I want to re-organize my website. I think it needs it and it's been 5 years of being married and all, and I'd really like a fancier, easier-to-look-at gallery for my various photos and artwork pieces.

So I'm doing research and all that, but I'm trying to figure out what I want to do for my layout. I think gone are the times when I'd change my layout every month and that's fine. I'm just trying to decide what I'd like to have up for a long time and might better reflect an overall feel, instead of just an anime/gaming one.

Ponder ponder

Made a really artsy piece of WoW Model art today. Well, artsy to me anyway. =p

Look, I'll even be nice and put it under a cut

( Hero's Walk, an exercise in Warcraft Model art )

This was made with artwork from Peter Lee, one of the concept artists for World of Warcraft, screenshots from in-game and models taking from WoW Model View. I learned quite a bit messing around with various effects today. ^.^

I was so tired from hardly sleeping at all that I slept pretty well last night. My back still hurts but it doesn't seem as bad. I'm not sure if that's because I'm actually well-rested tonight or if it's actually getting better. Ah well. I'll take it.


Other then that, not much is up. Made a new Warcraft image: http://www.senzeni-na.com/wow/Delinfuture02.jpg

And that's it for now.

I pulled something in my neck yesterday and it's just about ruined the night and what all I've experienced of today.

couldn't sleep, because every time my body tried to turn over, the pain would wake me up. Moving around is a bit painful but if I stay still for too long, my muscles tighten up and hurt more. Ug.

So now I'm in one of those half-awake states where I can't really relax because of the pain and can't really be awake because I'm so tired. I hate days like this. -_-

It was a nice day yesterday, which was good as it was Canada day. I decided to take a bike ride because the weather hasn't been the greatest for it as of late and went out and about quite a bit. There's this nature-type place with some ponds and swampish areas that I biked around on the trails, and then I decided to head out by the falls.

Yeah, that was dumb. I knew better than to go to the Falls on a holiday. I did! But....I did it anyway.

I guess it wasn't that bad. I just ended up walking way more than biking near the end and I did take the path that had me walk up the steepest hill EVER. Ug. There were tons of people and the sidewalks were incredibly crowded.

Still, it was nice looking. The sun way out, the water reflecting the light just right and there was a nice cool breeze.

Next time though....I'm going to take a different route.


Incidentally, happy belated Canada day and happy Independance day in advance. ;)

I don't know if I've ever mentioned it here before, but I'm afraid of ants. Yes, the little bugs. When I was really young, I sat on an anthill and they were crawling all over me; in my clothing, in my hair....it was rather traumatizing. So yeah, I don't like them. I don't like having ants in my house or apartment. I ignore them for the most part while I'm outside but I generally get a little twitchy about things crawling on me.

I bring this up because last night I had the worst dream. I was in what was aparently my bedroom, trying to clean. As a kid, my room was always incredibly messy; one time I even got an ant infestation. =\ It wasn't exactly my childhood bedroom, more like a mix between my bedroom now (the floor was tile) and the one back then (the bed, the mess, etc) So there were ants crawling around on the tile and I tried to sweep them up, but they kept coming. There were just more and more of them so I tried to move stuff onto my bed to keep ants from getting into it. Then I climbed up onto the bed itself. The ants started getting bigger and bigger. Then there were other types of bugs as well. And I kept looking from side to side, wondering how the hell I was going to clean all this up. And then there were rats on the floor as well and I was like "WTF, how did I get rats?" I tried to clean up some sort of mess behind my headboard with a broom but nothing seemed to work.

Somewhere in this horror, when things started to feel horribly bleak, I woke up. For a brief moment, I thought there would be bugs on the floor but reminded myself it was just a dream.

A horrible, horrible dream.

Ug.

Some of you may know that I consider myself a religious person. I'm not outgoing about it because, frankly, I'm not outgoing about ANYTHING. But my beliefs do tend to dictate how I react to a lot of things. I try to make it a positive experience, instead of hating people because of one thing or another. AKA, I'm a strong supporter of the 'love thy neighbor' movement.

That being said, I've been pretty angry about something for about 6 months now and I've realized that what I really need to do is just forgive the people who have upset me. It was a weird realization because previous, I have just been MAD. Angry angry angry.

I know I should forgive. I know there's no reason to be angry at this point because nothing will change. It's just very hard because some part of me still goes "but it's not going to change anything! THEY are not going to understand!"

I think that's the hardest part about forgiving people. It's not that you have made up with them, or that they're going to change in some way. It's about forgiving them for YOURSELF, to release the anger and the sadness and whatever else you might be feeling and realize "Hey, this isn't going to affect my life anymore. Whatever they think doesn't matter. I forgive them for being that way."

It's hard. It's very hard. You can't go back to the way things were just for forgiving someone but you can make sure your life is no longer negatively affected because of your feelings on the issue.

So....I forgive. It's hard, but I do. And I think, finally, I can heal.

So I went to Chapters today, and I was bad. I bought books. Okay, I admit, I knew I was going to buy books but I bought 4.

I was determined that before I write any more fanfiction about Warcraft, I'd try to get behind the lore a bit more. So I walked away with Tides of Darkness, the first comic book collection (With Varian and company), plus as a bonus, the first two Discworld books. WOOO, REPRINTS! I've always wanted to read Discworld but I wanted to start at the beginning (yes, I know you don't have to; I just wanted to) so I was pretty stoked to see them out again. Mmmm, new books. I love the smell of new books. There's something about the ink and paper that just makes me happy.

So at any rate, I was reading the comics for a bit. The artwork is nice but I can only disseminate comic reading for about 3 issues before my brain goes "ENOUGH! Let's get some TEXT in here!" I'll finish it later, but it seems interesting. I still don't feel sympathy for Varian. I'm not sure why he blames Thrall for what happened to him, when it's pretty obvious that the whole gladiator thing was NOT run with the knowledge or permission of any of the horde leaders. Anyway, maybe I'll learn more later but I've gotten to the part where he escapes Thunder Bluff so I don't believe I'll be seeing much more about him fighting in the Arenas.

I've started reading Tides of Darkness, which picks up after the end of the first Warcraft game and seems like it will be discussing the events of the second. I wish I hadn't waited so long, but picking up new books isn't something I get to do nearly as often as I would like. I FINALLY understand how the paladins really began and I'm getting to know Anduin Lothar better, as well as many of the people who shaped the lore for what World of Warcraft is today.

So this brings to mind that I'll need to adjust Delin's story just a bit. It's nothing really big; I just need to change his motives for going to Stormwind when he was young, and his induction into the paladin order during the second war. I left a lot of his backstory very open-ended because I didn't understand all the story points involved and this allows me to adjust as new knowledge comes my way.

Anyway, this book is turning out pretty good and very informative. I might put up more about it if I think about it.

Very very frightning thing!

anyway, musical interlude aside, big thunderstorms here today. It seems to have cleared up for now but there were times I was sure our power was going to go out.

You know, when you live in a large city, the power doesn't really go out that often. You know something big has happened when most of the city has cut out. You start to take electricity for granted. Admitedly, the power didn't go out much at my parents' house but if there was a large storm, the threat was always there.

At any rate, internet and power is still intact. Hopefully the weather cools down a bit.

I should have posted this the other day, but the fridge is a-okay now. Turns out a switch on it had broken. The fridge shuts off for short periods of time to keep from overheating, save power, etc, and it just never switched back on. The repair guy was in Thursday evening, fixed it and we have chilled food again! AWESOME!

I was thinking about posting more about my thoughts of UP but it seems like the worst things always knock the good things out.

Yesterday should have been a pretty good day. Nice, long walk in the sunshine, killed Mirmiron and got to see General Vezax in Warcraft, but somewhere along all that stuff happening, our refridgerator died.

Yeah, I know, it's not the worse thing in the world that could happen, but we had just bought groceries for the week. The fridge and freezer had mostly brand-new stuff in it. I'm not even sure when it happened. So Karl and I were up rather late last night trying to save as much of our food as we could, stuffing our couple coolers with ice and frozen foods. We still had to toss a bunch of food, which is going to suck a bit before shopping again. It's such a WASTE. And now I'm exhausted because we had to get up after only a little sleep to call the fill-in super to see if we can get this fixed (our current super went on a vacation this weekend! Figures) so we can actually have some food in the house again.

Ug. UG UG UG.

What gets me is how unhinged I feel about losing one of the major appliances in my life. I mean, everything else still works but it feels like I've been set adrift. It feels like the rest of the apartment should be broken as well. You never realize how much of your life revolves around something as silly and stupid as a refridgerator until you no longer have it. Man, now I feel spoiled.

Sigh.

This is the sort of day I'm having today.

Karl and I watched UP yesterday. I only have a few comments.

1. It's an amazing movie, go see it.
2. It made me cry. Quite a bit. Thinking about certain parts still makes me tear up. All the sad stuff is at the beginning. Just warning you.
3. It made me think of my grandpa. =(

And before I go....

SQUIRREL!

Starting biking again yesterday. I've biked a little bit last week but that was mostly to get my rear end used to the seat again. I'm working on my usual route now. Got some new workout clothes and the shorts are great. Much better than wearing my usual ones and way more comfortable. It was expensive, but worth it I feel.

Anyway, here's to hoping I do something with myself this summer.

Someone asked me how 30 was treating me. My response was "the same as 29, honestly."

It's true. Nothing has really changed much. I don't know when I'll start feeling 'older', if I ever do.

the weather has been perfect here recently. Cool and sunny. I've started biking again, just a little so that my butt doesn't hurt. As soon as I get used to it, I'll start biking for longer periods of time. I'm really out of shape but I hope to push the exercise a bit more this summer.

Nothing much else going on. Have a good week, everyone.

It is! You should totally visit this link, not just for my birthday, but ANYONE'S birthday!

http://www.sambakza.net/peom/cakedance_eng.htm

(if for some reason the link doesn't work, go here: http://www.sambakza.net/amalloc/tteotta_main.htm Then click on the second one. It's totally worth it. And then check out all five!)


Got all the new furniture in the apartment. It's pretty crazy in here. I'll be shifting stuff around a bit, I think. Been a busy, busy weekend.

For those who don't know, I am turning 30 on May 17th. woooo!

So anyway, my sister and my mom have decided to drive over and spend some time with me this weekend. My sister is planning a big move to Florida (she needs a change of pace) and she's selling and/or giving away a lot of her things. So she's bringing over her piano! Horray! PIANO! We're also getting my parents unused futon to replace the crappy old one we have right now and, if there's room in the truck, a new chair as well. CRAZY TIMES.

And Karl apparently has something planned for Sunday as well. So family, new furniture and fun. That's about as good as it gets for my birthday!

Hopefully the weather is nice so that I can enjoy the entire weekend to the fullest. =) And, well, you know, moving a piano in the rain is not cool.

Happy mother's day!

And the same goes for any mothers who might be reading this. ;)

Man, hardly anyone posted ANYTHING.

I got kinda bored.

Anyway, Mother's Day this weekend, my birthday next weekend (17th), Sister-in-law's birthday the day after, and my mother-in-law's birthday the week after that.

Pretty crazy month this is going to be.

It is warm today.

I have a new fan.

Not much else is going on.

So, if a staple gun makes a kaCHUNK sound, what sound does duct tape make?

I mean, c'mon, duct tape definitly has a sound when you pull it off the roll. So how would you write that out?

scrrrpt?

krrrrsh?