( Spoilers for 4x13: Journey's end )I am so sorry. Really, I am. It's all Martha's fault, waving her dance card around like that.

The Dalek Waltz

I just sort of threw this together over the course of the last few hours:



I'm pretty pleased with the results!

This morning, The Boy and I went to see Star Trek: the Exhibition at the San Diego Air and Space Museum. It was pretty awesome. They had sets from the original series and TNG, and props, costumes and ship models from all the series and all the movies. At the very entrance, they also had some real space-related stuff, like models of NASA space craft and space suits from the Gemini and Apollo missions, including the actual suit in which Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Then you go into the exhibit proper, and the first place you get to is the bridge of the original Enterprise, and then it just keeps getting cooler from there. It's been years and years since I've been seriously into Star Trek, and I still couldn't help geeking out.

The bad news is, I was a big dork and forgot to bring my camera. The good news is, The Boy brought his, so I still have a huge, non-dialup-friendly picspam for your amusement.

( Boldly go behind the LJ cut. )

Anyhow, it was an awesome exhibit. Totally go if you get a chance.

Dreaming Ritual was awesome - emerged dizzy and boneless and totally chilled out.

Nap time followed.

Dinner at Emeril's was brilliant - Baked Scallops on the Shell and Pecan Covered Texas Redfish with Grits. All accompanied by a rather lovely glass of Chardonnay and a topped off with a Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee as I couldn't have eaten another mouthful.

Sloped off to bed at 10:30pm and missed any Independence Day fireworks because I was asleep almost immediately.

Woke up again at stupid o'clock - 3am - and napped til 6:30am. Then out and up and ready for my early morning pickup by Pink Jeep. Off to Red Rock Canyon (and because I was the first pick up I got to ride shotgun to our guide Carol). Picked up Jerry and Datzie at the Bellagio (from New Orleans, Louisiana) and Mark and Krisen from New York New York (from somewhere in Indiana). Off we went to gawk at pretty red rocks and marvel at prehistoric pictographs (and we may have ogled the oh so very pretty men of the Dept of the Interior and the US Forest Service who we passed when we went off road).

Now have a couple of hundred pictures of some very very red rocks and big mountains and astonishingly blue skies. Which may or may not be blurry because it was too hot to really see what you were taking pictures of!

Apparently the rest of the gang have arrived and I gather we're supposed to be meeting in NYNY later.

I'm still slightly shattered from (a) lot of fresh air (b) blessed peace, quiet and stillness after the continual loud hum of Vegas and (c) lots of sun. No I'm not burned. Factor 30 is very good *G*

Laters!

Saturday, July 5, 2008
2 pm

I made another batch of soap. I came outside to start, and then realized I wanted to use vegetable oil as well, so went back in to my laptop in the sunroom to check at soapcalc.com. But every time I’d get in there, I’d lie down and start computing and forget about my soap.

So I finally came out and repeated ‘soapcalc’ to myself over and over as I went in to look it up. I got the recipe from the calculator and wrote it down, came outside and measured everything out.

My beef tallow, or rendered beef fat, had begun to harden up again, but it was still pearly dots which scooped up into the measuring cup well. I now know that one measuring cup of beef tallow is 150gm. That makes it easier to measure it all.

I made Nancy Today videos (www.youtube.com/nancytoday) as I was mixing the stuff together. I added the fat to the lye while it was still hot and the fat was partially hardened. However, it worked anyway! I also scraped the previous soap from the other container and worked it in, hoping to make the whole mixture saponify more quickly.

It traced in about ten minutes or eleven. I added a bunch of lavender oil, like about a half teaspoon or so. I had to run in for another pan and waxed paper as I hadn’t prepared that beforehand!

So I got it into the pan, making sure I covered it with waxed paper afterwards to keep the lye from getting powdery on the outside.

It looks great. I labelled it and went around labelling the five batches I’ve made in the last few days. I'm so glad I'm making soap again. It’s such a lot of fun! I really have been disappointed with the store-bought soaps lately. They are so soft they just go right down the drain. Or conversely, they may be hard enough, but they don’t remove body odour! How can soap leave that behind?

Anyway, I did it and I'm lying in the hammock relaxing now.

I know people have been talking about this, so I thought I would share it here.

Here is an update on the actor's strike as of yesterday.

10 new additional season 1 promo pics are now available at Andreas at LJ or at SPNMEDIA.NET.

Is it wrong of me to be looking at the clock and chanting "23 minutes, 23 minutes..." under my breath?

I ordered some stuff from the States and I got a card from the Royal mail this morning saying I had to pay an £11.92 Customs charge on it. £8 of which is the Customs clearance fee. The buggers! Y'see, if they'd just let it go without without stopping it, then they wouldn't have had to spend £8's worth of time on it, would they? Maybe I should use that as an argument...

Also, my epic failure with Ribena knows no bounds... Turns out it isn't much weaker since the last time I'd had it, I'd just didn't see the 'Ready to Drink' label on it until after I'd already diluted it ::sigh::

On the upside, though, it's Doctor Who in 85 minutes!

These are icons of artist that begins with the alphabet "A"

[ 5 ] Alexz Johnson
[ 7 ] Ali Larter
[ 7 ] Anne Hathaway
[14] Avril Lavigne
[21] Ayumi Hamasaki

TOTAL = 55 icons

Preview

( Follow Meeeee )

I would very much love any animated icons (similar to the one I'm using) from the Smallville episode 6x11 "Justice" :O

Particulary of the character Impulse/Bart Allen/The Flash.
Also there is a specific scene that I desperately want an animated icon of, it's when Clark rescues Bart :)

*shameless begging* I really hope someone can help me out with this request :O

p.s. any icons that are created, could I request that they are non-share icons for me alone to use?

x-posted all over

Just as the first fat drops fell from the sky, I took the meat of the grill. I call that a win. Embarrassing albatros of a grill was finally working and mostly together for the Big Day! Only one extra part! Not caring that it is no longer a portable/movable grill since my neighbor (bless his heart) didn't put the propane tank in right. We had flames and everything. It was good. The rain was even better. After the rain we had fireworks (thank you neighbor).

I have new clothes. Fab mountain trip (I was underdressed) made me take a hard look in my closet which was, I admit it, overdue. Much to my chagrin I realized that all I had left were polos and jeans. For work, polos and work pants. Not good. So I dropped by Chicos and since they were having a huge sale, I loaded up. I seem to have evolved into a shopper that goes along blithely until I realize (probably after an event) that I have Nothing To Wear. Then I buy a bunch of things before I revert to no shopping mode again.

Today? No plans. Whee!

At long last I am posting my entire collection of SPN S1 screencaps. Every episode has been capped in it's entirety, fixed for quality, and will be offered in zipped folders through MediaFire. Enjoy the trip back down memory lane to Season One! :D



So Sammy's got a thing for the bad girl. - Samples in clickable thumbnails & download links at my LJ.

http://dragovianknight.insanejournal.com/476875.html

I pretty much spent the whole day adding other people's dragon eggs to my MiceChat sig so they could get enough views to hatch in their final few hours. I have gone months without editing my sig this many times, LOL. However, many virtual eggs were hatched, so it's all good.

(Read more ...)

I figure I should ask the talents of yourselves this question.  I am making my boyfriend a Lover's Book for our 4 year anniversary, however I want to construct the book myself.  The only books I've ever made have been Japenese Stab Binding now I really want to make a book like this:


does anyone know what kind of book that is and a link to a tutorial? 
or, couldyou tell me the materials i need and i'll makeshift it?
What do you use for hard covers?  Chip board?

605 screencaps of Supernatural 2x18: Hollywood Babylon

--COMMENT COMMENT COMMENT. Please!
--credit nightcomes or inadream_caps
--zip, gallery link & samples under the cut
--DVD - 1680x944

HERE @ inadream_caps

The time has come to confess this: I am wretchedly ill. I have been in sniffly denial for some time, but today it is beyond my power to deny. I was sitting wrapped in a blanket writing fighting scenes (almost as good as make-out scenes!) and I kept thinking 'Must buy milk!'

Eventually I tottered weakly down to the shop.

SHOPKEEPER: Love, I think you've had enough.
SARAH (peers intently at the carton): But this is - I mean, this is milk, isn't it?
SHOPKEEPER: Yes. You've been down here and bought milk three times today.
SARAH: ... Huh.

Some time later, the Durham Lass came home and flopped on the sofa.

DURHAM LASS: I need tea. Do you know, I think if I developed an allergy to tea, I would have to top myself.
SARAH: I am glad you want tea! Let's all have tea! With lots of milk!
DURHAM LASS: Oh, good, did you buy milk?
SARAH: Don't look in the fridge!

Out of pity the Durham Lass has been entertaining me with many interesting historical facts! And I have been contributing to the conversation as well.

DURHAM LASS: Do you know that the ancient Greeks used to make puns with their coinage?
SARAH: My head feels all fizzy!
DURHAM LASS: The Chinese Emperor was buried surrounded by mercury, in an elaborate tomb that may resemble the universe and that is definitely filled with treasure. We can't open it yet, but someday we may have the technology to do so and, er, not die.
SARAH (seriously): If I had a car... I would make it go vroom.

I am not updating to tell people merely that I am sick. That would be very dull for you all! It's also been a while since I made a books post, so I decided to recommend two books I enjoyed recently - and also to make a point connected to both of them.

My friend sluzan and I were having one of those writing days that turn into writing nights and, since it was four a.m. and all, she decided to sleep over. Once in bed, we both broke out books: I was reading Evernight by Claudia Gray and she was reading Northlander by Meg Burden. I went to get a glass of water.

SUSAN: Oh God, not another redheaded heroine!
SARAH: Stop reading my book this instant!
SUSAN: ... I wasn't.
SARAH: ... Oh God.

Look, I've liked many a redheaded heroine. But being a redhead is rare, you guys. And I'm saying this as an Irish person. And the fact it's rare is reflected in that you see an appropriate amount (i.e. few) minor characters with red hair. But redheaded heroines are everywhere! To the point where when I opened Diana Wynne Jones's House of Many Ways and found a redheaded heroine, I winced.

I winced at a Diana Wynne Jones book. Such a thing should not be.

The redheadedness of their heroines aside, these were good books!

( House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones: Books, True Love and Disgustingly Pretty Wizards )

( Evernight by Claudia Gray: Boarding School, Vampires and Blisteringly Hot Make-out Scenes )

So, any book recs for me? Equal romances? Down-to-earth magic? Only non-redheaded heroines may apply. (Unless the book is really awesome.)

I'm watching The X-Files for the first time, and in the season five episode 'Schizogeny', two of the guest stars are Chad Lindberg (Ash) and Katharine Isabelle (Ava)! Just thought it was funny, and wanted to share.

Anyone else find any unintentional but funny SPN crossovers?

+20 Clark
+18 Lex
+2 Clark/Lex

-Please comment if taking
-Please credit if using
-Blank icons are NOT bases. I will happily customise for you if you ask
-Enjoy :)




( See the rest at my journal )