Children Rant

Child free is the new PC for the old childless! But I still feel that's not the right way to say it, you see your life will never be child Free between nieces, nephews and your lovable breeder friends, kids will be in your life, and in that comes the awkward balance of the endless prods of "when are you having kids" "you're next" "time to start a family"(like two some how will never be a family) "are you trying yet" I always want to get snarky with this one and go all off caller and say "thanks for asking about your grandsons rate of penetrating my vagina!" But alas I still play nice. then when you answer, the forceful shaming starts: "you'll change your mind" I think of this like knowing your gay I knew when I was six I did not want kids, it's who I am! "what if your spouse wants kids" "but The Lord said go forth and multiply" "what if when you're older your spouse resents you not giving them kids" implying that you are to dumb to talk to your spouse before this nosey random relative. This is a big cultural issue no means NO people! Do I really have to pull out the shocker "I hate kids" to shut you up? I don't really hate them but in the last 20years it's the only thing that has remotely gotten you off my back! Here is the truth I love my nieces nephews and my friends kids are a big part of my life. Dinner with the girls is now dinner with my friends and catching up with their little ones(that are quickly getting taller than me). So how does a person that has No desire to breed walk the line of happy aunt with out the world instantly assuming your secritly pining to pop out some crying stinkbags of your own? Well you don't! Do what makes you happy and when they push, walk off. laugh at them or get creative about it IE "I love kids, yah I love sending them Home" "we are just so happy getting a full night sleep" "just because I'm a decent person to kids doesn't mean I want one, I'm a decent person to snakes and spiders but I don't want them in my house!" "What are you talking about I am a great mom to my dogs, but it helps that I can kennel them and Leave!" My stand by is a simple "I was ment to be an aunt" it inplys purpus in a respectful way, with out any of the condasinding know-it-all they repededly shove at you, and some how reassures there need to believe children should be worshiped.

Pottery Chess Set

So if you'd like to try something similar some time this is what it took to make this full chess set and bored for my hubby for Christmas.

First thins first, I did a tun of research on different sets and options I found lots of simple options on pinterst but I had to do something unique, I saw some animal and nerdy pieces but I decided to go with animals: Dogs VS Cats. I knew I could do mice with the cats but it took time to decide on rabbits for the Dogs pawns.

Then I had to work on size and workable shapes so I printed out a paper with chess pieces on it and cut out each piece, then marked out the size of each of the pieces and sketched out individual unique art for all 12 different pieces:

2 kings Lion and GrateDain

2 Queens Lioness and Husky

2 Bishops Russian blue and Greyhound

2 Knights Bowing cat and Hyena

2 Rooks Cat on pillows and Dog house

2 Pawns Mice and Rabbits

Next was to cut out the drawings and make them 3d in clay, I cut out each drawing and an extra in card-stock incase the clay was too wet and destroyed the original. I rolled out the clay to just over an inch thick and set each cut out on the clay and with a x-acto knife cut out the shapes(much lick a cookie cutter would).

1 fore each King and Queen

2 for each Bishop, Knight and Rook.

8 for each Pawn.  

Each time I cut a piece out I carefully shaped and sculpted it into a semblance of the animal I was trying for, really this was the most painstaking part of the whole process (it killed my hands). Then I set them all to dry and be bisque fired. Once that was done I started working on the chess board by rolling out a sheet of clay 1\2"thick and just over 14" squared trimmed it to size, marked each of the 8x8 grid with a ruler and set it to dry and bisque bake.... Full disclosure the fist bored I made was to thin and and brooke to pieces before it even dried so I went through this process twice. 

After supper stressing about it all making it though the kiln they all came out looking great the board was a bit warped but all together for clay it was a miracle that it all made it through.<p>

  From here it was just wax coat the bases of each piece and glazing them, for the board I painted the wax on the bottom (this keeps the glaze from attaching the pieces to the kiln)I did a coat of a light gray wight glaze on the top, then I panted on 3 coughs of glaze on each of the odd squares to make the checkered pattern with some dark greanblue, I also put some on the edges just to finish the look. Again it was time to sweat and pray that it all would make it through the next kiln.

  A week latter I went in to the lab and picked up the whole thing !It All Made It Through! after getting it home and setting it up some of the pieces rocked a little witch was fine cuss to finish the set I put eva crafting foam on the bottoms of everything now it looks grate and my hubby is crazy impressed!

Well I hope this inspires you or helps you get a better understanding for your next craft.

The Inventing Process: According to google and my lifes happenstance.

So I had an idea and we my husband and I are going to try to make it a reality. from time to time I'll come on here and update were we are to give a sort of timeline

fall 2013; I had the idea I have many all the time. *We had just got a cat and were dealing with the all the hassle of cat litter. now I grow up with several cats and it was alway my job to scoop the poop so I have spent far to much of my life doing just that. as an adult living in the 21st century I just could not wrap my head around this rally being the only option, the gears in my head started turning and I could not get the idea out of my head. I looked up what other options were out there and just could not buy in to any of them most only did half of the job or just made a bigger mess to clean up.

spring; 2014 refined it enough to start to really believe in it, research what to do next. *I started looking in to what it tacks to get a patent the difents between a patent and a copyright or triad mark. Start a journal that i sing and date each time i work on the project. work on finding someone I trust to get answers about Pattens

march; call patent attorney, more research. *veary nice upfront with the real cost a realist $10,000 to get a patent and at leat two years before you have it if you get it, some one can alway turn something in a day before you and get the patent first.

April; meet patent attorney, they do patent such. more research. *Patten such, basically does it already exist if so don't wast your time. $1,200 one of the most important starting steps! Always Google to see if it exists before you do anything else!

May; It is a unique idea! more research. *though there are some automatic litter boxes now work like mine or the way mine dose this is when thing start to feel real the gravity of the commitment to bringing this to life sets in at the very lest this is a five year commitment!

Holy cow what now? more research.

Find engineers! more research.

More research, well crud someone else is trying to develop in the same market! Edasen nation is a inventing website that focus on solving real world problems that they know there is a market for, this is when i found out that they were doing a call out to salve this exact problem, this can be seen two ways 'All of the internet vs me" or "the people with the nonie to know a good market just confirmed I'm solving a need" I choose the latter.

patent attorney suggest moving forward with patent. more research.

meet with engineers, more research.

June; start working on domain names FIAL! work harder, find a great name, its being sat on, put in an offer and wait... more research to the tune of about 10,000 names....... this is a helpful page for giving you way to many options http://www.leandomainsearch.com this one is much better for less options http://wordoid.com

more helpful sits when making a domain http://www.bustaname.com/help/video http://www.rhymezone.com/?loc=bar http://www.scrabblefinder.com http://www.wordsmith.org/anagram/ http://wordoid.com http://www.valuate.com 30,000 names latter we have a website.

8-17-14 We are patent pending!!!! The world is big and we are about to jump in feet first, I've spent the last week at Gen Con and really enjoyed trade day. I feel a little better prepared for running our upcoming Kickstarter and my head is spinning with all of the things I've learned and how to apply them. Also this is a great link on attaching Facebook to Twitter http://thinkingoutsidethesandbox.ca/how-to-connect-a-twitter-account-to-your-facebook-business-page/#.U_FM8FZd78s

8-20-14 start back at school tacking an entruprnural class to help me get more of a handle on things.

August 2014, consult accountant on llc vs s corp ect they surest for us LLC

August 2014 make a first pick video and finely show the world what we have ben up to

September 2014: find a local incubated and joint their pitch competition.

September 2014: refocus with engineers on how the guts are supposed to work, end with simplify for better quality.

I've moved... again.

I've moved 19 times it's not fun, but you get really good at making anywere home, the problem with wanderlust is you don't know what home is. Chasing the sky is romantic, but all it is is running away. The best cure I know is be your own home, feel safe we're you are, with who you are and know your needs, once you are at home in your self surround your self with what makes you happy/healthy then travel the world. Home is a metaphor for safety and security it's something you can take with you, but it's also some thing you can build up and come back to after a long journey (like a privet battery with all the things that recharge you).  

The new face book game.

15 random facts about me: 

1: I'm an autodidact.

2: I've been happily married to my beat friend over 5 years but still count the three before that as much of the accomplishment. 

3: I have 4 out of 5 forms of dyslexia and have DNA correlated to  dyslexia.

4: I could not read till I was 12, and still find walls in my brain that only time will brake no matter my effort or dedication it just slips away(witch is maddening, till I remember all the other gifts it affords me). 

5: I'm simply bad at many things IE shaving and seeing clear things like plastic.

6: I'm simply good at some things IE seeing something crafty then doing it.

8: My love sing is time spent.

9: Any day I would prefer to talk on the phone over texting( to many things are unsaid in texts).

10: I adopt everything/one if I can feed you or you need on ear I'm here for you.

11: I get hurt a lot by letting so many so close but it's who I am to love.

12: boundaries are my new thing, I will offer much but within what my health allows, I have no space in my life for selfishness or negatively (Bry calls me lawful good).    

13: I stay busy, I have a blog, I have a body image health page, and I have a Vlog. 

14: I am happy, I have learned hard work is good work and apply myself daily to the good work of being positive.

15: I am endlessly proud of my friends, as they grow and change I see some of the parts they have had to hid to survive come out and make them amazing people, many of my closest friend are people I rarely get to see but no matter the distance they still light up my life <3

If you like this I'll give you a number feel free to try it or not but I'd love to know more about you 

Sleepless

A year and a half of my husband on his CPAP we have learned a lot: he starts getting crabby it gets worse, I ask how he's sleeping, he tells me his mask is giving him troubles at night, I order new caissons for his mask one for now one for latter, we find out that one last about 3 months if you clean them right. I learn what to look for, he learns its okay to tell me he's having trouble or needs something. Okay we are getting much better at this...  Friday night the CPAP Stops working!!!!! It's the weekend and all health care places are closed! Okay well I can order one online and get it rushed here overnight? We try, Saturday we here nothing, Sunday we here nothing, Monday and Bry is a zombie, thoughts are unclear, simple things are to complicated, frustration and anger are all that come easy to him. He has gotten an email saying he has to have a prescription  before they will send his CPAP we think no big deal will call his doc get it faxed over and only one more night without it. No his pulmanolagest refuses to send the RX she has not seen him in a year and he's out of state now.... no advice, no help, no general health concern, she just flat out will not sing it! 20 phone calls and going to a healthcare supply  store and no one can help us with our the RX. I call the pumanagests office again the receptionist is rude really rude, but can not answer my question of " can you tell me it would do more harm for him to have it than him going with out" so she transfers me to a nurse(an angle of kindness for all I know) she here's me out  but can't find a way to help but offers to take it directly to the sleep doc when he gets in in the morning  . The next day we find a doc that can take him  here, eventually, and put him on the cancellation list. By this point I'm not letting Bry drive he fights anger all day and works crazy hard to tell me how much he appreciates all I'm doing, all I can do is laugh when he try's to complement me and it comes out as "you'll be a crazy old coot when your old"  he loves me and is saying I love you thank you,  it just come out as crazy old coot. That afternoon the new doc office calls they "have a 7:55 am opening tomorrow do we want it?" YES!!! If its on the moon we will be there! 5:00pm that night the old doc office calls the pulmanolagest singed the RX no explanation Nothing! We still keep the 7:55 appointment. they are all wonderful at the new doc's office but don't have a CPAP he can use they send us home with the hope that the one in the mail will be here soon(still not here). then we get a call back at noon they found a loner can we come by at 1? YES! So 1pm we head back and Bry gets a loner Cpap!!! A week later and Bry is still catching back up on sleep. Life is much better, Bry can be happy about things and think straght, we still do not have his new Cpap or his old one but as long as he has one I don't care! This is what it's Really like living with sleep apnea, completely treatable hassle on a daly basses,  that makes things like travail or camping very difficult but you Never want to go with out!!! 

Apnea, Sleep Study and CPAP

So with sleep disorders on the rise more and more people are getting sleep study's and ending up with darthvader masks at night IE welcome to the future. brief  theoretical explanation: our food is softer so over generations our jaws get smaller so too our air ways narrow and TaDa not breathing at night, add weight gain (more mass = more prasher on the air way) lack of exercise (weaker lungs don't help) and we have an epidemic. ". . It is estimated that 22 million Americans suffer from sleep apnea, with 80 percent of the cases of moderate and severe obstructive sleep apnea undiagnosed."

http://www.sleepapnea.org/i-am-a-health-care-professional.html

Now try to explain that to a 24 year old male who has not sleep well in about a year and all but gave up sleeping in the last two months. That was my life last year my husband slowly transformed into a constantly angry confused guy that was failing his classes, nothing made sense and simple things were to much, witch always ended up in an argument. Stubborn anger were how he existed for about 3 months. 

Then I got totally burnt out, I was mad he was not sleeping, I was angry he had not set up a doctors appointment, I was angry he could not  change doctors(his primary was less than helpful in the past and Bry did not want to go back to him) I was devastated that my caring intelligent husband was being robed of living! This is where I stopped  listening to his "ill do it"and the "ill take care of it" this is when I realized he actually could not make phone calls think straight or  take care of him self, heartbreaking yes but not the end of the world! I stated making phone calls, he was mad at first (that I did not think he could do it), then he was surprised that things started to happen. I found him a doctor got him an appointment and before to long this bright young doctor had him referred to a pulmanolagest and a sleep lab, a month later I'm walking Bry through what he is going to see and what is going to happen  during a sleep study( I used to work at a hospital and interned for a short time at a sleep lab and have many family members with sleep apnea) he was intimidated by wires being attached to his head and body, I asherd him they the wires are one way and can only register his current !Not send current! and that if you ask they can show you your brain waves after the test. The night of this study they let me stay with him as he got hooked up, by the time he was hooked up he and his nurse were chatting, he was antsy but very entertained about how cool it all was now that he could see it all! That night I went home all hopes of my husband and marriage riding on that little room in the basement of a five story hospital. 

5am I get up dive to the hospital and pick up My husband! My Bryan! My Happy silly sweet kind happy yes happy Bryan! He explains that he was bad enough that half way through the night the nurse put a CPAP on him and he slept the best sleep he could remember he was so hyper for the first couple  of hours  then went back to sluggish and annoyed, by that night he was back to not wanting to sleep, But this time it was " I don't even want to sleep with out it"  so I stepped in again and started making phone calls, you see when medical professionals  know you actually want their treatment, are thankful and want to take care of yourself they tend to push things through  a bit faster so in 2 week Bry had his very own  Cpap and I got the love of my life back! that was 2012 

-more in part 2-

Blogers Block!

So turns out Bloging is hard, and you can get writers block from having too big of a subject to wright about. Over the last two months I have been trying to wright and rewright, drafted and redraft a blog about love, and thats the thing about love It's a big topic we all have had hard times hart breaks and if we are lucky something bigger than the imagination could ponder. So trying to put in words what true love is, ends up a vast and complicated topic, and so all my time and effort has ben focused on that, starting a vlog, changing job positions, getting honored as a Paige in Amtgard and various a-sundry other life things, but I'm still alive and working on this blog, I have many other topics I'm ready to jump in to, that may just waylay the "true love"(said as the priest from Princess Bride) blog but rest ushered some day I will publish that blog and it will be long. Till thin remember your beautiful and all the generations of humans it's taken to make the person you are today you are a masterpiece of millions of years of survival <3

Gen Con!

If you just don't get all the geeks and freaks dressed like every imaginable character running around down town Indy, well this is what I know, I am one of them. I love Gen Con, I love costuming, I spend hours on them every year and even just taught my husband to sew. I even have a different costume for everyday, but that's not the reason I go to Gen Con, I go because just like it's name General Convention it has everything, From Scrabble tournaments to true dungeon you will never be bored even if you go and don't register for any events you can walk around for four days and be constantly entertained by the amazing people, costumes and games you see.

So what is GenCon? GenCon is a general convention of everything gaming, if it comes with cards, dice, buttons, a map or a mouce you can bet your game is at GenCon in some way, But there are also giveaways contests and lectures. How I spent my GenCon Was

1; several true dungeons(yes I'm addicted we have more tokens than I care to speak about including actually buying a horn of plenty) If you've ever played D&D, try imagining walking into a life-size dungeon, kind of like a haunted house; anamatronic monsters, timed puzzels and simulated battles were you put little tokens (that symbolize your weapon)into sliders and slide them on the board (that has the image of said monster) to where you hit monster.

True dungeon is awesome weather you like to solve puzzles or have that instant Gratification of slaying the beast, you can choose to either run it on combat mode (slaying the beast) or on puzzle mode (have lots of intricate puzzle you have to work together as a group to solve). You get better equipment by getting more tokens, you get a pack of ten tokens at the beginning of the run and the more puzzles you salve, the more complicated rooms you "live" through the more tokens you get, You really have to use your brain, what's the Best strategy for killing the monster when it's immune to magic or how do we solve this puzzle that has six ropes that you need to make in to a star? It's really quite fun and the atmosphere is great, It's just a silly way of going on a nice little adventure and coming out with a good sense of achievement.

2; Lectures. This year I went to three different lectures and please do not think of them like a college lecture, thought they do have some really big lectures on things like how to write a book from your favorite authors. Many are simple 20 people classes with an intents view into That subject, taught by people that are so good at their hobbies that they became professionals, making a living off of doing this amazing fun stuff. Most lectures are an hour or two but they cram as much in to them as posible. This year I just got to three lectures, my first lecture Was on costume makeup (I suck at makeup The only style I knew growing up was 80's big hair bright red cheeks Texas style make up from my mom that does not work when you're trying to do anime) I learned some great things also the people who put on the lecture are great to watch on Facebook they are called sewing is half the battle They're so good at their costuming they actually won Goldenneedle(The Goldenneedle category is for costumes that are made completely by hand by you and your team and yes they can be more than one person usually that's because there's more than one person in the actual cosplay on stage). The next lecture that we went to was very small there were about 10 of us around the table with a professional mini painter. For those of you who don't know what minis are they are the miniatures that are used in games like Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer They usually come in plastic or pewter then you have to assemble the pieces, primar them, then paint them whatever colors you would like this Can be as simple as grey for zombies or intricate designs with hand-painted tapestries on flages and all kinds of amazing tinny things.

one of mine

Well since my husband and I went in on the kickstarter for reaper minis we just happen to have about 200 extra minnies laying around needing to get painted, So we wanted to get a little bit better and find out some tips and tricks on how to make our minnies really amazing. This class was great it has all kinds of neat little tricks everything from if the casting seam go's straight throug the eye just carve it out or put an eyepatch on it, some different painting techniques like always pant the bad eye first that way your little tiny mini will look great. Everything from paint choices to magnifying eyewear and lighting.

one of the instructors minis http://www.crookedeye.net

The third lecture I went to was an advance sewing class This was great I learned things like draping, patternmaking, different ways to make a dart, alternatives to pins and a lot of discussion on how to make a homemade dress form. Sewing for Geeks

3; Take pictures and pose for pictures. I love taking pictures of all the amazing costumes, people go all out to make amazing things just because they love the art of crafting, and so do I, so at 4 o'clock on Saturday when the costume parade was starting we jumped in My costume was steampunk Amelia Earhart, more to make a statement on woman empowerment Then to emulate a character. I got completely burnt out of all the costumes for girls being slutty nurse, slutty firefighter everything is either your slutty or your a which! So I steamunked up a great women that blazed a trail in our history. My husband wore his Dovahkiin costume and Fus Ro Dahed until he had no voice left.

Our costumes

It was a nice leisurely walk we stopped about every 45 seconds for photos and moved on, keep in mind the walls are packed with people with cameras for oh about 1/4 of a mile you walk in the parade and people take your pictures or video tape the parade and when I say prarade it's not small it's something like 3-400 people. 

4; Shoping, a good half of the Indiana convention center is taken up by the Vendors Hall any kind of dice you could imagine all kinds of new boardgames, Leather-working, Baffer swords, jewelry and a ton of geeky T-shirts It's all there! I get most of my Christmas shopping done at GenCon it's so full unique things, you really can find something for just about everyone and again it's a crazy atmosphere you just have to see it!

http://www.gencon.com

5; Shows, Some of my favorite shows are D 20 burlesque and whose line is it anyway as dirty as you want to be, I didn't make it to how's line but burlesque was awesome they take the best geeky things and make it into a funny show and there's a lot of geust interaction. It's funny, it's silly and of course it's sexy.

Anja Keister doing a Settlers of Catan skit www.d20burlesque.com

So that is a brief tiny little glimpse into the amazing thing that I love called Gen Con.

Costume Drama!

If you ever wonder why feminism is still needed, try looking for positive woman roll models to make into costumes, so far I have Captain Janeway... I'm not good at hair or jump suits.... Danielle De Barbarac woo more princesses..... but maybe Brienne of Tarth hmmm I don't think ANYthig from GoT is roll model worthy sigh...

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other thoughts..

Leela

Eowyn

Agatha Heterodyne