I hate Flash. It's bulky and awkward and I can't use my Photoshop shortcuts and I hate it. (edit 1) Photoshop CS4 (just got it at work a month ago) is being a pain in the butt, too. I think I'll get CS2 for my home computer later.

(edit two) I took Finn to the park yesterday and we had a great time. He's learning to heel quickly. He'd walk with his nose just below my hand and watch me -- I love that. I could have dropped the lead and he probably would have stayed there.

I took a lot of pictures that looked great when I took them, but when I put them on my computer, everything was too bright and washed out. I'm still learning how to manage the new camera. I might be able to touch up a few, but most aren't any good.

Hopefully, I won't ruin the set from the next trip.


(edit 3) I'm going to make Kye a badge (shape badge, I think) for FWA. And I want to make a badge for myself of Fishboy and Spot. Just 'cause. I don't even know if I'll be going to FWA. :P

I love Fishboy, my pudgie fantail kid. I've toyed with the idea of him being a Ryukin, thanks to my Japanese pals who decided to name him Gyodan (I don't know how Rika and Megumi came up with it. Google tells me that gyodan means 'fake food' or something). I mean, he's got a Japanese name so he might as well be a Japanese breed.

I got teased so much for the character because, unbeknownst to me, Osamu's nickname is Sakana-kun, or 'Fish Boy'. I'll have to scan one of the notes that Rika wrote on a Fishboy doodle. It's hilarious. To say the least, the 'Katie loves Osamu!' teasing is wrong. I liked Shoma much better. Hahaha.

Tonight driving home from IHOP, I passed a hitchhiker -- looked like a teen boy, and for the first time in ages, I wished that I was a guy so I could pick him up and take him to where ever he was headed without having to worry about being raped or whatever generally happens to lone girls who pick up hitchhikers at night. Had it been any time other than 1 am Saturday night, past my curfew, I would have stopped.

I hope he's okay, that he found a safe place to stay the night, and was picked up by some one friendly. I hope someone gave him a hug tonight and that when he gets home, his family will want him there and love him. I hope he doesn't do drugs, or drink, or smoke; that he stays out of trouble and that he has some one who is a good influence on him. I hope that if I see him again, I'll stop and offer him a place to stay if he needs it.

The hindrances that come with being a girl really suck sometimes.

I grew some gourd plants (Lagenaria siceraria) three years ago but only one fruit grew. It was set aside in my garage to dry and this summer I finally did something with it.

While it was growing, I had decided that I wanted to make a canteen out of it and after a long search, finally found instructions on how to do that. The gourd was soaked in water and the dried mold was scraped off. The inside was cleaned using a handful of sharp fish gravel and small crystals. Because of the shape of the gourd, not all of the dried flesh can be removed, and coating the inside is a necessary step to keep the water from being tainted with nasty gourd-taste. I rubbed wax onto the neck of the gourd, and the cork (currently misplaced) is also coated with wax, to give the neck a better seal.

The harness is made of hemp cord, with a weave that I figured out how to make in college (I needed a bag to hold my phone and ID card when I was on the beach, had an empty water bottle and a bunch of cordage lying about, and oila -- net bag). The strap is a five strand fingerloop braid. The weave and strap used up a full 30 yards of cordage, however the weave that I used is very stretchy and after some use, I ended up tightening the supporting cords by removing almost two extra feet.

The gourd hold a full half-gallon of water. I've grown more gourds this year and got some interesting shapes out of the crop. Should the shells be thick enough for use, I'll be making more canteens, bowls, and maybe-hopefully a maté cup come summer.


( Pics behind the cut )

I finished my pants. They're 'Thai fisherman pants' which means they're really big and baggy, but look sweeet. I want to make another pair to hone down on my pattern and, now that I have some idea of how to use a sewing machine, make a pair that I don't have redo twice and a half times.

I'll have pictures up soon.

IHOP-ATL's having our own 'renewal' services, sort of like what's happening with the student revival-thing in KC. We'll be doing them Friday and Saturday starting at 1900, and Sunday at 1800. IHOP time is divided into two hour sets where a musician(s) play and there are set prayer meeting and such. 7 pm is right in the middle of the 1800 set, which my friend plays tomorrow. We've no idea how they're gonna do that. Hah.

Anyways, I am so stoked about this. Last Sunday was soooo rich. David Sliker from IHOP-KC came down and spoke at the morning service and was set to speak again for the evening service (which I attend). We worshiped, I drew my heart and talked with God with my pencil and listened to some things He had to say. We prayed in tongues for a little longer than usual, but nothing out of the ordinary at first.

During my internship, we were having some wild moves of God during services, so when David's mic wasn't working and the whole congregation fell into fits of laughter, it wasn't that unusual. We continued to worship and for the first time ever, I saw people dance up to the offering plate. :P At one point, Sliker called people to the front to be prayed for (I forgot the exact reason). I went up and wasn't feeling anything for a long while. Then a girl (I didn't catch her face/name) started praying for me and I just collapsed in tears. I had a nice talk with God for awhile and then - uh, I'm trembling thinking about it - I felt free like I had never felt before.

By that time, the music had started up again and I danced for hours. I danced once, during a wild night on the Watch, but not like this. I felt comfortable, totally at peace and ease, and free. I didn't fall out or get hit with laughter or get twitchy like a lot of the folks did, but what I experienced was real and just as powerful. I'm so excited for what God has planned for the next couple weeks.

As soon as I hear back from Meriam (of Dancing Man Knives), I'm ordering my ulu. I've decided on the Fish River ulu, with the 6" blade (still a little unsure about the size, might get the 5", but 6" is where I'm leaning). I've been needing a knife for a long while now and I finally have the money to get a good one. All of the reviews I've read (ie, extensive research), led me to decide on getting an ulu, but specifically a blade from Maynard Linder. His are hand-crafted, with great quality, and the Inuit ladies that have culturally relied on an ulu apparently love his blades. I'm confident about getting the knife, and though it's more than I like paying for anything, the price is very reasonable for the level of craftsmanship out into the blade. And I say that before getting the ulu. :P

I'll have a new icon set up later. I'm getting tired of this one.

RPing with a guy who's character is trying to hit on yours while you know that your character is never going to fall for it is really amusing. Like, for real.

Oh, Cam. You are so silly. -_-

Ender's Game

Suffering. Intent. Manipulation.
Sorrow. Death of Self. Restoration.

( blech. )

That's all. Not really a rant.

First off, how to navigate Letters from a Sojourner.

I've got some sort of code in there that has hidden the boards, and I don't know what it is. So! HERE is the journal. OVER HERE is the writing portion, which only has my LoW work for now. More stories and RPs (*coughSimeoncough*) will be made available by request. And THIS WAY is the whole reason I've got the board -- my logs from the TLKMuck, Endless Round MU, and Bleaker MU.

Please be advised that the board is my test site, so sometimes the skins will be really weird.

I'm reading Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. It is deep and intriguing and rich, but oh, it is suffering. It's a story of intent and manipulation. I'm not finished with it yet.

I'll have a rant up next post.

Fenrir and I are working on getting Slimemold back up and running. I get to play with tables again. YAY!

. . .

I forgot what else I had planned for this. Consider this a work in progress.

uh.....yeah. Rant next.

The stillness that comes with snow is overwhelming. I stand in the cold and stretch my senses out into the night. The hush is overwhelming. Only the wind and low chime of the bells dare break the quiet. Every living thing is still, unified by the urgency, the peace that can not stand the sin of noise.

I stand and breathe in the cold air, eagerly suffering the crisp touch that moves into my lungs.

As of yesterday, I didn't exist.


. . . just thoughts.

It washed out. :)

I couldn't get back to my beaver until yesterday. A dog (I think) had pulled him out of the garbage bags I had him in and took a nibble. Not too much damage, but the bones were broken above the hind feet. I took one hind foot and a forepaw -- they're in a jar of salt now. I'll be going to the store today for alcohol to preserve them better.

I tried again to skin the tail but that didn't work out. :\ The fur above the tail was still good - no slipping - but with how long he'd been sitting out, I didn't want to skin that off, just in case. Anyways, I dumped the body behind the garage of the abandoned house across the street. I'll be checking in on it every now and then for the bones and teeth. I'm hoping he doesn't get eaten up too much.

I clipped off more of the fat and muscle that I'd missed Sunday night and resalted the beaver hide. Resalted the squirrel, too -- it's looking good.

I'm not sure how I'm going to tan them yet. . .

Until this day, I have never skinned anything. There was the First Squirrel, but my neighbor did most, if not all, of the skinning on that one. Today there was the second squirrel and a beaver. That's right. A BEAVER. Of the roadkill variety. I didn't think we -had- beavers in the area.

I found her in the turn lane onto a highway -- near woods but not where I thought there might be a creek or beavers. My first thought was that maybe it had been trapped and fell out of somebody's truck. But I don't think so. I've never seen beavers in person before, but this thing was massive.

Anyways, I took her home and skinned her. I don't have a knife and I ran out of Xacto blades on my squirrel, so I used a plain razor, like a box cutter without a handle. It was so messy. Not bloody-messy, just lots to flesh later messy. I brought her home right around 1700 -- I had an hour of daylight and the temperature was already dropping. I finished, like, two hours later. It was really cold outside. And my back is killing me, but now I've got a sizable piece of beaver hide being salted.

I wasn't able to get the tail off, or the feet. I'm gonna try again tomorrow. After that, the body will go into the backyard of an abandoned house 'cross the street and I'll wait for the thing to decompose. The skull is absolutely shattered -- my pal says that he's never found a dead beaver with a whole skull. The only thing there that looks to be whole are the teeth.

I have no idea how trappers get these things skinned in circles. My pelt is a nice broad rectangle shape. And I did mean to go to church tonight.

That is the last thing you want to say in the presence of a sister who is dead-thing squeamish.

But the squirrel really isn't in the freezer anymore.

I picked him up (definitely male) three weeks ago near somebody's driveway on my way home from work. His face was bashed in, but he has such a gorgeous pelt - normal grey color except for these broad, bright orange streaks on his sides. He'd been in the freezer since then, sitting in the empty Eggo waffle box, waiting for the weather to warm up so I wouldn't have to freeze my fingers off trying to skin him.

I set him out last night to thaw and when I got out of bed this morning, he was ready to go. The rest of the family was at church, so I had a few hours to work on him. I case-skinned him and it worked pretty well. I put a hole near the tip of his tail, but I think that's repairable. Another small hole where his manly pieces used to be, and he's missing his claws. I didn't know how one kept the claws on a hide and when I pulled the legs out too quick, the claws stayed on his bony feet. When I went to skin around his head, the neck and head were badly mangled by the car hit, and the head popped off the body. I could see skull fragments coming out the back of the neck and everything inside was a bloody mess (dark, rich red -- really interesting color). I decided that was a little more than I wanted to deal with, so now my pelt is headless.

He's salted up and sitting in my shed -- I used proper salt this time, not the rock salt I had tried with my last squirrel. This pelt looks -way- nicer than my first one. The case skinning was hard to start off, but once I figured it out, it was nice and easy until I got to the shoulders and busted neck. With the last squirrel, my neighbor helped me skin her. I cut too deep into the neck and got it all bloody. I don't deal well with blood and I had to sit down for awhile until my head stopped spinning. This time, there was no queasiness at all. Just like the cat dissection. It was great.

I'll mostly likely be tanning him with alum.

I dumped the corpse in the alley, but I think I'm gonna get him back and try to macerate him. He had a lot more flesh on him than my coyote skull, so because of the smell, I'll probably set my bucket up in the treehouse where the dogs can't get him. Squirrel feet are -really- interesting. I'm hoping to get those and most of the vertebrae -- I'll see what I can trade for those over at Fur, Hide, and Bone group.

The last couple of days have been interesting.

Blind came for a visit Saturday and Sunday. My folks were a little anxious at first because they've never met him before and the details I gave were sketchy at best. I wish it hadn't been so cold; I'd rather walk and talk rather than sit around the house, but the latter was the only option available this time because it was too cold for both of our likings. I might have to save up so I can get a copy of "Firefly" for Blind.

During lunch Sunday, Mom mentioned Ruth which, after Blind had left, put me in a funk. I sat on my roof and thought about things for awhile, then crashed on the floor for a couple hours. (I've been sleeping on my floor more often these days, both purposefully and accidentally).

Went to IHOP for Encounter Service and I got a pleasant surprise because David was there. He's living in Phoenix now, which is too far away. Jessica, Alex, and Spencer all showed up later, too. Ricky Patterson came by as well. The worship and message was really good; I couldn't get Ri and another off of my mind and at one point, I broke down and cried - kept most of it back, but it was such an emotional swirl. Ricky gave me a sprig of mistletoe that he and his daughter had knocked out of a tree earlier that day. I've got it hanging in my room now.

Ricky and his daughter and her friend came over to my house after the service to drop off a massive easel -- a 7', gorgeous stand. Just lovely. I showed him my bone collection in full and we had a good talk. We've a lot in common (artists, bone collectors, similar flavors of literature). Mom okay'd the trip he's got planned; originally it was going to be himself, Andy, Ri and her dad; and later it was going to be the same crew except I'd be going instead of Andy; but with current circumstances, that's not going to happen now. So the new arrangement is going to be himself, Dad, and me. We'd be going to coastal South Carolina to look at art and find things.

Today's been decent. Mindless work + emotionally/situationally sympathetic music + thoughts = a funk. Not the best, but not bad either. Just. . . stuck.

That's right.

Anyone know a good latke recipe?

EDIT: I made latkes Sunday. I used too much oil and we didn't have paper towels so I could pat the latkes dry. Mom says I had the heat on too high, which was way the oil burnt into the pan. I think I'll need to press the potato mix a little harder to squeeze out more of the extra water.

Other than the too much oil, and me forgetting to put salt and pepper in the first batch, the latkes were really, really good.

I used this recipe: http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2001/dec/latkes/011206.latkes.html

I RP at an X-Men RP called Weapon XVI (http://weaponxvi.proboards.com/index.cgi).

( Pictures of some of the characters here: )

It smelled like you in my car today.

When are you coming home?

Yesterday, I wore:

Light green skirt with the pale top/cami-thing
falling apart, high-top converses
teal bandana

My legs haven't been shaved in three months!

My knife went into my left shoe


We had all staff intercession yesterday, so everyone saw it. 8D

Here is my prize project that took way too long to do: the Possum Purse.

The idea started when my dad jokingly suggested that we make key pads for his saxophone out of possum instead of buying expensive kangaroo pads. So I jokingly went on eBay and had a look around. I ended up buying a possum pelt, and it arrived the day before I left for college. Huzzah for good timing!

My roommates had to suffer the possum coming out every now and then and get itself sliced and diced and stitched back up into the shape of a bag. I was fortunate to have very tolerant roommates. :D

The bag is 11x8x2". The front piece and flap are made with the possum's back and face, respectively. I had planned on stitching the tail onto the front, too, but popular vote decided that that was a bad idea.

Both fur pieces are lined with red toile. I stitched green amazonite beads for eyes (I'd originally planned on having bright turquoise eyes, but couldn't find the beads in the right shape or size). The sides and back are double layered toile, and the bottom has three layers. At one point, I was hand-stitching four layers of toile (not a thin fabric!) and possum hide together. The fabric side of the nose isn't stitched on yet and is only attached by a couple loops of thread through the nostrils on the face. I'll need to get some sort of glue to keep it there -- the hide is too stiff and the fur too thin to risk stitching it all the way up.

The current strap is actually two straps tied together. Each was fingerloop braided, and set with jasper beads. I'd planned for the straps to work in a shoulderbag style, or as a knapsack, but the latter ended up not working. The buttons are bamboo toggle buttons. I will most likely be switching out the strap for a matching toile strap. The current one is a little too narrow for my liking and the beads have a tendency to dig into my shoulder. The bamboo buttons will probably get replaced with simple red buttons; though I might consider antler if I can find a style that I like, or maybe even make my own wood buttons.