I always injure myself when I hand sew

Okay. I just stuck the eye of a needle half a centimeter in under my nail. I think that means it's time to stop tinkering with my outfit. It's a significant eye, too - about a millimeter in diameter. Funnily, it's the same sort of sore as a piercing. Weird. It's not bleeding so much. A little blob welled up just after it happened, but now the nail looks normal, with only a little mark about half a centimeter down on the inside. Interesting.

I got purple shampoo today. Who knew such a think existed? Blondes use it to keep their hair looking super-duper extra-platinum white-blonde. And the one I randomly picked up had really good reviews. The conditioner's reviews aren't so good because people thought it made their hair look purple. That's good news for me :)

So my outfit is only about 80% good. There's more I'd like to add in and parts I'm not very happy with, but it'll do. It'll look good to anyone who isn't familiar with it, but I'm afraid it won't stand muster when real Skyrim fans see it. Anyway. It's good enough. It's not like I'm entering the cosplay contest or anything. And I'll have fun wearing it around for a day. That's really all that matters, really. Right - time to try this on. Yeay.

my hair is PURPLE

Tired post ahead - you have been warned.

I have purple hair. It's so amazing. Every time I pass a mirror (which is quite often given that we have at least one in every room) I see it and I smile, which evolves to a laugh, which evolves to a happy dance. It's so amazing. I was at the hairdresser for about three hours today. She did a great job on it - both the colour and the cut. I think I look about 12, but that might just be because I'd gotten used to icky sort-of long in-my-face shaggyness. I was well fed up of my grown out hair. But this new hair is amazing. I know I said that already - read the disclaimer.

So, what else... I'm touching up my dovahkiin outfit for the weekend. I redid the bracers from scratch, and next is to make the "studs" look better, then to round out the edges of all the "leather" bits. I must log into the game and check the studs to see if I'm inspired on how to get them to look better. I still haven't figured out a way to do the little shield-thing on the shoulder (gardbrace?). If my sculpting skills were better I'd make it from reinforced clay, but as it is I need some sort of guide or mold and I haven't come up with anything.

Okay. Check out armour in Skyrim, then off to bed.

Northern Adventure

I felt like something to eat the other evening, and usually I'd have a bowl of krispies. But we'd run out and I didn't feel like going to the shop to get more. So instead I made rice pudding from scratch. It turned out exactly like rice pudding from a can even down to the lack of a certain flavour that I can't quite put my finger on. I always feel like it's just not good enough. Or maybe there's some flavour in the pudding itself that I want to tone down or something. Anyway, it satisfied my desire for krispies.

A small group of us went to Flagstaff last weekend. While the others went to the Grand Canyon on Saturday, we headed south to Sedona and Jerome. Sedona is the same amazing as always. I think I could live there and the red rocks would never get old. Storm clouds were building on every part of the horizon as we wandered around, so we didn't dally.

Onwards to Jerome and while wandering Main St, I felt an awful sense of familiarity. I'd seen this before, and I knew exactly where. Google streetview. When we first moved to Arizona I'd looked up Jerome because that's where Maynard James Keenan (of Tool) set up his wine shop. But I'd completely forgotten that and when I saw this street again, I was like: we have to find Caduceus Cellars. We did find it and stopped in to sample wine made by a rock star. It was pretty good. It didn't taste "winey" if that makes any sense. There wasn't that horrible bitter taste that any wine I've ever had before has had. Some did, but we ended up buying two bottles that didn't. The rain came in then, so we grabbed a quick lunch and headed back to Flagstaff. We fit Lowell Observatory in that evening with the rest of the group, and weren't up for much else but food and bed afterwards.

Sunday, we strolled down to Flagstaff Extreme (and when I say strolled I mean we drove the few miles but didn't do it with any kind of urgency). It's an adventure course up in the trees and we had great fun balancing across logs and swinging from zip lines. Not fun was the rope swing. I was clinging on so hard I hurt my back and even with that I barely made it to the other side before my grip gave out entirely. My fingers were still sore an hour later. We were just under half way through the course when thunder rolled in and spoiled our fun. But they gave us a full refund, which is pretty amazing considering that thunder rolls in every afternoon this time of year.

The others headed to Meteor Crater, but we've also been there before, so we just headed home. I love Flagstaff, though. It's such a cool town, with an amazing vibe. And the people who live there are so cool. Chandler is so dull and homogenized in comparison. But at least we've been getting away most weekends recently, which is great.

Camping Trip #2

Right now I have 24 mosquito bites. Some are the painful swollen-golfball type; others are the small itchy type. They, and a bunch of photos (which need a tiny bit of levels-adjustment in photoshop - hence why they aren't part of the post), are all we brought back from our weekend camping trip. Apart from the mosquitoes, the trip was wonderful. We ate food cooked over a campfire and watched meteors streak through the Milky Way. I went swimming in a lake. River went swimming in the same lake. It didn't rain - yeay.

I'm kind of tired and can't think of what to say. I'll update again when I have the photos ready.