all things considered it went ok. The nurse was amazing, also - she even got the needle in in ONE GO! Normally it takes them three of four tries! Unfortunately, afterward I was still extremely nauseas. I couldn't fathom the idea of eating anything and not even toast could help me through. I ended up finally falling asleep on the couch, and when I woke up a couple hours later I felt much better.
Needless to say, it has been a REALLY ROUGH couple of weeks. That said, somehow I did manage to get the Bob bag FINISHED and sent off AND finished two items for the Warcraft swap! I'll post about the Bob bag later.... I PROMISE this will get back to being a craft blog as soon as I get back to feeling like a crafty human being and less like a trampled pin cushion :(
Since I posted yesterday about what was presumed to be TMJ, there has been a development. And no, this post has nothing to do with crafting.
Right after I finished writing my last entry, I had some cereal, and ended up in agony. My husband has been trying to get me to go to the hospital for a while now, and since I was in so much pain yesterday, I gave in. He left work early to come home and pick me up. We got to the Celebration Hospital around 3:30pm, and at 6:00pm I was finally seen. The Doctor gave me a little look and decided it was in fact TMJ. He ordered an injection of steroids, a course of steroid pills, pain relievers, and muscle relaxers. The shot idea had me panicing, and the doctor feeling around made my jaw feel INCREDIBLY painful, so I was being a big crying baby. Then the nurse came in, gave me the shot in my bum, and I was still a crying baby... because I'm deathly afraid of needles and I was feeling very very faint. Eventually I got myself together enough to walk out, ALMOST passed out on the way to the waiting room, and sat my sore butt down while my hubby sorted out the financials. My signature after shots is to gently slip out of consciousness whilst in the waiting room, but my jaw [and butt] were so painful, and I was so shaky, that I managed to avoid it.
On the way home we stopped by Target to fill all my prescriptions. By then my jaw was almost COMPLETELY painless! I cannot even describe what relief that was. I was literally getting to the point where I would look of photographs from earlier and I could not remember what it felt like NOT to be in pain all day everyday. Now, I'm just mad at myself for not listening to my husband and going to the hospital sooner.
I took the muscle relaxer before bed, as instructed, and I am very pleased to say that I slept the entire night through... for eleven hours!!! I cannot even remember the last time I slept through the night. I'm amazed. Doc said to take it easy today, so that's what I'll do! I'm not sure if I can knit, because in the past that did contribute to my jaw pain, but we'll see. It's a great excuse to cuddle up on the couch and watch Turner Class Movies all day! So far today I feel a little pressure, but relatively no pain, and I'm assuming that as I go through this steroid treatment, the pressure [caused by the inflammation] will go away. Gosh, I hope this lasts. Now I know what to do the SECOND it comes back next time.
Epic news, people - I have finished knitting the giant monstrosity known as the Bob Bag! I am now knitting the strap, which is obviously a breeze.... but still VERY boring. *sigh* It's almost over!
However, I have been stricken with an illness that is keeping me from being terribly productive. I don't know what it is - At first I thought it was a cold, maybe allergies, and now I'm thinking it's just plain old T.M.J. I've been struggling with this for about two or three years now, on and off, but usually it's at it's worst this time of year. It's horrible. All day, every day. No sleep. Sooooo many pills. And I'm gaining weight like crazy because I can't take all these pills on empty stomach. Picture it: it's like five o'clock in the morning, I'm in agony, I need to take pills, so I grab something quick and carb-y [meaning fattening]. Ugh. It's insult to injury, really.
Anyway, despite all of this I did manage to bake my butt off yesterday. My husband and I don't really celebrate Valentine's Day. Instead, we celebrate our relationship on February 13th. He made me heart-shaped pink pancakes [raspberry and chocolate chip] for breakfast in bed, took me shopping, and then we went out for a really nice Indian dinner. It was great. I wanted to do something kinda special for him, so I spent all day in the kitchen. Don't let anyone tell you any different - the way to a man's heart IS through his stomach. Let's face it - besides expensive gadgets, they don't really care about anything else, haha.
I made white and pink white chocolate drizzled brownie biscotti, which is one of my favourite things to make these days. And for the first time ever, I made flan. BUTTERSCOTCH flan, which is my hubbies favourite sticky goodness. I had two little heart-shaped ramekins, for an added touch of cuteness. And finally - a heart shaped pizza! It was semi-homemade: I bought the dough from the grocery store and rolled it out into it's heart shape, then PILED on the cheese, hehe. Hubs brought home some wine, I put the flowers he gave me on the table, and it turned into quite a cute dinner!
Unfortunately for me, all the tension of baking [haha] really did a number on my jaw so I was in agony by the time I was eating. The wine helped, but the benadryl.... oh yeah. I was feelin' good! ...For like an hour. *sigh*
Picture Time:
Butterscotch Flan
