Happy Thanksgiving!

I wish you all a wonderful day, whether you're in the States or not. I also hope your day started off better than mine did ... there's something about sticking your hand into a half frozen turkey to pull out giblets that doesn't really lend itself to a good day.

Oh well. Things are looking up. My sister is doing most of the cooking and I don't have to make small talk with people I can hardly stand. Yay for moving away from family!

Curse You Aqua-Scum!!!

The week leading up to Thanksgiving should not be this difficult!

High stress levels do not a good vacation make. We've even decided to postpone moving into the new apartment until after Thanksgiving so that we're dealing with at least a little less stress.

All I can really say at the moment is that I'm getting very irritated and I don't like feeling this way. I'm not sure how many of you feel like this, but when I get this way, the littlest thing can set me off, even though I know I shouldn't take it out on the people that push my buttons without knowing it.

Luckily, I'm calming myself down by making Christmas presents ... and the promise of not having to deal with my mother for four straight days.

Gift Guides

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Hoover and Dirt Devil. All opinions are 100% mine.

You know what I want for Christmas? ... Okay, well aside from the obvious I would like a new vacuum for the cleaning work that I do. The one that I'm using right now isn't horrible, but I want one with so much more power and dirt sucking capabilities. I'm tired of having to go over carpet three or four times to get it clean. I want a
Dirt Devil. I know I'm not the only one who wants a high class vacuum for Christmas, perhaps there's someone on your list who would like one, too.



Even if you aren't in the market for a Dirt Devil this Christmas, you should still take a look at the Dirt Devil Holiday Gift Guide. Despite the possibly misleading name, the guide is full of a goldmine of information about finding the best deals this holiday season so that your wallet doesn't feel the pinch as tightly.

There's some great sections in there about tips for online shopping for Cyber Monday, and even ways to focus your thoughts when shopping for him or for her. The guide even has over 300 websites with great deals for you to check out: for men, women, and children. It's your guide to one-stop shopping for the holidays -- without any of the hassle of traffic, long lines, or crowded malls.

Banging My Head Through the Wall

That's exactly what I feel like doing. Sure, I've got all the work done today that I need to turn in, but I still have a term paper about A Midsummer Night's Dream due tomorrow and it's less than half written. But I know what I'm going to say, and that's really half the battle. Right? Please agree with me.

Last night the craft club when about two hours longer than expected so I wasn't able to do a lot of school work before plonking down on my sleepless bed and trying to shut out consciousness. I was fairly effective, but I really didn't want to get up this morning. Oh well, I did, and I made it to school for my 09:00 class.

Yay for me. Yay for French.

Oh! And I'm very excited because I'm getting one of those lovely ornaments from Three Fate's Design that I was telling you about. My name twin and I shall trade. I'm so excited there's this big grin on my face that I can't make go away. I'm not really sure I want to, either.

I never hated Shakespeare before taking this class. My teacher is too enthusiastic and it, quite frankly, sucks. Not to mention it's kinda boring. Imagine that! The master of comedy and action and human psychology is boring!

And so I bang my head on the wall ... or just wish that I could.

New IZEA Program

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Sponsored Tweets. All opinions are 100% mine.

It seems like our economy here in the States is effecting everyone right now, no matter how well they were doing before. A little extra income is always a great idea. One of the great and easy ways to get a little extra income (especially around the holidays when our pocket books seem to be oh so shallow and the demand oh so high) is to monetize the things that you already do online.

If you're sitting at your computer right now saying, "Yeah? So what? I already do paid blogging and advertising. What else is there?" I'll tell you: sponsored tweeting. It's easy and painless to sign up for sponsored tweets by IZEA.

Sometimes it can be difficult to figure out if a paid advertising company is a scam or not, but with IZEA run things like SponsoredTweets.com I don't have to worry. IZEA is a very reputable company with nothing short of honorable business practices. Working for IZEA is great and I'm glad that they're expanding out of just blogs to include microblogging as well.

The whole thing works by setting your own price on how much you'd like to be paid for each tweet, and then the advertisers will give you offers that you can either accept or deny. It's completely user run and so easy to use I don't know why anyone with a Twitter account wouldn't sign up. At the very least it's a few more bucks in your pocket and hardly any hassle at all.

Move Ins and Moving On

Yesterday was a pretty great day for me: I finished the final touches of cleaning on an apartment so people can move into that sometime this week and work can get started on the apartment they're moving out of. ... And I filled out my W4 so that I am now officially a member of the crew here at our lovely apartment complex.

It's really nice to know that I don't have to keep looking around for a job anymore. I have one. And a place to live. And I'm surrounded by loving people who like me for who I am and not what I believe or what I can do for them. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that they enjoy the things I can do for them, but that's not contingent on our being friends.

Conditional friendship is not friendship at all. I guess that's a lesson I'm still learning.

I'm still having hard days. Sometimes the pain that bogs me down on the hard days seems heavier than the happiness that consumes me on the good days. But I haven't chopped off all my hair in frustration yet, so we'll see what happens next.

Tweeting-a-Cause

There's really no better feeling in the world than knowing that you've helped someone in need, especially a child. Giving time and money sometimes can be very difficult, but right now Make A Wish Foundation and LeapFish are taking the extra step to help make an ill child's wish come true. How can you help? How does Twitter factor into this? Because these two organizations have banded together to bring us tweet-a-cause. For every tweet, LeapFish will donate five cents to the Make A Wish Foundation to grant this very special child his dream of going to Disneyland. LeapFish has pledged to donate up to $10,000 to make this wish come true!

You might be a little curious about the child, himself, and that's quite alright. He's a four year old little boy who has been suffering since birth from a life threatening, rare disease. His one wish is that he and his family go to Disneyland, and LeapFish (through the Adopt-a-Wish program) has teamed up with Twitter to grant him that wish.

To date, Make a Wish has granted wishes to 174,000 children, and what a great way to grant the wish of another one. Encourage your friends and family to tweet about Jacob as well so that he and his family can get to Disneyland that much faster. What a great way to celebrate Thanksgiving, as well. It's stories like Jacob's that remind us all we have to really be thankful for.

This campaign will run from today, November 16th until November 27th, so please, don't wait. Tweet.

I Want One ...

This being the first year that I will actually have a Christmas tree, I want to decorate it with lovely handmade ornaments rather than cookie cutter ones ... although there might be a few cookies hanging from our tree ...

Anyway, I was looking around some of my favorite shops and I spotted these over at
Three Fates Design. And I want one ...



... Or all of them. Really, I'm not that picky.

I'm in a Treasury!!!

It's wonderful, isn't it? I went to sleep last night a little sad for no apparent reason and when I woke up this morning I found this link to a Treasury! Yay!

Doesn't my hair barrette look great next to the other treasures? It's a Treasury for New EFA (Etsy for Animals) members and now I'm really happy I decided to join. 10% of my proceeds would have gone to charity anyway, why not join a group that's just about that?

I'm just really excited and can't keep this smile off my face. ... So I decided to share the love!

TGIF

It felt like it should be Friday when it was Tuesday. Then it felt like Friday again when it was Thursday. And now it is Friday. Truly, truly.

The best part isn't even that I get to put my feet up and not think about that freakin' Shakespeare *grumble, grumble, grumble* paper until Sunday. .... Nope.

The best part is that today my wonderful boss and very good friend of mine let me borrow her camera after hearing about the unfortunate demise of my own some months ago. Hence the brand new pictures and products up on Etsy. Seriously, go check it out, you won't be disappointed.

I had a great time at my impromptu photo shoot with the rock outside my front door. It was quite possibly the most action that rock has gotten in weeks (if not months). These are some of my favorite shots from today, but all in all, I don't think there were very many bad shots in the bunch (F.Y.I. I didn't post the bad shots, so that doesn't really matter).

Oooohhh!!!! Before I forget: Don't forget that there's 25% off my store until the 18th (a week from today). All you have to do is tell me your favorite holiday song at the time of sale. I don't care if it's for Christmas, Hanukah or whatnot, just be sure it's not offensive.
Now, I know that not all of these pieces are up on Etsy right now, so if you decide you want one of the ones that doesn't have a listing yet, just convo me on Etsy and I'll set up one specially for you.


What was pretty hilarious, though, was when my sister decided to take a picture of her foot while I was changing headbands. Oh silly foot. Silly camera. Silly banana. ... Nevermind.

Discount Code

25% off my entire shop from now until November 13th at noon PST. The only requirement is that at the time of sale you convo me your favorite holiday song title.

Item No. 73

As promised, here is the end result of my crafting last night. It's made from a variegated cotton yarn using a coronet trim pattern to form an adjustable headband or a neck warmer. Whichever you so please.

I really like how this looks when combined with the white ribbons I sewed onto each end to allow it to be tied securely closed. It's freakin' adorable!

You can find Item No. 73 up on Etsy. I am so ready to make more of these in different patterns and in different colors! It's amazingly easy and fun. As far as the name goes ... let's just say I was having a post-modern moment.

This experiment proved quite useful and productive for me. I love that this doesn't pinch my head when I wear it, and that it's adjustable to pretty much any size head (I happen to have a big head and hats/headbands are often just a tad too small).

I'm always open to custom orders if you have something else in mind or want something like this in a different length. Just send me a convo on Etsy and I'll see what I can cook up in my kitchen of crafting.

There's No Cats in America!

... Okay, we all know this isn't true, but the song was playing through my mind all day today as I went from class to class.

I am so tired this week, although I've been sleeping better. It was a weight off my back when my comparative literature professor announced that he's cutting out the final novel from our schedule to give us more time to focus on our papers and fully discussing George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss. Actually, that was the main reason he changed things up -- he didn't want to plow through such a work of genius.

There is something about the blatant sexism and disparity in the lives of women that Eliot captures in her novels that sets my heart racing and puts tears in my eyes. I identify so much with Maggie and her struggles, so much more than any other heroine I've heard about or read. Her inner turmoil and desire to be loved is ... frankly, quite touching and heartbreaking.

Oddly enough, I was also thinking a lot about my crafting as I sat through my lectures today. In Women's Health, as the guest speaker was discussing domestic violence I was mentally pairing buttons with yarn (naughty of me, I know) and thinking about different ideas and styles of hair pretties that would look awesome as anything else while still being functional and wearable.

I have a few ideas for new products that I'm going to try out this weekend to break up the monotony of research for my comparative lit and Shakespeare essays. I'm not sure how they'll turn out, so I won't say anything else about them right now, but you'll get pictures if I like the end result.

It's sad that I'm not going to be reading Flaubert's A Sentimental Education this semester, but at least I have it to read at my leisure.