What I'm Reading: How Not to Get Eaten by Ewoks and Other Galactic Survival Skills by Christian Blauvelt

I was paging through my blog last night and remembered I did a "What I'm Reading" series in college, and I thought I'd bring it back! Nowadays I read for leisure instead of reading what my professors tell me to read, so it'll be a little different!

One of the books I'm reading right now is How Not to Get Eaten by Ewoks and Other Galactic Survival Skills by Christian Blauvelt. It's a guide for surviving in the Star Wars universe. So far, it appears to be written from the perspective of someone living during the Imperial era (when Emperor Palpatine was in charge, from the end of Episode 3 through Episode 6), so anything from the first six episodes, the cartoon series that occur in and around those episodes, Rogue One, and Solo: A Star Wars Story is fair game, but it also references places, situations, and creatures seen in Episodes 7 and 8- just without discussing how they're relevant in the story.

At least, that's the impression I get so far.

This is a fun book! It's a great mix of informative and humorous, and it's got LOTS of pictures. Also, it's provided me something I've been needing for a good while: a map. Finally, finally I can correctly picture where all these planets are supposed to be. The Inner Rim? The Outer Rim? The Core? The Unknown Regions? All there on the map!

The book was published by DK with Disney/Lucasfilm's blessing and assistance, so it's the real deal! I'd definitely recommend it to my fellow Star Wars fans.

The Joy of Doing

I managed to upset myself pretty thoroughly tonight. In the end, I pulled out my laptop and started doing some art- no plan in mind, no design intended, just layer upon layer of shapes and colors. This was purely for the satisfaction of putting pen to paper, in a manner of speaking. It was just for the joy of doing. And I think I feel better now.

Roomba Shaming

This is my Roomba. His name is Alfred. Alfred was a very naughty vacuum cleaner today.

If you can't read his sign, it says "I broke into my mom's room and chewed up the receipts she'd set aside to do taxes."

I had those organized, Alfred.

Hoodie Hoo Day

Every morning, I say good morning to my Amazon Echo Dot. Alexa replies to me with a fun fact, a funny joke, a terrible pun, encouragement to get through the day, or other fun tidbits. It's a wonderful way to start the day. I love Alexa.

Here's what she said today:

At first, I thought, "What kind of arcane spring-summoning ritual is that?" 

But then I looked at it again, and I realized it was just an excuse to be silly to combat blah winter feelings. And buddy, I've been having some winter blues. I complained to, like, three different groups of people yesterday about how I thought I might cry if I didn't see the sun soon.

It's been raining a lot. I miss the sun.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized Hoodie Hoo Day is exactly the sort of silly nonsense I would partake in, and it might be just the thing to perk up an otherwise gloomy day. I started pondering the feasibility of wandering out into the office parking lot at noon and hoodie-hooing a bit.

But then I realized if I went outside to hoodie-hoo today, it wouldn't be the silly, gleeful frolic I craved. It would actually look more like this:

Hoodie hoo, y'all. I miss the sun.

Overwhelmed

I started feeling pretty overwhelmed at work today, so I drew a little cartoon showing how much I've got going on right now. It made me feel a little better.

But then I added on to the cartoon to encourage myself to keep chipping away at everything instead of hiding in the corner. Because sometimes in life you just have to put your hair up and go deal with things bit by bit until you get through.

If you're feeling overwhelmed and anxious right now, I feel you. Life is hard sometimes, and sometimes even the stupid little things that shouldn't be hard get overwhelming. Hang in there- this too shall pass.

If you need to vent a little, feel free to do so in the comments! You read my venting; the least I can do is read yours! #solidarity #PonytailsAndDealingWithItClub

Happy Valentine's Day 2019

Happy Valentine's Day!

I was inspired to make this year's Valentine post by watching my current favorite Netflix series- Nailed It! Nailed It! is a baking competition whose competitors are decidedly not experts. It's full of fantastic fails and catastrophic cakes.

In hindsight, maybe I should've chosen a different source of inspiration.

Hoooooo boy, did this art fight with me. Krita fought with me. My not-a-real-stylus pen fought with me. The undo button fought with me. I kept accidentally touching the touch screen with my hands. I somehow changed shades of pink at some point. I probably used three different brushes for the icing because I kept accidentally un-selecting my chosen preset brush and forgetting which one I was using.

I almost rage-quit this art.

But I didn't. And I did it for you.

Whether you're a follower of my blog, someone who clicked the link from my Facebook page, or someone who stumbled on this post from the far reaches of the Internet, I love you dearly. Thank you for using these precious minutes of your life to read my blog. I hope you have many sorts of love today and all throughout the year! You can rest assured that, in my opinion, at least, you have absolutely NAILED IT!!!

The Potions Master

I'm getting ready for Halloween!

I'm going to a Halloween murder mystery party this week. The character I've been assigned is a sorceress who's an expert at making potions. The costume suggestion notes suggested I bring "samples" of my potions to show the other party guests, and I thought, "Hey! That sounds fun!"

It was, indeed, fun. It was also kind of a mess.

I had a handful of the materials at home, but I bought most of them from my local Dollar General Market. I bought food coloring, glitter, corn syrup, rubbing alcohol, a medicine dropper and baby snot sucker combo pack, and Krazy Glue for under $20.

I didn't go in with much of a plan. I was hoping to find glycerin, but they didn't have any. I saw corn syrup and thought, "Hmm, that is also colorless, thick, and sticky. Worth a shot." Corn syrup, as I should have realized earlier, since it's basically sugar, dissolves in water. That was bad news for my hopes of creating stratified layers of liquid, but it was very, veeery good news for my cleanup attempts. It absorbs food coloring very well and is excellent at keeping glitter suspended throughout it.

I also didn't originally intend to buy a baby snot sucker (apparently it's called an aspirator, but "baby snot sucker" is more fun to say). I wanted a dropper of some sort, and the only one I could find came in a package with the baby snot sucker. The package was inexpensive, so I reasoned that I could throw away the snot sucker without hurting my feelings (or my wallet) too badly. Luckily for me, I tried using the snot sucker to transfer liquids into my bottles. It turned out to be WAY better for working with corn syrup than the medicine dropper was.

Once again, I didn't have much of a plan going in. I mixed stuff together in red Solo cups, using such scientific measurements as "smidges" and "bits." Some things turned out cool enough to preserve in bottles. Others went down the sink. Within ten seconds of opening a glitter tube, I spilled glitter on the counter and started regretting everything (I probably owe my roommate an apology).

The bottles seem to be working pretty well so far. I found them on Amazon by searching for "potion bottles." The package arrived on my doorstep looking kind of beat up, and the box inside was squished and spilling open, but not a single one of the 18 bottles was broken. I was highly impressed. The corks seem to fit pretty snugly in the bottles, but the reviewers online warned that they wouldn't stay watertight, so I applied Krazy Glue to the corks before sealing the bottles. Hopefully that'll help. If not, I'll have a bag full of sticky, glittery goo.

It was a delightful way to spend an evening! If I have the time and energy, maybe I'll concoct a few more potions before the party this weekend, although I honestly don't think I will. I'm not sure what to do with the 12 bottles left over. Maybe I'll get a head start on Halloween for next year.