Come on Get Crafty: Spring Pastels and Stars

I did this one earlier, messing around with paint and magazines.  It's a bit sloppy but whatever.

Music this week: Nashville Returns plus some British divas

It's been ages since I did a Music this Week.  But here are some of the tunes I've been listening to a lot recently (in addition to Bastille's Laura Palmer).  Generally I've been trying to jam to some upbeat songs to uplift the mood.

1.  Don't Put Dirt on My Grave Just Yet - Nashville Cast (Hayden Panettiere)

This song has quickly become one of my favorite song (along with Something More) to blast whenever I am feeling disrespected and unappreciated.  Somethine More is for wallowing, this song is for yelling at the losers who are keeping you down and then getting on with making your life incredible!  You push on me, I'm gonna push back harder!!

Come on Get Crafty: Ring around

The stamps have been at it again!  I think this one turned out rather well! (Although my scanner seems to have added some grid lines that are not actually there.  Technology is an ever-changing mystery.)

Progress report: March

1.  Read Lean In, The Beauty Myth, Survival of the Prettiest, A Handmaid's Tale, and Gone Girl

Even though I started reading Beauty Myth and Survival of the Prettiest a while ago I've stalled on these two.  I should just hurry up and finish Prettiest because I'm finding it a bit disappointing.  However, I am also now reading Gone Girl and I LOVE IT.  This book is intense, thrilling, and so so engrossing.  I will probably finish it by the weekend.  And a friend of mine lent me Lean In so that will probably be next on the chopping block . . . although I'm finding reading the fiction books a lot easier.

I also read Bossypants last month, which was very very (laugh out loud) funny but also had some very interesting elements hidden in it.

2.  Finish reading Anna Karenina and Howards End.
I finished Howards End a while ago, probably before Christmas.  I enjoyed it.  Forrester is not my favorite classic British novelist but his writing is very amazing and breathtaking.  I do find some of his social analysis a little over my head at times though; I wish I knew more about the history he is dealing with, because his novels always deal with very interesting themes.  I found his examination of 'culture' in Howards End particularly fascinating.

3.  Learn some basic sewing and alteration.

Come on Get Crafty: Blue & Roses

It has been a while since I've done a crafty post, but I've been tinkering around with some card making and cannibalizing my fashion mags and catalogs again.

I originally wanted to do red nail polish drops but I couldn't find my red nail polish (I think I gave it away actually).  But I'm rather pleased with how the red paint came out instead.

Giving up my shopaholism

Lent rather sneaked up on me this year.  Tooling around on the internet, I started to wonder why everyone was suddenly discussing Mardi Gras.  Turns out it was because it WAS Mardi Gras.

2014 has not started out smashingly for me.  There are many major things in my life that I am not contented with and am frustrated with.  I have to work hard to find/make things to look forward to, and the slow linger of winter (no matter how normal and expected it is . . . March has always been wintery here) makes it hard to find the easy mental fixes and recharges that nature can offer.

I have noticed that as these troubles have arisen and also lingered, I have started to turn towards shopping as a temporary happy time in my (many) glum days.  I enjoy fashion for something-like-these-reasons: