If you've just dropped by or random'ed into me, please leave a comment and say hello.

Let me know how you found me, where you're from, why you're here, a little about yourself, recommend a book, recommend a movie, tell me a secret, tell me something, ask me a question, etc. =)

Ad Astra,

The Bride of the First House.
bride (at) livejournal (dot) com

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weather	:		sunny
outside	:		21°C
mood	:		...

I think I understand why I like nail art so much. I'm a Business Analyst by day, so I'm all about the left brain - the logical, the patterns, the analytical, the math. Arts and crafts let the left brain rest a bit and let the right brain drive.

I'm not that good at it. I can only do easy designs and ones that are tolerant of mistakes and non-dominant hand craziness.

Here are my latest ones. Click for a bigger pic.

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6. 

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		1°C
mood	:		...

Three weeks ago, after six years at the now Ex-Work, I started a new job. Previously, at Ex-Work, the mission-critical thing was dealing with other peoples' money. With the current Work, my new mission-critical thing is dealing with other peoples' lives.

It really puts life in a whole new perspective.

But Work now involves a significantly longer commute. I have a half hour bus ride and then a 35-40 minute skytrain ride. Kinda brutal compared to the half hour bus ride previously. But I've been making the most of the time reading and listening to books.

I have a Kindle Keyboard (which used to be called the Kindle 3). I named it Pantalaimon because that's exactly what it is to me. It's my Pantalaimon. Almost right down to the kind of sick feeling when it's not with me. I'd left it at home one day and my stomach actually felt a bit knotted/queasy. =)

I have more books than I've ever owned in my life. I love finding and collecting books almost as much as I love reading. The Kindle is great for leisure reading, but terrible for reference type documentation. And terrible for reading PDFs.

I also find it's not ideal for audiobooks in every situation. It's okay for audiobooks in some ways, but awful in other ways. Audiobook tracks come in variable lengths. Some have a lot of 2-3 minute tracks and I have to manually advance to every track. This is done by going back to the menu, navigating one down, opening it and hitting play. So much Nope.

Some have hour-long or even longer tracks. These ones are less of a pain to advance through, but if I pause in the middle, the Kindle loses its place within the track if the screensaver kicks in and it will pop itself back to the beginning of the track you were in the middle of. And you can't quickly skip to a certain time in the track. There is an Advance button, but advances by 30 seconds per button click. Which is some kind of not-wonderful for an hour long track.

I also tend to read/listen before bed and fall asleep. It's even more not-wonderful to fall asleep somewhere in the middle of an hour long track and not know where. This is when the zillions of tiny tracks works better.

I use a cheap little MP3 player for the skytrain ride now. I got it in 2001, so it's only 500M and VERY bare bones in functionality. But it does exactly what I want it to do. It auto-advances for me and can restart at exactly the place I left off. And I use the Kindle for text reading and stuff I can fall asleep to.

weather	:		partly cloudy
outside	:		15°C
mood	:		...

My head tips off one side of my palm where it was resting, precariously balanced with my elbow on the table. And I suddenly jerk awake with the feeling of falling.

I done been nudged.

/smile @ oldron... =) I have absolutely nothing interesting to tell anyone. Oh wait, maybe...

I had a pretty interesting realization a little while ago. I suppose I might share it:

The fashion industry is not about designing clothes for people to wear.

It's about an artist, using fabric, non-fabric, and notions to create art. The medium is something resembling a human body - a walking coat hanger, if you will.

Most of the time, it's not an average human body. Many times, the bodies are actually a bit unnatural or deformed.

It's an artist being creative with their chosen medium. It is NOT about clothes for people. There's really no sense attaching any measurement of "attractiveness" to it.

And all of a sudden, everything makes perfect sense to me. I don't get art. And that's perfectly okay.

weather	:		partly cloudy
outside	:		20°C
mood	:		at peace

We had Sid cremated this morning at Blueridge-Cove Animal Hospital in North Vancouver, BC. They were wonderful to us.

Sid was in a small paper box and they put the whole box into the furnace. It took an hour and a bit for the process to fully finish. There was no where to sit and it was drizzling, so we left and went back afterwards. His ashes were put in a small plastic bag, tied with gold ribbon and put in a box stuffed with gold tissue, like a Christmas gift. That was really sweet of them. =)

I'd been reading about cremated pet remains. I know that with cats and dogs, you get bits of bone, teeth and sometimes part of the items that go in with the animal (the blanket, collar, etc.). Cockatiels will fully disintegrate, but I wasn't surprised to see chunks of pebbles from the inside of the furnace in there as well. I sifted the remains to filter out the big pieces and put the finer ashes into his little urn. I spread a bit of glue on the stopper and slid it in.

The little urn that I had custom made for Sid is 2.5" high by 2" wide. It's now a pendant on a black velvet cord around my neck. It's smokey grey with orange/yellow flowers and white vines; those were his colours. It only holds about a teaspoon of ashes. There was a lot of the ashes still left over, so the rest of it went into the garden.

I'm glad I sort of had plans for Sid. It did make everything easier.

... goodbye, little guy.

weather	:		partly cloudy
outside	:		18°C
mood	:		sad

Sid died last night.

Friday morning, the Husband Guy found him sleeping at the bottom of his cage, which is a bit unusual for him. He's usually on his highest platform in the corner. And his feathers were fluffed out instead of flat against his body.

By the afternoon, Mom was asked to bring him into Night Owl Bird Hospital. As soon as Dr. MacDonald saw him, she pretty well knew. At 0100h Saturday morning, we got a call that he had collapsed.

Dr. MacDonald will be doing an autopsy to try to determine the reason for death, but she thinks he was just too old and weak to handle another bout of kidney, lung, liver, heart or whatever other health issue it is this time around.

I didn't know I could be so crushed.

?? - July 16, 2011

weather	:		partly cloudy
outside	:		15°C
mood	:		...

I'm sort of back into the nail art craze.

I'm sure it's So Six Months Ago[tm] by now, but I decided to try the OPI Red Shatter after seeing some strangers on the bus and then a coworker with crackle nails. I couldn't find a good silver one at the spa I went to today, so I just grabbed a regular gold (OPI Curry Up Don't Be Late).

I'm still trying to see if I can figure out how to get it to crackle the way I want it to instead of just leaving it up to chance.

I'm going to get a silver base colour and practice a bit. I have another wedding coming up in December (I think... maybe) and most of my jewellery is silver.

I also want to get a brown or grey shatter polish and put it over my regular shimmery roses/pinks.

[Update]

Husband's reaction: "It looks like someone gave you a bad manicure and then you fell down the stairs with it."

... ... ... lol XD

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		7°C
mood	:		ecstatic

Subject: Popsicles in the Freezer. Help yourself.

Dear People In My Office,

I became an Auntie last Tuesday. =)

As outlined in The Cool Auntie Instruction Manual™, the only job I have with the kidlet is, and I quote, "to spoil her rotten, then give her back."

This is such an important job that I felt I needed to practice.

On you guys.

Enjoy. =)

Three things:

1. Girl. Giant 8½ lbs monkeygirl. =)
2. Those are the best ice cream popsicles I've ever had.
   • I've seen them in Melon, Mango, Banana and Strawberry. There are supposedly Red Bean and Lime flavoured ones as well, but I don't think I've seen those before.
   • My favorite is the Melon, but everyone else seems to like the Mango best.
   • I saw them at Save-On Foods (Overwaitea) on the weekend.
   • If you eat them standing up, they have no calories. YES, THAT IS _TOO_ HOW IT WORKS, BIGBOSSGUY!!! =D
3. Work is still a big bucket of crazy. With bigger and bigger buckets every time.

weather	:		cloudy
outside	:		7°C
mood	:		ecstatic

My baby brother just accepted a job offer from Research In Motion (yeah, the Crackberry people). =)

I don't yet know what his title is, but his undergrad degree is in Electrical Engineering at Simon Fraser University.

We are so, so, SO proud of him. =D

I swear, last week, he was just learning to walk and still drooling into his big-ass bib.

All of a sudden this week, he has a job with an zomg-awesome starting salary, he's moving out on his own for the first time, all the way across the country, and has ex drama.

*sniff* My baby brother is growing up. =}

weather	:		sunny
outside	:		20°C
mood	:		...

Well, we won.

If you can call it "winning" when none of the other cars actually matter.

The driver is alive and recovering. As expected, he has minor complications, is still not awake and is being monitored very carefully. But he is technically alive.

The car is not quite in one piece.

The spoiler and one of the side mirrors fell off. Some of the paint is smudged because it didn't dry properly. The breast cancer ribbon is still on the antenna, though it's not in the best shape and may need to be replaced.

Also, it turns out that the transmission was actually not working. We're not entirely sure when that happened or how it broke. But it was found broken.

So, we have to get everything sorted out ASAP for the Press Conference and Exhibition Race.

And I think we're just going to shoot anyone who starts talking about the next major race altogether.

weather	:		sunny
outside	:		20°C
mood	:		...

Continuing on the not-exaggerated analogy of Work:

Apparently, aside from the heart transplant, a clot also had to be removed from one of the major arteries in the area that the partially remote surgical team only saw once they started.

And then, the driver's appendix burst.

As foreshadowed by the bumble-bees previously, the owner of the car sold it, mid-race. The new owner had to have the car re-painted yellow and black immediately. The lawyers demanded all logos on the body of the car to be swapped out. The new owner's wife insisted a pink breast cancer ribbon be tied onto the antenna.

All the while without stopping.

Final lap. This weekend.

We're required to win this race with the driver alive.