Digital Dreaming by =SpookyChan on deviantART

<3

-Chan

( Again )

My friends and I made it. Tedious work, let me tell you.

I was just chatting with Melissa, who is in Florida right now to visit the theme parks, and was hit with a huge wave of nostalgia. She was telling me about the tornado warning they're having and how hard the rain is coming down and it immediately reminded me of one time I went back to Florida to visit and I swam for five days in the ocean without taking a shower. My hair was so salty that I could move it in any direction and it would stay that way, even if the wind was blowing. Suddenly we had a huge storm and the rain was coming down in such a torrential downpour that I grabbed the shampoo and conditioner (no need to change, I was living in my bathing suit anyway) and ran outside to take a shower in the rain. I stood in the middle of the cracked, sun bleached parking lot as bubbles ran down and soaked my suit and got in my eyes and watched the dark clouds churn over the choppy surf over the bushes that hid the beach from view. The water pressure was even better than in the condo and the smell was amazing as the hot, salty, overbaked asphalt smell was swept away by the fresh, clear scent of a Florida storm.

Then that brought back all kinds of other memories, running around with my childhood buds, Adam and Alex, pretending we were superheros (X-men was a favorite, I was always Storm because I could just say, "Tornadoes, you're all dead!" That contended with Sonic the Hedgehog where we would run about with our arms extended backwards making whooshing noises and Doctor Robotnik lurked behind every bush. Adam was always Sonic, Alex was Tails, and I made up my own character, girl!Tails, because I thought the rabbit was stupid), learning how to body surf on the sandbar and getting warm saltwater up my nose, shuffling in the surf to scare away stingrays, finding giant purple sand dollars and finding they dye your hands when you pick them up, finding old chicken bones on the beach, bleached and scoured by the sand, and telling my mom I'd discovered dinosaur fossils, fighting the seagulls to valiantly protect our potato chips, covering ourselves with temporary tattoos, only to dismay as the salt cracked them right away, hunting for ghost crabs at night, watching dolphin pods swim past just out of reach every half hour, and boogey boarding in the surf.

I think my favorite memories of Anna Maria will always be riding in the bow of the motorboat clinging to a rope because in my six year old mind that would totally keep me from bouncing out into the turquoise waves. We watched manatees bobbing in the shallow seagrass, saw flocks of stingrays gliding above white sand bars, visited giant banks of sand dollars in the middle of open water, and bounced about on the surf when it got choppy, only slowing down enough that the adult's beers wouldn't spill. We visited places like Egmont Key where we explored the ruins of a 19th century Spanish-American war fort that is falling into the sea.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Orlando&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=46.005754,93.076172&ie=UTF8&ll=27.581355,-82.76425&spn=0.001581,0.00284&t=h&z=19

You can see here at the entrance to Tampa Bay are three islands.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Orlando&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=46.005754,93.076172&ie=UTF8&ll=27.558504,-82.728596&spn=0.101203,0.181789&t=h&z=13

The top one is Egmont Key, the middle one is a bird reserve where it's illegal to set foot on the land, but there's always a fleet of boats anchored in the shallows where people swim, and the bottom one is Anna Maria Island. Here is the condo where we always stayed.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=106834468197765553684.0004600efc9eac931a7cf&ll=27.514,-82.724028&spn=0,359.99716&t=h&z=19&layer=c&cbll=27.51394,-82.724112&panoid=-QHoZZFY8Bxy9a4E7oFy_A&cbp=12,291.09,,0,-1.37

We visited this place nearly every weekend during the summer, I think it's one of the unsung paradises of the world. Some of my favorite sunsets have been viewed sitting in five dollar lawn chairs perched in the pillow soft sand.

After all that I realized that our friends who own the condo and boat are "on Dad's side", as in they became his friends after the divorce. I wouldn't know how to contact them and I'm sure it would be incredibly awkward to even talk to them anyway. So much for that idea. It's still an amazing place and I'll always treasure the time I spent there ♥.

Now I'm listening to Hotel California on repeat because that's what we always listened to driving down to the condo, crossing the colossal Sunshine Bridge over the bay. I'm dying to smell the warm saltwater and swim at a beach. And no, a smelly, murky lake here in Minnesota won't do either. I have an irrational fear of swimming in lakes, and that's multiplied tenfold if it's murky. I don't know why, it just makes my stomach crawl.

NAT, MESSA, WE SHOULD TAKE A MAGICAL, PARENTAL GUIDANCE FREE TRIP DOWN TO FLORIDA, SPEND A COUPLE DAYS IN DISNEY WORLD, THEN GO RELAX AT ANNA MARIA. THAT WOULD BE SO FUCKING AWESOME I CAN'T EVEN STAND IT.

ANYWAY, next week is going to be magical. Friends, booze, and theme parks, HELL TO THE YEAH.

Edit: Also, I finally got a twitter last night and wouldn't you know it, it's not compatible with my phone. So much for that idea. I also tried to go update my blog and customize the look, but it's all fucked up and it won't let me do anything. WTF blogspot, where is your faq, hobag?

The Jackalope Is Driven Further Into Suburbia

The natural habitat of the Jackalope is in danger and it drives the Jackalope further and further into suburbia.

Yay, I finished something! :D

( Ta-da! )

So, I was suppose to have a really cool shot of my first trip to Starbucks, but I forgot my memory card and didn't get it :( Here's one of those random ideas that I was so not dressed for...LOL!

I was going to go to bed but I got distracted. My students saw me a few minutes later and laughed at me.

This is when the puppies are in "aw how cute" stage and not "oh my god take them away already." You couldn't pick up one that night without all the others climbing on top of you.

http://returninghomefromexile.wordpress.com/2008/12/15/a-murder-in-front-of-the-girls-hostel/

I am on the verge of destroying my sewing machine with a baseball bat.


Basically, I am trying to reconstruct a tshirt. I am sewing a tshirt to another material that is somewhat stretchy... almost exactly like the same fabric as the  tshirt. My sewing machine will sew a few stitches and then the thread will break and tangle. I have done everything I know to do. I have rethreaded, changed the bobbin, changed the tension... I am absolutely positive that my machine is threaded correctly.

What's weird is that it will sew perfectly fine on other fabrics. I was making a pillow from stretchy felt and didn't have a single problem.



Am I doing something wrong? It's almost as if the tshirt fabric itself is causing the thread to tangle and break. I am completely stumped.