A change

So this is going to be a pretty personal post. I only have 2 followers, and I'm pretty sure one of them is currently being away from blogging. I haven't kept up with this place at all for the last two months, because I am always worried about it. I always worry that I will say something that will upset someone else.

Mostly I have avoided it because I have been in a funk. A pretty bad one, actually. When I was a young teen, I was diagnosed as manic depressive. After that, it changed to borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder. I have struggled with depression since I was 7. I was medicated on and off through my teenage years, but stopped cold turkey when I went to college. Since then, I have had my highs and my lows, like everyone.

These last few months have been some of the most trying in many years. I have been systematically shutting myself down to the outside world. Unsurprisingly, I have lost most of my friends. I do not blame any of them, but it does hurt like hell.

That being said, I have decided enough is enough. I will not let my disease control me. I have fought through this before, and I am going to do it again.

I have a job interview on Friday, and I am really hopeful about it. Either I will get this job, which will be awesome, or I won't. Even if I don't though, it has given me the push that I need to go and find myself something better than what I currently have. I do not want to stay where I am, and I am going to find myself something better.


So, in conclusion, my blog has changed. It is not going to be about how perfect my life is right now, because honestly, it isn't. This is going to be about me making my life what I want it to be. It is not going to be just the good parts. It will be about all of it. It is going to be honest, and I am holding myself to that.


That is my promise. Not to my one follower. Not to any I may or may not ever gain. It is a promise to myself, because I need to do this for me.

Thank you, so very much, for reading. I hope that you continue to read, but if not, I totally get it.


All my love,
Toni

Supercat

I had to share this picture!

Fishstick is incredibly fond of plastic bags. Any time he can, he will crawl into them. Corey and I went to go grab some groceries, and saw this waiting for us at the door.

He is such a silly cat! He is about 2 years old now... I can't believe how much he has grown.

How adorable was his little face!?

Good news!

This is going to be a pretty quick, but personal post.

I haven't said anything about it here, because I want my blog to be a place of happiness, but life has been pretty rough around here lately. Corey and I got married on November 11th, and in the next two months our only car broke down and had to be towed from our front yard and Corey was laid off. It has been a major struggle since then. I only work part time(usually 30-35 hours) but my job requires completely open availability. Corey is the chief bread winner of our home.

Thankfully, there was nothing major broken on Calliope(our little 2007 Toyota Yaris) so we got that taken care of in a few days. Unfortunately, finding a job for Corey was not that easy. We put him through school two years ago to be certified in Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning, and the tail end of winter just is not busy season for them. No one was hiring.

This morning he interviewed with one of the larger companies in our area, and was hired on the spot! He is such an amazingly hard worker, and I am beyond pleased that someone recognizes it in him. He starts tomorrow! I'll hardly get to see him, since he's going to be working 6:30am-2pm, but that will just make the time we do spend together better!

So that is a little peek into what has been going on here. I hope everything is going well for all of you!

Wolves

I've been crazy busy with work lately! Plus a good friend just got back from deployment, and I am so happy to have him home.

I have been keeping busy with things to share too! I scored some amazing things thrifting this past week, and I can't wait to get some good photos.

Until then, I will show you a commission I had. She wanted a a little wolf statue, and a necklace charm. I am satisfied with the statue, but boy oh boy do I love the charm!

The statue looks a bit more dog like, and I had the hardest time painting him. I must have redone him at least 5 times. I'm usually really good at painting and gradients, but something about the wolf just wouldn't work. He's about 3 inches tall.

The charm though, so cute! His body is about the size of a nickle for comparison. I think I may make some more, with different animals. Maybe a little kitty next?!

Parapluesch

I have been crazy busy with work and helping Corey. I really need an actual camera so I can share more on here! I've had two of my favorite outfits and did a really awesome egg project in the last week. I think I will figure something out with my awful cell phone pictures though, because they are better than nothing!

While I work on that though, I want to share one of my absolute favorite websites and games.

http://www.parapluesch.de/whiskystore/test.htm

It's called Parapluesch, and is a game playing psychiatrist to abused cuddly toys. It's adorable and sad and heartwarming when they get to leave at the end. I found it so many years ago I have no idea how, but Kroko was always my favorite. As a going away to college present, my friends all chipped in and bought me the little plush of him. He holds a space of honor among my cuddle toys, and I am determined to give him a life of love.

It can be a bit time consuming, and somewhat frustrating. I love it though, and I hope others will share my enjoyment!

Aloysius

Earlier I posted the story my husband wrote for our wedding site.

Related to that I thought I would share one of my tattoos today!

This is Aloysius! He is an archeopteryx. He seems quite the dapper dino here, but he is a crazy party animal!

He is about a foot tall, in the back of my calf. He wraps around a bit on either side, so it's hard to get a full picture. I absolutely love everything about him. Pretty much I told my tattoo artist to have fun, and boy did he! His little feather in the breast pocket gets me every.single.time. I just.. love it so much!

Art done by Gentleman Jim, who is amazing. I cannot praise this man enough, and if you ever happen to find yourself in the area, you should definitely give him a look.



Pretty pretty please do not steal my tattoo anyone!

Jackalope!

While I typically consider myself to be a jack of all crafts, master of none, the one thing I believe I am fully talented at is sculpting. Clay is one of my biggest passions in life, and few things compare to the thrill of someone seeing their idea come to life through my skills!

To that point, I made this jackalope mount for a friend recently. It is the most detailed sculpt I have done since college, and I am beyond pleased with how it turned out.


If you are at all interested in commissioning me, please drop me a note! I prefer to work off of commissions rather than blindly making items. Plus then it is completely customizable!

Except maybe a few more jackalopes. It was so much fun to make, I definitely want to at least make myself one!

Our Story

I married my best friend last November(yes, it was 11-11-11). We did all of the planning and paid for everything except my dress(thank you Mom!). To help, I asked Corey to write up something about how we got together. The following is the story that is on our official wedding website(it is a bit long, but I guarantee you will love it!)

The story of Corey and Toni goes back further than any of us can remember, even before the creation of our current universe, which is not as great as the one before it but still better than the one before that. Maybe about the same.

But for the sake of keeping your attention, we'll begin at the late Jurassic Period, a chaotic and tumultuous, yet still pretty sweet time in the young couple's lives during which they befriended an archaeopteryx, which they named Aloysius long before that name was cool. Together, they frolicked amongst the hot lava and the over-sized flora that was so common back then, invented water, and made the biggest omelets ever. From chicken eggs. Chickens were also really big at that point.
Let us fast forward a few years or so to the early 13th century, when the two packed up their few (yet very valuable) worldly belongings and pet dinosaur, which also lives forever, and moved to China. There, they went on many double dates with Genghis Khan and his lovely wife Chaka, learned Kung Fu from a stout and surprisingly verbose panda, and ate authentic crab rangoon on a semi-daily basis. Aloysius preferred General Tso's chicken, which at the time was called Colonel Tso's chicken, as Tso had not yet been promoted to General.

Nothing happened for a while.

Then, in 1885, Corey and Toni decided it was time for a change, and moved into Thomas Edison's laboratory at Menlo Park. There, they took the initiative in inventing muffins, the color green, bacon and all pig-related foods, democracy, belt buckles, an inexplicable hatred and fear of spiders in most people, screws, the human sternum, Jesus, cat toys, the concept for TiVO, music with catchy rhythms, George Clooney, and a type of dental floss that sends a subliminal signal into the brain of its owner, which makes him/her no longer have the desire to floss. All were great successes.
And now, the present is upon us. Corey and Toni have decided to finally settle down and get married, which sadly prompted the release of their pet archaeopteryx into the wild, being a completely untethered and figuratively rabid party animal who just wouldn't fit into their newfound grown-up responsible lifestyle. So, that's why you guys never saw Aloysius. They did, however, adopt three cats, whose names are Sammi, Barnaby Juniper Jones, and Holdin' In The Heat Like A Fishstick. The sedentary lifestyle of a cat is a much better fit.

So, as this universe draws nearer to a close due to the cataclysmic events of December 2012, we are left to wonder what's next for Corey and Toni, who also invented marshmallows and can read the mind of any European as long as they're not thinking in German or one of those non-English languages. But that's another story, for another wedding, billions of years from now.

Meet the kitties!

I spoke about these guys in my first post, but I have not shared any pictures yet, so here they are!

This is Sammi, she was my first cat. When I was still in Missouri, she belonged to my roommates. They didn't really like her much, and she had a history of bouncing around to different homes. She was pretty skinny, and not very fluffy at all. She had a lot of trust and attachment issues, but I fell head over heels in love with her. I started taking time every day to be alone with her, just to show her love. She got to really like me too, and when I found out I was moving to Virginia, she was offered to me.

Since then, she had become a totally new cat. She is the first one to greet new people, and will lay down on anyone's lap. She is just about the fluffiest kitty I know, and so gorgeous!

This is Barnaby Juniper Jones, but we call her Juniper or Junebug. We adopted her from Animal Control a couple of months after I moved here. She was all alone in her cage, and soso tiny(less than 1lb)! When we got her out, she immediately started purring and nuzzled my neck and we were sold.

She is the smartest cat I know. She knows sit, speak, fetch, drop it, and high five. She really likes to head-butt me and Corey(in the super adorable Lion King sort of way), which is probably my absolute favorite thing in the world.

This is Holdin' In The Heat Like A Fishstick, who we call Fishstick. A friend of a friend found him in a dumpster, and we were recommended as a prospective home. We had just had a really bad experience with attempting to foster another cat, so we were incredibly hesitant, but then they sent us a picture. Needless to say, we fell for him. When we went to meet him, he just meowed nonstop! We are both suckers for vocal cats, and we couldn't help but take him. My guess is he was about 4 months old when we got him, but it's hard to say.

He is a beast of a cat now! He is around 20lbs, and it is all muscle. He is incredibly strong and fast, but incredibly sweet. He is still just as vocal, and we still love it. His pattern is so beautiful, too. He has all of these gorgeous swirls instead of regular stripes, and his fur is like velvet.




So those are our cats! Our house is pretty small, so it gets rambunctious in here quickly. Any time we've had to take one to the vet though, it just feels so empty inside. They are all such good cats, with such diverse personalities,  I really couldn't ask for more.

Here's a very grainy picture of all of them having a snuggle with my darling husband, Corey! And a bit of our living room! Moments like these are what I live for(minus Sammi having ionic eyes, I really need to get an actual camera!)

Pictures!

My friend Lora needed models for her photography class, so Corey and I got gussied up and headed over! It was just last night, so I'm kindof amazed I've already got this one shot back. I look so pretty I couldn't wait to share it!

Isn't it gorgeous!? She is crazy talented. That rose is real too! Her birthday was last month, and someone gave her a dozen of them, all rainbow colored! I love how it looks with my hair.

We should be getting back the rest of the photos soon(and maybe some from the wedding! Eep!) and I will definitely share them!

String Art Missouri

This idea was fond through the iPhone app CraftGawker. I totally spaced on taking some shots while the crafting was in progress, and just managed to get the finished product. It was my first string art project, and I may be addicted! I definitely learned a lot from it, and I can't wait to do more. We used a thicker string than the original, but I kindof like how filled in it looks.

I couldn't put the heart quite where it should be, since my home is reeeaaaaally close to the state line, so I just moved it over a little The placement makes it look a little like my heart is pushing that little chunk of Missouri out(do you see that too?). My love for home is just too much for state lines!

Has anyone here ever done string art? Did you absolutely fall in love too?

The beginning

Hi! I'm Toni, and this is going to be my blog!

I am married to a wonderful man named Corey. We've only been married for a few months, and I am so happy to have him with me to tackle all life has to throw at us.

We have 3 cats, Sammi, Barnaby Juniper Jones, and Holdin' In The Heat Like A Fishstick.

We are both pretty much nerds. Not really in a geek chic way, but like a genuinely weird way. I love it though, and I wouldn't change any of our eccentricities for the world.

I hope that in the coming times, I can share my life with those that find their way here. My fondest desire is that you will enjoy you time spent here with me, and maybe even let me into your world too.

Until we meet again!

Love,
Toni