Narcoleptic Seizure

"They now came upon more and more of the big scarlet poppies, and fewer and fewer of the other flowers; and soon they found themselves in the midst of a great meadow of poppies. Now it is well known that when there are many of these flowers together their odor is so powerful that anyone who breathes it falls asleep, and if the sleeper is not carried away from the scent of the flowers, he sleeps on and on forever. But Dorothy did not know this, nor could she get away from the bright red flowers that were everywhere about; so presently her eyes grew heavy and she felt she must sit down to rest and to sleep."

from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Tri-Meme

I was tagged for this by Deb R.

Three screen names that you've had: annietc, backatcha & xviiirkna - the first one is my cat - Annie and the 'tc' is the cat. When we had WebTV ages ago, I played games at It's Your Turn & my ID was 'backatcha'. My Yahoo!groups ID is 'xviii' Roman numeral #18 or the number of the Moon card in Tarot and 'RKNA' is the hooked on phonics way to say "arcana", put them together and you have my website, Moonarcana.

Three things you like about yourself: I'm a good friend, the exact color of my eyes happens to be my favorite color and I'm very rarely ever bored.

Three things you don't like about yourself: I tend to tremble and cry when I get really pissed off, which is not quite as effective as being a stone cold hard ass when trying to get your point across. I know better than most all of my bad habits. And I wish I had thicker, more luxurious hair.

Three parts of your heritage: Human being of German ancestory and a born and raised Hoosier.

Three things that scare you: Horror flicks, high speed traffic and the fact that our (cough) president can't even pronounce the word 'nuclear'.

Three of your everyday essentials: hot tea, laughter and clean underwear.

Three things you are wearing right now: black socks, a purple long sleeve t-shirt and out.

Three of your favorite songs: "The Rain Song" (Led Zeppelin), "Wish you were Here" (Pink Floyd) and "Dog and Butterfly" (Heart) ...this list subject to change according to variances in atmospheric conditions.

Three things you want in a relationship: connection, good times and sincerity.

Three things you can't live without: inspiration, sustinance and a few cheap thrills.

Three places you want to go on vacation: holed up in a cabin in the Smokey Mountains, a cross country train trip and an Alaskan cruise.

Three things you just can't do: whistle, enjoy oysters and understand how George W. Bush got re-elected for a second term.

Three kids names: Harry, Ron and Hermione.

Three things you want to do before you die: live, love and laugh...a lot more than I already have.

Three celeb crushes: not so much 'crushes', but some mighty fine men to look at are George Clooney, Denzel Washington and Michael Vartan.

Three of your favorite musicians: Eric Clapton, Rickie Lee Jones and B.B. King

Three physical things about the opposite sex that appeal to you: dreamy eyes, strong arms and a cute butt.

Three of your favorite hobbies: Tarot, playing with PhotoShop and taking a Sunday drive (on whatever day it happens to be)

Three things you really want to do badly right now: in general?...to keep doing well on my diet. in the immediate moment?...have a bowl of ice cream and go to bed.

Three careers you're considering/you've considered: when I was young I wanted to be an artist. After going to art school, I worked in retail (women's clothing) for about 3 years then onto purchasing inventory for a wholesale floor covering distributor for the past 17 years. And funny enough, I still want to be an artist when I grow up.

Three ways that you are stereotypically a boy: I like Star Trek. I think that the Indianapolis 500 is truly the greatest spectacle in racing. I'm uncomfortable expressing mushy feelings.

Three ways that you are stereotypically a girl: I love lipstick and perfume. I throw (and catch) 'like a girl'. I like sappy movies. (despite the thing against expressing mushy feelings myself)

Three people that I would like to see post this meme: Whoever happens to read this and would like to post the questions to answer for themselves. Be sure to leave me a message so I can go read your list. :)

On the next "Maury"...

The Indianapolis Zoo has a new baby elephant, Kedar - he's a real cutie. But when reading the following quote, I couldn't help but think this would make a great "who's your baby's daddy" episode on the Maury Povitch show.

"The sire of this calf will not be known until further blood tests are completed. Kubwa was inseminated with a mixed sample that included donations from two different bull elephants – one in Pittsburgh and one in Florida."

ha!

Cow Coverings and Chicken Guardians of Wisdom

Here are the cool bags I got from Deb R. in our swap. Because she mentioned cow and chicken fabric on her blog and I got all excited and asked if she'd make me a cow bag. Here it is in all it's funkified glory - new home to my Ator Tarot.














And she was such a sweetie that she included a bonus chicken bag, which is currently keeper to the Guardians of Wisdom deck. I find a twisted humor in that combination. ;)
















And here's the backsides of both...
















So yay! My Tarot decks are feeling mighty stylish these days!

Something pretty just for ME

If you've ever browsed my website, you may have stumbled upon my Emporium shop where I periodically sell handmade Tarot bags. This started as a selfish desire to make fabric casings of my own liking for my (then) rapidly growing collection of Tarot decks. But after gifting a few bags to close friends and fellow deck enthusiasts, they became big fans of my work and clamored to buy more bags faster than I was able to keep up production. As a result, my own decks are rarely covered by my own fabric creations, except for a few experimental designs that still needed to be tweaked a bit or the occasional misfit that ended up not passing the standards of quality control - in other words, not good enough to sell but not bad enough to discard.

Before you start feeling sorry for me ;), I *do* have a lot of decks. Many of them remain in their original packaging on shelves or tucked inside of wooden boxes or those cardboard photo boxes and only decks I like to actively study or read with tend to go in a fabric bag or pouch and are kept in baskets. My Tarot shelves are a total mess right now, but I'm in the process of better organizing them. Seriously, I'll take a picture in another week and post it - you'll be amazed. So while I only have perhaps 5 or 6 first quality bags of my own design...I still have MANY beautiful bags made by others that I either purchased, traded for or was gifted.

In the midst of too many other projects (as is usually the case) connected with producing my deck, such as cutting and laminating cards, sewing up the remaining bags for the limited edition and dragging my heels writing up the text for my little white booklet, I felt compelled to sew a couple of bags to break the monotony of sewing 52 bags of the same (albeit gorgeous) fabric for my deck. One of the bags I made for a trade with Deb R. I'll post a pic later of the cool bags she sent me, but she posted a pic of the bag I made on her blog. The other bag was just for me! It's gorgous and I love it...it goes perfectly with one of my favorite decks, the Jolanda den Tredjes Tarot - otherwise known as the Swedish Witch deck. So here it is...isn't it pretty? And it's ALL MINE! Sorry, but no, you can't have it.

Striking Gold

As seen in front of my house one week ago...