Whirlwind of Activity

Finally a moment where I can come up for air! The last few weeks have been major amounts of stress. I won't get into it, but between family, work and a furbaby (one of my cats) being hit by a car...it's been a rollercoaster ride. All of the above are fine now, including Tink, who is fast on the way to healing from her injuries. Whew!

I'm currently working on a few projects. Multi-tasking, as it were. I'm trying to finish some knitting projects for Christmas presents, as well as working on henna projects. The latter will be sold at my next Henna Openhouse in November. I'll also be selling them at OCHSA's Winter Boutique.

A few of these henna-ed objects: Henna decorated boxes and candles. I use old henna that has been sitting out, pretty much leftover after a gig. I don't like re-using this henna on clients as the stain cannot always be guaranteed. So, rather than wasting the henna and it's lovely lavender scent, I've been decorating wood objects and candles with it.

One cool thing, even after the henna has dried and been varnished, you can still smell that lavender. ;-)

Here's a sample of some of the Henna Luminary Candles that I've created:


Pretty cool, right?

Upcoming event:
November Openhouse at my place. Yeah!!!
I'll post about September's openhouse later ;-)

"Seriously?" or "The Freeway IS NOT Your Personal Potty"

I was driving down the freeway towards the beach. There's this part where it ends and becomes a major boulevard. As I near this section, to my left is the emergency shoulder, which is roughly 2 cars wide. I see this white SUV pulled over to the side of the road. There's this girl who appears to be in her 20's, wearing one of those little sundresses one would throw on over a bathing suit, running around the car like she's really upset. At this point, I'm thinking she has a flat tire or something. I actually thought about pulling over and calling AAA for her because she looked positively frantic.

Bear in mind there's a LOT of traffic so I'm inching along next the vehicle. I can see her peering in through windows in a panic. Now I'm thinking she locked her kid in the car or something. I drive a few feet forward and as I do this, I can see through my driver's side mirror that the front passenger door has opened. I am relieved to know that there's someone w/ her and that she isn't locked out.

That's when I see it...still through my sideview mirror...

This chick gets in front of door, I'm assuming to block the view of traffic passing the SUV. However, anyone driving past and looking back can SEE HER. She gets in front of the door, LIFTS her skirt, pulls her little yellow bikini bottoms down and SQUATS DOWN to PEE ON THE SIDE OF THE FREEWAY. Ladies and gentlemen, she's doing this IN FRONT OF RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC!!!!

The best part? Right in mid-flow, as it were, a CHiPpie pulls up on his motorcycle behind the SUV, lights flashing. You can actually see the officer doing the 'WHAT THE HECK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?' motions as the girl is rapidly trying to pull her bottoms up. Her male companion is making signs like he's trying to explain himself.

Now, I don't know what happened after this because traffic began moving again. One thing's for sure. I bet that girl never does that again. Seriously, I don't care how bad you have to go, you just don't do that sort of thing where EVERYONE, LITERALLY under the sun can see you. Good gawd, I don't know what gets into some people!

Ren Faire 2009

We finally made it to the Renaissance Faire...on closing day! :-) I wanted to get Chris' costume started, but unfortunately we couldn't find the items he wanted. All we walked away with were pants in a nice shade of green. I'm kind of glad we didn't impulse shop because I've been looking around the net and found a lot more cooler options for the character he wants to be.



There's nothing like spending a nice day at the Faire w/ your family. I loved seeing all the different costumes and characters that people came up with. I have only ONE complaint.

Ladies, seriously. Wench outfits are sexy, you're meant to show cleavage, BUT quite frankly it's pretty gross when you've squished and squeezed your ample breasts out SO MUCH that the blue veins in your mammary glands look like they are about to explode . You women know who I'm talking about. Seriously, it's neither fun, nor sexy. It just looks POSITIVELY PAINFUL!!! PLEASE STOP THE MADNESS!

Whew! Ok, I've had my say.

Among our highlights of the day...watching 2 great shows: The Kondor Bros (a juggling act) and of course, The Van Kleaver Bros (a comedy/knife throwing act who we are great fans of). Both were amazing and very funny. If you ever get a chance to see them, I highly recommend it. I was joking around that I'd love to get the Van Kleaver Brothers for my birthday party next year. hehehe

I have to say, one of my favorite parts is dressing up. I'm hoping that the next time we go, Chris will be decked out. People who were dressed up kept razzing the poor guy saying he was 'naked' ... I'm assuming because they couldn't 'see' his modern clothes? :-p So my mission is to get him outfitted...then maybe work on a new one for me. I'm wavering between a 'huntress' or maybe something exotic...like tribal. hmmmm

Enjoy the slide show. I hope I put the code in right. :-D

Happy Birthday to ME :-)

First I have to say, THANKS EVERYONE for all the birthday wishes. I did have a wonderful birthday. :D

Chris is the bestest ever! He took us out for an early bday dinner at Cheesecake Factory...he even 'made' me buy a slice of the "30th Anniversary Chocolate Cheesecake" to take home. Man that place has HUGE portions. I could only finish half my meal. We ended up sharing that slice of cheesecake the next day, but mmmm...so delish!


Anyways, he took my actual birthday off from work so that I could sleep in. Do you know, that boy got up at 5am, baked me a birthday cake, frosted it, made the kids breakfast, packed their lunches and then took them to school? When he got home, he even made me breakfast! We were gonna go for a hike on the jetty for the picnic lunch we couldn't do on our anniversary, but alas, the weather was rainy. Instead we went out for clam chowder. :)

This is the cake. I wanted German chocolate w/ the coconut frosting. he made it half that and half milk chocolate. Yeah, I know, one side looks like its barfing. We think it was just the kind of frosting he bought cuz the other side was fine. hehehe


Oh and did I mention? Our lease is up in a couple of months for my jeep. It just so happens that between dealer incentives and sales (and the fact that we have a friend that works at dealership...hehe) he paid off our lease early and BOUGHT A NEW CAR!!! YahooBear is so cute...he wanted to make it so that we could call it my 'birthday car'. He asked me what I wanted to name it, and we both said "WESTLEY!" at the same time. We are big "Princess Bride" fans here. When it came time to open my real present, he kept joking that it would go perfectly with my car. He said he didn't mean it to be that way since he bought it well before we thought of buying this car. Y'all, it was a Dread Pirate Roberts action figure! :lol


The family car (because I hate calling it 'just mine') is a Chevy Traverse, which is a SUV Crossover. It's got loads of room, and gets amazing mileage. I just have to get used to driving a slightly bigger car than my Jeep was. ;)


Yes, overall, a wonderful birthday...it would have been even w/o the Traverse. I love that guy ☺♥☺

Valentine's Day... can you feel the love?

Yes, I know Valentine's day was five days ago, but I gotta say, it was a pretty cool day. First of all, the biggest thing is that it's also my Lola's birthday. She turned 95. EVERYONE who could make it was in town to celebrate. We're talking most of her 10 children, a lot of her 31 grandchildren and lots of her great-grandkids.

I woke up early so I could get ready for the day and also bake heart-shaped brownies for my family. I let the cool by the sink on a rack and turned my back to put another batch in the oven. Next thing I know, I hear this *CRASH* I turn around and Tink is sitting in the sink w/ the brownies dumped over on the other side of the sink. Her eyes are huge saucers that speak volumes of "Oh $h!t, I'm in trouble now!"


Needless to say she was. I unceremoniously picked her up by the scruff of the neck and tossed her on the ground. It wasn't til later that I realized it was her birthday, too...Her FIRST! (Yes, indeed, Tink is a Valentine's day kitty.) I was thinking maybe she thought the brownies were hers? hehe

Later that morning, my sister and I met our cousins at "The Beach House" for brunch. Our cousin, Mary, set the whole thing up because we rarely get to see each other. It was a blast catching up and also meeting their spouses...our newest cousins. I love that our cousins picked the most amazing people to marry. They're all so perfect for each other and I'm glad to finally have met everyone :-) There was lots of laughter, so much so that even our waitress couldn't help but laugh and joke as she served us. You gotta love my family :-)

That afternoon, Luz and I went over to the restaurant to decorate for Lola's party. Pretty soon the whole room was filled w/ heart-shaped balloons, sparkly decorations...and PEOPLE...LOTS of PEOPLE! We have a pretty large family just on my mom's side. Lola has 10 children, about 31 grandchildren and countless great-grands. Even two of Lola's sisters were there with a few of their kids. I think she was pretty overwhelmed w/ the crowd, but I think she loved it judging by the huge smile she had the entire time.





There's more pics of the party here. Everyone had a great time.

I should add one more thing. When we got home, Chris gave me some Valentine's day cards. I say 'cards' because he bought several of them. He told me he had a hard time deciding which one to buy because they were all perfect. I'm smiling now because they were pretty cute and funny :-)

THen there was one more. From Tink.
The Front:

Inside:

Love Transcends Distance

I read this amazing story today on MSN: "Boy Photoshops a Girl: A Flickr Love Story". It just goes along w/ what I believe about Soulmates and fate. Here are two people who live thousands of miles apart across an ocean, but meet each other, of all places, on Flickr.com. Her friends noticed they had a similar photography style. Around that same time, he just happened to notice her work, too, and contacted her.

I won't go into too much detail, but what I love is that they started emailing back and forth due to their common talents in photography. This lead into an incredible collaborative project. You have to check out their page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aknacer/sets/72157605881081844/

The rest is history. My romantic heart hopes that everything works out for them so they can be together :-)

Whew! FINALLY, I did it!

Yes, boys and girls, yours truly has FINALLY updated her website. Please feel free to look around.

Here's a list of what I've updated:
*Events Page...I've got a solo show at Alta Coffee Co. throughout February
*Henna Page...I re-vamped and organized. It needed to be done really, really bad. Awesome thing is that I figured out how to embed my flicker slideshow.
*Soulmate Fantasy Paintings...I separated body of works. I had to start a new section for 2008 to present ;-)
*AND A new Henna Bio...I know there are potential clients who wonder how long I've been in the business. Can you believe it's been 10 YEARS???? WOW!

That's the big news. There ya go. Have fun looking :-)

Oh yeah! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! It's the Year of the Ox :-)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Goodbye hellish 2008 and welcome 2009!!!

I'm not sure how everyone out there is feeling, but I'm SO OVER 2008. As I said in my last post, it was not the best year ever. Sure, some of it was good, but all the health issues for everyone. Sheesh!

Too many people I care about had bad mogumbo going on. IF it wasn't hospitalization, it was a death. It just seemed like too much all at once, and all in one year.

SO...my wish for you is that this year brings incredible joy, health, abundance, and peace.

Love,
Me