So Then There Was That Time I Nearly Burned to Death

crossposted from one of my forums, because hey, this was EXCITING:

My dear darling husband nearly burned our house down last week! Cooking! I don't know how the man does it, but he always makes huge billowing clouds of billow when he cooks *anything*. He can get smoke going in a stew. So I was not surprised to see the kitchen erupt in smoke; I was surprised to see him being lit by the flame of a merry blaze.

You know what my dear sweet wonderful husband did then, confronted with a brightly burning grease fire?

He blew at it.

Twice.

And said "Whoa", when it jumped higher, and directly towards him.

Meanwhile, I was of course saying, in a calm and rational and not the least panicking voice, "BAKING SODA! USE THE BAKING SODAOHMYGODWHATAREYOUDOING BAKINGSODA! RIGHT! THERE!"

I handle stress well.
In my defense, I was gathering our valuables for imminent flight.
At last my husband's language processing centers finally realized that "baking soda" was not an epithet, and dumped about 1.5 pounds of white powder on our 4 inch radius burner. The flames went out, with a final billow of white smoke.

And quoth the cause of all the trouble, "Wow."

And so the day was saved, thanks to the power of common sense. Shouted at 150 decibels.

Until he did it again, five minutes later.

Reality is Dangerous

One of the reasons I like working in digital-- and am gnashing my teeth at the current tech-failure that is preventing me from doing so--is that in digital, nothing is irrevocable. For instance, if I got something to this level of Done:




where it's lookin' pretty good, but I can't quite get it the extra step to being just actually good, I can play with it, confident that if I make a horrible horrible mistake, I can just erase those steps and start again. That's problematic in itself of course, because I can waste hours playing with highlights and filters and oh hey maybe she should be holding a book oh wait no a shell. But at least I don't have the horrible paralyzing fear of being about to wreck something completely after hours of work, based on a vague sensation that there ought to be more shadows or something. Gah.

Anyway. Advice on what to do with these pieces to make them more...dramatic? Polished? Something? Is hereby solicited, while I go work on some protoform paintings that aren't driving me to existential angst. Gah, once more.

Boo!

It's October! I don't know what's going on with your weather, but around here that means we're securely back in the land of double-digit Fahrenheit. Yay!

Oh yeah, and there's some sort of holiday. With candy and costumes and I'm having a party this year, and apparently can't even pretend I forgot Halloween.

Boo!

All About ME! In Watercolor!

The ever fun Etsy Bloggers Team is having another carnival! Unfortunately for me, all the recent carnivals have been photo-based. Now, shop images notwithstanding,I have an innate mistrust of photographs, at least as applied to people. The problem is that people think photographs are accurate, and thus complete. In fact, photographs leave out almost everything important almost every time. I can't get behind the idea that you'll know me better just for seeing a photo.

Also, my camera is broken.

But my scanner works! So, here is collection of things you would never know from a mere photograph:




Notice that you have now also learned that I have abysmal handwriting, and that I am far too trusting of very cheap paper. Try getting THAT from a Polaroid, hah!

Ahem. Off to look at the blogs of people whose cameras have not deserted them.

And I'm Back!

Well, that little hiatus wound up being longer than expected, thanks to the Magic of Conflu--but now I'm all back and cognizant! Hello to the new people here; let's see if I can't get something interesting up this afternoon!:D

Away I Go Again!

Another con is coming- one of my favorites, Animefest, in Dallas! If you're going to be there too, come by our table in the dealer's room-- I'll be the woman in top hat and full corset, rejoicing that I don't standout at all!:D

And if you're not going to be at Animefest, and you wonder when I'm actually going to start blogging properly again, then rejoice! For this is my last convention of the year, and after a week to recover, I should be able to properly focus on other things again. Like this blog, which I miss. See you all next week!

Hey Everybody, Look at Me

The lovely Crystal has been sweet enough to give me an interview on her very pretty blog, which I can't figure out how to follow:
http://beadhappilyeverafter.com/blog/?p=7136

So go look, and tell her how much you love me, and how very clever she is to showcase someone so awesome. And see if you can't get on her good side, too, because Crystal is fantastic!