I Wait All Year For This

Happy October Everyone! Yes, it's a holiday in my little world. October has always been my favorite month and just the name of the month itself is beautiful. It brings to mind warm colors and a chill in the air, pumpkin spice lattes and old tattered books, Tim Burton movies and Tori Amos. Everything in it's right place. This year has been made extra special by two new additions to the usual mix. The first is the RIP Challenge which I'm truly loving. Not only has my reading been focused on the eerie and gothic, but I've also penned a couple of tiny stories in the horror vein. Secondly, Lisa Snellings-Clark has kicked off her Play In The Dark sale and.....WOW! It's just amazing. Go see for yourself. Keep checking as she has said on her blog that she will continue to add things over the next few days. I definitely won't be able to afford everything that I want, but I did manage to pick up a skeleton poppet already!

So for the rest of the month, I will continue my October traditions of surrounding myself with as many gaudy Halloween decorations as I can find, watching as many cheesy horror movies as I can, being outdoors as much as possible to enjoy the Fall weather (whenever it gets here), drowning in Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice Lattes, and of course...reading as many "October books" as possible. And after this comes Thanksgiving and Christmas! The end of the year is always my favorite...geesh, it's the end of the year!

My Reading Spot And A Package Arrives

Today's been the perfect, gloomy, RIP reading day and I spent it finishing up Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box. I'll post my full review later. It was my least favorite of my RIP reads so far, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't a good book. It started off kind of weak for me, but it got progressively better and it really hooked me about half way through...but like I said, full review coming later. Anyway, I thought I'd share my reading spot with you and invite anyone else who would like to to do the same...because, well...I'm a bit of a voyeur when it comes to people's books and anything associated with them :p

My new reading spot is one of my favorite things about this house that we're renting. For the first time in my life, I have a back patio. I've always wanted one. It has a tin roof, and on a rainy day like today, you just can't beat the sound of soft rain on a tin roof for reading weather. We have a Wisteria vine that is sadly not in bloom starting off and I'm hoping that it will vine itself throughout the wooden beams of the patio and there's a Bougainvillea behind the swing that you can't see in the picture. We have two swings which is odd, but I like to read on the swing that I took the picture from where the little skeleton guy is sitting. Part of the reason is because our neighbor is a garden freak and I like the view of her plants and the birds that visit them. So here it is, my reading spot...complete with hanging eyeballs and a skeleton for Halloween.

So onto the package arriving. No, it was not a package of books! It was a package from Lisa Snellings-Clark..I know, another shocker. I am so pleased with this purchase! They're amazing. It's a pair of Harlequin candlestick holders painted in shades of blue and gray and they are so much more beautiful in person than I imagined them to be. They're huge! About 18 inches tall. She offers these in bronze and silver sometimes during her sales for $30 a piece and after actually seeing them, this is an amazing price. So I highly recommend them next time they're available ;)

OK, that's it for me until it's book review time. Off to get ready for the Saints game...God I hope it's better than the last two...I can't take any more games like those.

A Quick Post Of Links

Lisa Snellings-Clark is about to re-open the gallery via eBay for the Summer Solstice sale. In preparation, there are goodies up already. Red poppets, more Little Pink Poppets that are amazing (I own one and you should too), and get ready for this.....Blue Poppets!! I'm so excited about Blue Poppets. Blue is my favorite color and I really have always wanted a blue poppet. See, it doesn't take much to make me happy...really...not much at all... There are also stuffed poppets being made and you can see them on this post of her blog.

Megan (yes, my Megan) is fairly new to the blogging community, so I'm sending you all her way. She's written a review for the new Jeff Buckley album. Yes, even though he has passed there are still new Jeff Buckley albums. This one sounds great and if you're a fan, I recommend checking out her review. I'll be picking this one up.

And finally, Scott has a great new book blog named Booky Ooky and he's reviewed a set of books that look incredible. I need to get these. They are the Griffin and Sabine & Morning Star Trilogies. Check out his review for an excellent description of the series and for a fun blog to read.

Bodies Are Good Again And Other Things...

I'm feeling so much better today and the problems of the past week seem to have remedied themselves. Thanks for all of the well wishes. Funny how things work themselves out in times of panic. I was down playing my problem a little bit yesterday and it was worrying me more than I shared, but alas, I am well, and all is good in my temple.

Enough mushy stuff...Fun stuff! I got the best present of the year so far in the mail today! Little Pink arrived in the mail and she blew me away. Lisa Snellings-Clark continues to amaze me with her creations. I was imagining something just a little bigger than a little red and slightly more detailed, but nothing like this. It is absolutely amazing. It's my favorite piece of hers that I own next to my Harlequin named Lucient. Here is her picture. As soon as I find a better place to display her, I'll take a better picture. For now, she's cluttered amongst some Buddhas:
I've had the privilege of knowing Carl V. at Stainless Steel Droppings since January of this year and since then I've been introduced to some amazing artists and authors. Carl's a great blogger and shares his passion of the fantastic with other fans out there and has always done a great job of doing so. Well lately, his posts have become even more impressive! Now we're getting interviews with the authors and artists! First it was a wonderful interview with Colleen Gleason and today's Friday Favorites post brings an interview with an amazing artist by the name of Jason Walker. Jason's art put me at a loss for words. His paintings are so lifelike, so much emotion put into the faces of his subjects. His painting remind me of the sculptor Ron Mueck who is known for his lifelike sculptures. Truly inspiring. He's done work recently on a stop-motion short film called Madame Tutli Putli which looks incredible! His job included transposing human eyes over the eyes of a puppet for the film. Wow! Can't wait to see this. You must read Carl's post. It's great.

Charles Vess has posted on the opening of the Stardust Rising exhibition at the William King Regional Arts Center and I'm acting like a big baby and crying about it screaming "I wanna go." It looks amazing. Included is 35 of his original paintings. Some of the new paintings. Neil's original manuscript, a reproduction of Charles' workspace, the original sculpture of Yvaine that will be produced by DC Comics later in the year, and so much more. It looks incredible and I would give anything to be able to go. If I had a little bit of extra money, I would jump on a plane so quick and be there immediately. Pop over to his blog and read up on it. Great post with wonderful pictures!.

Amy Reads has posted a very fun post this week for all of you fanboys and fangirls out there. It's 50 Things I Love About Superhero Comics. Amy's blog is great :) She's always writing about her love of comics, tv, and pop-culture and puts a wonderfully intelligent twist on it. Always a joy to read.

If you STILL haven't bought Colleen Gleason's new book after all of the advertising I've done for it this week, well here's even more reason to do so. Through her blog, she's posted a link to a Border's coupon to get $1 off the book that's only $6.99 to begin with! So go get it already! It's great!

And FINALLY, I read that Sean Connery announced that he will not return to play Indy's dad for Indiana Jones 4. He's just enjoying retirement too much. I read this at isnnews.net. This is an awesome site that I visit daily. It started as a Babylon 5 fansite and has now expanded to a Sci-fi/fantasy new site. It has updated news every day along with dvd release news, tv schedules for the day, comic news, magazine news, etc., etc. I suggest adding it to your bookmarks.

Ok, that's all...I promise.

New Additions To The Black Hole

So I seem to have acquired some new stuff and all of it is excellent :D. The birthday festivities continued last night at the casino where I lost $65. Yeah, that wasn't too much fun. What was fun though was this Tickle Me Freud that Chris and Angela game me for my birthday in addition to a Freud finger puppet:Isn't that great?! You squeeze his foot and he laughs and shakes. I've just about worn out his batteries already.

Today, even more stuff came my way. I was greeted this morning with a package from the one and only Lisa Snellings-Clark. In it was a little red poppet and 2 rats. Now my other 2 poppets have a new friend, and there are two rats to pick on them. The first rat is an evil little devil rat with a gold tooth and the other is a limited edition, numbered Edgar Allan Poe rat with a raven on his shoulder standing on a book of Tales. How cool is that! Now I just need to get my hands on a Neil rat.

I went to Whole Foods today to get my mom a wisteria vine. I decided on a wisteria vine and a pound of coffee from PJ's (a New Orleans coffee shop I used to work at) for Mother's Day. While I was in the checkout line, I saw Tori Amos' new CD, American Doll Posse, so I decided to pick it up being the avid Tori fan that I am. It's good...not great, but good. This may be one of those that I have to give a few listens to and I may be calling it the best album ever in a month, who knows, but right now I'm not blown away. To me, Tori lost something in the last few years. I feel like the last great album she put out was Boys For Pele. I'll even give her Choirgirl Hotel. That was a good album...but nothing's blown me away since then. But there are a few really good tracks on this album and I'd recommend it for Tori fans out there.

Lisa Snellings-Clark's Gallery Is Opening!

Just a quick little note to let everyone know that Lisa Snellings-Clark is reopening the gallery via eBay with Poppets and Rats galore. The gallery is officially open tomorrow, but Little Red Poppets are available now for only $9 a piece. I'll definitely be picking up a new friend :) This time around there are Alice in Wonderland poppets, Poppets with Masks, and Rats available! Good luck to everyone!

By the way, I've made the giveaway a sticky post...feel free to advertise on your blog for the book so that we can make this a proper competition ;)

Migraines Pt. 2, A New Blog, Alice Poppets

The migraines have returned, so this will be a short post. I just want these to go away. Doctors appointment on the 30th of this month, so hopefully we can come up with a better solution then. I ended up leaving work early today which really wasn't such a bad thing. I got all of my groups done this morning and had my last family session at 1. So I would've just been twiddling my thumbs for the rest of the day.

There's a new edition to the blogroll and this one is very special to me. The blog's name is Girl Come Undone and it is authored by the same Megan that you hear me talk about on here. Me and Megan have quite a history as can be seen on this previous post. You can look forward to some excellent writing from her on all things interesting. She's a wonderful artist and a big fan of Dave McKean and Brian Froud. Very creative type of person. Enjoy!

Edit: One more thing! I just found the cutest damn things on Lisa Snellings-Clark's blog. Alice in Wonderland poppets!!!

Happy St. Patty's Day...and stuff

Happy St. Patrick's day everybody. This holiday seems to be really big in New Orleans, but of course there's always a reason to party down here. I've noticed as friends and loved ones have moved to other states that many things that are huge here just aren't as big in other places. Me and Megan were talking about this last night. We went downtown and pretended to be tourists and ate at our favorite restaurant, Angeli, with Chris and Angela. I've never appreciated downtown New Orleans and the French Quarter so much until I started seeing what other downtowns look like. I love downtown anywhere, but New Orleans is just so special when it comes to that.

I wanted to bring my camera with me last night, but as usual I forgot it. I was going to take pictures of poppets eating beignets at Cafe Du Monde and looking at the Saint Louis Cathedral for Poppets on Tour over at PoppetPlanet. The forums are wonderful at PoppetPlanet, and even if you don't know much about Poppets, I still think that anybody would enjoy the forums. Lots of fun stuff to talk about. Check them out.

I've already found a really cool website through PoppetPlanet called The Toy Maker. It consists of all kinds of cool things that you can print out to make your own toys, boxes, gadgets, etc. Many of them are free and the art on them is great. They also have a book on Amazon that looks like a winner.

In other Lisa news, the Vernal Equinox sale is officially underway and there are lots of Little Red Poppets for sale for $9 and what's up so far is beautiful. I bought a Luck's Dancer Harlequin from her during the last sale, and there's one up for this sale that is a Dryad Dancer, and it's beautiful!

We're going to see VAST tonight at the Howlin' Wolf and that makes me very happy. They are one of my few favorite bands that I still haven't seen perform and I'm looking forward to it. In addition, I get to check out the new Howlin' Wolf which is supposed to be much bigger and much nicer.

Just wanted to give a quick update. I've been slacking off on the blogging. It will probably resume more regularly once Megan leaves :( and definitely once school ends.

Web Wanderings (3/15/07)

I'd like to start off the web wanderings of the week with Lisa Snellings-Clark's amazing PoppetPlanet. The site is "officially being launched on Saturday" but is now open for the viewing and it is wonderful! It's everything that a poppet lover could want an more. Included is a poppet registry, photo's of poppets traveling the world, beautiful art by Lisa, a wonderful forum that I shall be joining shortly, and a store. Lisa is opening up the Vernal Equinox Sale on March 17th (this saturday) which I'm sure will feature all kinds of amazing art.

Next up is Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. In the most recent letter from the editor there is talk about Peter Beagle doing an all new short story and interview for the next issue. I'll definitely keep everyone updated on when the issue arrives online. I've never read anything by Beagle, though The Last Unicorn always seems to be on my list and i saw in this letter that he recently wrote a sequel to The Last Unicorn called Two Hearts which is a novelette that won the Hugo for best novelette and is also nominated for the Nebula.

Neil Gaiman has announced his new corporation website by the name of The Blank Corporation which looks to be very cool. Not alot is up there yet, but the site is still great already.

And finally, Endicott Studio's did a great little short article on one of my favorite artists, Mark Ryden. Ryden's work is extremely commercial yet there's so much meaning and hidden details in his paintings. I just love the look of his stuff so much. It can be so bright, set so somber and sinister at the same time. If by any chance anyone from Los Angeles reads this, I recommend that you go to his exhibition called the Tree Show at the Michael Kohn gallery from now until April 28th.

Stumble Upon and Lisa Snellings

I'm feeling kind of blah today, but what the hell...I'll do a post anyway.

If you use any Mozilla browser, I highly recommend that you download Stumble Upon as an add on for your browser. It's a really neat little feature that I just discovered. You check off your interests from a huge list that they have. Then there's a little button that you click that says "stumble." It brings you to a random site that others with your interests have said that they like. If you like the site, you can click on "like it" and if you don't, you can give it a thumbs down and your interests are tailored to that. In addition, anytime you're at a site that you like, you just click "like it" and it becomes available to others with your interests. I've gotten some really cool results such as this, this, and this. Check it.

Lisa Snellings-Clark had a really cool post today. Lots of cool news including more details on the much anticipated PoppetPlanet. She's also announced a new sale that will run from March 17th through the 24th with some new art and poppets by her. I love the green poppet named Gaia on the post. She's also announced that she will be a guest at Balticon, and I really wish I could go. I'd love to meet her, she seems like such a cool person.

I really wish we'd have a good sci-fi convention here in New Orleans. I would love it. They have one here occasionally, but it tends to become an alien porno/fetish convention. Just doesn't do it for me....

In one other small piece of personal news, I feel that I finally reached a landmark in the internship. One of the social workers was out today so I kind of filled in for her and ran a family session by myself today unsupervised. I feel that I did really well. Family sessions are meetings with the family and our patient. They typically last an hour, but mine managed to last for two causing me to miss lunch. Lots of issues to work through, but I feel like I made some progress with them.

Ooh, one more thing. I wanted to plug Orson Scott Card's online magazine entitled Intergalactic Medicine Show. It's only $2.50 an issue and you get tons of stuff for that price. It usually has about 6-7 decent length short stories, Orson does an Enderverse short story for each one, there's young adult short stories, sometimes a comic, usually an audiobook or two, review columns, there's been a Card serialized novel called "Hot Sleep", and each issue has a new clock for your desktop which is really cool in the I-Wei's Amazing Clocks section. In addition, each short story always has incredible art to go along with it. I know he said that sales weren't too good, so I wanted to plug it. Really great deal. 4 issues to date with tons of stuff. At $2.50 a piece, you could get them all for $10. How cool is that.

Web Wanderings and Fun Finds

Plenty of fun stuff on the web today. I'll go down the blog list. In this post, Neil Gaiman talks about an upcoming issue (April 2007) of Fantasy and Science Fiction that is somewhat of a tribute to Gene Wolfe. He wrote an article about Gene Wolfe as did two other authors and there is something (maybe a short story) called Memorare by Gene himself. In the same issue, Charles DeLint does book reviews. I used to subscribe to Fantasy and Science Fiction a couple of years ago and I'm not really sure why I didn't renew. I think I just may have to once again.

Next up is the second entry in Literacy Chic's Lenten Meals series. In this entry she gives a delicious recipe for Shrimp or Crawfish jambalaya. I know her from living here in New Orleans, so I can assure you that this is a great, authentic recipe. I highly recommend that you try this one out for a taste of real New Orleans cooking, and use Louisiana crawfish if you can find them (much better than Chinese crawfish. We had boiled crawfish for dinner tonight and they were deeeelicious.

Lisa Snellings-Clark writes about an interview she did for Fantasy Magazine which I'm looking forward to. She also talks about Poppet Planet and mentions that the gallery will be open again around St. Patrick's Day. Can't wait to see the poppets for that (assuming she makes them). Neil Gaiman has also changed the Magnificent Oracular Journal to hold a Lisa Snellings-Clark poppet.
In Carl's Friday Favorites, he introduces us to an artist by the name of Raymond Swanland. His images are breathtaking and he has the ability to capture so much life in his paintings. I especially like the second one down by the name of The Golden Hills of Westria. Great stuff!

Subterranean Press offers their edition of I Sing the Body Electric by Ray Bradbury which looks wonderful. But unfortunately at $150 for the cheaper version, I will not be buying this one. If you have the money, I'm sure it's worth it though. It's numbered and signed by Bradbury himself.

Finally (in web wanderings at least) in his latest Uncle Orson Reviews Everything column, Orson Scott Card reviews a new documentary called Done the Impossible: The Fans Tale Firefly and Serenity. It is a DVD that captures the huge underground fan base for Firefly, in my opinion, one of the best shows ever on tv that was unfortunately canceled after only 12 episodes to make way for reality shows. This DVD looks great and I can't wait to check it out.

Enter the fun finds. While not as numerous as the web wanderings, still great stuff.

I got in my car today and caught the tail end of an ad on XM Radio for some new show with Orson Scott Card! I knew there was a reason I loved XM so much, they love my favorite author! I'm not entirely sure what it is though, and their website and a Google search did nothing for me. Anyone know about this? What I do know is that he will apparently have a show on Sonic Theater, XM channel 163. I just discovered this channel today after hearing the ad. It's so great! It's like audio books 24/7 and every night they play sci-fi stuff. How cool. Alot of these are the great old time sci-fi radio shows. Can't wait to see what Orson Scott Card is doing with this channel.

Finally, I decided to make a stop by best buy tonight and picked up a couple of goodies. The first is the soundtrack for Children of Men, and what I've listened to so far is great and just as haunting as the movie. I've been wanting this since I saw the movie. The music was great. Glad I finally bought it. I also picked up The Prestige on DVD. I haven't seen this yet, but I'm sure I'll love it. First of all, it has something to do with magic. Anything related to fantasy in some way is ok by me. Second, the actors are great. Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, David Bowie, and the smoking hot and still talented Scarlett Johansen. Can't wait to see this. I'm sure my review will be posted later tonight.

My New Room

So after a very long day of moving and an 8 hour work shift after that, I am officially settled into my new room. What a relief. Tomorrow will be what a Sunday was meant to be...a day of rest. Here's a broad picture of the room. The wallpaper doesn't look as bad in the picture, or maybe I'm just getting used to it. But everyone gasps when they see it.















I'm glad to just have my own space again. It feels great. I love the feeling of tranquility (in case you can't tell by the many buddhas and candles) and I like my room to be a peaceful place. And I think I've done the best that I can with this space. I'm actually happy with it. The wallpaper's even starting to grow on me. It's actually kind of neat, I would just never choose it. It has all these different old ships and then descriptions and measurements written by each one. Maybe if I were 5 it would be cooler. I also got to display some art that I've been wanting to for awhile. Megan did the two drawings for me and also did the collage in the middle. I've always loved them, now I can display them. And in the middle is my Luck's Dancer from Lisa Snellings-Clark.















And last but certainly not least, I finally have a bookshelf again. Though I only have maybe one tenth of the books I actually own with me. I'm constantly having to ship books off to my Gram's house because there's just never any room. Hopefully within the next month I'll have all my books with me again. We're getting 3 bookshelves for the living room and I'm moving all my books onto those. It'll feel so good to have them all with me again. Here's the beginning of a very good thing:














So now I shall retire after a long days work to the wonderful thing that I used to take for granted called "my room."

Shtuff...

I received my books from Jason at Second Chance Book Adoption today and I must say, I was so very pleasantly surprised. Not only did I get 4 books in beautiful like new condition, but three of them were signed by the authors! Went back and looked at past books I bought from him and 2 of the Chuck Palahniuk books were signed as well. Today I got Someplace to be Flying, signed by Charles DeLint, Girl in Landscape, signed by Jonathan Lethem, and Lullaby signed by Chuck Palahniuk. Good deals.

Speaking of books, Neil Gaiman posted a couple of links to DreamHaven's bookstore website and I found so much cool stuff that I want to buy now! But we're moving in a couple of weeks, so I'll wait until the new address is being lived in. In their "New and Noteworthy" section, they have a story of Ray Bradbury's entitled The Homecoming that is fully illustrated in color by Dave McKean for $14.95, and Gene Wolfe and Lisa Snellings-Clarks Strange Birds for $10.00 (Save me a copy of these two ;) Strange Birds comes signed by Gene Wolfe and Lisa if you request a signed copy. The Sale section has some great deals too, one of which is Yoshitaka Amano's Hero Vol. 1, hardcover for $12.00. I hope these don't all sell out. Dream Haven was apparently broken into a couple of nights ago, and they really need the extra business. So support them!

Speaking of Lisa, I got the second part of my ebay order, another little red poppet, in the mail today. Goes well with my other one, yet unique in it's own way.

A Good Start

This Monday has been really good so far! Can't remember the last time I said that. I had a great morning at work. We had a really small group, but the patients we did have talked alot and made some progress hopefully. I didn't have to pull teeth to get them to talk today.

I got home just about 30 minutes ago, and waiting for me at the doorstep was a very welcome package with hands and hearts stamped all over it. Opened it up and it was my "lucks dancer harlequin" from Lisa Snellings-Clark. It's amazing. 1000 times better in person than it looked on the internet, and I loved it on the internet! I'm so happy. She presents her art to the buyer very well. She's great down to the last detail of the packaging. And I got a little note from her with a poppet sketch on it, and a little pink poppet magnet.

Lets just hope that the rest of the day continues to go well. I have class in about an hour. And then I have a brand new episode of Heroes waiting for me when I get home!

Happy Monday everyone....hope everyone has as good of a Monday as me.

Harlequins and Pumpkins

I finally own a piece of art from Lisa Snellings-Clark. I own a couple of her little red poppets but I've been wanting a one of a kind, original piece of art. And that's exactly what I won tonight on Ebay. I won a Harlequin named "Lucient" who is incredible. I can't wait to get him and hang him on the wall. I tried bidding on quite a few of her unique poppets, but they all went way too high for my budget. "Sympatico", one of my faves, sold for $335! They all sold for a pretty penny, and I'm sure they're all worth it. Unfortunately, the pockets just don't go deep enough for me. Congrats to everyone who won some of Lisa's wonderful art!

In other, semi-art related news (music is an art), the Smashing Pumpkins announced their 6th studio album today entitled "Zeitgeist." It is due to be released on 07/07/07. I can't wait for this one. I saw them in concert in 1995 and it was such a great show. I was disappointed to hear that they had broken up awhile back, but now they're back together and a new album and tour is on the way. They have announced tour dates in other countries, most of them being in Europe, but none have been announced for the U.S. Can't wait to see them again. I really want to know who's in the band now, but they are being very mysterious about it. Obviously, Billy Corgan is still the singer, and I know that Jimmy Chamberlin is still on drums, and I'm hoping that James Iha is back on guitar, but who knows. I can live without D'arcy though. I thought she was hot when I was a teenage boy, but so did every other teenage boy I knew. Just hope that whoever's in the band, it's just as good as the Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness days. We shall see.

Lisa Snellings-Clark's Romantic Sale and the Snow Queen

Here it is, one of Lisa's seasonal sales. She has some amazing things up for auction on Ebay right now, and you can also buy little red poppets for $9! That's an amazing price! I bought yet another one for myself, and one is being shipped to Megan. So many cool things. She has some new jesters from the Harlequin series and they are beautiful. I debated about telling the public about this because I want all these things for myself but her art is beautiful and everyone should know about it. So you can see all of her auctions here. Please support her, she's a one of a kind artist. And she donates part of the sales to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. She also talks about something called "Poppet Planet" in the little red auction. Sounds fascinating. She says poppets will be available there as well.

Also wanted to mention a very good post on Endicott Redux's blog entitled Healing Tales and the Snow Queen. In the blog, she talks about fairy tales as a healing medium for children who have been abused and of the many tellings of the tale of the Snow Queen. Very well written and some beautiful art.

Lisa Snellings-Clark update

Lisa has produced some beautiful work as of late. You can see some of her latest creations here. I can feel an art sale coming on very soon and that makes me excited. Her art is incredible and I have fallen for it very quickly. She also talks in this post about the life of an artist during those "studio days" and how long the hours can actually be. But as we can see, every hour is well worth it. I particularly like the bottom left photo on the post. I think she said she was doing another poppet sale in February. I'll link to that when she posts it.

Much Better Day

So today was much better orientation wise. I learned stuff that actually applied to my internship. I learned how to get out of the many different situations I may be in if clients try to kill or harm me (which doesn't happen often if at all). I also learned how to put people into restraints. The restraint room was freaky looking, but very needed occasionally from what I understand. It's just a plain white sheeted bed away from the walls in the middle of the room with lightbulb above it. And that's it. People are restrained at the ankles and wrists and across the chest so they don't injure their backs. I always thought restraints were ridiculous and cruel, but they're really not. They're needed sometimes and only used if nothing else (therapy, medication, a shot) doesn't calm them down and they are trying to inflict harm on themselves or someone else. It is never used as punishment and someone constantly watches them while in restraints.

I'm really excited about working here. I know this is the right profession for me because this is the first job I've ever had that I wasn't nervous going into. Everyone keeps saying that the adolescent unit is very rough, but hey, I like a challenge. I was told that they are very defensive, call you every name in the book every day, and like to try to get to you; but at the same time, they can be the best people to be around and there's never a dull moment. The way I look at it is this...lord knows I had my troubles in my adolescents. I was on drugs, got kicked out of school, was arrested for tearing up someone's garden, and I made it out o.k. Some kids don't make it out o.k., and I want a chance of being that person that does help them out. As soon as I cleaned my life up and got to the position that I'm in today, I knew that I wanted to work with kids in a psychiatric setting. To me, there's no other profession that would be more rewarding personally. I just have to make sure I don't attach myself to these kids too much. But from what I've heard, they'll make it hard for me to attach to them ;p just kidding, I'm sure I'll love it.

Finally, on a totally different note, I posted yesterday about one of my favorite artists, Lisa Snellings-Clark and her magical poppets. She just posted a blog today that has one of her new poppet sculptures, a painting that she did, and a picture of her big poppet sculpture next to one of her little red poppets (one of which i own :). You can admire her latest beautiful work here.