Oh Blog, How I've Neglected You

As anyone can see I have severely neglected my blog. Why? I'm not entirely sure. Well a couple reasons, really.

I was planning a trip to Germany - which is done and over.

And the weather here in England has been so nice that I haven't been indoors a whole lot.

I know, neither are really good excuses - but I'm back on the Blog-train so let's get this thing rollin'!


Keith and I spent 6 glorious days in Germany at the Edelweiss resort which was ah-may-zing!! Due to me being neurotic we flew instead of driving. For me its just nice knowing I don't have to worry about getting from point A to point B. I really enjoy just sitting back and not worrying for a change.

I don't want to go all picture crazy, so here's a link to the flikr set that Keith uploaded: Germany Picture Set. Bare in mind that is only a small piece of the 500 pictures we took - but since we have a free flikr account we're limited in what we can upload every month ... so more pictures will be uploaded in May.

Super Dickmann's - and other things

Yes - I only bought this because its called "Super Dickmann's". As a matter of fact - I forced Keith to hold the box while I snapped this pic in the kitchen AS SOON as we got home from the store with it. But turns out - these things are WAY awesome. Its a huge chocolate covered thing with the creamiest softest marshmellow center and a tiny wafer on the bottom! You get almost an immediate sugar rush upon devouring!

How huge is this Super Dickmann's?

Well they're huge. Nearly as big as an iPod Nano. If you don't want some serious sugar almost instantly - I don't recommend ever buying these. They're from Germany (duh look at the packaging!) and they somehow found their way to our commissary at RAF Lakenheath. I was never so greatful for German chocolates until that day. That glorious day we returned home with our little cardboard treasure.

We've now eaten nearly all of them (I think there are 9 to a box) and they are my new love. Forget Galaxy bars or even ice cream. I love Super Dickmann's!! Germany - thank you for this most yumtastic chocolatey treat. How sugary are Super Dickmann's? Well put it this way: we drink a LOT of energy drinks in my house - and ONE of these things made me hyper for like 3 hours. I'm talking completely rambunctiously annoyingly hyper. Yeah I'd totally feed one of these to someone's kid right before they went back home with their parents. I'm evil like that.


In other news - I have decided to only post paintings on my art page to say "Hey look this is for sale" once I get my Etsy shop going. This way it allows MORE people to see my artwork and gives me extra opportunity to sell them. I did look into the option of selling prints - but unless I do the prints myself I would be losing a lot of money. I'd make about $.50 per print. Instead I'll just sell the original on canvas and not offer prints at all.


This means that every painting purchased is a one-of-a-kind. I highly doubt I'll price anything over $30 because I'm mostly just interested in paying for art supplies to paint more - and not looking to make an actual living from it right now. Perhaps in the future. Of course I'll post something here when I have everything all set up - including figuring out where to get proper boxes to ship things. It'll all come together eventually!


I feel like Keith and I are still getting acquainted with each other now that he's back from Iraq. Small things about both of us have changed while he was deployed and we're both working on getting used to those small changes. Nothing major - but still. It was kind of disturbing at first when I noticed there were any kind of change at all ... but then I realized that its pretty much natural.



We still have a lot of fun together. I even gave him a spa facial treatment a few days ago. Cucumber peel and avacado mask - the whole works! He didn't actually say it .. but I think he enjoyed it :) Looks like he's having fun to me!


I think we get on each other's nerves a bit more than we used to (we're both terribly annoying) but we're starting to get used to it. I make his lunch almost every morning - and he seems to like going to work. Maybe its because he isn't working 12 hours a day 6 days a week like he was in Iraq.


I think that's all for now. I mostly just wanted to share the awesome that is Super Dickmann's - but I got off on another subject!

I am NOT ready for my close-up

I have an appointment today at a hair salon to get my hair cut, and after that Keith and I have an appointment at a photography studio to get professional pictures taken. Sounds fab, huh? IT ISN'T!

I always get a bout of anxiety and get real 'uppidy' when it comes to things like this. Okay fine, you got me - I get high strung about nearly everything and have a little freak out session often ... but getting my hair cut is always one of those things that just freak me out!

Part of the reason is up until about 3 years ago, I had the same hair dresser since I was 9. She knew my hair. She knew that no matter what haircut I WANTED she always knew what would look better. The problem with getting a new hairdresser is if you walk in and say "I want my hair cut like THIS" that they will cut it like that and if its complete shite you're stuck with it. *MY* hairdresser would never do that to me. To make this all worse we're having pictures taken afterward.

So a stranger is going to be chopping at my hair and probably not caring if the haircut clashes with my fat face. She probably won't know that even though my hair has turned a brownish reddish color with my age - that it still shows EVERY cut you make as if it were still blond. I had the hardest time as a blond. It took *MY* hairdresser a few years to get the hang of cutting my hair just right so that you couldn't see every cut she made. When I was about 13 that "Rachel" haircut (y'know .. from friends?) with the millions of layers was in. I could not sport this haircut because of my blondish reddish naturally highlighted hair because every layer looked as if you had given me different facets of a bowl cut.

Will this hairdresser butcher my hair? Will she actually listen to the things I tell her like:

• I don't have a natural part
• Even though I don't have any cow licks - one side of my hair always seems longer than the other
• If I can't style it with and walk out the door in 10 minutes - I'll hate it
• Bangs/Fringe make my face look fatter and I don't care what you say
• I have a weird mole thing on my head so if you even HINT at it I'll be mortified
• Even if you thin my hair out its still REALLY thick and will take you a half hour to blow dry
• If you have to use a curling iron on my hair to make it look good - you're trying too hard
• I prefer to not use more than two products on my hair on the rare occasion i DO style it
• Take into consideration I get a haircut once a year when it hits that awkward grow out stage
• The messier the better

I know that all seems like a lot, and some if it is contradictory ... but will she even listen?! Will she humor me and just grin and nod and then just do her own thing? Does anyone else ever freak out like this before getting their hair cut? I feel so juvenile!

My other 'freak out' thing right now is pictures. The last time I had professional portraits done was in high school. I didn't mind it so much because hey - its a portrait and I thought I was totally friggin' hot back then. Well I've gained probably 50 pounds (if not MORE) since then, but was lucky enough to marry a very VERY attractive man. Now, I feel inferior in looks (which drives Keith up the WALL and he wishes I'd just stop it!) and I wish I were thin enough to hide behind him for this whole ordeal. Vertically, I can hide behind him - but otherwise FORGET IT! I know that these aren't going to be full nude pictures (or even partially for that matter) but I do know the extra work it takes to photograph such contrasting couples for classic portrait photography. I know that I would feel more comfortable if I could somehow take our pictures myself - but we'd end up with these 'weird' photos that would just play off our contrasting appearance and it would be more minimalist slash modern portraits .. but GAH!

Regardless of my level of freak out (we are at Def con Bravo right now on my Freak Out Meter, people!) I will end up somehow pulling myself together to do all of this stuff. I'll sit in that salon chair and make small talk while a strange lady touches that weird mole on my head. I will then probably have to go into a story saying how my mother AND grandmother both have a mole in that same spot, and probably then say the same for the one near my ear which we all 3 have in common. We'll talk about the weather and about what we got our families for Christmas. I'll then thank her for her work on my what COULD be butchered hair, then I'll pick Keith up from work. After that I'll stand around in a studio drooling over the cameras, asking the photographer what school they went to (if any), and simply wait for the discomfort which comes once they start squinting behind a tripod (because few photographers actually look through the finder anymore with these new digital thingies) while I keep saying "don't blink don't blink don't blink" to myself in my head.

Ugh, am I losing my mind?!

Flickr is too thorough!

Alright so for those interested I uploaded a few more pics to Flickr. I had fun with that whole 'map' thing for a while but now it wants you to zoom in more to drop the pics ... ugh I can't remember streets we took the pics on - is just the town not good enough for you, flickr?!

Anyway - so I put up our London pics (some of them) and a few others from Norwich that I forgot to post last time. Keith is STILL editing that footage and its a gorgeous day out. Kinda didn't want to be in the house today since we were inside yesterday but what can ya do?

Nothing else to really update with other than a song of the day ...
Can't Stop Moving by Sonny Jim --- this song makes me feel all happy inside.

Inebriated Hilarity

So I picked up a couple bottles of wine. Keith said he wasn't a wine fan - but I grabbed some white zinfandel and said "Weeee!" He likes it, he likes it!

Alright so the Andre (pink champagne) was cheap and we picked up a couple bottles of that, too. We're bargain shoppers what can I say?!

He's editing the video that we filmed earlier - and I'm sitting here reading blogs and drinking wine - which was relaxing about an hour ago ... but now I'm pretty much drunk. So now I take random breaks to entertain myself ... luckily the laptop has a built in camera.



Even though the quality isn't so great - the pictures themselves crack me up ... except for one and its kinda scary - but still funny in some weird way.



Oh and Keith is drinking wine too! I wanted wine glasses so he bought me some a couple weeks ago. Wine isn't quite the same without a wine glass. Maybe I was just prissy at the moment. I think now that Keith likes wine enough that we'll actually put our wine glasses to use! Wine is soooo good with seafood (of any kind!)

Anyway I took a bunch of random pics with the webcam on my laptop -- and I thought I'd post em. Why the hell not?!

Flickr

Oh. I forgot that I added that picture slide show badge thingy over there like I said I would the other day. I think there are London pics that I haven't uploaded yet ...

Every month I take pictures off to add new ones (it would be stupid for Keith and I both to pay for premium accounts) so huzzah!

BTW - these are all IRL pictures of Bebop and I so if you aren't interested in our RLs then don't look at it. We aren't naked or anything like that ... but it is us being our goofy selves out in random public places that we go to.

Leavin' on a jet plane ..

My visa literally came about 12 hours ago - which I'm totally psyched about which means that I will be leaving with Keith tomorrow (thursday) for England. I'm about to wet myself I swear to you!

Everything is taken care of ... except the movers coming and boxing up our crap. We've decided to ship our computers UPS so that we don't have to wait 40+ days to get them back. Ugh we'd be bored after a bith I'd imagine.

Stick it in!

That sounds dirty, but it isn't. We bought a bunch of adapter plugs for our computers, chargers, etc but now I'm asking myself "Should we have gotten transformers instead?" The Radio Shack guy said that these plugs were all we needed - but the voltage is different. Most normal appliances are dual voltage meaning that they can run on either 50 or 60 .. and as long as you don't try to stick a 110 into a 220 you'll be alright ... but now I think its just a last minute freak out before we leave.

But then I sit and think ... if we do in fact need transformers .. we can always buy those once we're there. Yes I'm sure it won't be cheap but what can you do? As Keith always says "Stop freaking out .. I will take care of it." And ya know .. that's always true. No matter how much I thnk something is a big deal or how much I freak out - he always gets things straightened. <3

Until We Meet Again

So I'm guessing we will get things settled by June 1st. That gives us a good couple weeks. We may not be in a house by then - but we'll at least be in synch with the time change and whatnot. My laptop is going in my suitecase so I will be catching up with things ASAP. We only have like an hour layover at O'Hare before we fly non-stop to London .. so I highly doubt I'll go through all the trouble of taking out my laptop for such short use. Ya never know though .. I might get a blog itch.

Speaking of the blog itch I have to apologize for slacking recently - but I have just really been really busy with getting things done on top of stressing over that damned visa that I just haven't been able to blog a thing at all. I haven't done much of anything really .. but Keith brought me chocolate yesterday so as 'fat kiddish' as it is ... that made me feel better.

Its a Map, Sir

So people have asked "Orchid where in the UK will you be?" And I say "Mildenhall." Even though the UK is about the size of Texas everything is divided into counties so the villages and towns aren't well known but the counties are all part of saying where you live. And? If you talk to a rental agent you have to tell them the county you'd like to live in .. not necessarily the town as there's lots of rual area. So? Where will I be living? I'll tell you!

RAF Mildenhall, Bury St Edmonds, Suffolk and that isn't three different locations. Its kinda like saying the city, county, and state .. except there aren't 'states' in the UK. Bah anyway I could spend forever explaining it but I'm sure most get the picture. Speaking of picture .. I made a little arrow of where I'll be for those that don't know anything about the UK so they can kinda connect the dots and whatnot I guess? Its my way of staying close, I guess. I know where all my family and friends are .. but they don't know where I am at all besides "England" so ...



We leave tomorrow and dunno when things will be settled so wish us luck! <3

Jive Talkin'

Alright. So I was hanging out with Xaria on the backend of the island. She was busy building on a new 'chill' area when I saw dots on the minimap. Yeah I'm quite the nosey bugger so I turned off my camera constraints and panned over. OMGWTFBBQ. Holy Whores Batman. Mind you, this is a PG sim now - and there are these three .. ladies (and I use that term loosely) shopping in our friend Dnel's store.

Now whatever kinks, fetishes, lies, secrets, inbreeding you've done -want to do- or currently doing is fine with me. But really? I'd appreciate not having it rammed down my throat in public. I have absolutely nothing against lesbians, transgender or anything -- until its in my face. That might 'sound' a bit hipocritical but it isn't.

I don't fondle my husband in public. I don't even kiss him in public. I don't talk about my political points of view - or my opinions of religion. I don't wear things that I think others would find offensive on a personal level EVER. Not even in SL.

Alright so I didn't really find all this offensive - but I did find it highly unnecessary. Not to mention that as ADULTS it was decided to make the sim PG to cut down on rediculous behavior. But I'm afraid that in some place someone would have. Me? I found it hilarious. So funny in fact I took a picture! These girls .. well... the picture will speak for itself:

In Other News

Well there really isn't any other news, really. I ran about SL looking at coloful sparkly things. I was going to play WoW but my head hurt so I opted not to. Keith and I hung out with Jade Opel last night on her new islands and its simply amazing. It was really pretty and it was fun to just hang out and be candid.

Me at Gypsy Moon

Pr0n

I also got a wild hair and sent an IM to Marilyn Murphy. I hopped over to the Herald and took a peek at some of her Post 6 Grrls. Now is it just me or do they all look the same? Same features, rather similar hair/clothes etc? Anyway - they all seemed the same to me so I shot her an IM and said "Hey I'm different and I'll show my pixel poon just to break the monotony". Ok that isn't an exact quote from the IM but you get my drift.

All those girls seem to be tan, long hair, and very very slender. That's fine, I guess but where's the variety? This kind of 'woman' isn't all that SL has - but it seems its such a cornered market. They even had a pageant for a Post 6 Grrl. I would never EVER even get a second glance in a pageant like that I'd betcha. Why? Because I'd be that 'weird' one that stuck out.

So yeah I contacted Marilyn. Normally I'm against the whole avatar nudity thing - but damn that column needs some spice from the purple isle if ya ask me! Imagine the comments a naked purple av will get. None too nice I'd imagine, but hey I'm not doing it for an esteem booster. I'm just doing it to throw a wrench in things.Me STILL at Gypsy Moon

Well I guess that's all for now. I have a dental appointment tomorrow morning to finish up exams so I can leave the country. Hopefully I won't need anything else and my visa will come in soon! *crosses fingers*

Well the other post didn't work which had way more pics .... so I'll make a flickr account tonight and make one of them there fancy slide show things.

Have to hit the shower and go explore the city!

I'm too busy with deep thinking to do anything constructive