Fall is not a good time of year for me and it appears the annual melancholy has begun to set in earlier this time around. My brain doesn’t work, I can’t think properly, I’m frustrated, upset and agitated most of the time, feeling useless and depressed.

It doesn’t help that, yet again, we were turned down for debt reduction from those who hold my student loans, despite the fact that I have a well documented mental illness and on paper, after bills, we are left with around $400 per month to feed 4 people and 2 pets, as well as pay for gas for Blake to get to and from work and that’s with only paying the minimum on our $3000 credit card debt, debt that’s been incurred due to the pressures of these student loans that theoretically, I should be exempt from paying but they have been dicking us around for YEARS instead. (Losing our documents, claiming documents haven’t been received, forgetting to send out forms, claiming certain forms have been lost in the mail, telling us to fax certain things and then saying we weren’t supposed to fax them at all, but mail them, etc etc etc…then turning us down for debt reduction despite numerous letters from my healthcare providers and hard math that says flat out, we cannot afford this on one income.)

Anyway…I’m agitated for a million reasons, and this being my site, I reserve the right to list them here.

Our lawn hasn’t been mown since roughly the end of July because our lawn mower bit the dust. Our 3-year old-lawn mower that would probably still be running just fine if it hadn’t been doing double duty all this time, as our neighbour has borrowed it pretty much every weekend since moving in here 3 years ago. So, it’s a 3-year-old lawn mower with 6 years worth of wear & tear on it and it died. No good deed goes unpunished, right? It’s like that time we gave someone’s car a boost and the wind caught our hood and bent it backwards. We can’t afford to eat, let alone a new one and I worry constantly about how our house looks from the curb with all of these weeds and this overgrown lawn badly in need of a mow and I also worry about getting a citation from the town. Our original plan was to try and find a lawn company to mow it and fix it all up before the end of the month, but that would cost between $60-100 (we’re assuming, no one’s called to get an actual quote that I know of) and we just don’t have it, so I guess my only option is to sit here and fret and make myself sick about it until the snow covers it up and we’ll deal with it in the spring. If someone from the town comes to the door to cite us, I’ll probably snap and lose it on them.

Also, speaking of my neighbours and our house looking like shit…Blake’s mom brought us up Blake’s old futon, which was better than our current couch. The week that happened, we had Blake’s mom’s SUV at our disposal, as well as my mother’s van and could have taken our old couch to the dump, but no, my neighbour’s daughter, who was moving into a new place, wanted our old couch for people to sit on when they were smoking in her garage. I told Blake this was a bad idea, that we should say that she had until the end of the week to pick it up or else we’d be using one of our mothers’ vehicles to take it to the dump, because I had a feeling that this goddamn couch was going to sit under my carport making it look like trash indefinitely. And lo & behold, it’s been like, 3 weeks and it’s still sitting out there looking like shit and making me go out of my fucking mind because between the state of the lawn and this godawful stained, floral abomination sitting amongst the unkempt recycling, fall leaves and garbage cans all at the front of our house, we look like we belong in a run-down trailer park somewhere. It’s probably going to snow before this shit is taken care of and that’s completely unacceptable to me. The goddamn thing is pretty much right in front of our “front door”, you have to squeeze between it and the BBQ to get inside.

It’s easy to say “well go out there and do something about it yourself”, but I can’t even leave my own house to tend to my own garden because I’m afraid of people looking at and/or talking to me. I do not want the whole world watching me attempt to rearrange furniture under my carport and quite fucking frankly, I shouldn’t have to because this situation shouldn’t have fucking happened to begin with.

…

The brakes on the car went 2 weeks ago. That took $320 out of October’s $400 food, gas & Halloween costume budget. School trip permission slips came home for both kids, which totaled around $45 and it wasn’t easy to say “no” when our town’s annual Fall Fair happened.  We couldn’t afford Thanksgiving dinner, so we didn’t have one. Our friend Alex brought us some of her family’s leftovers though, so at least I did get a little taste of turkey but I still felt like shit that I couldn’t cook a turkey of our own and share it with them, which was the original plan.

Our house has been filled with visitors during the past several weeks and this has not been a good thing. My step-mom is already asking Blake & I what we’re doing for Xmas and Xmas is the last thing I even want to even think about right now because if I let my mind go there, I’ll probably end up in the hospital for a suicide attempt. I fucking hate Xmas on a good year and this has not been a good year and I’ve been at the end of my rope for quite some time. (For those who are inevitably going to ask, my wishlist is here, the kids’ incomplete wishlist is here.)

In November my friend Steph is having a wedding. I say she’s “having a wedding” as opposed to “getting married” because she’s already married, but they never had a wedding. Long story short, he’s from the US and she’s from Canada, so this is the “official” wedding in Canada for her family and friends. This shouldn’t be a big deal but it is.

First of all, I’m agoraphobic and have social anxiety. A wedding is really not my thing. However, I love Steph and I want to be at her wedding, so I’m doing everything in my power to go - although admittedly, there’s a very good chance that as the last minute I won’t be able to. That’s neither here nor there, though.

Steph invited our entire family to the wedding, which I was excited about because it’s being held at Casa Loma, which is an honest to god castle that I thought the kids would get a huge kick out of. I also know there are going to be other kids there. Well, we can’t afford to clothe our kids for a wedding, so Alex is going to be staying home with them instead. Furthermore, the sad truth is that over the spring & summer, I gained a lot of weight due to the medication I was on, called Risperidone, for biploar disorder and it got to the point where literally the only thing I had to wear was pajamas I’d worn when I was pregnant with Wes. Luckily I have a good, generous online friend who helped me figure out my current sizes and sent me a couple of pairs of jeans and some t-shirts so I could leave the house if I wanted to, so I’d at least have the option and that was great. Unfortunately, I have nothing appropriate for a wedding because all of my “fancy” clothes are a size 0 and I’m….temporarily not a size 0.

In August my shrink put me on a new drug called Ziprasidone (Geodon/Zeldox), which appears to be the “right” drug and as my body’s gotten used to it I’ve just now begun to lose some of the weight I gained on the heinous Risperidone, but there’s no way I’m going to be back to my old self by the middle of November for Steph’s wedding, so buying an outfit is unavoidable if I’m to attend. Not only does this cause financial distress, but also social distress as this now involves going to a mall, probably with kids, probably on a weekend and the reality is that that scenario makes me want to die. Plus there’s the cost of gas to GET to the wedding, which is a small sum, and of course the gift, which I’m embarrassed to be stressing about but I am.

There’s also the matter of my hair, which is also embarrassing to even be writing about but I’m going to anyway. Last year I dyed my hair flaming red as it was growing out from being shaved and that turned out to be a huge mistake because red, as some of you may know, is a total pain in the ass to maintain (especially when you’re blonde) and very hard to strip out (especially when you’re a porous blonde). Long story short, I ended up having to visit a hair salon twice, at $70 a pop, to have my hair turned into a shade found in nature and I vowed (for the millionth time) to never dye my hair by myself again because I screw it up 90% of the time.  Well, getting my hair done professionally before this wedding is a financial impossibility, so a journey to the drug store’s blonde-in-a-bottle aisle is unavoidable and I guess I’ll wear my hair in a ponytail or something because I can’t afford to even get it cut. (As an aside, if anyone can recommend a GOOD brand of drugstore hair dye, particularly in a cool blonde shade, that would be great. I used to use Feria, but it doesn’t seem to matter which brand I use, I end up with yellow hair.)

Blah blah blah. Flat out, we cannot afford to go to this wedding and I hope Steph understands if we can’t. I know Steph would rather have us there than receive a gift, that’s just the kind of person she is, but it’s not looking like I can go and hold my head up high at the same time, so there’s a very good chance we won’t go at all. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t and YES, if we don’t go, I’ll probably regret it for the rest of my life and feel like a total fuckwad. I’m cringing at the thought of Steph even reading this post, so Steph, if you ARE reading, don’t tell me.

I’m so so so frustrated that this site still looks like a piece of shit after deciding to revamp it many many months ago. It’s been “my job” to create a background image and a banner and between my computer dying and losing all my fonts as a result and just a complete lack of inspiration, it hasn’t happened. It drives me insane that this site is like, the first impression all of these new people are getting of me and it is SO not even remotely close to my standards, it’s embarrassing. It distresses me greatly. I wish I knew CSS, I wish I knew how to make WordPress do the things I want it to do, but I don’t and neither does Blake and he doesn’t have a ton of time (or - what’s the word - “motivation”) so progress has been slow and frustrating.

I’m trying so fucking hard to get my shit together and this site, my “web presence”, is a big part of that because it helps me understand who I am (and that’s been pretty “up on the air” for a while now) and it’s killing me for things to be in the state they’re in. Fortunately, a friend of mine just hooked me up with Photoshop for the PC so at least now there’s a point in trying to rebuild my font collection and get graphics for this site completed. He also hooked me up with an older version of Word, so there’s the possibility of new zines in the future too…(except for that pesky printer problem of mine that I can’t afford to deal with right now either).

And finally: art. This is eating me alive from the inside out and at this point, I’m completely paralyzed by fear and uncertainty and I’ve stopped creating altogether due to an utter lack of self-esteem.

I was doing good, I was taking my Suzi Blu art class and had a million ideas and completed some paintings, a few sketches for future paintings and felt, temporarily, like I was “me” again and back on track. But then business and money and justifying my time and all of this stupid shit got in the way and now I’m stuck again.

I’m extremely uncomfortable with selling my art. Don’t get me wrong, I like and need the money, and really, it’s just going to collect dust in this house anyway so it might as well be on other people’s walls, but it makes me feel sick to my stomach trying to attach monetary value to anything I do. The fact of the matter is, I think I’m shit and thus, everything I do is shit and when someone says “no, that’s not shit”, I believe them for a second but then I worry that if I believe them all the way and price accordingly, no one will agree with them and make me feel shittier than I did before.

That said, I’m putting “Ennui” and “Beloved” up for sale:

(More pics.)

(More pics.)

They are 12 x 12 on canvas and $150 US + $10.00 s/h/PayPal fees = $160 US total each. If anyone’s interested, e-mail me at Sunny@SunnyCrittenden.com for instructions on how to send payment. First come, first served. If you think I’m crazy for charging that much, well…so be it, but that’s how much “Hope” & “Dream” went for so that’s what I’m going by.

SOLD!! SOLD!! SOLD!! HOORAY!!!

Originally I wanted to wait and sell these two AFTER I’d gotten pics of them that were good enough to make prints out of, but I have no one to help me and I can’t figure out how to do it myself (plus I don’t have the means to front the money for prints anyway) and if I’m going to continue making art and I dunno, exist, the money needs to start coming in now.

And this brings me to Touched By Fire, the art show I submitted to last month. I’m on their online gallery, but I haven’t heard anything from them either way about the actual gala event. Since I’m on their online gallery and I recall reading something about how accepted works wouldn’t appear on their website, I’m assuming I was rejected and part of me is relieved that I won’t have to go (can’t afford the gas to get there anyway! + y’know, social phobia…) and the other part of me feels like shit that I was (probably) rejected for a remedial art show. BUT, I guess it’s only October 16th and the show isn’t for another month so maybe I’m jumping the gun in my assumptions.

Anyway it’s fall, I feel like shit, I hope I die in my sleep so this shit will end and that’s all I’ve got to say.

/wrist

Well hello there internets, I’m glad you’re here because I have quite a bit to write about this evening.

First things first, I added a new page to this site under the “People In My World” category, god I’m so productive, I know. I don’t know how I do it either. But seriously, it can get confusing when I start writing about people so I’m trying to write a blurb or two on each person in my world for those moments when you just don’t know who the fuck I’m talking about. It’s taken me, oh, six months to do Jesse & Jen’s paragraphs, but I’m happy with them, so up they went.

In other news, Jen showed up at my house with a box tonight and inside that box was a baby rat. (Yes, another one.) We’ve decided to name her Twinkle (Twink for short) and she’s pretty damn cute. This video is of when we were introducing Twink to Zilla in the bath tub, as suggested by some friends of mine.

So far the introductions are going well, except Zilla dragged Twink from one end of the cage to the other by the scruff of the neck a few times. Twink didn’t seem to be hurt or distressed while this was happening so we just let it happen for a bit before putting them in separate cages for the night. I was thinking that since Twink is a baby, maybe Zilla was thinking of it as her baby; either that or maybe it’s just an establishing dominance thing. Despite having many rats as pets I don’t know all that much about rat behaviour, now that I think about it. I’ve only ever had single rats except for Kurt & Courtney, which I got in grade 9. The unfortunate thing was that in the case of my rats, instead of mating, Courtney really did kill Kurt. He wouldn’t leave her alone and one morning I found him inside their little house, missing a good chunk out of his throat. Ever since then, I only ever had single rats. Lovely story, huh?

I think Zilla & Twink are going to end up getting along fine, they’re already grooming each other, which I’m assuming is a good sign, so on some level they’re already getting along. Still, seperate cages at night for the first little while, I think, just to be on the safe side.

The other thing I wanted to talk about was how awesome my friend Sini is. No matter how low I feel, Sini can always make me feel better with just how awesome she is. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at her YouTube account. :D

Too lazy? Click here for just one of her gems:

There just aren’t any words and that’s why I adore her. :D

Well, it’s time for bed. Happy Tuesday!

These pictures made me happy, so I thought I’d share. :)

This is Ana’s hair mixed with mine (hers is the pink/blonde), which I shaved off on March 1st:

Pic 1
Pic 2

…but the thing is, I don’t have the time nor ambition to make another site right now, so this is what I’ve got. Not the prettiest page in the universe, but whatever. I’m waiting for Ditsy to figure out WordPress so she can teach me haha

I was going to make this a video blog, but it’s midnight and I should be going to bed soon. Plus, I’m not feeling very photogenic these days as my hair’s a funny length and looks extra stupid right now. I look not unlike Grover, as in the muppet.

Anyway, what’s new in Sunnyland?

Well, my real life friends Alex & Krissy seem to have been bitten by the YouTube bug and have started doing their own video blogs. Here’s Krissy’s first attempt, which is entitled “WoW Rant”:

Right now I’m on this medication which has a lovely side effect of increasing one’s appetite, so I’ve been eating like a cow and I’ve actually gained a few pounds as a result. Since I’ve been doing so much snacking, I decided to make meringue cookies this weekend, two batches, which didn’t last very long in this house. They’re really easy to make and I don’t think they have any fat and they’re sort of like…cookies made out of fluff, they rule. Anyway, here’s the recipe:

Meringue Cookies
4 large egg whites
1/4 tsp Cream of Tartar
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup of sugar

Beat egg whites and cream of tartar with an electric mixer at high speed until soft peaks form (3-5 mins). Gradually add in vanilla and sugar while beating. Drop by spoonful onto aluminum foil lined cookie sheets, bake at 225 F for 50-60 minutes. Makes 2 dozen.

Seriously, they’re amazing.

Other than that, I’ve just been focusing on staying sane until the snow melts. I’ve posted my last post in CammityJane for a while, so if you haven’t gotten caught up, now’s a good time. I’ve still got some things to work out in my head before I start working on that again.

Anyway, hope all is well with you folks. :)

And that’s all I have to say about that. *cough*

I’m well aware of the fact that this site still doesn’t have a theme despite having the best help imaginable, but I’m busy, lazy, horny & working on some other stuff at the moment. Planning, scheming, scanning, painting, writing, editing…I’ve been a pretty busy girl lately, one who doesn’t get enough sleep. Winter was late but it’s finally here and it’s like a floodgate let loose in my brain. Not in a crazy “uh oh, are you taking your meds?” kinda way, but in a creative way. Looking out the window at everything covered in snow is a great canvas; in my mind it’s so easy to mentally “paint” the landscape when everything’s white and obviously this leads to creative mental “shit” (otherwise known as ideas haha) that I don’t get to tap into in July or October. I’m trying to make the most of it before the sand and salt turns everything brown and screws with my chi.

Anyway, the other day Steph, the sexiest geek girl on the planet installed some WordPress gadgetry of some sort that will, eventually, help me organize things better, but until I decide how I’m even going to organize anything (layout, what content I’m even going to add in the end) I don’t think I’m gonna screw with it yet. Playing with YouTube all weekend and thinking about what’s possible has made me want to rethink how I was originally going to do some things, and has actually made me contemplate a few new ideas. I know I say this a lot, but we’ll see how things go and when I know what the fuck I’m talking about, I’ll let y’all know. :D

In the meantime…here’s a picture of me drawing on Krissy’s ass. :)

If you wanna know what’s going on, watch the video:

Here’s what I’m doing instead:

- Cleaning my kitchen.
- Making meatballs for tomorrow’s dinner.
- Listening to the Beastie Boys (and various other crap I refuse to admit to).
- Making a grocery list.
- Looking at recipes on KraftCanada.com because dudes, I am so not a gourmet.

The cat (Digit) is sitting on the kitchen table and meowing for no apparent reason. Well, I’m sure there’s some reason, but I’m not even sure he’s speaking to me, so I’m basically ignoring him and hoping he’s not brave stupid enough to go for the onions I’ve got on the stove. It’s hard to say, but I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.

I’d take pics because my kitchen’s actually somewhat clean (haha) but I can’t upload them so what’s the point? >:o( Yep, still grrr there.

I’m so weird when it comes to food and this is what Jesse and I have in common, except he probably has an eating disorder (worrisome) and I don’t (reassuring!), we decided today. We also decided that Jesse is so special, that we should have Jesse Day with a parade and everything. I don’t think I’d be a very good cameraperson for that event, all the footage would be blurry from laughing so fucking hard if it’s half as funny as it is in my head. :D Sumpin to ponder though. *strokes chin*

We like to make up our own holidays around here. :)

Does anyone see why I couldn’t make these in advance and freeze them? And if I did that, how much longer would I have to bake them from frozen? Hrm.

FYI? Meatballs are much more labour intensive than I thought they’d be. (But then again I’m probably making twice as many as we’ll actually eat for dinner.)

Cooking in the middle of the night isn’t a weird thing for me. I don’t do it all the time, but it’s something I’ve always done and when I do cook, my brain seems to think that 10 people live in this house, it’s ridiculous. Sometimes it’s meals in advance or parts of meals, sometimes it’s stuff for lunches, sometimes it’s muffins or brownies. Usually it revolves around whatever happens to be in the house at the time.

When I was little I indisputably had the best great grama in the whole wide world. I mean, she was textbook fairytale old lady, white hair, short, GIGANTIC boobs, wore floral mumus (I shit thee not, but it worked for her with the boobs & all), walked with a cane, was old as the dirt in her garden, she crocheted, she cooked, she was awesome & probably the best friend I’d ever had in my whole entire life until I met Blake.

She’s also probably the reason my sleep schedule is, and has always been, as fucked up as it is because I was with her a lot and we’d cook in the middle of the night or draw pictures or she’d tell me stories or I’d sit in the bath and she’d read me stories. I dunno if she was the nightowl or if I was or we both were, but this is what we did so certain sleep/wake habits make a lotta sense to me.

It’s 4:44am as I type this, my meatballs are finished, they’re with the sauce in the fridge and the rest of the dishes can wait until tomorrow. I should go to bed. My body knows it, my mind knows it - it’s just a fact. I should have been in bed a long time ago…but as I turned out the kitchen lights, I noticed that one of the windows has frosted in a sort-of fleur de lis pattern that may just be worth the wait for this morning’s sunrise because the sun will come directly through that window at one point, I just have to wait for it.

It’s stuff like that that I live for, as lame as it sounds; cool looking shit that nature just gives us, I mean those moments are gifts from the universe as far as I’m concerned. I like to memorize them.

I’ve been thinking about my dad a lot lately. My biological dad, Phil. I really only have one, he’s it, he porked my mom and out came me, it’s crazy but I accept it. He’s a kooky guy and I kinda like him, but I think he’ll just be Phil for the rest of my life because I don’t think he’ll ever really be my dad. He’s just this guy I know that I’m really interested in, probably because it’s ingrained in my DNA to be as such. (I’m a little obsessed with nature vs. nurture.) Phil’s just Phil, Lisa (his wife) is just Lisa and Raili (my almost 2 year old sister) is just Raili. There’s no textbook or Wikipedia entry that can tell me how we’re all supposed to fit together.

Ever since I met Phil & Lisa, when I was 13, I’ve been trying to figure out what Phil and I had in common, because that’s what you do when you meet one of your parents for the first time and it’s taken me years to even make a list of 10 because some of the things he does (and they do) are pretty bizarre. They just live in a whole different world than I do. But now that Raili’s in the picture, it just all kinda makes sense. It’s like, she was the missing piece to put the whole picture into perspective for me (and maybe for him too, although I doubt he’d say so).

I know I’ve posted this picture of her before, but dammit, it’s a good picture. :)

I’m probably thinking about Phil & Raili because Phil’s birthday is Feb. 11th and Raili’s is at the end of Feb. (I suck, I’d have to look it up) and mine’s the 1st of March, so there’s part of me that thinks we should all get together at some point in the next couple of months while our energies are compatible, but I’m not big on birthdays so we need a different reason.

Something I grew up doing was making maple syrup with my Aunt Betty & Uncle Bill, I wonder if they’d be interested in doing that in March? They live in the bush, I’m sure we could find some maple trees and collect enough sap in the span of a few days to have at least one good pancake breakfast/lunch/dinner with enough syrup to maybe even take home. Something else to ponder.

Hmmmm sugar bush dreams sound pretty good, I think I’ll ponder that in my sleep & wait for the next frosty window.

Today was a good day, the kinda day I’m glad I completely screwed up my sleep schedule for. :D

Anyway, I should be sleeping right now but I have to do some mental reorganization first, so feel free to come along for the ride. :)

First things first, The Adventures of Endometria and the Cotton Pwnies have begun! Oh yeah baby, you fuckin’ heard me! I’m LOLing even typing that, my god.

So since we’re a guild now, that means we need a forum to sort out our thoughts on things, figure out who likes to do what, who’s usually around when & all that crap, plus a bunch of other stuff I’m too tired to remember but I’m sure someone will remind me.

Stuff I decided today:

- I love herbalism.Plants are cool, even if they’re pixelated ones. :)

- Endometria’s going to be a shadow priest… I made it to level 10 today and then came the excrutiating decision about that first talent point. It pretty much came down to “well Raymond got to do it last time”, so fuck you all, someone else gets to main heal. :P

- Blake is teh smrt. He used Wikipedia to look up menstrual terms and came up with the name “Endometria” (I just can’t credit, it’s perfect and I’m pissed I didn’t think of it) and his own, Mensi the Mage. That was some gooood thinkin’.

- Time zones? These things mean nothing to me! So here I was thinking I was all smart because I spent a significant portion of last evening server hopping until I found a new one that was on the same time zone as me (because the server clock matched my clock, duh) and then I saw some people talking in gen chat about that being a “known bug” (o_O?) and our server is apparently on the same time zone as Guam. There’s a large part of me that’s hoping this is true because it doesn’t really fucking matter anyway because I run on SunnyTimeâ„¢.

- I miss Nicole. She’s gonna be extremely proud of how I’ve been spending my time these days. When I tell her about this guild, she’s gonna shit rainbows and I’ve been rehearsing the conversation in my mind & it just gets funnier every time. :D I may wanna get that on film…but I’m also thinking just getting a random letter in the mail as surreal as “Hey so I started this guild…” is worth writing. We’ll see how lazy/ADD/busy/blonde I am next week.

- Alex fucking kills me. But I gotta take a group photo before you’ll understand why.

Some stuff I pondered today:

- My Live Journal friends list is actually more interesting than mine. I mean, it’s what I’m reading every day, right? o_O
- I may just be a possibility junkie.
- How to aquire mass quantities of Barbies/Bratz dolls and $12 for the domain of the hypothetical, not fully formed, “can’t do it myself” idea in my head that’s worth the $12 even if I make a post giving it away for free.

Okay, gonna fart around with WP for another 20 minutes and then I’m gonna sleep like the undead.