Exquisite Turmoil

So, Thursday Dan and I are sitting down at our computers, Alex is in the kitchen eating a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich.  Next thing we know he walks around the corner looking like this, and we both just started busting up laughing.  I love when you know someone so well that you just KNOW what they’re thinking, and we were both thinking “WTF Joker”.

Anyway, now for the promised Alex quote.  We’re outside and I’m working out on the Bowflex, Dan is treadclimbing away.  The kids are playing in the nearby sandbox, having a tea party on the concrete, picking flowers, running around like nuts, etc.  Anya comes up to have a chat with me while I’m working out and screams and says that a bug ran across my butt.  I didn’t feel or see anything, but I took a glance around, didn’t see anything.. and got back to working out.

The next thing I know, I look down and an ENORMOUS spider is ON MY LEG.  And when I say enormous, I’m not just being a girl, it was seriously enormous, even Dan admits it.  He estimates 4″ across, perhaps a little bigger.  A fuzzy, hairy, disgusting thing.  So I scream at the top of my lungs and jump up… the spider falls on the ground, Anya is trying to scale me to get away from it..

Alex just kind of stands there looking at it and Dan stomps on it to shut Anya and I up.  The two of us are practically hyperventilating while the boys are just standing there.  I asked Alex, “You weren’t scared of that spider?”

He gave me this look like I was a complete moron and said “No, I’m a man.”

I promise a longer post tomorrow (complete with excellent picture of Alex as well as a funny story about him that I forgot to impart earlier), but for now I’m just going to bitch about my toe ;-; I stubbed it walking into the garage barefoot. I didn’t realize that the Warhammer board was parked so close to the door and I slammed my little toe right into it and it huuuuurts x.x It’s all red and owie and there’s blood under the nail and I like to whine. A lot.

On a happy note, I put down a deposit on the rats for the children (who am I kidding, they’re totally for me QQ) and they’ll be coming home sometime between October 10-12. We’ve also decided on an FN 141 cage (which is the best ratty cage around, my husband is so good to me) and I’ll be picking that up on the 11th of this month. Gives me a whole month to sew rat hammocks and other various pieces of rat furniture. Yes, I am going to sew rat hammocks.

Also, I don’t care what anyone thinks about rats / rodents. You simply can’t tell me that those rittens aren’t adorable.

WTB cookies badly, actually >.< but I'm trying so hard to be good. I have no willpower, and therein lies the true problem. I actually have around 1000 calories left in my budget today so I really do need to eat, but if I make a batch of cookies I KNOW that I will want to eat more than the four that I am allowed. I am an absolute glutton and piglet. If I make 24 cookies, I'll seriously want to eat like 12 of them. Hummus and pita also sounds good, but that requires either going to AJs like 30 minutes away (since it's the only grocery store with decent hummus and pita) or going to the Persian Room and spending a fortune (I've got some garbanzo beans and could conceivably make my own but the beans haven't been soaked yet and that takes HOURS). Not to mention, it's not exactly low calorie either. I suppose it sounds stupid to be bitching about the calories when I still have 1000 left, but eating things like what I WANT to eat.. 1000 calories goes in the blink of an eye.

In any case, the original inspiration for this blog was to link this awesome website that calculates the calories in a recipe for you. It’s a hell of a lot more convenient than looking up the ingredients and doing the math myself, so I figured I’d share it in case anyone else is interested.

On a happy note, I had another good run today. We did the “normal run” (that being, as I think I said before, from the house to the end of the road and back) and this time I ran to the end of the road and all the way back to the house. Yesterday I ran to the end of the road and then to the street before our house, so I tacked on another .2 miles. I know, I know, it sounds so negligible.. but I’m really feeling proud of myself and happy right now. I’ve got to take what I can get so that I can stay motivated!

Well, we had a rather nice run today — it was actually the furthest I’ve gone in one stretch (since I got out of the army, at least) without walking.  It was ridiculously slow, but Dan assures me that slow jogging is better than being a little speedier and needing to walk more.  Anyway, here is a picture of me looking hideous after our run.  I am not one of those lucky people, like Dan, who seems to completely lack any blood vessels in the face.  At the first hint of exertion (or heat, cold or basically anything else for that matter) I turn into a little tomato.  Beet.  Radish.  Whatever you feel like calling me.  I’ll stick with tomato since they are tasty and refreshing.

Anyyywaaaay.. just thought I’d post and stroke my own ego since I basically ran from the house to our “normal spot” and back whereas I usually only run to the “normal spot” and then walk back.  Go me.  Or something like that.. /stroke /stroke

Well, I’ve finally finished one but I’m not really very happy with it. The flesh isn’t pallid enough for how I imagine my ghouls living, and there isn’t enough contrast on the model. There’s no place on him that is really dark, but I can’t seem to work anything dark in..  I tried getting a nice deep black or brown on the ribs, but I couldn’t get it to look right and just ended up going reddish instead and I am not happy with it.

The bones also look like crap.  They look too brown and not enough like bone, but further attempts to highlight them are producing a very unsightly streaky appearance.  I think I just need to set the model aside until after dinner and see what I can do with it further.. x.x  Right now, I think it will be much more pleasant to just sit around and dream about a cute little ratty.

Now if only that damned pot roast would either finish cooking or stop smelling so tempting and out of reach ;-;

So we’ve decided that if Anya is a good girl at school and doesn’t get any notes sent home, then on the 12th of September she’ll be allowed to get a little pet.  The preschool class next door to her kindergarten room has a guinea pig and she is quite jealous.  We don’t really want a guinea pig, they’re a little too large, but we managed to talk her into a hamster instead.

It appears, however, that we’ve actually decided on a rat. We’ve contacted some little ratty breeders and fallen in love with the blue one in this picture. You can’t really just have a single rat, however, so we’ll be getting a second ratty as well although we haven’t decided on one. The breeder is going to move this little girl in with a group of other young rats and see who becomes her best friend.

The problem with this is.. now if Anya isn’t good at school I’m going to die. I think I want the rat more than she does QQ I probably shouldn’t have started looking until closer to the “good until” date, but with pets that are uncommon (rats, degus, certain birds, etc) it can take a while to locate a reputable breeder with good little pets. I managed to find one quite quickly, however..

Oh man, she had better be good!

On a Warhammer note, I’ve started work on painting my ghouls. I’ve actually tested out a few paint schemes and hated them all like.. utterly. The one I’m working on right now will actually be using the same pinkish flesh as the wings on my Varghulf and I will (hopefully) tone it down to be a bit more greenish on the larger bits of skin. Anyway, we’ll see how it comes out.

Meh, I seem to have gotten out of the habit of blogging every day while we lacked internet.  It used to be that I’d have to stop myself from blogging too often and clogging up my pages, but now I’m having to force myself to sit down and write something.  Hopefully in a few days (or weeks, who knows) I will be back in the swing of things.

Anyways — I haven’t really done any painting since I finished up the wolves.  I’ve greenstuffed all of the ghouls up and primed them, but I haven’t started painting (although I have been dreaming of paint schemes).  I spent some time yesterday magnetizing my dire wolves (although I made Dan cut the steel sheets for me) and am quite pleased with them.  They’re strong enough that I can flip them upside down and give them a shake without dislodging them, but I can still easily remove them from the movement tray.  I also put magnets onto the bases for the ghouls that I am painting up, although I obviously haven’t made a movement tray for them yet.  Honestly I’m feeling a bit meh about it since I’m not sure how big to make it.

I usually start my ghoul units somewhere between 15-20 models, but I often end up with much more than that since my Lord takes “Summon Ghouls” as a power and I do so love to pump out ghouls like crazy.  I don’t really want to make a movement tray for like 30 models, though, because it’ll look retarded sitting on my display shelf with all of that empty space going on.  I don’t currently own enough ghouls to fill in for all of the ones that I raise (go go empty bases ftw), so it’s not even like it can sit on the display shelf full and move around the board not full.  Perhaps I should make a movement tray for 20 to keep on the shelf and a spare movement tray for games?  I suppose I have plenty of steel for it..

On a non-Warhammer related note, I’ve been working on an embroidered present for Jamie’s baby and I’ve been slacking on it recently.  I really need to sit down and get it finished, I’ll feel like a tard if it isn’t done by the baby shower.  What I’m making is a little pair of baby booties and on the bottom is an embroidered letter being hugged by a bear. The little left bootie will have an L (for Liliana) and the little right bootie will have a P for her last name.  Then, on the top of the booties is a cute little pink embroidered ribbon.  I’ve finished the letter and bear on one bootie and most of the ribbon.  I’ve actually done a test of both letters and a complete ribbon on scrap material and I’m pretty happy with how they’ve turned out, I just need to do them on the real cloth now.  Gosh, I’ve been such a slacker lately…

I have finally managed to paint an entire unit!  A unit of five models, albeit, but it is still a unit!  I’m quite pleased with how they turned out (and with how quickly I painted them).  These models are actually the main reason why I decided that I wanted to play Vampire Counts.  I absolutely fell in love with them when flipping through the Vampire Counts codex.  After that, of course, I fell in love with the lore for Vlad and Isabella, but the Dire Wolves are definitely what first attracted me to VC in the first place.

Now.. what to paint tomorrow?  I think I’ll try my hand at a ghoul.  I’ve got ten assembled (although their legs still need a bit of greenstuff, methinks) so it shouldn’t be too much work before I’m ready to get started on those.  I think I’m going to go for a skin tone that could belong on a human, since they’re really just humans who have turned into cannibals and shun the light.  Anyway, we’ll see!

Yes, indeed, the wolves are going well. I’ve finished two and I’ll be starting in on the third as soon as I finish this blog.  Wolf #2 still needs some touchup, but I didn’t really want to mix up batches of paint just to touch him up, so he’ll be getting fixed as I am painting wolf #3.  Save my beautiful, expensive VMCs!  Now if only I could find the headache medicine…

NOT FAIR >.< So we went for a run tonight and I had my spiffy little Nike+ monitor thing running.. we finished the run and when I went to sync it, the run didn't show up. Flipping through the iPod, I see that it actually has no record of my run.. Which I completely don't understand because I know that it was keeping track since I was looking at it to check my pace and the distance and stuff.

I guess it doesn't really matter that much, but it's the principle of the thing. What is the point of having it if it is randomly going to decide not to store my data? Meh, I probably shouldn't bitch about it, it's probably because I did something wrong (maybe I unplugged it too quickly after ending the workout, I don't know), but it really irritates me. I'm doing a "challenge" thing on nikeplus.com and now my run won’t be recorded for that (not that it matters for anything, it’s just for fun and personal motivation and not a prize or anything), and it won’t be displayed on my website, etc..

Bah, ah well. Back to painting now, I suppose.