So, I’ve been experimenting with something.  I’m a self-proclaimed addict to youtube videos that showcase people’s talents in Photoshop through the wonders of time-lapsing.  And then I thought ‘hey, I want to try one’.  So armed with various freewares from the net, I started out on this journey and I have to say, it’s an addiction in of itself.  I will post a video of my attempt (unfinished) in a moment, but first I have this to ask:

I have no idea how many people view this blog – from the stats, I can see there are a few visitors.  If you guys want to humor my fickle inspiration, I will post all my attempts.  So give me ideas, and I shall try to sketch them out as complete as I can.

And here’s that attempt I was talking about:

So I’m a nut when it comes to scrapbooking.  I don’t actually make anything useful or complete.  I’m more the nut who’ll gather all the necessary equipment, tools and cardstock then stare at them for hours wondering what to do.

Now I am starting to get back into the game a bit, thanks in large by this woman: http://www.kwernerdesign.com/blog/ – she makes the most adorable cards, and makes it look so easy!  Don’t be fooled, it isn’t easy to make these types of cards, and specially not to make them LOOK as easy as she does.

So tonight, I will swallow my pride and try to garner a small percentage of my creative talent toward making A card.  Give me a pencil, a brush and a blank canvas, and I might grind out something half-decent.  But scrapbooking has always seem like SUuuuuch an overwhelming hill to climb.  I promise a photo collection of my half-assed effort.  So you can laugh.  Or cry.  I promise you’ll do one or the other.

BTW, Ms Werner is now in my blogroll for easy access.  I strongly suggest you go gasp at her stuff.

You’ve no doubt seen the ads.  Floating to-do lists being checked by drivers of luxury looking utility vans.  It’s a romantic idea.  A life list.  Not your run-of-the-mill-need-milk-and-toilet-paper regular to-do list.  I haven’t worked on one so far, but I am thinking about it.  The idea struck me while we were driving through obscure farm country.  The road cut through mountains cut at the edge of the road and the formations were “decorated” with graffiti.  Now the eco-freaks are probably shunning this idea, and while I agree it’s not the most attractive idea, it made me think … damn, I’d like, once, to do something like that.  Just bring a spray can and write something idiotic like “Suki was here”. 

But this got me thinking … I need to work on a life list.  Something more important, obviously, than some nameless scribble in the middle of some untraveled road.  And nothing as kitchy as “Skydiving”.  Besides, I’ll wait until my kids are all grown up before I carelessly throw my life out of a moving plane.

So my first item to go on this life list is something I have been wanting to do forever.  It’s probably going to be a while before this item gets checked, but it will have priority over all the other ones.

- Purchase and run a farm.

You heard me.

World of Warcraft is, and always will be, a game I will return to.  I might gravitate to new interesting gaming platforms, but I tend to come back to this eventually.  Why is it so addictive?  Well gnome-thumping is pretty damn cool.

I’m a chick gamer.  This used to mean something.  It used to be that I was the only female of my entourage capable of surpassing my male friends at Mortal Kombat and finish Metroid in one stretch.  It used to mean I was cool.  Nowadays, I struggle to keep updated with all the games, and my coordination isn’t what it used to be.  Freaking Mario can give me problems if I’m overly tired.  All I can hope now are the days when my husband’s boys run up to me and ask me to pass them through a particularly difficult boss in their game.

However, give me a bow, a huge white tiger, and I’m suddenly the next best thing since sliced bread.  Not that I am the end all be all of this game.  Far from it.  I cower from pvp (mostly because I have no patience to deal with morons), I haven’t raided all the endgame content yet, and I frustrate over a stolen herb.  (Those of you who don’t play this game will probably think I am crazy-talking).  But still, the thrill of levelling a character, and the delight over flying across Outlands and the absolute satisfaction of raiding with a guild of friends you’ve made over the course of your WoW stay are tremendous.  I am a hunter, you see, and in between this I am a druid.  These things are cool to me.

With the crawling release of Wrath of the Lich King approaching, my interest in the game has sky-rocketed again, and I am preparing my characters for the raise in level cap and the new features sure to impress.  I gave my candidature for beta, so hopefully I get to see the content before the public mass.

If ever you stroll through Trollbane and happen to see an Orc hunter by the name of Atsuka, drop me a hello.  I swear I am only rude to the morons who think they can run the server.

Let’s start with a bit of truth.  Which isn’t the title.  That was sarcasm.  You’ll learn that most of my journaling deals with these chapters of moronic life once in a while.

My husband has been on disability for nearly a year now.  He has a number of illnesses, most of which have not been fully diagnosed.  Kidney disease, fatigue, thyroid problem, back problems (most attributed by two hernias and an abnormality in his lower spine) and then some.  Now these are enough of a stress in anyone’s life, but on top of this he has a blood disease that thickens it and may form clots in his body.  This has happened once, last October, before it was diagnosed, and resulted in a cerebral vascular incident.  Thankfully, it did not do any permanent damage, but it was an uncomfortable brush.

Now I promised I would keep this blog as light as I can, but this situation is so intrinsically linked to my life that it must be part of these pages.

Now, these illnesses, we must and have dealt with.  It is a daily struggle, but my husband is in every other shape and form a normal and outgoing person.  It is difficult for him to stay at home, force him in a restless yet sedentary state.

The purpose of this post is to bitch, openly and fervently, at the insurance company that my husband was, by way of his work (which fired him), forced to subscribe to.  If these illnesses weren’t enough, the insurance company has decided that his case needed to be scrutinized more closely.  Which is fine.  I get that.  I do.  What I don’t get is that following a visit to a third doctor, one supplied by said insurance company, it has decided to withold payment WITHOUT NOTICE until such time as the insurance company’s doctor supplies them with a full diagnosis.  This visit, by the way, which obliged my husband to undergo another series in an already vast sea of tests, happened nearly 2 months ago.  I thought it was important to specify this.  Since, you know, it was the INSURANCE COMPANY’S DOCTOR, who by not doing HIS JOB, witheld an important part of this family’s income.

I despise this system.  I despise these unfeeling beings who call themselves agents who so blithely drop obstacle after obstacle to a way of recovery.  I hope, with all my being, that they are one day served a dose of their own medicine.

Okay, this is out of the way.  I feel slightly better.  Don’t run away now, I won’t deal this kind of thing every day.

While I am merely a grain of sand under a very vast sea of Wiccans, modern-era or otherwise, I will not presume to announce that this blog will be the end all, be all of all Wiccan resources.   In fact, you will find very few of that here.  Rather, this will journal my trials and tribulations as a Mother, a Wife, a beginning Wiccan and a self-employed graphic designer.  This will not always be pretty, but I promise to keep it light.

Now for those of you hoping for a little guidance in the Wiccan practices, I will be no help to you.  However, being myself a beginner, I will surely post my stumbles and scrapes as I wobble along.  You are quite welcome to suggest, posit, postulate and so forth.  But I do put forth this disclaimer: this will not be a Wiccan-heavy blog.

If you do enjoy a tongue-in-cheek view of the world, seasonned with sarcasm and a hint of good-natured humor, I do promise to keep the doom and gloom to the minimum.  I spend a good chunk of my evenings (when the kids are in bed) exploring the internet, and as this is mostly my education nowadays (we call me Google-Girl.  I can find nearly anything on the net, often things I am not searching for) I will often make reference to tips, tricks, projects, websites, humor and educational (as humanly possible) discoveries.  I hope you’ll find something in here that will tickle, amuse or move you.  I also promise to keep the moving inspirational posts to a minimum; philosophers do that job nicely as it is.

Another small postscript: I am bilingual, originally French Canadian, so depending on my level of fatigue, alcohol consumption or mood, I might give out some odd turns of phrase my French-English dictionary simply refuses to touch.