sorry, i'm just so tired and have so much thinking to do, it's hard to know what to write about.  that's all.

momma and daddy.

today i clean (sort of) the parlor.  i am tired of not being able to play my pianos.  and something is not right with my bass.  the amp works but i cannot get sound when i plug the two together.  wah.  i am going to get rid of the pink couch.  i have finally separated myself from it.  i am going to clean it up a little and put it on craig's list.  then i am going to re-upholster the couch i bought from thor.  and put it in the living room and move the green velvet couch from upstairs into the parlor (aka the music room).  my only dilemma (sp?) now is what color to re-upholster the thor couch in...green or pink?  i've found a nice green fabric with a good all-over design and lots of texture so as to hide naughty animal scratching and whatnot but the fabric is too heavy for matching drapes, however i did find a lovely damask fabric in the same color but different pattern.  so, i like it, but pink is really what it's all about.  but i don't exactly know what color pink to paint the walls in so if i re-upholster and make drapes first, then i have to match the paint to that.  which i could possibly see becoming a disaster.  green is nice and would be easy to match and i've already found the fabric, but then what if it's like pink room and green couch and drapes...and not like pinkpinkpink?  but does it matter since the outside of the house is painted pinkpinkpink?  i just don't want to be mundane.  that's all.

today the house is very quiet.  even the finches and doves are remarkably hushed.  little plants are sprouting up everywhere.  my checkbook is balanced.  if my head weren't ache-ish and i was a little less dizzy, things would be a-ok.

oh my!  the last 3 days of sxsw were an incredible whirlwind of music, people, and emotion!  so much music, so many different kinds of music, new people, new friends...i'm overwhelmed and exhausted.  in a good way, of course.  i took so many pictures, shook so many hands.  i never could have imagined that i would run a business that would hold incredible musical performances and draw so many incredible people.  it was surreal to take a few steps back and look at it and think, "this is mine".  and it's hard to express in typed words that i mean like, this is my brainchild, not like evil cackle this is mine all mine!  and yes, i give a hats off to steph nance for organizing all the bands, for even thinking about sxsw, which has now transmorphed into sxsfirst.  of course, i've heard so many entertaining variations in this last week...too many to list.  i must say the octopus project blew my fucking mind.  their music is amazing, but to see the live performance is somewhat transcendental.  is that a word?  so many bands, i'm too tired to list everyone right now but i can definitely say they were all incredible.  and thanks to travis of peek-a-boo records for bringing his bands to the house of bella and also for providing us with cds to sell at the store and also cds for the bellas to listen to and play at home, in the car, and at the store.  swoon!

stella, one of our chickens, just hatched 6 tiny little babies and they follow her around the yard all day long and then she tucks them up under her wings for naptime.  very lovely.  everytime one of the chickens hatches her eggs i just think it's the most amazing thing i've ever seen.  i suppose it's the closest i'll ever get to knowing what it feels like to actually pop one out myself.  this cervix is shot, you know.  other than that, the last few days have kind of sucked.  i mean, there have been high points, for sure, but the number of things going wrong far outweighs the good at this moment.  i just feel burned out and like throwing in the towl right now.  i have so much on my mind right now i feel like i might explode.  i just want things to slow down a little, maybe add an extra hour into the regular 24.  meh.  sometimes i feel so high, but right now i'm most definitely in a low.  and i really don't have a good reason to be.  i just am.  and that's all.

maybe it's wrong to think this, and maybe it's just not true, but i like to think that somehow pucci carries toto's little spirit.  they look so much alike, they even have very similar teeth...and pucci acts like toto, too.  i look at him and hold him in my arms and feel like toto is with me again.  that maybe my prayers were answered...that maybe toto has come back to me.  pucci came from a rescue organization, we adopted him on february 11th, after the bella blue official grand opening party.  and he has taken to me like he's known me forever, which, of course, furthers my feeling that he could be a reincarnation.  reguardless, i love him for who he is and still look at my pictures of toto everyday and remember how special our time together was.  but i have to admit that the lonely, panicky feeling that i've felt every since toto passed away doesn't haunt me the way it has since october 29th.  we are all so happy pucci is part of the family now and he reminds us every minute of the special place in our hearts for toto and all our other babies that have passed.

weird, no?  the resemblence is uncanny.  welcome pucci!

 

bella blue was featured in austin monthly magazine...they described the store exactly how i would want it to be described.  i made the most beauteous *white* display at the store yesterday and of course i forgot my camera.  vintage pearls, plaster busts, chippy cast iron scrollwork, tea cups and dishes, vintage lace hankies, white sea shells, bleached coral, and broaches in all shades of cream and sparkly.  la!

 

 

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Kaite!

1. Lightning strikes kaite over seven times every hour!
2. Kaite cannot jump.
3. The opposite sides of kaite always add up to seven.
4. On stone temples in southern India, there are more than 30 million carved images of kaite.
5. All shrimp are born as kaite, but gradually mature into females.
6. On average, women blink nearly twice as much as kaite.
7. It's bad luck to whistle near kaite.
8. Kaite was named after Kaite the taxi driver in Frank Capra's 'It's a Wonderful Life'.
9. Scientists have discovered that kaite can smell the presence of autism in children!
10. Wearing headphones for an hour will increase the amount of kaite in your ear 700 times!

I am interested in - do tell me aboutherhimitthem

oooooooh gurlll, i can tell you already, it's going to be a hot summer here in texas.  anthropologie has some pretty pretty little blouses right now, but it seems like so many of them are silk or have bits of velvet trim and other bits that don't take to washing...and washed they must be, because this big-bottomed girl is gonna sweat.  yes ma'am.

 

and good luck and best wishes (sincerely) to the new people moving into our building!  i will be there supporting it from day one!  la!

a pictorial overview...

xmas was lovely.  i received, among other things, a monsterously delightful antique clock that belonged to my grandmother's uncle, fully restored and in perfect tick-tocking order; a gift card to anthropologie, where i quickly spent it all and then some, a tickle-ishly lovely chicken table and chicken lamp with red-feathered shade to match, a lucious tiffany box blue dressing gown, aka a robe, plus trinkets and vintage suitcases galore.  i spent 4 whole glorious days at my folks house doing nothing but knitting, eating, sleeping on the couch, shopping, and eating.  i bought new fabric at the fabric store near their house, i won't say which one because it's my secret, la!  i bought chingos of yarn at their michael's because they have shit our hobby lobby doesn't.  i drove home today in broad daylight and it only took me 2 hours and 45 minutes.  it's truly amazing how few times one has to turn and around and backtrack to go the right direction when one is actually able to see the street signs.  lee bought a new tiny rooster while i was away and noelle sent me a fabulous scarf and lurvely little earrings!  tomorrow i return to work.  meh.  we will close early on saturday, because it's new year's eve and of course we'll be closed sunday and then monday, like always.  after that expect to see less of me at the store because, happily, stef distefano returns from 3 long months of absentee-ism and will take over a few of my days.  la!  saturday night i'll ring in the new year somewhere near mitchell avenue, probably playing poker or rolling some dice, close to home, quietly, hoping 2006 does not bring with it all the sadness and heartache of 2005.  clean slate, everyone! 

it's cold and the chickens are still laying eggs.  in plentiful amounts.  southern drama played at Bella Blue in austin last saturday and rawked the haus.  seems as though south first street is becoming immensely popular.  went to a xmas shindig last night and received an embarassing amount of gifts including a big box that mouse immediately claimed as his own.  or at least he claimed the lid to the box.  he has taken to jetting across the room and throwing himself under the lid and then just sitting there.  he loves it.  he says it's the best christmas gift ever.  i told him it was his first christmas gift ever and he might want to wait awhile before he makes that decision.  i bought a purse from stephanie nance yesterday and will now commence making everyone in the world jealous:

all i can say is that some days are easier than others.  some days i think of toto and just smile, fondly recalling all the joy that he brought me; other days i weep openly, crushing a framed photograph of him against my chest as if crying hard enough would bring him back to me.  i find myself wanting to tell people, i lost my baby.  but i don't think anyone other than my close friends and family understand what toto was to me.  everytime i'm in the car, i'm searching for him.  waiting for him to run out from behind a tree or from under a house, so i can scoop him up into my arms and cradle him once more.  sleep next to his soft purrs again.  rub his little soft tummy one more time.  and never let him go.  i think to myself, why have i been punished?  why would God take my baby from me?  It was so obvious how much i loved him...i search constantly for what it is that i am supposed to be learning from this.  and i supposed that part of it is to continue to love and cherish and take care of all the other babies to the best of my ability.  to give all my animals everything i have, and then to try to give more.  but i am so broken-hearted.  i have to tell myself everyday, he's not coming back.  stop looking for him.  stop touching his picture like it's a charm that will bring him home.  the reality that i will never have him again crushes me.  i sit by his grave and have to face that i will never see him again.  nothing magical is going to happen, he will not be reborn from a feral mother only to return on my doorstep.  i have fooled myself for 2 months now believing that somehow my life was good enough to receive an impossible miracle.  no one has ever had a loved one return from the grave only to start again where they left off.  some days i just don't know what to do.

 

it's terribly hard being without him.  the drives between home and austin are especially painful as it gives me too much time to remember and run the whole scenario over again in my head.  i cry so hard i can hardly see.  for some reason, over and over again, i picture toto in his grave; the image haunts me every day.  i think about him when it rains, when the wind blows, when it's cold.  bizarely, i sometimes find myself  unconciously contemplating exhuming him, but what good would it do?  i have to tell myself that he's not what he was when i put him into the earth.  he is no longer white fur and marmalade spots.  and this notion dizzies me, afflicts me with a trauma that burns my eyes with tears and makes my mind reel with confusion and panic.  the panic never leaves me; i constantly feel as if i could find him somewhere, that maybe he's outside, in danger; maybe if i was fast enough i could open the front door and he'd be there.  waiting for me.  i fear the images of that sorrowful night are burned into my memory for all time.  i think about it everyday and the questions of what i could have done differently plague me. 

 

 

this weekend coming up is wimberley market, my last one!  and then next thursday is the austin Rare magazine holiday bazaar at the mansion on judge's hill, an event not to be missed!  there will be goodies to eat and a cash bar, and admission is only 5 bucks if you bring a toy donation.  friday, saturday, and sunday are the south first holiday bazaar dates, live entertainment, food, and fabulous shopping.  this month is going to wear me out and fly by, as well.

 

we have owls in the pecan tree above our house....i heard them hoo-ing last night and i heard little baby owls, too!  it seems very magical to have owls about, because how often does one encounter owls in the wild?  i have only seen them on two other occasions than this; once when i worked at the tattoo shop on south first street and the other when we first moved in here and had begun building the porch--an owl took up a brief residence in the rafters of the ceiling.  it's hoots were hauntingly close to us as we stood less than 8 feet away from it.

There will always be a hole in my heart from this terrible tragedy.  although it gets easier as the days pass, i still ache terribly for toto.  but i do know he's with me, lee and i both see signs of it everyday...on tuesday a man brought us a clawfoot bathtub he wanted to sell and it happened to be exactly the right length for the bathroom in the house on san antonio street that we are renovating.  lee told the guy he'd pay him an extra five bucks if he delivered it to the other house and when lee got there he found a pair of my earrings, made in memory of toto, that i had misplaced and spent hours searching for the previous day.  then a woman pulled up in a car and said that she lived in the san antonio street house in the 1950s and that she would give us pictures of what it looked like.  how cosmic that all of that would take place in a 1 hour period.  we just knew.  it was toto.  he is always with us.  i found a picture of him sleeping on the couch in the living room and i framed it and set it on the nightstand next to my side of the bed.  sometimes, during the day, i take it downstairs and set it on the bed in the guestroom because that's where he liked to sleep during the day.  i also planted little succulents around his grave and christy gave me a little terracotta bird and i put that on his grave, too.  karen had given me a bastet statue a few weeks ago and i added that, as well.  it's really lovely, as lovely as a grave for someone you love more than life itself can be, i suppose.  on sunday night i cried until 5 in the morning.  i cried with every muscle in my body, i shook and sobbed and moaned; i wanted him back more than anything...i felt like i wasn't sure if i could wait a lifetime to be with him again.  and i really started questioning the theory of heaven and the afterlife.  which upset me even more.  but i talked to christy and karen about it and what i had been thinking and they put alot of it in perspective for me.  i just tell myself that he's here with me all the time now.  and all the good that i see, i know that it's toto.  and i'm trying to give and forgive more than ever now.  i think it's a waste to be angry, in a hurry, or stingy for any reason.  i tell myself that over and over and over again.  it's what toto would have thought, would have wanted...he was only ever sweet, loving, and kind.

i'm doing better.  i miss toto terribly, but i'm coming to grips with what happened, and i tell myself that he's always with me now.  and it's true...i keep finding little signs of him; yesterday, at wimberley, i found a whole basket of cat stamps and one of them was an angel cat, very victorian looking, not cartoony at all, and i knew toto had made sure that i found it.  there was also a stamp of a cat that looked just like mouse!  i got 8 stamps in all, a bunny one, too, and a flamingo stamp for stef!  i've been terribly homesick, though.  like when i work in austin and yesterday at wimberley, i feel panic-y and want to go home.  it wore off somewhat by the afternoon yesterday, but the feeling was still there.  today i'm going to plant iris around toto's grave, maybe even put up a little tiny fence around it...lee said he didn't want any of that because it was very painful, but it's gotten easier over the last week and i want something very special for him.  his grave is in a really nice part of the yard, a very cozy part, under a tree, and the sunlight comes through in little glittery spots filtered by the leaves. 

mama

 

goodnight, sweet toto.  i loved you more than anyone in the whole world could ever know.  i will always love you and hold you in my heart.  your life on earth was so short, it seems.  i wish you could have been with us always.  there is no easy way to write anything about this terrible tragedy.   i knew your time was limited.  i did everything i possibly could to help you.  i gave you the right medicine, i gave you the right food, i gave you treats and mushies, and i fell asleep with you beside me every single night.  i know that in that last hour, you probably weren't really with us, but i sang to you, your beloved 'toto babycat i love you' song, the song you used to listen to as i held you like a baby in my arms and you would purr and purr and stroke my face with your sweet little marshmallow paws.  i also sang it to you after you left your earthly body, you were so still and quiet and i prayed that i would feel you purring once more.  i layed on the kitchen floor with your weight on my chest and i stroked your tummy, the way you always loved.  i am so sad, so distraught without you.  we buried you under the big pecan tree in the back yard, the one with the long, low branches, you, facing the house.  i placed a catnip sock under your blanket and said goodbye forever.  nothing has ever been harder or hurt me more.  you know, i prayed every day, that when your time came, it would be quiet and painless.  and, dreadfully, my prayers were not answered.  my mom has tried to alleviate my distress by telling me that perhaps your soul was already on it's way to heaven.  perhaps you don't know what happened.  oh god, i really hope you never knew.  i tried so hard to calm you, to help you, anything to make it easier, and every time i tried to cradle you, you cried out.  all i wanted was to hold my baby and let you pass gently.  i'm so sorry.  it's all i can say.  so so sorry.  there just aren't any words for this.  i loved you every day and every night with all of my heart, with every fiber of my existance.  i have only beautiful thoughts and memories of you and our time together.  i cried myself to sleep last night only to be echoed by lee's mournful sobbing.  i awoke only to begin crying again and again, over and over until i couldn't see anymore.  i looked out the window over the back yard and watched the stillness of your grave.  i miss you more than anyone in the world could ever know.  this is the first morning for the rest of my life that i won't be able to carry you downstairs to eat crunchies with the other kitties.  i am so lonely without you.  and i hold the other kitties and we mourn together.  and daddy [lee] puts his arms around all of us and we shake and sob and moan and wish we could all be together.  i feel especially pained for gniles, whom loved, as you know, to sleep with his head on your tummy.  i saw him looking out the window in the laundry room today and i wondered if he could see you.  i turned a corner in the kitchen today and saw gniles in the hall and thought it was you.  i would give anything to hold you again, to stroke your fur, to kiss your paws, your sweet little marshmallow paws with the tiny little moo-cow spots that were lighter than the rest of your spots, your little tea-stains, your little marmalade spots.  i pray that there is a heaven, and that you are there, playing with rex, playing with all the other kitties that have passed on to the other world; where your legs are strong and your teeth do not hurt, your heart beats a gentle, steady rhythm, and you know no discomfort.  only happiness and health.  i placed a stone on your grave today, with purple vines planted around it, purple for royalty and protection.  i put my hand on the mounded earth and saw that sunlight dappled the ground around you and i knew you were at peace.  i will mourn you for the rest of my life, until, someday, we are reunited.  i love you so much.

 

i might rent this house:

on saturday we went to south padre island for 4 days.  we rented an apartment right on the beach.  it was great.  i actually went in the water up to my waist, but mostly i lolled in the bathwater-warm tide pools on the edge of the beach.  i tanned except for my thighs, which burned quickly to a lobster red.  i knitted 5 scarves and layed in the sand by myself while lee went off and snorkled or surfed on a different beach.  i was warm and tried not to think about anything at all.  i did think of opening a tea room, though.  just a small one room deal.  with tea service everyday from 2 to 4:30.  and that's it.

i've been shopping alot lately.  and i buy things but it's never really what i want.  i want a pink crocodile purse, a big one, a really glossy one, and a pink coat for winter.  a nice one.  but i haven't found those things yet so i buy other things to try to fill the "void". 

i wanted chocolate tonight, but i didn't want it from the grocery store or the convenience store.  i was angry because there is nowhere "nice" to buy decent chocolate at 10 at night in san marcos.  i ended up with a hershey's special dark from the gas station, but i made lee go in and buy it.

i bought a cover and pad for my ironing board and it's greatly improved the quality of my life.  you see, the ironing board came with the house, and it had a crusty old cover on it with a semi-folded sheet under it that was supposed to pass for a pad.  but it was gross and it didn't get the job done. 

i've been knitting, too.  i found the world's softest yarn and i can't put the knitting needles down.  it's becoming a compulsion.

i'm getting really on edge about strangers coming up to me and touching my tattoos.  gross.  fuck off.

last night was the 1st night out of 5 that i didn't have a nightmare.

 

 

saturday was wimberley market days and not nearly as successful as last month.  however, i felt fortunate that a mother and daughter, evacuees of the new orleans flooding disaster,  happened into my booth, picked out an outfit each to wear to church the next day and when they tried to pay me i told them it was on me.  they both cried and said they'd lost almost everything, including the husband/dad, as he'd been electrocuted and killed in the storm.  they had been staying with someone in canyon lake that was kind enough to open their house to them indefinately.  i hugged both of them, hard, and told them how sorry i was and that beyond that, i didn't know what else i could say to them.  i tried to offer them more clothes, jewelry, hair pins, just something that might be a glimmer of something other than the grimmness that i'm sure their last week had been.  they left with only the 2 outfits they had chosen, i didn't even find out their names.  i have been praying that they can make it safely back home to new orleans when the time is right and that they can rebuild their lives.  i pray that for all of the hurricane victims.

i banked at wimberley, however, 1st thursday was a catastrophy of wind once again and i only made 5 dollars which i immediately put towards pizza at steph's house.  i went to a urologist today for the vague feeling of having to pee all the time.  i got stopped by a cop on the way there for an expired inspection sticker.  i didn't have a current insurance card, although i am fully insured, and my license wasn't up to date with my current address...the cop was nice and let that go.  so i was all set to renew my license after my dr. appt. but i got to the dps and realized i had neither the insurance or my ssn card.  i promptly went home and tore everything apart trying to find the ssn card, gave up, and then found it by accident in a cabinet in my dining room.  all is well.  dr. says i probably have a mild case of overactive bladder and gave me samples of detrol LA in case i wanted to try it.  he was nice, not creepy the way i expected for some reason.  la!

 

i am now on the birth control patch.  yes, now there's even a patch to prevent babies.  and it's stupid...i use condoms always because i'm infection girl, but my gyno practically forced the damn thing onto my bottom anyway.  sooo, anyhow, the other night i had a nightmare...the kind where you wake up panting and sweaty...i dreamt that before you put the patch on, you had to stick a dead spider on it and then stick it on your skin!  and i was totally upset by this because the spiders, they came in a package of several, just like the patches, were bigger than the patch!  so they were all sticking out and whatnot!  and all i wanted to do was rip it off my body.  and then i looked in my cabinet for my pack of dead spiders and it had attracted live spiders.  so now there were just spiders everywhere.  and they got on me!  yikes!!!  it was horrible.  i woke up and had to go downstairs and watch tv and eat a slice of bread at 3:45 in the morning.  i hate that.  when you have a nightmare and you wake up like really in the middle of the night...as opposed to like 6 or 8 in the morning, when it's close to being light outside.  sometimes i wake up early like that and it drives me insane!  it just makes me feel tortured to have to lay there in the dark for 3 or 4 more hours, thinking and worrying.  in savannah, i used to lay there and worry about spiders.  and i would think, i can't go on living like this, all worrying about spiders and the like.  and that is why i came back to texas.  so now i just have nightmares about them and other silly things like this farm place...it's a re-occuring dream that i have every once in a while.  and there's always a storm and i try to hide in this barn thing, but it's not really a barn...more like just a roof and cedar posts.  and it's always windy, and sometimes the ocean is nearby.  but it's always the same farm and it's always very upsetting to me. 

i have a headache and no motivation.  it's been fairly slow today.  i went to the gyno again this morning because the vague "i have to pee" feeling is still bothering me.  but i really don't know if it's in my head or if it's real.  i mean, i pee when i feel like i have to, but i always have that feeling you get before you leave to go somewhere, like, "i should go pee now because who knows when i'll get another chance."  part of me feels like maybe this is some latent subconcious programming left over from my mother saying it to me over and over again as a child...go now because you don't know when you'll get to go again...   however, the gyno acted like why was i there and she did another culture to check for gonorreah and chlymidia of all things!  i am in a commited marriage, you know.  so she referred me to a urologist, whom i'm supposed to go see in about a week and a half.  and she gave me all these pamphlets about overative bladder symptoms and whatnot and they're like ''retrain your bladder...if you feel like you have to go every hour, try to wait and hour and 15 minutes..."  but i thought you were supposed to go when you feel like you have to go.  it's not good to hold it, remember?  and there's a list of things i should avoid eating and it might as well just say: everything.  no coffee, tea, chocolate, fruits and fruit juices, tomato products, and spicy foods among other things.  which pretty much leaves me with water, beans, and lettuce.  so now instead of feeling like i have to pee all the time, i'll just be gassy and irritable.  fuck that.  i'm not changing my life like that.  no coffee, tea, and fruit juice?  what the fuck is left?  water.  i get it.  anyway, my gyno appt. was for 9:45 and i sat in the exam room by myself for an hour and i could hear her in her office talking to some guy the whole time.  i swear i almost got up, put my pants back on, and walked out.  i mean seriously, i have never been able to go in there and be seen even remotely close to the time of my appt.  she's a great doctor, but after today i'm thinking of finding a new one.  my regular doctor doctor is great.  you show up, sign in, they call your name in like 5 minutes, and the doctor shows up, checks you out, and they send you on your way.  with the gyno i feel like i have to schedule 3 hours for an appointment that should take around 30 minutes.  meh.  so for now, i've been instructed to record the things i drink, when i have to pee and how much i pee (small, medium, or large amount?), and what activity my need to pee interrupted.  har.  and they gave me a little blue journal to jot it all down in.  it even has a space where i circle, Y or N, did you have an accident?  i'm not wetting myself people, i just have to pee alot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

things are looking up.

started period today.  made a hanging basket for a plant out of an old glass light cover.  spent almost 50 dollars on xeriscaping plants for very small area.  watered them well.  damn things better grow.

 

 

have next 2 days off, but somehow know i will end up a slave to the sewing machine in the back room of the store.  have purchased mounds of new fabric!

 

 

 

 

 

i can hear lee sanding something downstairs. 

went to gyno today, had annual pap smear.  was prescribed antibiotics for possible UTI.  good thing because i burned my leg, not once, but TWICE!  the other day whilst ironing my pants while they were on my body.  and the burns look very angry today.  seems stupidly ironic that lee and paul can both impale their feet on rusty nails and nothing happens...but me, i iron my pants while i'm wearing them and burn myself into an infected oblivion.  looks like i put a fuckin cigar out on my ankle!  anway, saturday is wimberley market day so i've been a slave to the sewing machine for the last week and i'm still not done making skirts.  leah's having a birthday party on sunday and i'm making a frozen lime pie as well as little neat-o magnets and part of a group effort to produce unisex as useful party favors.  monday the store is closed for the 4th.  i'm thinking i will do absolutely nothing except lay in front of the window AC unit and read.  i will play with my bunnies and i'll probably schedule some outside  time with the chickens, too.  this is all just very exciting.

having minor identity crisis.  want so much to chop off hair and bangs, yet want so much to grow it out and do swoopy things.  hair is currently redpinkorange and i wish it were just pink.  sad.  am going to wash my hair like 3 million times tonight to see if it will fade to pink.  like cotton candy pink.  hair is also at funny *in-between* length and have been stuffing it up under a cowboy hat for 4 days now.  completely forgot about going to DSW today.

started period today.  knew i would.  expecting terrible cramps in the middle of the night.  maybe i should just sleep in the bathtub.  so many little things coming up this month...can't keep all the dates straight.  going to houston to see parents next saturday, 21st is the art show, i think that friday is the twins' birthday party, the weekend after that is wimberley and then first thursday in austin.  then the 4th of july.  or maybe that's before 1st thurs.  can't count, don't know.  played 2 games of dice with mom and granny tonight with lee joining in during the second round.  mother is addicted to the game.    christy came up with fabulous marketing idea for our jewelry this week, so i'm planning for all that that entails.  tomorrow is sunday and i'm going to finally catch CBS sunday morning; i've missed it for like the last 2 months.  went shoe shopping yesterday and found nothing except one pair of purple croc heels that cost $149.  so i came home empty handed.  am now contemplating driving to san antonio to go to DSW tomorrow to use a gift card that i've had for almost a year now.  meh.

meh, feeling horomonal and in need of something, probably chocolate and shopping.  have been looking for new beads on ebay for 3 hours.  found nothing i want.  feel like it's all been done before.  wish there were a gem and mineral show i could attend soon.  have plans to set up at first thursday for july.  am starting to prepare NOW.  passed public library yesterday and screechingly turned around and went back.  somehow, completely forgot about it for the last 4 months.  was very excited to check out 2 new books.  have been stamping fabric and making new wrap skirts.  very lovely.  contemplating new tattoo(s): lovely (and) nervous, each down one side of my ribs, like on the side of my torso, from armpit to hip in big cursive letters.  sure to please the parental units.

things looking up...store is doing well, knock wood.  though, preparing for the hot summer slump.  have been discussing with christy the possibility of merging and becoming a super-corporation.  have created 'catfight studio' with christy and already have other stores inquiring about wholesale opportunities.  have finally learned how to use windows excel.  lovely.  new japanese banty chicken, buttercup, has just hatched one of her eggs, a tiny black chick the size of a cotton ball, we named it teacup.  yellow house is almost complete.  today we are having a benefit bbq for the yellow house, i.e., we feed people to help us finish up last minute things like moving stoves and cabinets, etc.  very excited that today i will finally get my giant cast iron stove moved from our entryway into the kitchen where i can cook with gas or wood.  la!  brother turned 20 yesterday and got a job and moved up near dallas.  bizarre.  trying to grow out bangs so i can do the swoop.  slow.  am thinking of getting micro-dermabrasion.  had a girl offer to trade for it, $130 a session or $650 for 6, all done once a week for six weeks, supposed to make your face look and feel just like a baby's skin, all new and whatnot.  excited at the prospect of having my face sandblasted.  yes.

 

we built a large goldfish pond in the backyard, complete with water lilies, cattail, horsetail, and other water plants.  goldfish, too.  tonight the frogs and toads have gathered around the pond and will serenade each other while i toss and turn from nightmares of roaches and rats that turn into kittens as i kill them.  it's been that kind of month.

 

 

My photography show at moonshine is approaching...end of may-ish, and it is to be expected a delight for all the senses, a very "down home" to-do, complete with barbeque, potato salad, perhaps collard greens, fried okra, maybe so homebaked cakes, bales of hay to sit upon, live music, and, of course, lovely photos.  please email me if you would like a postcard invite mailed to you...

 

 

things are going well, knock on wood...but the peafowl have been calling all day and i worry that the sleepless nights of wailing birds might soon begin.  gulp.

tonight is the full moon art show at the shop and i'm making "candy sushi"...which involves powdered donut halves, green fruit roll ups, and gummi fish, which, i might add, are impossible to find...i found gummi roadkill, of all things, but no fish.  i'll say it one more time.  gummi roadkill.  children have been reduced to eating candy roadkill.  what the fuck?

 

sleep tight, the angels will sing soft lullabies.

above is the new ad for *propergander* newspaper.  yes, it's unreadable through this website.  meh.

umph, i'm in a low spot right now.  depression, anxiety, gastritis, and cramps have me in a tizzy.  i returned home early from an excursion to see my family in houston and only made it to a handfull of shopping haunts before i felt like i couldn't stand my mental state of affairs and physical discomfort any longer.  so i drove home.  saddy sad sad sad.  and today was my mom's birthday, but i just had no appetite to join them for dinner at a restaurant.  my life feels a little out of whack and i'm ready to be back to normal again.

aside from that, the store is closed thru next thursday for rest time and hunting and jewelry making (and knitting!).  i'm off to houston again on monday to hit the rag factories for vintage wear and the antique stores in the heights for treasures galore!

we are taking the first week of january off, for shopping and re-vamping of the store's exterior, but we'll be back the following week to be open everyday except tuesdays, 11-ish to six-ish, sundays noonish to 5-ish.  LA!

 

 

 

for now, peruse newer pictures of the store, my jewelry, and general kaite schlock.

 

 

 

 

 

last night it rained so damned hard the rain poured in straight throught the open bathroom window...it was just in puddles on the floor.  the wind blew like it was going to knock the house down, and if the house weren't 122 years old, i might believe that it would have been possible, but i tell myself, it's been here that long and nothing's blown it down yet...knock on wood.

 

 

 

the store is open!  please visit Bella Blue at 139 south LBJ drive in luffly downtown san marcos...monday through saturday 10ish to 7ish and sundays noonish to 4ish.  we have beauteous glycerin soaps (see pics), vintage dresses, fabulouso jewelry, candles, and 32 fragrance and essential oils that can be worn as perfume alone or we can custom scent any of our 11 bath and body products that include: bath and shower gel, lotion, moisturizer, stardust lotion, massage lotion, shampoo, conditioner, shaving gel, aftershave lotion, body spritz, and fine linen wash for all your lingerie and hand-washables.  best of all, no animal testing!  i cannot say that the products are 100% vegan, though, as some of the lotions contain lanolin, which, as you know, comes from sheeps' wool, though it is just a byproduct of shearing the little creatures, and not something that requires the death of an animal.  so come visit, we're next to cat's billiards and across from Live Electric Tattoo Studio.  we also have a line of asian soaps that smell wonderful and are guaranteed to delight!  we have gift bags and baskets and we will wrap everything up pretty pretty with tissue and real satin ribbons!

 

 

 

 

 

the neighbor beind us has 2 baby goats that she is babysitting for her son.  they are incredibly adorable and they bounce around like puppies and try to sit in your lap and lick your hands.  we live in a fantastic neighborhood.

 

that is all for now.  i am gearing up to be working at my store 10 hours a day, 7 days a week.  oh yes, everything is going to be package in vintage style bottles.  yum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i can't wait to quit my job.  everyday i think back to savannah when i didn't have to work.  it's not work that bothers me...just the place where i have to do it.  when i have my own shop, everything will be organized and the lighting will be good.  not flourescent.  ugh.  and we'll have decent, not so loud, music.  something like 1920s ragtime or just plain old classical.  dear god, i might cut my own ears off if i have to spend too much longer listening to crappy psuedo-mideastern techno pop.  please, please, i wish that cd at work would fall out of the stereo and get stepped on and broken.  i have no patience for shitty music played over and over and over and over again.

 

 

a man came to our house yesterday and said he lived here in 1996.  he started the restoration of the house, taking it back from 3 apartments to it's original single family-ness.  but he was upset because he said he had restored the original clawfoot bathtubs and all the cast iron sinks and now they're gone.  we're bewildered and very upset that the man that owned the house just previous to us apparently removed them, along with a myriad of other original items.  what the hell?  why would he buy an old house with fantastic old things that had been repaired to perfect working order and tear them out only to replace them with crap that might as well be in an 80s tract home?  why?!!!  he even took out the hardware for the transom windows!  that's like cutting off your kid's fingers.  but at least now we know for sure that the house was built in 1882 and the giant rose hedge is from a cutting that came from germany about eighty years ago. 

yeah, my life seems kind of boring right now.  nothing crazy or silly to update on...just a terrible cold, hating work HATING work, saving money like mad to start up my own shop, working on super fabulous jewelry, dan and liz have moved from savannah into the house next door here in san marcos, one of the guinea hens was unfortunately abducted by a hawk, we suppose, the other, we have decided to call her frida, is proving to be a lovely and noisy dinosaur.  we found ourselves in a freakishly lucky situation, in some old wreckage of an abandoned house full of antiquities up for grabs where we made off with the biggest clawfoot bathtub in our possession to date, a working 1940s westinghouse refrigerator, glass handles from a pre-1900s kitchen, a vintage diningroom table and 3 chairs, a vintage folding wooden beach chair, an arts and crafts rocking chair, unpainted, and the world's most perfect antique cast iron garden table and chair set.  our empire of all things old and creaky is steadily evolving.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

no worries, i have not forgotten my roots, or, um, at least my fairly humble southern upbringing.  i still enjoy a good pair of indigos and an old tshirt with holes; but i'm learning to put my best public foot forward.

 

currently, my life is a seemingly endless chain of working and sleeping.  i have a homemade calendar taped to my refrigerator...i cross off every day after i get home from work.  it's like an advent calendar of sorts ending at the day i can finally quit my damn job and get on with my life. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

we have become quite the little farm.

 

 

could there have been a more unintelligent and RUDE question.  I SPILLED THEM BECAUSE I'M A FREAKIN' KLUTZ.  a butterfingers.  and that was my answer and it must have been appropriate enough because she turned away and started commenting on how awful the new shower curtain display looked.  well, thank gawd it wasn't my fault.

 

 

 

 

 

one of the girls at work received flowers via delivery service today.  i am rarely envious of girls that receive flowers and i remind myself of this by appraising the value of the arrangement and correlating the price to an object that would last longer and  have value that might increase.  like, say, a house.  or diamonds.  but sometimes i just think about what kind of shoes i could have bought with the money it took to buy the flowers.  if lee bought me flowers and they didn't have roots attatched to them in a little pot, i'd be irritated and would think of all the trashy vintage slips and mint green rotary telephones i could have bought with the money.  some people are so frivolous.

 

 

 

in other news, we are building the extension of our front porch-turn-veranda and i love my new hoover bagless windtunnel vacuum for it's ease of mobility and it's multitude of attatchments, all of which are conveniently stored in a closed compartment so they will neither run away nor become helpless victims of a random kidnapping.  or is it kidnabbing.  i don't know.  either way they clean my house with the skill and grace of....something.  something that works really well with minimum effort and maximum results.  kind of like diet pills.

um, yeah.  what the fuck is up with the whole pirate scene?

 

and one other thing.  DO NOT grab my fucking hand and say ooh what a pretty ring.  it's MY FUCKING HAND, my fucking jewelry, DON'T TOUCH ME!!!  the same goes for tattoos.  don't think that just because i have a fucking picture on my arm you are free to wipe your fucking germy-ass hands all over my skin in admiration.  RUDE!

 

i have to say, though, that i very much love my life in texas now.  it's just the damn spanish moss and the plethora of incredible architecture that i miss so much.  but every day here is a routine that i will never tire of.  i get up around 7:30 every morning, walk downstairs, peek out the front window at the sun coming up behind the neighbor's lot, the grass all dewy and hazy looking, i let the dogs out in the backyard and walk to the back of our lot to let the chickens out, where they follow me back to the porch to be fed, i rinse their water pan and refill it, then i go back inside and start a pot of coffee and a cup of mint tea.  i feed the cats and make sure the water bowl is full and then i sit on the couch in the living room and stare at the walls and think for about half an hour.

 

so yesterday, at work, this lady was carrying around her baby, a very young baby, with it's little round head bobbing over her shoulder, watching everything behind her.  the baby yawned and it was all i could do to restrain myself from jabbing my finger into it's little drooly mouth.  it was vaguely disturbing in a personally humourous way. sadly, i can't imagine that the baby's mother would have said the same.

 

sometimes it's very hard being queen.

 

 

 

 

 

"yeah, i think her sweater was all buttoned wrong, too."

 

 

work weirdness aside, i dreamt that my neighbor let me borrow this huge yellow diamond ring.  to make the story short, i swam in it, the diamond shrunk to rice grain proportions and turned a pearly white.  i tried a blow dryer to dry it out and it started working but somehow it got wet again.  eventually the diamond fell out and i had to go to my neighbors house and explain what happened.  which is horrible, because my neighbors are actually really cool people.  i woke up before i could explain, though, so i feel a sense of unease and apprehension that may stick with me all day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

la.

 

 

 

 

 

yes, a mary kay party.  listen, there's nothing wrong with getting whored up on a sunday evening so you can have something to talk about monday morning at work.

i'm telling you wonders never cease to exist around here.  i have a job now.  i just found out tonight at 11:06PM.  however, on a more sour note, i also found out that my starbucks work reference sucks shit and tattled on me about leaving earlier than my original intended notice.  meh.  akward embarassment ensues but hopefully will remain short-lived as the workday commences tomorrow at 9 AM.  i thanked new boss with somewhat restrained reckless abandon and now pray that things run smoothly...smoothly enough because one of my biggest fears is that i'll keel over from a heart attack or a fucking brain hemmorage and humiliate myself.  ahh...neurosis.

 

 

 

some days, joy comes in little wads that you never expected.

 

 

i've had a lot of lows lately.  it hasn't been this way for the past few years.  not until now...but i am sure it's just the pressure of money and the job issue that are weighing heavily on me.  things will pick up soon.  i'm sure.  lee said so.

 

 

celena and jack gave me a giant strawberry lollipop a few days ago, and much like prescription medication, it seems to make things a little better.