On Monday, Blake’s cousin’s wife succumbed to cancer (very young, it’s a very sad story that’s not mine to tell) so he left for Michigan on Tuesday and won’t be back until Thursday night. This means I’m home alone with both children without a car.

He left me $40 in cash in case I needed it and yesterday I needed it. We were out of milk and potatoes, among other things and Wes is sick and needed cough medicine, so even though he said “we have like, no money so if you don’t have to spend it all, don’t”, I did, because cough syrup is expensive stuff, especially in this very small town where you pay for convenience and limited shelf space in every store.

So yesterday when Judy got home from work, I asked her if she would drive me to the store and the pharmacy, which she did and she came in with me both places so I didn’t freak out. I bought her Chapstick instead of giving her gas money because she’s out, with no money and she’s a Chapstick fiend like me. First we went to the pharmacy, which went fine, then we went to the grocery store where I zipped around grabbing all the things we needed as if it were a gameshow so we could get the fuck out of there as soon as possible. She grabbed the 2 cases of Coke Zero, I grabbed the groceries and bag of potatoes and we walked out to the parking lot towards the car. Well, all of a sudden the end on one of the cases of Coke split open and Coke cans flew everywhere! A man helped us “catch” the ones that were salvageable while we left the ones that were punctured and spraying everywhere. We were damn near pissing ourselves laughing at these stupid Coke cans spraying all over the parking lot with such force some of them were actually spinning. Normally this would be a situation where, if I was alone, I’d probably freak out and cry, but because Judy was there and she was the one carrying the Coke cases, it was okay and laughable and after we rescued the rescuable, Judy drove us back to her house and then she helped me carry everything back to my house. JUDY IS A GOOD FRIEND.

So that was my adventure last night. Because he needs cough syrup every 6 hours, I’ve kept Wes home for the last 2 days, but I think I’m going to send him to school tomorrow because he doesn’t seem to be coughing as much (he was coughing so much he was throwing up yesterday) and if I give him syrup before school, he should be okay until I can give him more after school. Really, I kept him home today and yesterday because what the hell would I do if I get a call from the school saying he’s sick and has to come home? I have no car to come pick him up and Judy’s at work! But I think he’s fine to go in tomorrow.

Madison took out the garbage last night so we didn’t miss garbage day, which is a miracle because I don’t do garbage so I don’t even know when garbage day is to begin with let alone when it is after a long weekend.

Last night I made turkey pot pie with our Thanksgiving leftovers and Pilsbury crescent roll dough and I gotta say, it turned out to be really amazing. Judy suggested it and wanted to make some herself but she didn’t have any Pilsbury dough. They were on sale last week, 3/$4 so I happened to have 3. She only needed 1 and I only needed 2 (I made mine in a bigger dish than hers), so I gave her one and it worked out perfectly. I’m going to feed it to the kids again tonight unless they’d rather have grilled cheese or Kraft Dinner because I don’t feel like cooking. I’ve done a LOT of cooking this week already and dammit, I can have heat-in-the-over spring rolls for dinner.

Speaking of food, Wes hooked up the Wii Fit for me this afternoon so I could weigh myself and I’m down almost 2 whole lbs. The last time I weighed myself with it was about a week ago where I’d lost 1 lb. Maybe my shrink and Blake were right about this whole “eating protein for breakfast” thing, which I’ve been doing pretty religiously even though eating so soon after I wake up often makes me feel nauseous. That’s the only thing that’s changed this month, I haven’t been doing more or eating less, I’ve just been having breakfast pretty much every day at least 2 hours after I wake up and it’s always eggs. Luckily, eggs are one of my favourite foods, so it’s unlikely I’ll get sick of them any time soon.

The other thing that’s changed, now that I think about it, is that I’ve been going to bed and getting up earlier most days. I’ve been going to bed around 12:30am and getting up around 9 or 10am through the week, only staying up retardo late on the weekends. I don’t know if that makes a difference when it comes to weight, but I think it might be making a difference in regards to mood. I’ve been stable, with the exception of one bad day involving a stupid amount of coffee, and in a good mood pretty much non-stop for the past month & a half, which I chalk up to my shrink upping my meds. Unfortunately, in doing that I’m in a creative rut and I don’t like that, but I’m not really sure what I can do about that. I’m going to call her next week and ask. The last time this was an issue, she upped my Welbutrin to counterbalance things (after upping my gabapentin and ziprasidone, which is what she did this time too) so I’m going to remind her of that and see what she thinks.

I’ve also been very good with doing my light therapy. I tend to skip it on sunny days because I don’t see the point in doing it when the sun’s out, but I’ve been doing 30 minutes just about every day for 6 weeks now and I’m fairly certain it has a lot to do with my perpetual good mood, as much as I hate to admit it and as much as I feel stupid watching tv or reading with this glaring light in my face. But really, there’s no other explanation.

I’m feeling more and more like myself every single day, except for the creative drought I’m in. That’s not like me. Usually I have ideas practically leaking out my ears and right now I don’t have a single one. I’m still stuck on that painting that’s been on my coffee table for about 6 weeks and I’m at the point where I think I’m just going to put it in the closet and not even think about it anymore. I know more or less the execution I’m going for and until I sell a painting and have money to blow at Michael’s and Curry’s on stuff that “might” work for it, I think it’s time to stop thinking about it and move onto something else.

I’ve been kind of walking around the pile of wood that’s been sitting on my floor since last winter so I think when Blake comes home and children aren’t demanding my every waking moment, I’m going to get a piece out to play with & see what happens. I’m reading this book called Living the Creative Life, as I’ve mentioned before and some of the artists in that book talk about having to touch their materials before an idea comes to them and I’m curious to see if that’ll work for me too. I’m normally an “idea first” kind of creator and “play” isn’t really in my vocabulary unless we’re talking Sims, so it’ll be interesting to see what, if anything, happens.

This week I’ve been besieged by cramps. My body knows it’s supposed to have a period in about 5 days and is letting me know, but what it doesn’t know is that I’ll be starting a new pack of birth control pills right away tomorrow instead of letting myself bleed and I’m curious to see what my body will have to say to that. When I was 16 I went on the pill for a year straight with no breaks for periods but it was so long ago I can’t remember what it felt like so I have no idea what to expect with this, besides potential breakthrough bleeding.

Anyway, that’s all I really have to report. Blake’ll be home tomorrow and the dogs will have to find a new place to sleep and things will be normal again.

Guess who has twenty-five, no strings attached, 7 day free trials to Camwhores to give away? I do, I do!

ALL INVITES HAVE BEEN GIVEN OUT! SEE YOU ON TAG AND I’LL LET YA KNOW WHEN I HAVE MORE!

So how do you get one?

Step 1: Click on this link to see my most recent pictures. In doing so, you will be given a cookie with my special referral code so if you decide to sign up for the site within 14 days, I’ll get a desperately needed cash bonus for referring you.

Step 2: E-mail me at Sunny@SunnyCrittenden.com and give me an e-mail address YOU’VE NEVER USED for a free trial before to send the invite to. If you don’t receive an invite, assume they’re already gone or you’ve used that e-mail address before.

Rules:
- Don’t be a dickhead on tag. I’m responsible for inviting you and can get in trouble for inviting dickheads.
- First come, first served. When the invites are gone, I’ll edit this post to let everyone know.
- I will not be sending invites to people who are too lazy to e-mail me and post their addresses in my comments.

Sound good? Good! And hey, while you’re there, don’t forget to check out the new and improved forums! It has an arcade now and there are plenty of threads in there to post in. :o)

Let the games begin! I’ll see you on tag!

So for some ungodly reason I’m up at the crack of dawn and really wishing I could get back to sleep. It all started with having to pee, then Lucky whining to go out, then Lucky whining some more after he came in, then the children being awake…so I guess now I’m just UP.

According to The Weather Network, we’re supposed to get our first taste of snow on Thursday and I cannot even begin to express how thrilled I am about this. [/sarcasm] All week, with the exception of Thursday, it’s been nothing but cold drizzle and grey skies and while I’m doing light therapy with my super fancy light box, it’s hard for this weather not to affect your mood. (Although I’ve been oddly upbeat in general, which is strange for me for this time of year.) Anyway, last year we didn’t get our first snow until mid-to-late November and I know this because it was Steph the Geek’s wedding and we had a hell of a time driving back home.

On Thursday, in a fluke of nature, the sun actually shone and it went up to a whopping 17 degrees C and I decided that it might be one of the last nice days of the year so Wayne & I should get out and do something. What I really wanted to do was going on the trails by my house and take pictures of the leaves and stuff, but Wayne’s not much of a nature guy so I opted for going to the pharmacy to refill my prescriptions instead, which is something I’ve only done once since living here and I thought it would be something good because that would mean Blake wouldn’t have to do it on the weekend.

So that’s what we did. Really, the trip was uneventful. I got my prescriptions, my Tylenol 1, my mega-ibuprofen, lotion, eyeliner and some Chapstick. Exciting, I know, but the point is, I did it all pretty much by myself. Wayne stood in front of the magazine rack reading a National Enquirer about Patrick Swayze’s last days the whole time.

Anyway, minor milestone for me, I suppose. I wish the pharmacy here was bigger. I actually really like pharmacies, always have. I like looking at the makeup and the hair products and the greeting cards, but our pharmacy is microscopic so while they have all of the above, it’s only in very tiny sections with very little selection and it never changes. The only greeting cards they have are birthdays, anniversaries, get well soon and sympathies, along with a small section of Marjolein Bastin cards, which happen to be mine and my mother’s favourites, but even there the selection is fairly thin. (I did get one for my mom though, which I will mail by myself…eventually.)

Other than that, my weeks have been consumed by Buttercup, my return to Camwhores and this wretched painting that refuses to complete itself.

So first, at Buttercup the conversations are happening so fast and we have so many people posting now that even I’m having a hard time following sometimes! This thing is really starting to take off, which is something we didn’t really anticipate happening until the new year. Perhaps this month’s cover has something to do with it:

Recognize those boobs? Well you might! They belong to the one and only Sybil Hawthorne, who was gracious enough to take a crapload of pictures for us to choose from for issue #2. We thought this one embodied what we think Buttercup stands for and also gives a nod to breast cancer awareness month and thus, that’s why we chose it. I was a bit iffy about sticking boobs on our cover because we have such a wide variety of women reading the zine, but so far the response has been overwhelmingly positive.

Speaking of boobs, here are mine:

Same old bra (I’ve had that thing for 7 years! it’s the miraculous “click bra” that Victoria’s Secret no longer makes!), much bigger boobs.

As I was explaining to some folks on Camwhores‘ tagboard this week, my return to the site, while nostalgic, isn’t going to be the same as when I was on the site before, getting naked all the time and being free with my body. The reason for that is simply because A) I’m kinda fat these days and B) I’m 30 years old now. My boobs aren’t going to get any nicer. I mean let’s face facts here, it really is only downhill from here in the boob department and I don’t especially want an archive of my girls’ decline. I reserve the right to absolutely change my mind, but that’s my thoughts on it as of now. For now, these guns are gonna remain holstered. Now, hopefully I make a few tips or something from the site so I can afford some new holsters (bras) because it occurred to me the other night that in the two years I’ve been gone from Camwhores, I’ve only acquired two new bras, one of which is actually a pretty hideous shade of army green and if I’m going to be showing off my boobs in a bra, it might be a good excuse to invest in some more. For example, I don’t even own a white bra, meaning I can’t wear anything white, which is especially unfortunate since I bought some white shirts this summer without remembering that little fact. Oops. :o/

Also with my return to Camwhores, I guess it’s now time to update the Webcam page on this site.

Someone asked me recently if my return to camming meant that I’d be adding a cam feed to my site and the answer is no. For one, I use WordPress and I wouldn’t even begin to know how to make a WordPress page refresh every 30 seconds, two, I always hated updating two feeds – one for Camwhores and one for my site – and three, only like, 10 people even looked at the cam feed on my site over the years because most of my audience were Camwhores members so it just doesn’t make any sense to add a cam feed to my site. Not to mention the fact that I’m not a members-only cam on Camwhores, so when I’m updating there, the whole world can see me whether they’re a paying customer or not, so there would be no point in having a separate feed for my site.

Over the last little while a lot of former Camwhores members have asked me what it’s like over there now and all I really have to say about that is to watch the tagboard for a few minutes during peak times (9pm is a good time, so are the afternoons) and see for yourself. People are chatting up a storm, the community vibe IS back, the forum has been improved (it now has an arcade!) and people are coming out of the woodwork left, right and center! Last night I actually talked to SINISTER HER on tag for crying out loud! Yeah, that bitch is still around! :oD

While it’s true that the scenery has changed quite a bit in the last few years and there are a LOT of girls I don’t know as well as the old school ones I do, we’re all pretty much the same animal and as per usual on the site, everyone’s really nice and out to have a good time. When I first started camming, part of the drive for me was the party atmosphere of it, putting on some good, loud music and hanging out with 50 of my closest friends and I’m finding that that vibe is absolutely, 100% still there and I’ve been having a lot of fun.

Is it worth the $30/month subscription fee? Hey, I dunno, I’m not your accountant and I’ve never had to pay for it myself, I’m just telling you what it’s like in the deep end and I guess all I really have left to say on the matter is, the water’s fine.

Now…this damn painting. It has been sitting on my coffee table for about 2 weeks now about half finished:

It is (thus far) called “The Two Sunnies” and yes, they are currently armless (doing arms is the absolute worst part of any of these paintings) and all I know is that on the left it’ll say “Je suis heureuse” and on the right it’ll say “Je suis triste”, but other than that, I simply don’t know what the hell to do with it. The girls are going to be holding hands, that’s another element, but in person the painting seems so “blah” to me, even when I envision the words on it and I’m not sure how to take it further. I hate having unfinished pieces sitting around for so long because the longer they sit around, the more likely they are to get spilled on, or have the cat sit on them or the dogs knock them over, so I really want to get this one done, but I lack the vision and the motivation to do so. Everything in my life right now (besides not having any money, which is almost always the case) is going pretty good except this one little thing… Plus! I’ve got nothing else coming down the pipe, my mind is completely blank when it comes to creative endeavors. Because of Touched By Fire, I actually have this backlog of paintings that I’d like to get sold, but I can’t put them up until I know what, if anything, has been accepted for the show. I should find out soon, though.

This weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving and I’m going to be cooking a turkey on Monday. I forget how to cook a turkey though, so I’ll have to Google that, but it’s in my fridge right now thawing and I’m sure it’ll turn out fine. With it we’ll probably have mashed potatoes and a vegetable of some sort, corn probably, and I’m going to attempt to make gravy from scratch, which I’ve never done before and have no idea how to do. (So if anyone would like to tell me, that’d be good. I know I need cornstarch, which I have, I’m just not really sure what I’m supposed to do with it.)

Also this weekend, hopefully today, will be the yearly destruction of my garden. All of the flowers are officially dead and that means it’s time for Blake to get out the weed whacker and cut them all down to help spread their seeds for next year. I hope it’s not too wet though.

Anyway, now I’m pretty much just rambling so I think I’m going to go make some eggs and actually start my day. Before I go though, because eggs reminded me, Blake and my shrink both swear to me that if I start eating protein for breakfast, that I’ll start to lose weight because that’ll kickstart my metabolism. I’m not totally convinced that eating MORE is going to make me lose weight and if I gain so much as a lb I’m kicking some asses, but I figure there’s no harm in trying it, I’m already fat, so every day this week I’ve been having eggs about 2 hours after I wake up, then dinner and t hen usually a snack after dinner while we’re watching TV. I haven’t weighed myself or anything but I feel better, so I must be doing something right. Or at least I guess it isn’t bad for me, exactly.

Okay, now I’m gone. *poof*

The other night, my friend Kevin dug up these pictures he took of me modeling panties for Scratching post at Sneaky Dee’s in Toronto, circa 2001. The bracelet I’m wearing in the pics is one Blake gave me (it actually used to be a necklace) that I still wear at events because my wedding ring doesn’t fit anymore. It came out of a machine and it says “mu”.

The spidamonkeys…well, that’s a long story…but they’re very naughty, pervy spidamonkeys and I currently have two of them hanging from the ceiling above my desk.

Enjoy!

(more…)

So I got over my insecurities of this afternoon and put myself back on Camwhores, camming well into the night. I’m not going to make a habit of posting highlights on my site, but here are a few pics from tonight. Still bad lighting, but whatever, I’ll get a lamp or something the next time I have money. Oh and Blake did my faux dreads, I’m gonna keep them in all week & see if they turn into real dreads and if they do, then we might just have to do some proper ones done in proper sections & stuff.

Anyway, here I am. Oh yeah and because I’m fat now, my boobs are bigger. Yay?

So…I think I’m too ugly now to do the Camwhores thing. I’m not fishing for compliments here or anything, I just did a dry run with full makeup and I blow-dried my hair so it would have more volume and the results are… :o/

The lighting in here is SO bad but I have nowhere else to cam and I don’t know how to make it any better. It’s those goddamn spiral-y lightbulbs that I use in here making my face look pinker than it actually is. It’s my friggin’ hair that needs a cut SO BAD but I have no money, I won’t go, I can’t go, by myself and Blake can’t exactly take a day off just so I can get my hair cut. (Weekends are out, it’s bad enough having to go let alone going with both kids.) My hair is beautifully damaged enough to do these awesome faux dreads but I can’t do them by myself and I doubt they’d translate on cam anyway.

Oh and I’m a big fat tub of lard.

I dunno if I can do this. Jury’s still out.

On a more positive note, the Whip It soundtrack is unbelievably good.

Edit: Hey, does anyone know if the Logitech 9000 works with a Mac?

Wow, the current version of WordPress is sooooo different than what I’d been using. Slicker.

Last night two of my favourite people, Blake and my friend Kevin, moved my site onto a new server, fixing my FTP and making it possible for Blake to upgrade my WordPress install. From now on, I should be able to update it myself from within WordPress, so that’s a bonus.

While they did all that, I dyed my hairs.

Sexy, huh? Friday night, no makeup, yeah I’m awesome. Really though, I just wanted to play with my new cam a bit. I have obtained a Logitech 9000 for my re-entry into camming and my god is it ever a nice camera compared to old webcams. It’s almost too good. Part of the beauty of webcams, back in the day (I hate that term, I dunno why I just used it) was that webcams were just crappy enough that they didn’t show zits, moles, stretchmarks, cellulite or light freckles and I, as well as others, were more than fine with that. I haven’t played around with this cam a whole ton, but it’s a lot clearer in low light than older cams, meaning it’s going to show flaws better. I’m cool with showing my flaws, I don’t care, and I can hide my occasional zits with makeup, so I don’t care about that either, I’m just noticing this huge difference and find it very interesting.

I was hoping to get my cam up and running by the end of the weekend, but that’s seeming more and more unlikely as I mentally tick down the things I have to get done in the next two days. For one, I have a Buttercup article due tonight that I haven’t even started (although I’ve done all the research already) and all day today, my neighbour Judy is helping me with my FOOD article for Buttercup because here’s a secret: I don’t really cook or bake and when I do, it’s usually from a box. The only thing I make from scratch are roasts and whole chickens and the subsequent stews and soups from the leftovers. I make muffins a lot for the kids’ lunches, but those come in a back and all I have to do is add water. Earlier this week I was going to do my FOOD item all by myself, but I chickened out and asked Judy to help me because she actually has cookie sheets (okay okay, they’re cookies) that aren’t rusting out. (I use my cookie sheets for like, putting TV dinners and frozen pizzas on and they were hand-me-downs 12 years ago. Mine are probably older than I am and they really are black from stuff boiling over onto them and they really are rusting out.)

I decided I’d take the FOOD column for October because my neigbour’s daughter had this really amazingly easy recipe for something very appropriate for Thanksgiving (Canadian Thanksgiving is on October 12th) and also, I kinda wanted to get my turn over with. I’ll have to do it again in like, 6 months, but whatever, at least after I have 6 months to find another recipe.

So speaking of October, have you seen Buttercup‘s cover yet this month? Because it’s extra awesome thanks to my friend Sybil Hawthorne and we’re all really really proud of both the cover and what we have planned for this month. Last month we weren’t sure if this whole Buttercup thing was going to fly, but this month, after gaining 110 members in September with activity in 40 different groups, we decided to go all out and have more fun with this month. Sooooo check it out!

As far as camming…I’m not sure when I’m going to re-add myself to Camwhores. I have to find, download and crack cam software, for one. I’m told ChillCam is still around, but now you have to pay for it and some girls use Webcam32, which I also think you have to pay for. There’s a free one called Fwink (I think?), but I looked at it last night and it left much to be desired so I don’t think I’m going to be going with that. I have EvoCam for my Mac, thanks to zwilliams, but 95% of my camming will be done with my PC because my MacBook’s built-in iSight is garbage so I need something for that too. Half of my 7 years of camming was done on a PC using ChillCam and the other half was on my iBook using EvoCam, so I’ll probably go with ChillCam if I can find a crack for it or a keygen or something. Any help with that would be greatly appreciated.

Yesterday I sold a painting, although I won’t actually be getting the money for it until Sunday. My neighbour’s daughter and her friend were scouring my Facebook a few weeks ago, looking at my paintings and asking for prices on all of them so I redirected them to my site. Ashley’s (that’s the daughter) friend really liked my “Emo” painting, which has been rotting on my site for almost a year now, but neither of them were about to pay $90 US for it because they’re just not the art buying type, so yesterday I offered it to Ashley for her friend for her birthday at a very discounted price because hey, we’re friends and I’m really really really need money right now. In fact, if anyone wanted to buy a painting or donate money to my site, now would definitely be the time to do it because I’m running dangerously low on art supplies and I literally have about $1.50 to my name right now.

Anyway, this was the painting Ashley’s friend liked so much, which she will now be getting for her birthday, along with a Bitch Barometer, of which I only have 3 left of.

So graduating! On Thursday morning I went to see my shrink and because I’m progressing with my immersion therapy, I’m doing my lightbox therapy, my meds are stable and have been in a good place the last 3 visits, she’s bumped me up from seeing her once a month to seeing her once every 3 months. I can still phone her if anything goes wrong or I need more meds between now and my next appointment, but I’m okay enough now that I don’t need to see her as often.

I have to go in and get a blood test done to check my thyroid, my blood sugar, my salts, my cholesterol and various other things which are all routine when you take the kind of drugs I do. She also put me on the waiting list for their metabolic somethin’ er other clinics which is basically where you talk to a dietitian in a group and s/he tells you how to eat properly in order to lose weight as almost everyone gains weight because of their meds. Now, I’m no longer on the medication that made me gain weight and I stopped drinking Coke and I’ve been more active, theoretically I should have lost at least 10 lbs by now, if not 20, but I haven’t lost a single pound since going off the drug and these blood tests are partially to figure out why. The drug I was on, called Risperidone, can slow down your metabolism, which I’m 99% positive it did with me, and it can take like, 5 years to recover from it. It also probably didn’t help that I was on this drug just as I was turning 30, when your metabolism naturally begins to slow down a bit, so I kinda got the double whammy and I think it is SO damn unfair. Luckily I’m not gaining any more weight, I’m just not losing any which bothers me more than you could even imagine, especially because I’ve taken many many steps with zero reward.

But anyway, I only have to see my shrink now every 3 months and that is a good thing. Also, the light therapy, as much as I’m loathe to admit it, really does seem to be helping, so I’ve been in a good place for a while now.

Alright, I guess that’s all I really had to say, so it’s time to throw on a bra and get over to Judy’s so we can make these damn cookies.