Do you remember the beginnings to the Real World TV shows when they were first out? “What happens when people stop being nice.” I think it was something similar to that anyway.
Well, this is what happene!
I was stringing a three strand necklace with a cool pentacle charm I had found online. I was super excited about this 3 strand clasp I was going to use. Until I realized that I had strung one side of the clasp upside down! NOOOOOOO!!!! So what does Amber do when Amber get’s angry at a craft project? She cuts the string mid point and the beads go flying!
I was totally upset for all of 30 seconds. I had just fussed with these stone chip beads and wire that was probably way too small for almost an hour just to have to cut it and start over.
I hope to have a finished picture of this project by the end of this weekend. THis is of course, counting on me not totally effing up again and throwing the damn bead tray across the room. Crafts as a destresser? Hmmmmm I gotta think on that one!
In other news I am going to start the process of merging this blog with my chaoticallycrafty one. I don’t feel it makes much sense to separate the craftiness out of my life blog. It IS part of my life. This site will still point to that blog but I’ll warn you all when you should change your bookmarks so you’re not thinking something spammy and scammy has happened!
Have a fabulous day!
So I have had so many hairstyles through my life that I can’t even count them on my fingers. Bobs, shags, layers, braids, long, short, razer cut…well you get the picture, or do you?
Today I’m going to talk about the hair I do pretty much whenever my hair is too dirty to cooperate and I’ve run out of time in the morning to wash it.
It’s called the Twist and Tail!
Now, I warn you I am totally doing this after work with no makeup on. I look like shit warmed over. Can you handle it? I hope so! OK well the first pic is taken before i went to work when I had makeup on but who’s doing the tutorial here? The only requirement i have is that you DON’T MIND MY ROOTS! This is, after all, the lazy girls guide to hair.
It’s super easy and works well if you have bangs that are growing out.
Just get a scrunchy and one of those pop type clips you get in a pack of like, 12 at the drug store. You don’t even need a brush if you don’t want to use one!
- First take all of your bangs and pull them to the side.
- Start twisting from the opposite side from where you want to pin your bangs (I go from left to right)
- Stop twisting when you’ve reached the side of your head. Pin in place with a pop clip. Don’t worry that there’s hair length left we’ll deal with that later.
- At this point you can leave it like this if you’re lazy or skip to the next step.
- Gather hair into a ponytail. I go for a mid point ponytail not too high not too low. This is so if i have bumps underneath they don’t show and so all the hair stays in the scrunchy.
- You’re done! Spray with crap (hairspray) if you want but this is not required.
It’s totally OK if you have bumps in the ponytail or you can’t get a straight ponytail. We’re not looking for accuracy here. If it bothers you that much then go for that “Messy bun/ponytail” that we all know and love!
That’s how it’s done girls!
You can do this at work in the middle of the day. I do it in between calls to get my hair out of the way because our office goes hot and cold with the air conditioning.
On January 1, 2010 Disney started a program to get 1 million people to volunteer in their communities. They called it “Give a Day Get a Day.”They offered a free Disney park 1 day pass to anyone who committed to and went through with one day of volunteer work. With work and school I didn’t think that I’d have the time to volunteer. Everything turned around for me 3 weeks ago. A friend told me that a local charity was allowing people to knit and crochet hats that they would then give to breast cancer patients. I love crocheting so I thought I’d give it a go! Then my family wanted to do it too.
I settled on the Knifty Knitter to make my hats and taught each member of my family how to use it to make hats. It took us all 3 weeks but, we got them done! It was a challenge at first. I was starting to only crochet the hats. I found my wrists hurting though. I was crocheting for almost 4 hours a day and wasn’t making much progress. The good feeling I was getting for helping out those with breast cancer was being overwhelmed by the bad feelings in my wrists and arms. We picked up speed and rested my wrists after we switched to the round loom though.
I put the hats in the mail yesterday. I feel so good that our family could help out such a cause and i will continue to make hats for this charity between each project. I just hope that everyone that volunteered to get Disney tickets continues to volunteer after their trip to the Happiest Place on Earth.
Today I received some great news in my email box. After negotiations between the ACB and the credit reporting agencies, we can receive our credit reports in a format that is accessible to us!
You can receive your 3 free annual credit reports by either by phone or online. If you choose to obtain your reports via the toll free phone number you will go through a short verification process. After this the automated system will ask you if you need your free annual credit report in an accessible format for the visually impaired. You then certify that you are visually impaired under the ADA. After that you pick which format you want the credit report in. You will do this process for all three credit reports.
If you choose to go online to obtain your credit reports you still don’t have to worry about a thing! The website https://www.annualcreditreport.com/ is designed to meet priorities 1 and 2 of the web accessibility standards. If you do choose to obtain your credit report online this is the official site and is the best way to obtain your credit reports.
Knowing what is on your credit report is very important. It can affect not only the obvious things like obtaining credit cards but it can also affect your ability to obtain employment in many states. It is a good idea to check your report once per year to make sure all information is accurate and correct. This is the best way to guard against identity theft.
I am going to find my phone and call for my large print credit reports today. If you are visually impaired make sure you do this. Not only is it good for you, it shows these agencies that accessible information will be used by those who need it.
You can read more about ACB’s
accessible credit report agreement at www.lflegal.com/2008/12/credit-announce/.
We were all waiting to hear about the new invention that Apple was going to come out with for the past month or so. Everyone was so excited about this super secret gadget.
“What could it be?”
“Is it a netbook?”
“Maybe it’s a new iPhone model!”
Well the wait is over as of yesterday morning! Apple has released it’s new tablet computer called the iPad!
The iPad has a 10 inch screen and is only 1/2 inch thick. It will come in a 16, 32 and 64 GB version with built in WiFi and the option to add 3G support. The iPad is not just meant to surf the web and do email. The best part of this device is the built in ability to use it as a book reader. This is great news for college students! Apple is working with textbook publishers to get school texts onto the bookstore.
Another great feature of the iPad is the fact that it has the same look and feel as the iPhone. Those people who have used the iPhone for any length of time will have no trouble getting used to the feel of this device. The iPad supports apps just like the iPhone does as well.
The great news about the iPad is that it will be accessible to those with vision impairments as well as those with hearing impairments. The iPad supports captioning for the hearing impaired and will come with Voice Over and ZOOM for those with vision impairments! As a ZOOM user this is truly exciting.
The only complaints I have heard so far is the absence of a webcam and support for Flash. These might be added in the next version but I can’t be sure.
For more information on the iPad please check out Apple’s website at www.apple.com
We interrupt your regularly scheduled blogging for a day of Thanks!
Today when I woke up I felt the need to post a blog entry. I realized that even though things are tough right now I have a lot to be thankful for.
Here’s my list! These are in no particular order.
- Family – Without them I would be nowhere. I’d be on my ass and miserable. Thank you!
- Friends – I have such amazing friends. They support me emotionally and creatively. We have our BS drama sometimes but I LOVE each one of you.
- Job – I love my job and I am thankful everyday that I found such a “me” place to work. I’m accepted for who I am there and everyone works with me despite my “disability.” Nobody even seems to care that I’m visually impaired.
- My Birdie Cat – She’s my baby. I am so lucky to have her. Though she can be an ever loving pain in the ass she is still an amazing and intelligent cat (even if she DID try to pounce on the turkey last night!)
- Creativity – My creativity is my life. I am thankful everyday that I was born with such an endless amount of it.
- Life – I’m thankful that I’ve had the opportunity to live through so many different things weather they be good or bad. Every part of my life has been something to learn from and I have.
What are you thankful for? I don’t think we say it enough. We wait until the holidays to get all sentimental and start saying how thankful we are for things. It’s like the rest of the year just doesn’t matter. I think we need to start talking about the things in our life that we’re thankful for and that we’re happy about.
Well, Disneyland has always been accessible. They have always had a way for those with disabilities to navigate around the park and enjoy their attractions. But, this is another step in the right direction for them.
Disneyland has launched a device called “Audio Description” that lets blind visitors hear about many of the attractions at the park! The handheld device was initially launched at Disney World and also offers accessibility for those who are deaf and hard of hearing.
I haven’t personally tried the new technology yet but I plan to. Even being partially sighted there are things that I’m sure I miss while going through the park.
My first thought was “Well what about attractions such as Splash Mountain and even Pirates of the Caribbean? The Audio Description device is meant to withstand such things. It’s also sturdy enough to withstand being dropped. This is a good thing as sometimes a day at a theme park can be brutal on electronics.
The technology behind the Audio Description device is pretty cool. There are a number of infrared sensors that send the signal to the handheld device. My question would be could they possibly extend this technology to include restaurant menus in the parks? When I head to Disneyland my main issue is reading the signs and menus. If these could be included in this device it would really be accessible.
I think Disneyland is going in the right direction and could really do great things with this Audio Description device. The really cool thing is that they are leasing the technology to other tourist attractions. I know of a few places where this could REALLY come in handy.
Well OK…they didn’t break it but OH MY GOSH did they stress me enough to give me liquid booty!
I started my part time job back at the end of June. I TOLD Social Security about it since I’m receiving SSI benefits for being blind. Well the other day I got that infamous letter in the mail…
“You have an appointment.” WTF? I didn’t say I wanted an appointment.
Reading further…
“In reviewing your income…” Oh it can only go to hell from here right?
So I went to my appointment.
It was scheduled for me at 1:30 this afternoon. I got there at 1:15. My worker was over 10 minutes late getting to me. Had I been late they would have found an excuse to say I missed the appointment and stopped my check.
So I get in there and everythings fine. It was fine up until the point where he starts talking bout my income. I was informed to keep full benefits i can only make $85 a month from working. Also, I found out that they base their decisions on what I get each month from them on my GROSS income…before taxes.
So needless to say I got my benefits cut today. Basically in their opinion, if you get money from them you can only make $580 a month (in California.) They will cut your check to make it to where even with working that’s all you make. HOW is a person supposed to live on that? We’re not alowed food stamps out here because California adds $200 in cash aid to the SSI checks. We can’t get on housing because they never open the damn list. if I wasn’t renting a room from a family member I’d be on the street!
Needless to say again that this caused a lot of stress and tears for me. I am a person that doesn’t cry easily and I walked out of that office in tears! It was probably better though considering my next emotion was anger and though I outweighed that security guard, I don’t think that would have ended well.
So what do I do from here? I move on and forward. I’m continuing with school and working my job. I’m taking odd jobs on the side to make extra money and will be taking all the extra hours I can at work. If I ever have the opportunity to get close to full time I’m taking it.
You will certainly hear more from me on this topic. But in the meantime watch out here for some really cool reviews in the coming days.
I love Twitter! I’ve been a member since 07 and have met great people and kept in contact with people I already know. It’s saved me several times and I’ve grown attached to the little bird. It’s become as much a part of my life as good ol’email has.
I was very disturbed however when I read about Twitter’s mess up today.
Apparently “No God” was a trending topic this morning. Some Christian people were none too happy about this and strted retweeting a phrase “Know God Know Peace” to combat the “No God” tweet. Well, the athiests found it amusing to go ahead and make fun of this by tweeting “No God Know Peace.” This became so popular that Twitter couldn’t handle all of the tweeting that was going on (this is a major flaw that Twitter should work on, it happens often…can we say FAIL WHALE?)
Since Twitter couldn’t handle all of the tweeting and retweeting of these 2 trending topics a Twitter administrator decided to censor the “offensive topic” by combining the trending topics of “Know God” and “No God” into one topic labeled “Know God.”
So what does this mean anyway? If you were to search for the topic “Know God” you would find the tweets for “No God” as would be the case the other way around.
Part of me wonders if Twitter is secretly trying to censor us. Part of me wonders if the admin that did this was just THAT clueless. It will certainly be interesting to see if Twitter makes an official statement about this screw up.
If it is indeed Twitter being a censor then I will be finding another social network to spend my time on. I’ve liked Twitter so far because i can pretty much as whatever I damn well please. I can call people losers and give my quite frank opinion on everything. But I can’t say something about “No God?” That’s a “No Go” in my book!
Myself, i feel like all of those who worship a Goddess or both God and Goddess should tweet #knowthegoddess or #knowthegodandgoddess Let’s see what happens then!
So just by the exclamation marks in the title you can already tell where this is going…
My name is Amber and I am a craftaholic. Yes it’s true. I’m always on the hunt for my next project. But, I can stop anytime I want to. I don’t need saving! That all being typed as I stare at my huge Fire Mountain Gems haul sitting on my dining room table, and the 3…yes, THREE crochet projects sitting on my couch.
I’ve always loved art and crafts. When I was in preschool we had a graduation when it was time for us to move on to kindergarten. Do you know what i got as my graduation present from the school??? A HUGE copy paper box (you know the ones that used to hold the dot matrix printer paper?) full of art and craft supplies.
I come from a prety crafty family on my mom’s side. My Grammy always sewed, painted, did embroidery, painted and crocheted. As a child I always did crafts with my mom and my Grammy. We would make decorations at the holidays, do some painting on rainy days or just draw when we were bored. My uncles were the artists when it came to drawing. AMAZING!
Newdays I have taken on the craft gene and embraced it with love and respect. The crafts I currently love are as follows; crochet, jewelry making, scrapbooking/jpaper crafts and knitting. I love all types of crafts though and will try anything once. If it doesn’t work out I pass the supplies on to someone who could use them.
Currently I am working on a market bag, a blanket and a scarf in crochet. I’m putting together pendulum necklaces and learning to make earrings AND making rune sets out of polymer clay. It’s definitely an exciting time in my crafty world. The crochet projects are gifts and the rest I am thinking of putting in my Etsy shop.
So I guess the answer to the Girl Talk Thursday question is HELL YES I get crafty!!!
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