let's stumble towards success and pack some snacks for little breaks

One of these pumpkins is a vampire kitty, one is a hockey goalie, and one is a puzzle. They were created by me, Mike, and Macey. See if you can guess who designed which.



This was actually Macey's first ever pumpkin-carving experience! Apparently pumpkin-carving is not so much a thing in the UK. I think she did pretty okay.



We didn't have any pumpkin-carving-specific tools, so given that all I had on hand were steak knives and paring knives, I went minimalist with my design. I think it's recognizable.



Mike was very resistant to the whole idea of gourd art until I told him to make his pumpkin into a puzzle, at which point he kind of went quiet and then five seconds later reached for a piece of paper and a pen. The actual carving was done by me, because goop and also knives. It's solvable from the picture, and super-easy since it has all the givens, because Mike hates my right wrist and wants it to be sad. (For those of you unfamiliar with Slitherlink, the idea is to connect the dots such that each number borders that number of lines.)

I thought I'd lost these because I didn't run Time Machine between dumping them from my camera and my computer deciding the other day that it would rather host a rave in various shades of blue than boot up, but the nice dude at the Apple store performed some kind of magic OS reinstall that kept all my data. So: Pride! It was pretty great. Here are a whole lotta pictures of it, mostly from my camera but a few from my phone because the camera battery ran out.

( here there be rainbows, nudity, rollerblades, motorcycles, a zombie, a drag queen dressed as the Space Needle, butt plugs with attached tails, a person dressed as a giant vulva, a massive Flying Spaghetti Monster, and a pretty epic sunburn )

mamagotcha bought me a day pass to GeekGirlCon earlier this month (thanks, Mom!) and it was pretty awesome.

( Here are some pictures! )

I also went to some other panels that weren't all that photogenic. There was one on geek businesses, which was the origin of the following glorious quote: "When I started my business, there was no geeky soap. At all. It's kind of a contradiction, nerds and showering." Then I went to a Harry Potter panel, but then I realized that J.K. Rowling's treatment of female characters actually pisses me off rather a lot, and I didn't really want to spend an hour being pissed off. So I left a few minutes in, and went to the panel on diversity on comics instead, and that was definitely the right decision. Gail Simone kind of makes me go ♥_♥ and forget how to not fall over.

There was also a one-woman talk on getting girls into STEM fields, and why there are so few there now. It was good, but she spent way too much time convincing us that something needed to be done (dude, if we're in the audience at this panel, we KNOW something needs to be done) and not enough time talking about what to do. Then there was another one-woman talk about emo music that didn't really focus on women at all, but hey, we got to watch the "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)" music video, which is always good times.

I'm glad this con happened, and I'm glad I got to be there. It sounded like most people there had a great time--hopefully it will continue on next year.

I finally finished that HnG mood theme I started way back in August! I am pretty happy with it.

Samples:

productive: bouncy: geeky:

rushed: full: lonely:

The whole thing is here. If you want to use it, ping me and I'll send you a zip file of the images.

Ever since Kate moved out, I've been wanting to get one of those big pillows with arms and turn the other bed into a couch. I don't have the time or money to go out and buy a pillow like that, but as fate would have it, I spotted one in the trash can by the stairwell a few days ago.

( Of course, it looked like this. )

I rescued it, dug a needle and thread out of my random-crap drawer, and got to work.

( Ta-da! )

We've talked about self-efficacy a lot in my social psych class. At first glance, it seems like an unnecessary synonym for self-esteem, but the more I think about it with regards to my own life, the more I see the difference. It's one thing to assure myself that I'm good enough; it's another thing entirely to do things well and feel capable because I did them well.

I think that's why abstract, pointless things like honors designations and good grades don't really make me feel good about myself. I mean, they do to some extent, but it's mostly because I know they should. Something little like this, though, finding a pillow in the trash and fixing it--not perfectly, perhaps, and I hope the textiles-inclined among my flist don't look too closely at those seams--that kind of pride feels more real, more honest.

Last Sunday, it was just beautiful outside. I wandered around with my camera for a while.

( Here's what I saw... )

YOU GUYS. GUESS WHAT.

Lincoln (that would be my three-year-old brother) just passed Tsugaru on Dance Dance Revolution.

I'm so proud I'm practically crying. Seriously. I love this kid so fucking much.

Ooh, look what I found. He's been a DDR champ since he was a year and a half:



EDIT: YouTube video! Tell me that is not the cutest thing in the cosmos. Seriously.