It's the NFL SEASON! Prepare with Etsy's Own Personal Shopper, KarmaRox!

A stadium of applause, please, for Etsy.com's own Personal Shopper, KarmaRox! Football season is upon us and we don't have to listen ANYMORE to querulous "who is the best quarterback" mumbo... Now is the time to watch guys making more money than you will EVER see kick some ASS. I have asked KarmaRox to assist the excited-to-ditziness fans prepare...

The first is, well, the long wait. Some of you may have been reduced to this... I hope not. But if so, Kimberlyatstir.etsy.com did this fabulous photo...

Next... Its here! Finally! No more Uber-analysis! Out of KarmaRox's own shop, at KarmaRox.Etsy.com is... (I picked this.) It's fun! It's fun! It's really really fun!


And "proper" dress for the occassion? Glamarita.etsy.com has a GREAT possibility!


And you may need this to yell... I don't. I only yell at a T.V. screen and risk getting thrown out of the bar at that... But for those of you less situationally challanged BrassMonkeyDesigns.etsy.com has this:


This is for the Atlanta Falcon's fans. Don't know if it will help! TheDogCoatLady.etsy.com made...


And lastly... hehehe.... These guys are fans, though I don't know of what. A FOOTBALL fan returning to his car has MixedSpeicies.etsy.com to thank for this IMAGE if nothing else!


All you guys are GREAT!

The NFL and I

I know that beer plays a large part in this.

At no time in my life, past 14 years of age that is, have I ever been under the delusion of intellectualism. And for me, believe me, it would be a delusion. Occassionally I read books that excersice the few feeble brain cells rattling about in my cranium. But having read Ulysses twice (okay, in a book group) I figure I'm good for the next couple of years, at least.

But I go to a bar (don't own a T.V.), drink beer, and watch football once a week. I really don't have the patience for more. But this, excuse me or not, is perfect. I enjoy this and am not quite sure why. Yes, I think Vince Wilfork of the New England Pats has a beautiful smile. But he ain't my hottie. Tom Brady, a good quarterback and the perfect Belichick quarterback, is more admirable to me for the way he stays with the game and is always working at it. His Hollywood looks are a bit of a turn off. (? a character flaw, I'm sure.) Watching beefcakes bounce around in tights is fun, no doubt about it. But my favorite players are the ones that stay in there. Troy Brown's stripping the ball out of a Charger's hands last year was just that. Staying with the play. Also seeing Wilfork halfway down the field... The kicker making a tackle....(Gostowski)... A solid catch a good tackle the offenive line creating a good pocket....the defense stopping the opponents cold at the 1 yard line...

Those are the things I think about while watching... and are definitely a big part of the attraction. But there is also... hearing about (yet another) bomb in a Baghdad market. I protested the war even before it started. I actually thought at the time that something could be done to stop a bad idea... And I'm not young.

Perhaps it is the combo. A bomb, beer, and beefcakes bouncing. Somewhere in there is what makes me enjoy the NFL. I've heard it said that the reason people like to write about sports is because its easy. Maybe that extends to the watching of it. Like a nice fall breeze, and beer.

Desperate Kitty

There's this stray cat that showed up a couple of days ago. I feel that if you feed a cat, you accept responsibility for them. And this poor kitty is way too scrawny to ignore. So. I'm calling her desperate kitty until she gets a home or the Rescue League has space for her. She's a total sweetheart.

Mz Model

She's finally in the shop. What took so long is. well. I always seem to push the limit of successful plaster casting. Its so easy you almost have to be creative to find ways to mess up. This time I did not seal the plaster waste mold well. and. Blew tons of time vs the few minutes it would've taken to nicely seal the mold and cast the silly thing. Ah well. In one picture she is modeling the "Cool Tree Pendant."

The Inescapable Dictates of Fate

I go out to contemplate the carnage, occassionally, beer in hand. I sometimes go out to further the carnage, shovel, chain saw, or clippers in hand. While yard work has its moments, I would say digging out a yew hedge is not one of them. I've dug out boxwood hedges, small maple trees, a not so small crabapple tree, brambles, honeysuckle, and rose of sharons. I've plants rose bushes, transplanted rose bushes, transplanted hydranges, planted hydranges, planted a cousa dogwood, plum tree, dogwood, 2 lilac trees, and a small eastern redbud. I've dug out bushes and planted bushes. I've dug out a wisteria, and won't ever plant one. But nothing amoung the perinials or annuals of my small yard has ever inspired in me such an urge for contemplation, or recognition of.... destiny.

To dig stuff out, you have to dig around the thing, as close as possible. Clipping and sawing roots as you go. Maples aren't as tough as you might think. There is the mother root... shoot off from the parent, and the tap root. Roots seem generally to be softer. The exception being the yew bush. Hence, the chain saw.

My parents built a house when I was a kid. (They didn't do it themselves... they hired a contractor, architect, and whatnot.) And the house was cut into the hillside instead of being built on the hillside. (Stuff happens.) Anyway, we ended up with a devastated yard and a drainage problem. With 4 kids, that's almost a solution to another problem. We built culverts everywhere. Wheelbarrows, large rocks, clay earth, topsoil and shovels are my most basic connection to that time and that place. (Well, and the workroom. The workroom was GREAT.) One time I remember us taking a wheelbarrow down to the end of the street... approximately a city block away... to collect our irises that had washed away in a storm.

What I'm saying is... I can't help it. Like a duck, there's imprinting and heredity to consider. If the yew hedge wasn't there, I wouldn't be doing this. But stuff happens.

Etsy's Own Personal Shopper, KarmaRox!

Big round of applause please. The Personal Shopper created by KarmaRox at etsy.com, has been one of the most entertaining features of the Etc section of the Forums. Alas, it was sentenced to the Promotions sections and has since ceased to exist. I have asked Karma a few humble shopping questions and this is what she responded with:

1. For the gal who needs a new life.....how about something to jot things down in that bother you....nothing cures that better than a lovely journal!
Whitecupboard.etsy.com http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=6732671

2. For the person looking for a clue....ha ha ..... I don't have a clue but I did like the board game when I was a kid so here's your clue!
StillLife.etsy.com http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=6423861
3. Need a new face? Well Halloween IS around the corner! I found this for you: ('Miniature Masquerade Mask Pin')
lilacgrove.etsy.com http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=6726407
4. Your attitude is what it is so just live with it and get this from Etsy.com:
Cassiscreations.etsy.com http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=6722199
5. Well brains are hard to come by but Etsy has this which I personally would love to own! Hope you like it! Foodpainter.etsy.com
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=6644860


Thank you so much Karma! Brilliant. If anyone has any shopping questions for Etsy.com, I may try to host Karma the Amazing again so just include the request on the comment page.

Once again, Ones!

Reasoning Reasons

Okay. Yet another explaination.. of the title for "Fluff" this time.
(I like to wax philisophical, as it were. To lean back in a comfortable chair, clutch a cold brew, and to fuss at the universe with a teaspoon of not so well intellengized reason. But occassionally I find I have less inclination or time or fatigue or there's strong web of preoccupation entangling the small rodent that is my brain...)
Anyway, that's my excuse for not updating my blog for a while. Thought I'd get that explaination out of the way first...

Now as to "Fluff." The first reason for the title is: I like it. And of course, in my small hemetically sealed world, that is most important. The second is something I've seen a couple of times in my anemic purusal of the art/neo-art/art-a-fart... wanna fart... (where was I?)... ART world. That is, the motivating force of vengence.

Years ago, a lady that is (I'll assume present tense) a wonderful repesentational watercolorist talked about motivation... She said how when she was starting out... she painted a couple of watercolor paintings, and through a fluke, they were fantastic. A gallery expressed interest and asked for more work. Her subsequent work stunk. She spent 3 years relearning how to paint, and why those first couple of paintings were so good. During that time, whenever someone made a disparaging remark, she put them on a list. When she was in a small show and the guy that hung the show put her piece back by the trash cans, she put him on the list. The list was for her first one person show. And that guy hung the show.

Another artist was told the material she used was "cafty." As in, not good enough for art. Or something like that. Who knows what he was talking about except that he was disparaging in a unengaged abstact I'm-just-bad-mouthing type way. That artist is now fairly successful using just those "crafty" materials... (will print name after okay.)

Now to "Fluff." I showed a ring I'd carved to a fellow employee.... his response was "fluff." He didn't know it was mine... But. The fellow has made my list... (not that, actually, I think "fluff" negative. Neither is "crafty" for that matter.)

Such scheming and whatnot requires... success. "Getting yours" doesn't count if, well, you don't get yours. You can clutch your shopping cart as vehemently as you wish but if you are homeless.... people will walk around you. (Though. they still might not wish to be on any list of yours.)

I'm up to fifty-two cents in my lottery-retirement wanna-suceed with-change-off-the-street fund. Somehow it all hangs together... I think....

Fluff