My Current Loves

I want to take a moment to share with you some things I love and the endeavors of my lovely friends.

My dear, dear friend Megan over at Star Above Muted Worlds is now selling Kitsy Lane jewelry.  Ask her nicely and she might have some spare coupons left over.  You should go check out her website now while she has some sweet flash sales going on: https://anadelis.kitsylane.com/

Another friend of mine, David K., is having a sale on his Pop Art style paintings over on his Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/davidkdecadentdesign

Use this code for 50% off: FACEBOOKAUGUST

And, of course, there is my own venture into direct sales.  I've recently become an independent consultant for Scentsy!

Creepy Crawly: the BEST warmer ever!

For those of you who've never heard of it, Scentsy is a system of scented wax and wax warmers, in addition to bath and body products, home goods, and plushies.  Actually, it's a lot more awesome and expansive than I can describe it, so just go take a look at my website and browse the catalog: click here 

August is sale month so in addition to this being your last chance to buy summer items, products are 10% off.  But the super awesome Creepy Crawly warmer, and the rest of the Fall/Winter collection, won't be available until September 1st.



Aaaaand one last love because holy crap am I obsessed!  Welcome to Night Vale.

If you aren't listening to this yet, I'm just going to assume you've been living under a rock.  Welcome to Night Vale is the most popular podcast in the U.S.  It's a Lovecraftian tale created and produced by Commonplace Books.  It revolves around the affable radio show host Cecil, his crush (the ever perfect and beautiful scientist Carlos), and the often horrifying goings on in the dystopian desert town of Night Vale.


11 Reasons You Should be Listening to Welcome to Night Vale

America's Most Popular Podcast: What the internet did to "Welcome to Night Vale"

 I agree with the last article's astute observation that tumblr helped Welcome to Night Vale catch it's big break... but I have to disagree with the fandom.  While Hannibal is a popular fandom, it's popularity and obsessive tendencies pale in comparison to the Homestuck fandom.  Judging by my own dashboard, I'd say it was the Homestuck people that catapulted it to fame.  :P

Black and Teal

Behold!  Our new coffee pot!

Le boyfriend and I were out shopping the other day because we had a coupon.  And it's a peccad* to let it go to waste so we totally needed to spend it on something.  After he failed to find a new shirt, and then the shoes he liked weren't in his size, I was about ready to give up.  Then he saw the coffeemakers across the aisle.

We've been talking on and off about getting a full sized one because our little 6 cup machine just isn't cutting it when we have friends over.  I keep putting it off because all the machines these days are crazy complicated compared to the $10 one I had in college and I keep forgetting to research Amazon reviews.  But when I saw that they had a coffeemaker in the exact shade of teal that I'm using as an accent color in the kitchen, I was pretty much sold.  Even more so when I saw between the coupon and the sale that we'd be getting it for half off.  So even without a single review for this model, we went ahead and purchased it.

For the most part, it was an excellent purchase.  It's not as complicated as I feared, it's frikkin adorable, and it makes a good cup of coffee.  However, there is one glaring negative.  OK, so you know how a lot of coffeemakers lose a bit of water to evaporation or whatnot so you always have to go a little above the fill line in order to get the full 12 cups?  Well this one is no different except... it has the fucking vent holes in the back of the water reservoir just above the 12 cup mark.  So you can't overfill it!!!  It's super damned annoying.  And I totally ended up with water pouring off my kitchen counter... which is how I discovered this in the first place.  *sigh*  Oh well, at least it looks cute.

* Phonetically spelling Italian dialects is ridiculously tough.  FYI, the proper Italian is "peccato".

"How to Internet" by My Mom

So my mother decides she wants to order a replacement light for her makeup mirror.  It's a special size and shape so she has no choice but to use the internet to find one.  That was her first mistake...

My mom finds one on Amazon, but she doesn't want to use my account (finally!) so she has to make her own account.  I guess, according to her, I was supposed to show her how, but she never remembers when I'm over to visit. 

Anyway, she brings the computer into the kitchen while I'm finishing dinner and tells me how it won't let her make a new account.  I find this hard to believe, but I ask her to explain.  She claims that every time she tries to make a new account, it gives her my account and all these messages that her email is already tied to an account.  Well, that gets me wondering if her email was somehow tied to my account from back when I was under 18. 

I ask her to click the "create account" link.  She clicks it and everything works fine.  She's able to create her new account.  "But it didn't do that when you weren't here!" she cries.  It took me a minute but I realized what had been happening earlier is that the browser was auto-filling in my email address when she was undoubtedly clicking the "log in" button instead.

OK, so now she has an account.  She's all set, right?  Ha.  Ha ha.  HAHAHAHAHA.

The light is already saved in her cart so she proceeds to checkout.  She's laboring painfully on the payment page.  I start to pace and peek over her shoulder, to ensure she doesn't do something stupid like send a million dollars to a Nigerian scam artist.

"I'm not stupid."   Oh?  "The reason I go so slow is not because I don't know what I'm doing but because I can't see."  She's totally wearing her glasses FYI.  "When you get old you just can't see these little things."  Uh huh...

I squint a little at the computer screen.  "Mom, your name isn't 'Vias'." 

Seriously... "The 'name on card' isn't Visa either.  It's YOUR name.  You type your name there."  So much for not being able to see.

We finally get through the payment and she gets to the receipt screen.  She proceeds to bookmark it.  "Mom, what are you doing?"

"I'm bookmarking this page in case I don't get the email."

"Mom, those expire after a while.  Why don't you just print the page?"

"No, it's never expired for me before.  I don't want to print it."

"Fine......................  Well, why don't you just open a new tab and see if you've gotten the email yet?"

"Huh?"

"Click the plus sign!  It opens a new tab in your browser.  You can check your email WHILE keeping this receipt page up!"  I'm close to hyperventilating at this point... trust me, reading a typed out version does not do justice to the actual experience of dealing with my mother.

"I didn't know you could do that."  Of course not.

So we go into her email and she starts bitching about all the spam emails she gets from various online shopping sites.  I can sympathize.  I've had to unsubscribe from a lot of companies I really like because I just can't keep up with the volume of useless emails they send me.  So I suggest that she lets me help her unsubscribe from their email lists.

"No.  I want to order from them someday."

"Mom... you don't need to be on their mailing list to order from their website.  Just let me unsubscribe you!"

She proceeds to delete the email and gets all flustered.  "No no.  I don't want you to touch anything.  I have my reasons."  Which I'm pretty sure is code for 'I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.'

Once again I have lost the battle of the internet to mom.

Field Trip

Last weekend we ventured forth to Pittsburgh for a little adventure.

 Our first stop was the occult store where we picked up some candles.  There was a decorative piece that I really wanted for my bookshelf, but I decided against spending $60 and lugging around furniture all day.  They were playing Type O the whole time and the incense smelled really good so all in all I enjoyed my visit.

We were all feeling coffee withdrawals at this point so we took a break (after stopping at the CD store on the way).

We probably wasted more time there then we really needed too trying to figure out where to eat.  In the most awesome spur-of-the-moment decision ever, we decided to eat at Spice Island Tea House.  I haven't had Thai curry that good in years!

After that it was pretty much just the bookstore and the mall.  I searched desperately for a Covenant CD for le boyfriend since he couldn't come with us... but no one had anything at all by Covenant.  WTF?  Oh well, I still owe him a CD.

lootz