Gee, RealLife, you sure take up a lot of time, don't you?

So I've fallen off of the Blogtoberfest wagon, due to my "Real Life" (a.k.a. job beyond Etsy that helps pay my bills on a regular basis) getting in the way. I wouldn't change it for anything, since I love my job (I care for cats at a local animal shelter), but it hasn't given me much time to make art or blog lately.

It hasn't, however, kept me from taking funny pictures of my cats (Chester, specifically) in things I've knitted. Enjoy!

"You'd better not make me look stupid on your blog, you got that?"

My version of Chester as Furry Potter, lolcats-style.

"*Siiiiigh. I don't know why you humans find this so amusing."

Worst/Most Hilarious Nightmare I've EVER had!!!

Note: Okay, I know this post is text-heavy and has no pictures (I just couldn't bring myself to draw them), but trust me. It's worth reading.

Okay, so I'm the kind of "lucky" person who remembers her dreams when she wakes up. My brother is the type of person who claims that he never has dreams, but eventually admits that he's sure he has dreams, he just doesn't remember anything about them as soon as he wakes up. Sometimes, I wish I was that type of person, because I rarely have good dreams. On the flipside, I rarely have bad dreams either. What I have are WEIRD AS ALL HECK dreams. Seriously. Salvador Dali has nothing on me.

My husband says that every time I'm about to tell him one of my dreams, I preface it with "I had a really weird dream last night." Every time. And since he's told me, I've noticed that he's right. Every single time. "I had a really weird dream last night!" "Oh, more weird than normal?" "Uh, well... I guess not. I guess it was just a regular weird dream. Regular for me anyways."

So enough stalling. Last night I actually had what I'd consider a "bad" weird dream. Not just weird, but the kind of weird that had me frightened when I woke up. And then when I thought about it, I realized that it wasn't that bad (it's never as bad when you wake up and realize that there's no way it could ever happen); it's hilarious!

Here goes: It started off with me looking in the mirror and realizing that I looked exactly like Jennifer Connelly (my favorite actress, ever since falling in love with her in "Labyrinth"). Not bad at all! I had blue and purple hair, but hey, that's pretty cool. Then I went outside to play in the snow and had to chase this brown rabbit around (not an Alice in Wonderland-type rabbit. A real, live, not-wearing-a-pocketwatch-or-waistcoat-type rabbit) before it managed to hop onto the ice and potentially fall into the frozen lake. So picture a blue/purple-haired Jennifer Connelly running around in the snow, frantically trying to catch a brown rabbit. Remember the brown rabbit. It's foreshadowing of things to come.

A bit harrowing to say the least. But this isn't even the bad part. This is the "regularly scheduled weird" part. Then the rabbit disappeared (not into the lake. Just *poof! Gone!) and my "dad" (a guy that looks nothing like my father, but who in my dream I somehow *knew was my dad) called me inside our apartment building, which was actually a shopping mall. I go inside, get told that there are zombies around and if they bite me, I'll turn into a zombie. Cliche, right? Oh, except for the fact that the zombies can be held at bay by playing steel drum music. Weird.

So I'm in our apartment (in the MALL?!?), with Caribbean-style steel drum music playing to keep zombies away, when one of our cats comes over to me. He looks a little weird, and I notice that he doesn't have eyes, just brown spots where his eyes should be. This is the weird/scary/hilarious part. I then somehow knew that this was a side-effect of the zombie infection spreading throughout our world. What is this side-effect? *drum roll please................

Our cats' litterbox craps had come to life, covered themselves with our cat's shedded hair to look like our cats, and would infect cats (making them zombie cats who could infect humans if they bit them) if we didn't catch them and squish them back into harmless piles of poo.

Yeah, really scary in the dream (I have to squish a poop cat back into a poop pile while somehow managing not to get bitten by their poop teeth - which maybe were made up of our cats' shed claws? - in the process or I will become one of the living dead!!! AAAAAAUGH!!!!), really hilarious when you wake up and think back on it.

Yeah, so the rest of that dream involved me chasing around three craptacular cats (to match our three cats), trying to squish them into oblivion, all the while making sure that they 1) didn't bite me; 2) didn't bite my cats and make them zombie cats; and 3) didn't escape our mall apartment to wreak havoc upon other humans and felines!!!

*Sigh. Sometimes I wish I was one of those people that didn't remember my dreams. And I'm not even going to mention the dream I had a few nights ago that involved Nathan Fillion (of Firefly fame) and me getting sucked into a medieval-style video game and having to fight our way out. "I had another really weird dream last night." "Really weird? Or just regular weird?" "REALLY weird!!!"

Who doesn't love Socks?!?

Found a new favorite shop on Etsy: The Missing Sock!
They've got great cards for many occasions (including same-socks marriage)!

Talking Cat Translations

Sometimes you just need a good laugh. Watching cats tends to give me a smile. Hope you enjoy these videos! :)

Wedding! Wedding! Pig and Froggy Wedding!

I'm at my cousin's wedding today! Enjoy!!!

Some quotes to live by...

I've always been a huge fan of ANYTHING done by Jim Henson. My favorite movie is still "Labyrinth" after all these years (and I will admit that when I saw it as a little kid, I definitely thought that David Bowie was a girl. I was too innocent to notice the bulge in his spandex pants); I'm not a fan of manga, but I've gone out of my way to purchase the new manga series "Return to the Labyrinth" and "Legends of the Dark Crystal" (and they're pretty good too)! I've introduced my husband to some of Jim's lesser-known works, like his "Storyteller" series (both the original and Greek myths); I read books about Jim Henson's creature shop, biographies about him, his work on Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, and more!

One of my favorites is a small book called, "It's not easy being Green and other things to consider" by Jim Henson, The Muppets, and Friends. It's a collection of quotes, stories, anecdotes and songs and I always find it inspiring and uplifting to read. I'm not a religious person, and I believe in helping people and always trying to do good things in life. Since I first read this quote by Jim in undergrad, I've always tried to live according to it (sheesh, it's like the Muppets are my Bible!):

"When I was young, my ambition was to be one of the people who made a difference in this world. My hope still is to leave the world a little bit better for my having been here. It's a wonderful life and I love it." -Jim Henson

Now this doesn't mean that you have to do BIG, GINORMOUS, AWESOME THINGS (like Jim Henson accomplished) to make a difference and leave the world a better place. It can be as simple as volunteering every now and again; making donations to your local shelter or food bank; tutoring; reading at night to your kids; walking/biking/taking public transportation; sharing your art with the world; helping a stranger; adopting a pet; and just being kind and understanding! All these things may seem small in the grand scheme of things, but they all make the world a better place little by little. And maybe you'll inspire someone else to do kind things.



Hope that gives you a little uplifting boost for your weekend! I'll close with a graduation speech made by Kermit the Frog:
"I really do believe that all of you are at the beginning of a wonderful journey. As you start traveling down that road of life, remember this: There are never enough comfort stops. The places you're going to are never on the map. And once you get that map out, you won't be able to refold it no matter how smart you are.
So forget the map, roll down the windows, and whenever you can, pull over and have a picnic with a pig. And if you can help it, never fly as cargo."

My attempt at a sugar skull

Okay, so I didn't have any sugar skull moulds (molds? Neither one looks right, but apparently I can use either! Love the word "mouldering" when used on gravestones - like in the historic cemetery near where I live. "Here the bones of Ezekiel Burrows lie mouldering..." So creepy!), so I decided that making a "sugar cookie" skull in preparation for el Dia de los Muertos (November 1) would be good enough. *Sigh. My frosting decorating skills could sure use some work. Here's the result:
Scary, huh? But not in a good way. Or at least, not the way I wanted it to come out. His upper teeth look more like a wiggly mustache, the red for his nose bled (ha ha. Pun intented) outwards making it look more like a squished strawberry, and we're not even going to talk about the eyes. Overall I'd say I succeeded more at making a nightmarish clown than a Mexican sugar skull, but at least it tasted good (albeit giving me a huge sugar rush. I'm a big frosting fan)!

Things to think about when writing a novel?

I'm a big fan of science fiction and fantasy novels (which are probably the biggest perpetrators of made up words), but I find this XKCD comic hilarious! I also love how when you mouse over the comic it says, "Except for Lewis Carroll or Tolkien, you get five made up words per novel. I'm looking at you, Anathem." Anathem is a book by Neal Stephenson that contains a lot of discussions about philosophy, math, and physics... and a lot of made up words.