Ok, I've already got my wishlist up at holiday_wishes this year so that means I'm already working on compiling card lists.

If you'd like a card, please post here. Comments are screened. Even if you think I have your address, please make it easy on me and put it here again just so they are all in one place.

I'll be working on cards for the next few weeks probably going out in batches.

If you'd like to send one to me, here's my address:

Miss M. Turner
PO BOX 1484
Elfers, FL 34680
USA


I'll still send you a card if you can't reciprocate. No worries. I just enjoy spreading some holiday cheer.

It’s another Monday. Can you feel the excitement oozing from my pores?

A cold front is blowing is, and the sky is gray this morning. The wind is pretty chilly too. The sun is supposed to come out today, and I hope it does, because I have got to get those two baby tomato plants into pots today. The temperature is going to drop a lot tonight, and I want to save those plants. Oh yes, I don’t think I mentioned it before, but there’s two tomato plants growing in that wagon! The larger one is getting flowers on it too, and a late tomato or two would be oh so nice. If it’s really going to get down into the 30’s tonight, I want to get those tomato plants into the laundry room.

The only other things on the agenda for today is getting milk and fresh veggies at the store, baking bread and cookies, and the usual Monday housework. Yeah, the “only” other things. In other words, it’s going to be a typical busy Monday. Blech. As gray, windy, and chilly as it is this morning, I’d really rather just crawl back into bed with the cats!

Originally posted at Just Orb.

(The holiday_wishes community is open as of today so here's a copy of the wishlist I submitted. Figured I'd put it here too just for the heck of it! You can find me on the community here: http://community.livejournal.com/holiday_wishes/1474680.html )

About Me
Greetings! I'm Miss M., I'm 32 and I live in Florida with my guy and two kitties. I battle through chronic pain and illness and because of this, am unable to hold a "normal" full-time job. As of August 2008 though, I've gotten a part-time job so I'm celebrating over a year back at work. I'm really proud of myself for the accomplishment. I run a small site called PhoenixFire Designs where I make custom jewelry and other items as a means of supplemental income.

I've been a very active member of the community and this is my fourth year participating. I will be heading through the community and trying to fulfill as many wishes as I can again this year. I truly love the holiday season and enjoy spreading a little cheer. It's amazing how the little things can warm our day. The last years have been AMAZING in this community and I'm looking forward to more joy both giving and receiving again in 2009.


Wishlist!
1. To have a good season on PhoenixFire Designs. (And/or my etsy storefront) I make custom jewelry, dollhouse miniatures and other items. I don't want hand-outs, I want to sell my work so I've earned it and someone has gotten something else in return. I make lovely items and I'm happy to work with anyone on customizing pieces either for themselves or for gifts. Even posting a banner or spreading my link is appreciated. You can post it in your journal, your facebook, twitter - anything! Just get the link out if you can't buy anything personally. I'd just like to earn a little money for the holidays.

2. Anything from my amazon wishlist. I don't mind gently used items. I'm a big believer that many things in life can be enjoyed by more then one person and shared. (And if you already own something on the list and want to recycle it, that's awesome too!)

3. Handknit socks. I LOVE handknit socks and I can't knit to save my life. I wear a size US 6.5 shoe and have little feet. My feet are perpetually cold and I'd love you forever if you made me some socks. There is no such thing as too many pairs of awesome socks.

4. Anything handmade. Being crafty myself, I love handmade items. Knitted, sewn, glasswork, ceramics, woodworking, art - all awesome. I truly love things people made with their hands and skill. I have a wist full of handmade goodies I covet that might serve as inspiration! :)

5. Craft supplies, most notably anything I can use for beading. Swarovski crystal, glass beads, gemstone beads, gemstone chips, spacers, metallic beads, memory wire, jewelry wire, stringing material - you name it, I love it. You can never have enough. New bead supplies are always a giddy moment. (And I'd love you if you got me 24 gauge Artistic Brand Wire. I use it for my Tree of Life pendants and it's my favorite wire but I can't find it locally anywhere!) Beyond beading, I'm also crafty (paper crafts, stamps, decoupage, polymer clay and tools, miniatures, etc.) so I'd love just about anything I can create with!

6. Anything Disney. I'm a big fan. I collect Disney trading pins, I have a bunch of Disney dvd's, I enjoy Walt Disney World, and generally just love being a kid and having a total escape from the mundane that it offers. (This includes Pixar as well!) I live a little over an hour away from Walt Disney World. I just love all things Disney!

7. Gift certificates. For just about anywhere. I would really love one for a clothes/shoes store, a national bookstore chain, or someplace for beauty items like Sephora/Ulta. (Places I never tend to spend money on myself in the name of "being responsible" at but would love to.) I don't mind if you've used part of it and have $7.52 left on it. I know sometimes people give you ones for places you might not like or need or use and they sit and collect dust in your wallet.

8. Entertainment goodies. I read a ton of fantasy fiction, vamp fic, etc. (Get an idea of my tastes on my goodreads list) and can always use more books! (Used is fine!) Craft or sewing books would rock as well. Or any movies/dvds/tv shows that are awesome that you don't want anymore or think more people should see that I can watch. Or maybe you have old PS2 games, or Gameboy Advance or Nintendo DS cartridges you don't play any longer. (Yeah, I'm out of date on my video game systems!) Stuff to entertain and have fun with.

9. My pipe dream wish: A digital countertop kiln. Yes I know it's unrealistic. But sometimes you have to just put your intentions and dreams out there to the universe to make them happen. I dream of making fused glass pendants, working with PMC and getting into new aspects of my jewelry. So on the list it goes!

And last but certainly not least... 10. Holiday cards! Bonus if they have penguins on them, or owls, or winter scenes and extra bonus if they are Yule/Solstice themed. But honestly, any and all cards are SO welcome! I absolutely love mail. I check my mailbox every day because I just love getting mail. It's like a present.

Miss M. Turner
PO BOX 1484
Elfers, FL 34680
USA

missm(at)giveneyestosee.com


Thank you in advance! I hope you and yours have a beautiful holiday season!

Good grief. I am running around like a mad ghost crab this week.

The Etsy Shop is up and runnning with new pictures of most of my items with my dandy new digital camera, a Fuji Finepix A220 with 12 megapixels. Two items need to be rephotoed, but that can wait till tomorrow. New items are now listed and more are on the way.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/orthaevelve

I had a fantastic time doing crafts and playing with dead things with Jarin and Solo. The Mitsukami system happily bartered with me for lion bones, and I gave them a 1920s full case skinned Fisher pelt which did not leave them all night. The pelt was great, with face, paws and claws still intact and in good condition and seemed happy to be with them.

Crystal Fox up in Laurel also took quite a few of my pendants to sell on consignment, which makes me very happy. The amount I spent on books makes me very sad, but knocks some major ones off my reading list. Still my wallet says OUCH!

The three of us, with Jenn, the owner of The Silver Phoenyx are gearing up for the rock show all next weekend. It is a $5.00 entry fee with a huge load of minerals, carvings, fossils, gems, jewelry and even some kid stuff. If you ask me, I also have flyers with $1.00 coupons on them that I will happily give out. If you can make it, please come at least take a look. For you magical practicioners, it will be VERY well worth your time if you work with fossils, stones or crystals at all.

Jarin and I will be vending at Midnight on the 28th of November as well if you want to come see us. Also, if you want commissions done by Yule of anything whatsoever, let me know as soon as possible and before December 10. After that, chances are slim I will be able to finish any but simple projects in time for the holidays.

I think that's it. More pieces will go up on Etsy when I get the next round of photos done. Lion claws are coming up again, this batch newer. Also, cougar and lynx claw pendants are on the way.

I have some cuts on the knuckles on the first and second fingers of the right hand. Looks like the knuckles have been split in fact.

Four people in one night asked who it was I'd beaten up.

In reality I'd simply scraped them against a wall whilst helping someone shift a sofa.

I just did the evening fire ant check. I am pleased. I appear to be winning this war more quickly than I anticipated!

The original monster colony has not a single ant moving anywhere near any of the mounds or tunnels. The second monster colony has a few workers wandering around somewhat aimlessly, but mostly there are just Ghost Ants hauling off the spoils of war –dead ants and dead ant eggs. That leaves the two mounds in the far back yard, which I guess I’ll get started on tomorrow.

This is working much better than I expected and a whole lot faster. I fully expected it to be “kill some here one day, they move there the next” kind of thing. But no, I seem to be getting rid of them pretty quickly. Faster than most of the standard poisons, actually.

I guess now I’ll have to add “walking the whole yard looking for fire ant mounds” to my weekly task list … right up there with “walking the yard and chopping down baby pear trees.” I will have a fire ant and pear tree free yard! Yippee!

Originally posted at Just Orb.

At downtown disney for thei annual art show, Festival of the Masters. Free event and always a lot of interesting thing to see! Text msg from M

The mailman came hours ago, but I forgot I was expecting something in the mail, so I putz around getting out there to see what he’d deposited in our box today. I should have gone out sooner! My new blood glucose meter arrived! I can’t believe I forgot it was on the way.

It’s very nice. It also has a bunch of features and functions and an instruction manual I need to read to explain them all. I’m very excited!

If it’s wrong to be excited about medical equipment, I don’t want to be right.

Originally posted at Just Orb.

My intention this morning was to sleep in. Not a lot, just a couple hours beyond sunrise. Getting to sleep in beyond sunrise in this household is a wonderful and blessed event. So I toddled off to bed well before midnight, pleased to be looking forward to an actual full night’s sleep. Alas, whatever my intentions had been, the cats had other ideas.

At 7 am, I was awakened by the shrieks of Myu being attacked by Ronin a mere couple of feet from my head. Unlike my alarm clock, fighting cats do not have a snooze button. After such an adrenalin-pumping arousal, there was no going back to sleep either, so I stumbled into the kitchen and made coffee, and then stomped into the living room to gripe to Lin about Ronin being an ass. One by one, each cat came up and licked my hand, and then put on their “Aren’t We Adorable” faces. Grrrr. They know being cute gets them out of trouble. I’m such a sucker for The Cute.

Naturally, I fed them, which is what all the ruckus this morning was about anyway. I wasn’t awake and tending to their every early morning need. They were dying of starvation! Wasting away! Daddy wasn’t feeding them, and I was their only hope! Uh huh. All three of these monsters could live off their fat reserves for at least a week without harm. As per usual, they each ate two bites of food –oh yes, they were SO hungry– and then they tore around the house for about an hour.

Now they are all passed out and sleeping contentedly on the bed. I do believe I will go pester the living daylights out of them as soon as I finish this cup of coffee. If I don’t get to sleep in … no one does!

Originally posted at Just Orb.

It's already fading and it didn't make any sense anyway* and I couldn't begin to describe the whole long, convoluted thing but at the end of it, I was in some sort of casino-like place with people (it started out as a power and light company??). A black guy (not racist, just detailed) was fighting with (and being chased around the place by) a security guard and was all amped up (possibly on something). I kept trying to get out of their way but couldn't. I got down on the floor to try and move out of the amped up guy's way and be less noticeable. He noticed me and swooped down on me and then I was trying to talk him down, keep him from hurting me. He had a razor blade of some kind, and he was using me as leverage with the security (now cops? Maybe the cops arrived or something?). But it wasn't working and so he used the razor blade on my right eye. I didn't feel pain in my dream, I don't think, but I could tell he got my eye because I sensed pain and I also felt blood start pouring down my face. I felt despair and that my world had just been fucked up, and then I woke up.

-----
My dad was in it, and possibly, briefly, my mom. Cats were in it (mine?), I was staying at the place or something and they screwed up a set of sheets and blankets; I bought part of a new set from them, and they screwed those up too. They weren't going to replace them. There was a family with a number of kids getting in the way of my dad trying to help me get them to replace my sheets and blanket. I guess my dad got angry, and he told ME to fuck off or something equally shocking and rude. So I stalked off and was in the process of angrily fucking off when the amped up guy came into the dream as described above.

Like I said, it made no sense and was convoluted. Needless to say, I'm glad it was all just a dream.

I hadn’t realized how much Tora has grown the last couple of months, but look at her! She’s almost full-grown cat-sized! And she’s still the sweetest and most wonderful cat in the household. We hope that continues, because it offsets the total terrors the other two usually are.

And yes, I am intentionally cropped out of this photo, because a) I am having a bad hair day and b) I had a maniacal look on my face most likely caused by a day spent torturing fire ants to death.

Originally posted at Just Orb.

Many fire ants died today.

That is all.

I think I am winning the war!

Originally posted at Just Orb.

...for an email from someone about Meetups, dated November 7th.

Creepy eel at the florida aquarium tampa florida.
Originally uploaded by PhoenixFireDesigns


(Not too bad for taking it with a cell phone through thick glass in a dark room.)

annaonthemoon and her new hubby are honeymooning in Orlando this week and were nice enough to come out to Tampa to visit with me yesterday. We went to the Florida Aquarium in downtown Tampa. I forgot my camera at home (after specifically charging the battery and everything) but I did snag this one shot because the eel was too creepy not to try.

We had a lot of fun and her new Mr is a great guy. I'm glad they were able to come out and spend the day on my side of town.

Here is the price list for various bodily offenses, current as of 2009-11-13. Anytime you commit one of these offenses you have to pay Sangi the set amount. No exceptions. You can pay my PayPal account.

a sneeze... 1 nickel
half sneezes count, and so do ones that die in your nose and do not come all the way out

a burp...10 cents

a hiccup...20 cents

a cough...25 cents

a fart...25 cents
unless it's an SBD (Silent But Deadly), then it's 50 cents

barfing...1 dollar
2 dollars if you get it on the furniture

---

These prices will also be charged retroactively for the past 10 years. I've calculated the amount everybody owes me and it's a ridiculous amount, so I'll be nice and generous and settle for just $100 from each of you.

Bite this!

• 17:23 18 hrs, 8 ibuprofen, 1 Ultracet & half an Ultram later -- no more Level 7 pain. Now I'm down to nausea. #
• 17:25 Meanwhile, I'm @ my parents' house while Dad is in the hosp. for gall bladder. Wishing for my own bed. #

Fangs to LoudTwitter for these juicy tidbits.

One of the piles of dead ants. Just look at all the winged reproductives I slayed! Woo hoo!

Originally posted at Just Orb.

Well at least we'll get to see the remainder of the season and Joss can close it out right.

Unlike Firefly.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118011179.html?categoryid=14&cs=1&ref=verttv

Sad but at least it gets to end kinda properly.

Calhoun

I decided to walk the whole property and look for fire ants. Might as well see how bad it is beyond the part of the yard we use, right?

Oh … my … god.

There’s one more collection of three well-established mounds that are close enough to one another, I’d guess it’s another multi-queen colony. The mounds themselves aren’t very large yet, so they are first on the list for boiling water in the morning. They are about the same size and composition as the one mound I totally eradicated with a mere one gallon of hot water.

There’s one non-mound group that took up residence under a wooden post I had at the end of one of my garden beds. I moved the post, and maybe they’ll move on to a location I can get to them easier. Can’t very well use boiling water near my plants’ roots.

There are a couple of very small mounds here and there I will get to before they are large, but aren’t a top priority.

Then there’s the mother of all fire ant mounds, formally known as the compost heap. Right on top is a neat and tidy little mound. I poked the leafy heap, and sure enough … nothing but fire ants. I ran away quickly. It’s a good thing I didn’t just walk back there and stick my hands into that to get some leafy matter for in the garden. I shudder to think what would have happened. I don’t think boiling water is going to work on that one, which isn’t going to stop me from trying anyway. The water should run through the leafy matter easily, and it’s entirely possible none of their actual nest in below the actual ground level.

Glad I went out and checked the whole yard^†. Now I know how big the problem is. Pretty damn big, but I think I can get rid of a lot of them just with the boiling water.

Now that awful huge one I have been working on for a couple of days? Diminished activity, little to no mound rebuilding, and many, many dead ant bodies lying in piles. I seem to have at least damaged them pretty well, so I will keep at it. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I got rid of all the fire ants in the yard without using any poisons, organic or not? I’d really like that. It’s worth the trouble of boiling some water and carrying large pots back and forth a few times every morning to not use any poisons at all.

So the Fire Ant War goes on. Hopefully, it will be over soon, because I have to get back to the War on Pear Trees. Yes, the pear trees have made a new appearance again. Fewer than before, but still … I want none of them anywhere in the yard!

Footnotes

1. † Didn’t check beyond the woodpile though. After encountering the compost heap frull of fire ants, I was pretty much done with wanting to look for fire ants. [↩]

Originally posted at Just Orb.

Strangely I feel peaceful. Some regret but peaceful.

More later if I feel like sharing. This may not be a feeling I can share in words though.

Calhoun

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Curtains

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I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t buy the kill-them-this-instant fire ant poison. I got that feeling in the pit of my stomach while reading the labels and warnings that I suspect is the same feeling a truly devout religious believer gets when they know they are about to commit a mortal sin. There was a feeling of terror too. Do I really want to have anything to do with something that almost suggests one should wear a HazMat suit while using it and then burn the HazMat suit afterward and enter a chemical decontamination unit to have the top layer of skin seared off … just to be safe? I’m barely kidding.

Have you read the labels and warnings on these things?! I knew they were bad, but I didn’t know they were THAT bad.

So it’s back to boiling water for now, and this weekend we’ll just have to find a local source for the Greenlight with Conserve that is organic-safe. I don’t care if it takes a couple of weeks to kill the ants. I’d rather not put anything as hazardous as regular fire ant poisons into my environment. Too damn dangerous.

Speaking of boiling water, I think I’ll put a few pots on now and spend some more time killing ants this afternoon. Since they are so kind to bring out their dead every night, which gives me a nice accounting of how well my efforts are succeeding, I have noted that two queens have been killed, a slew of workers, larva, and eggs are dead, and a bunch of the winged reproductives have fallen as well. So, I am making progress. Maybe I just need to keep at it for a few more days and won’t need any poisons at all, organic or not.

Originally posted at Just Orb.

Why does wild Atlantic salmon need to have color added? Natural isn’t good enough?

Originally posted at Just Orb.