cammycat

I just finished reading Sunshine by Robin McKinley, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, and Patrick Rothfuss' The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle.  Now I'm on to The Girl Who Played with Fire.

Fantastic! Narrated by Nick Cave.

Freaking ecstatic this morning. And appropriately enough, it is a beautiful day here in Bristol. Bright blue sky, no clouds, comfy fall temperatures. Gorgeous.

And can I say bursting with pride in my home state? Thank you, Virginia. God's Country is goddamn right, therestlessdawn !

Stayed up way too late last night.  Called everyone I could think of.  Danced around Orgrimmar with a bunch of strangers, /yell-ing "YES WE CAN!!!" in WoW.  Silliness.

And now, back to work. 

So happy!  YAY, OBAMA!  YAY, America! 

We can make this better, people.  All we have to do is try a little bit, work a little bit.  All of us together, ain't no thing.

It occurs to me I haven't really blogged in awhile, so it's time for another update.  The past few days have been lovely and cool (I actually got to wear sweaters, yay!) and fall-like.  At last!  Happy Autumn, everyone.

Last Monday (the 22nd, I think) was the autumnal equinox, and Ben and I decided to declare it a holiday.  We took the day off from work, did a little smidge of fall cleaning, and decorated our porch with our usual array of pumpkins, gourds, foddershocks and hay bales.  Ben made a special seasonal dinner that was amazingly tasty (especially since he just made it up!) - Beef Fajitas with Habanero Pumpkin Picante.

The link above leads to a recipe blog I'm putting together for a project I'm working on via the BPAL forum.  It's called Switch Witch, and it's kind of like Secret Santa.  Only for Halloween (this time around; they do it 3 or 4 times a year).  The idea is, everyone who participates fills out a questionnaire about his/her interests, hobbies, tastes, etc.  The people who organize it mix them up and distribute them among participants.  So it's not like a straight swap, where person A gets person B's questionnaire, and person B gets A's questionnaire.  It's randomly mixed.  So you get a questionnaire, and send a gift (or several) to your "witchee."  And your witch (whoever that may be) sends you a gift or gifts.  There's a deadline by which everyone has to at least receive one thing.  And that's pretty much it.  Some people reveal their identities immediately; others wait until the end, or remain anonymous period. 

This has been a lot of fun.  I'm having a great time getting gift packs together for my witchee.  I've sent her one package, and had some chocolates shipped directly to her from The Chocolate Fetish.  The recipe blog is a little DIY project, because she said she'd like some new recipes.  I haven't gotten a package yet from my witch, so I think he/she may be waiting the reveal  him/herself until the end.  I have been contacted, however, and my witch lives in "a magical land of spicy foods," so I'm eagerly anticipating potential spicy treats.

I also have a new hobby.  I've been making ribbon necklaces.  I started doing this because I like putting my scent lockets on ribbons, and wanted one with an actual clasp so I didn't have to rely on tying them.  In the process of buying clasp-attaching materials, I found a bunch of Halloween themed ribbons, so I got those too.  Once I made ribbons for myself, I realized I had a ton left over, and decided to put them up on the BPAL forums for sale or swap (I am not the only one with the locket/ribbon dilemma). And it's sort of evolved from there.  I just set up an Etsy shop, and I have a couple of necklaces I made up there now.  I'm going to start posting plain ribbons, to which you can add your own locket or pendant (or not, whatever) this weekend.  I just need to take some photos of them.

So that's what I've been up to lately.  And work.  Crazy busy work, as usual.

Originally posted on cam.vox.com

The cuteness. It is so vast. May overwhelm and kill me.

My Halloweenie scents from BPAL have landed!  *dances around madly*

And they remembered to include my replacement bottle of Snow, Glass, Apples (the first bottle having been stolen from my package by unscrupulous postal workers)!  *more dancing*

The art on the bottles is super cute, especially the Sleepy Hollow ones.  I also got a ton of free samples (like, um, 20. seriously.) 

AND... my second scent locket arrived today!  *still more dancing*  It is very beautiful.  I will post a photo soon. 

So yes, I have a lot of sniffing to do in my future.  I have tested a couple of the Halloweenies already, and love them both.  Autumn scents are my favorites, and these are really great.  So yay.  For those of you on my BPAL filter, I'll be posting reviews as I try stuff.