Perfect combo - K-Drama and Minis

I'm sick today. I have a fever of 101, and my throat is on fire. I don't see the white spots indicative of Strep, but I feel the pain. I hope it isn't strep. Yergh.

I spent last Saturday at a Jane Austen Faire in Aurora hawking my books (under the pen name Miranda Mayer) and my artwork from Feffie's Cottage. Lots of prints and notecards of my little Office Specials.

You can get these through Feffie's Cottage. Ping me if you're
interested.

That faire was the first time that I've ventured out in Regency garments in a long time. It felt really great, and I saw so many people I have missed dearly. I even smoked the peace pipe with someone with whom I was carrying a lot of anger against. So that was great. But man, did that wear me out. I came home with an infection and now a sore throat. M.I.S.E.R.A.B.L.E.

But in spite of my feeling unwell, I'm in my She-Shed. In Feffie's Cottage, puttering around in the nice warmth, with my slippers, and I finally relented and allowed Simon to come in as long as he lies down on a blanket and doesn't roll around and spread his fur everywhere.

During these mornings, when my offspring is at Preschool for three and a half hours, I spend it usually writing at the cafe and now in the Cottage. But I've been not writing. My desire to write is gone for the moment. I've been struggling with a little downtrend lately, and I probably need to take some Vitamin D. But there is one thing that is helping and that is the refurbishment of my little McKinley house. So I have been focusing on that lately, mostly. While streaming K-Drama on my Surface, I sit at my desk and slice up my thumb with the exacto knife.

The McKinley now has working windows in the bay, and the bay window has been fully secured back onto the house. The farmer's sink is done, except for the pump, which I still have to make. I used liquid sculpy to make some 'stained glass' transom windows. I'm not happy with the result, and might retry that with better products somehow. The sculpy was old and inconsistent and hard to tint and then squeeze out of the applicator. So my windows are really goofy looking. I also repurposed some plexi from some old used Houseworks windows I scored at a yard sale, also salvaging some of the wood from them to make the working bits. It's rough looking, but it's on its way. I'll fine tune as I go along. Here are some pics fo the progress:

Adding the transoms

Added the decals of the came

With the stained glass decals, and the fixed upper panes

Windows finished, interior painted, and bay windows
reinstalled onto the dollhouse. I need to fix
the broken/torn archway, and then wire and paper.

I'll fine-tune the painting, etc after a bit. The windows were so fiddly to do. But they open.

I also put a decorative trim on the window sills on the exterior. I will be attacking the exterior next, I think. I'm not sure if i want to tile just yet.  My current project is redoing the tower and bay roof pieces, to make them a little pointier and elegant, with a slight curve. I haven't decided what material I will roof them with. I also need to make the water pump. But I need to let the cuts on my thumb heal first, LOL. So more pics to come. I also need to sit down and catch up on my colourist work one of these days. But I'm not feeling well enough to concentrate that much LOL.

While I've been puttering, I've been streaming K-Dramas, as I said. I've gone through a pretty big chunk of them, and I'm not going to lie, I'm HOOKED. South Korea is no joke when it comes to talented actors and excellent writers (and OMFG the food, seriously). I've fallen in love with so many characters and I feel this big hole when each series comes to an end. Because unlike American drama, they don't go on for season after season until they jump the shark. No. They rarely reboot a series, and so you can be (almost) guaranteed the closure you need when the season is over. But that also means you are leaving behind people you have come to adore.

SO... here's how many hours I've wasted on Netflix, ogling Korean dramas (in other words, here is the continued list of shows I've watched since my last K-Drama post).

February and March, I was devouring "Prison Playbook". This is a delightful, humourous drama about a baseball star, who is about to go major league for the Red Sox, who assaults then is convicted of murder of a rapist who harmed his sister. He is imprisoned, and the story follows his travails in jail, with his five other inmates with whom he shares a cell. The roomies change, the challenges continue. All in all, a really great show with wonderful characters. Highly recommend.

I took a break from K-Drama to binge Jessica Jones, Season 2, and then back to it.

I started 'In Need of Romance 3' which, like its predecessors, pissed me off.  Mostly because the trend for these three shows seems to be that the man you've invested the most time in, is the one you should stick with. I'm not particularly in agreement with that idea. No matter what the situation is, if someone takes you for granted, maybe it's time to ditch them, no matter how long you've been with them, especially if you find someone who is devoted to you. But hey, maybe it's a cultural thing, I dunno. It's still a fun show to watch, even if the main character disappoints you each time.

I then binged every available season of Terrace House, which is like a Japanese version of The Real World, only way better. Mostly because of the commentators that host the show. I'm a little in love with Ryōta Yamasato. He's adorable. And rotten. And an excellent comedian. I don't know why I binged the shows, but I did. Sue me.

The second one, and the better one, I think.

The first one

Okay then.... next are my recent favs, which I really miss now that they are over. They are Reply 1994, and 1997. I suspect the word is supposed to be REPLAY, but something got lost in translation. But the1997 one is just hilarious, and just delightfully written and just a joy to watch. I really just wanted to move into that boarding house with the family, in all honesty. I recommend 1994 with alacrity. It's brill.

This one did not give me the pat closure that I wanted. There was only the hint of it. But for ONCE, this was not an ending which redeemed a shitty man who treated his woman like crap. Thank god! But they never gave the romantic ending you are waiting for. They left it dangling a bit. This was a drama-drama. It took me a few episodes to get into it, but it is really a sweet, emotional story of a woman whose husband was jailed for some shady business dealings, and who is forced to move in with her estranged father. She has two children, one of which is not her own, but from her husband's previous marriage. It's heartfelt and really sweet, and it invests you in this really endearing community of farmers, who start off not liking her, but eventually take her into the fold and who endure challenges alongside her. Good show. Recommend.

Hello my twenties, there's a season two! And like its predecessor, it's adorable. Recommend this one. The characters all return, with only one cast-change if I recall correctly. This time, instead of ghosts, the girls are against the threat of an unknown enemy. It's a wonderful series, definitely worth a watch. I just want to become the Belle Epoch's landlady so I can mother those girls. <3 font="">

Interrupted by viewings of Lost In Space, and a Series of Unfortunate Events, I watched 'One More Time'. This is a time-travel/time looping show. A musician, who has become embittered by his failure to succeed, and who has learned to take his AMAZING girlfriend for granted, must live the same day over and over again in order to change his ways and ultimately, save his girlfriend's life. Short series, very sweet. Recommend.

Man to Man is one of those shows that doesn't take itself too seriously, and it's really fun to watch. In order to capture a corrupt politician, 'Ghost' Agent K must infiltrate a famous Actor's entourage as a bodyguard. Naturally, there's a plucky manager who catches his normally indifferent eye, and he soon finds himself enfolded in what amounts to a family, led by the diva of an actor whom he is assigned to protect. I really enjoyed this show just because it's fun and silly and adorable. And the German/Irish/Korean actor who plays the Russian (David Lee McInnis), holy giggety, SO HOT. OMG, just smoldering hot. Total fun. Watch it.

"Beating Again' is the tale of a ruthless businessman who storms a cosmetics company, with the intent of destroying it for his personal revenge, but whose heart condition puts him near death. Bring in the heroine, and her devoted, loving boyfriend, a jealous and conniving murderous rival--which evolves into the antagonist receiving a heart transplant from the devoted boyfriend. The ruthless man is now mysteriously divided in his goal of revenge, and finds himself falling for the heroine--and there's a new Antagonist to fear, while the new man begins to unravel how his donor was murdered. It was.... Entertaining. Not my favourite show, but not so bad that I stopped watching it. I'll give it a three out of five.

My Horrible Boss. I. Loved. This. Show. -- It is hilarous. Delightfully written, played beautifully by the cast. The story centers around a placid, timid man in his 40s, head of household, taking care of and supporting his son (he is divorced), his father and his ne'er-do-well brother. He works for a small cosmetics company (Lovely Cosmetics). The company is fraught with challenges and impending hostile takeovers by its rival company, Gold Chemical. One of Gold Chemical's imfamous harpy team managers starts working at Lovely Cosmetics, and she is a harridan; a terrifying boss to the hero and his marketing team. And worse, she moves into an apartment across the hall from him and his family--and is now a pain in their ass at home too.  But what starts off as a torturous thing, evolves into respect and ultimately love. It's really funny, excessively sweet, (the son and his crush, is too adorable, and I LOVE the grandfather so much). Just finished this series today and I already miss the characters. <3 p="">
So that's where I am on my K-Drama journey right now. I'm about to embark into 'Psychokenesis'. Reviews to come. In the meantime, keep checking in on progress on the McKinley. And oh, swing by Feffie's Cottage if you want to buy some of the cute products that will result from this project.

My She-shed cottage is done (mostly) -- and it's time to play with minis again

I can feel my tank filling these days. Sitting at my desk, exacto-knife in one hand, a ruler in the other. Korean drama streaming on my Surface. I have been able to take down all my paraphernalia from my days as PixieDust Miniatures and to refamiliarize myself with the houses and miniatures I'd devoted so much love and time towards.  One in particular, an old, falling-apart McKinley (Greenleaf's wall-hanging dollhouse), has been one I've wanted to work on literally for decades. It is now hanging in its dilapidated state on my she-shed wall, pieces missing, some of the ply delaminating, but still holding itself together enough that I can work on it.

Back in 2002, I moved to Oregon and with me came my stuff. During that time, I built a tiny custom kitchen for the McKinley house, using the kitchen I built for the Beacon Hill I sold a while ago, as the inspiration. Greenleaf dollhouses, in my view, are really the best dollhouse kits out there. The company has, since I believe at least the 70s, been producing superiorly designed houses. Although the materials aren't quite as clean-cut as other companies' houses, the designs themselves are aesthetically superior in every way.  Mansard roofs with curves, witches' walks, gingerbread, character oozing from every model. 

My very first dollhouse project was a Greenleaf (at least, officially). As a kid, I played with an old seventies style MDF house until it mysteriously vanished. But my first built house was the Glencroft. And it remains amongst my favourites of all the Dollhouses in the line and on the market. It, and another kit are in their boxes in my new storage area, still waiting to be assembled again. 

It took me one and a half nights, late to assemble the house. I finished it for a few weeks after that, and ended up selling it to someone for their niece's birthday. But the love for Greenleaf took off after that, and I assembled and sold the Harrison, the Beacon Hill, and a score of the little ones. I have yet to build a Garfield, although I did have a built one in my possession for a few years. They're huge, the queen-anne style houses. With gables as far as the eye can see.

With Greenleaf, what you do sacrifice for the elegant design, is space. Greenleaf houses have small rooms. And over the years, I've learned that the only way to conquer that problem well, is to apply the built-in. I have since, been a builder of furniture, a carpenter in mini, if you will. And the kitchens have always been my favourite place to design.

First built-ins for a Beacon Hill 

Small kitchens require extra consideration

That McKinley and its custom cabinets took a thrashing being stored in the shed. Squirrels had literally moved in, and had set up a nest in it made of moss and chewed up foam padding. The ply became brittle in spots and parts of the house literally crumbled away. I had purchased the McKinley during a time when the house was discontinued from the Greenleaf line. I got it pre-assembled from a dollhouse shop in Vancouver, Washington in 2002. So as you can imagine, crossing the nation TWICE, and then being stored in an attic with unabated humidity and swings of heat, and then the squatting squirrels, it's a miracle it's still in one piece, (somewhat).

This is what it looks like now.

This is what it's supposed to look like.

Yes. It's missing a lot of bits and pieces, but that's no worry. I will simply roll with what I've got. And I've already got an idea in mind where Im going with it. And I will post progress as I go along.

The first thing I did was pitch the room-eating peripherals. The cabinet in the 'bathroom' and the wasted space for the bedroom's stairway area. I will remove the fireplace, and the stairway, and replace them with streamlined, smaller, better options.

I began, however, by doing my best to restore the kitchen cabinets I'd made back in '03. I repainted, I refinished and glued, trying to save the little pastoral paintings I'd made along the cabinet tops and on the door of the broom closet. I also started building a farmer's sink in the bay window, and I will be customizing windows for the house, with little stained glass transom windows. I will try to document each step as I begin restoring this dollhouse.

So day one, we begin with the kitchen. I've ordered some mini-Moroccan tile for the floor, and am waiting for those to arrive to begin the process of finishing the kitchen. Once I glue in those cabinets, that is. They're just placed there for now. I will finish the kitchen's windows first too.

The exterior, I will be making into the style of a masonry rowhouse in a city. This house was designed as a Victorian row-house. Which is fine, and adorable. I'm actually glad the porch is gone, and I can really have some fun playing with the exterior's textures. I will be doing that as I go along. The roofs on the towers are going away, to be replaced with something more along the lines of a curved conical spire.

The kitchen of the McKinley

Feffie's Cottage will, in the unknown future, offer kits for built-ins, designed to fit specific models of the Greenleaf line. And I have been experimenting.

The kitchen in the McKinely is almost exactly 8" x 8", with the addition of the bay window. It's not a lot of space to work with if you're using pre-manufactured furniture or kits not designed for the space.

I made two cabinets for this kitchen. One focused on cooking with a utility closet with a curved door, and the other designed for baking, with a flour dispenser built-into it and a collection of 16 spice drawers. The cabinets took a beating and even restored they look pretty rough, but they also look cool.

I made the cabinets from basswood mostly. With some balsa for interior pieces. The stove is bricked in real terracotta bricks and the wall tiled in glass. The stove door and top are made of basswood (the door in Fimo) and then painted with iron paint, which to my delight, rusted a little during the long storage. The 'soapstone' counters are made with FIMO/Sculpey. I made the butcher blocks from oak strips, which I laminated together and then cut. NOT EASY. But they came out great, and they display my fancy knife set so well.

The sink is polymer clay. I just placed them in their space for now, until I can fix the missing wall on the bay window, and finish the bay windows, and finally glue the thing back into place. Then, it's time to do flooring, which should be on its way from New England as we speak. They will be in white and pale green to match the pastoral scenes painted on the cabinet tops. Note Mount Hood amongst the rolling pastures. :)

So, that's my first project. It will be the seed for a few of Feffie's Cottage products, including the custom kits and the butcher blocks, of which I will be selling a limited number. Keep checking in.

Project 365 - Days 81-100

I'm home every day with my child. He is pretty much my entire life. And these days, he is the only thing keeping me from losing myself all together to this anxiety and depression issue I've been inflicted with lately.  It's really hard. I think this both controls it and contributes to it. My sense of self sometimes gets shaken, and my ability to have a creative outlet; such as writing or drawing or whatever else, is inhibited by having an active two and a half year old boy.

Part of me thinks I need to work again, that I need to get out of the house, and have structure, but nowadays, the mere idea of leaving the house can have me suffering from what I call 'flashes' of completely unjustified terror. Spurts of adrenaline that make my chest compress and my brain sort of short-circuit. I have to stop and breathe, breathe, breathe.  Is this a function that will disappear with a job, or will I be impeded by it? Deprived entirely of normality? Many of my regular readers know what an unapologetic control freak I am. Now imagine my brain doing something like this however it wants, and my having absolutely no control of it.  It's infuriating and frankly, miserable.  I wouldn't wish this on anyone. Even a libertarian ::snicker::

81/365 - My little man's foot. Small and cute.

82/365 - Ziggy Zags

83/365 - Cuddles

84/365 - Lots of my kid in this grouping.
Lashes behind lace.

85/365 - Oregon's main source of nutrition.
Coffee. Evidence of Oregon's
addiction; the empty sacks.

86/365

87/365 - Tokens from my baby

88/365

89/365 - Hubby brought home some treats

90/365

91/365 - Auntie Nee made a brief visit to the PNW. She got in some time
with her nephew, who adores her, and her mom.

92/365 - Blurry but sweet. Some kitty cuddles.

93/365 - Hearts are open

94/365 - Pre-Easter cuteness

95/365 - Morning egg hunt at home

96/365 - The boy looks good in my specs.

97/365 - Realized the other day, that except for a couple of days during pregnancy
because of swollen feet, I have worn these toe rings continuously since 1998 or 1999.
I pretty much forget they are even there.

98/365 - the saute pan

99/365 - Simon says pet me

100/365 - cozy quilt

So yeah. My pictures are Alex-intensive lately. But that's what this project is all about. Capture your life and the things that catch your eye.  Next installment will bring us close to a third of the way through the project. Number 101 is awfully cute! I won't be so debbie downer next time, I promise. Just having some medication adjustments that are making things challenging for me. I also have a project in mind that I may begin if I can find someone to help me kick off the hardest part. Laterz from the HC. 

Awful Birthday #44

Happy Birthday to Moi. Alex got a good
mouthful of the icing before this baby
got cut. He's pretty good at sneaking
up and getting bites out of baked things, as
demonstrated in the previous post.

Today was my 44^th birthday. And I realized something as the day wound down, complete with both its moment of smiles and its moment of sadness; I will *always* be disappointed on my birthday. Always.  But it isn't what people imagine. It isn't about having unrealistic expectations of the people I am close to, and I use the word close based on what close is for me. The disappointment stems entirely from me.

You see, I want what I see other people having on their birthdays. A crowd of people giving a person a lovely surprise party that they were completely unaware of. A party that people they care about came from afar for because the person is so valued. I want the warmth and inclusion of normal people. To feel what it's like to be valued like that; the way normal people value one another. But sadly… I am not normal.

Toes cozied up for the crisp cold up the mountain.

Relationships; friendships, romantic connections, family—they are all about investment.  The people who get all the special treatment are the people that invest in their loved ones in a way that inspires that kind of reciprocation. They deserve it. They receive what they put in.  But I, as someone who is chronically affected by depression, and social anxiety, and what is now forming into a type of agoraphobia and anxiety, simply are not equipped to invest that much in that way.

I am just not normal.

Hwy 26. Mount Hood. About ten minutes up the road
from my home.

Normal people get up in the morning and face the day without an inner battle. Normal people are not obstructed by chronic and sometimes debilitating fatigue and lethargy. Normal people don’t have to lean on medications to get them through the day. Normal people do not let emotions rule everything they do. Normal people do cool things just because they can just do them; and don’t have to be cajoled or humoured into doing them, into leaving the house; into going to social events. They face strangers with open smiles and let people into their lives.

I don’t.  I let *some* people in, in the most limited fashion. What I consider close, is a far cry from what anyone with a normal perspective would consider close.  I over-share with strangers, but I only feel comfortable with a few people.  And I let them into my life, and into my house; but I still keep everyone at arm’s length. Not out of spite, not out of anything maligning… but because I just can’t have normal relationships.

Peek-a-snow.

So people like me require a HUGE imbalance in our relationships. I hide, and my *close* people have to seek. The burden is on them, mostly. It’s a lot to ask. It’s why I don’t have many friends, and why I have a hard time with relationships. It’s why anyone with the same condition as I have do as well.  To have a lasting relationship, that person needs to care about you enough to WANT to give; to travel; to be the one doing most of the ‘investment’ in the relationship (insofar as ‘investment’ is interpreted by normal standards).  See, I invest too. For the people I care about, going to them takes a HUGE amount of personal strength and energy, but they don’t know that. Showing them the courtesies that normal people show is a massive step out of the comfort zone for a person with social and depressive issues.

Not a huge snowpack up here yet. New England is getting
it all.

If I want what normal people have, it’s like investing fifty times what normal people have to invest; and because it’s not to normal standards, nobody really understands that. They think people like me are willfully being distant and remote.  As an extroverted introvert (yes, that does exist), I both long for the company of my friends and family, but I also dread it; because the cost of it on my emotional being is very high.

Breakfast at the Cascade Dining Room with mom-in-law
and step-father-in-law.

So yeah. I will always be disappointed. I will often expect to be disappointed and I will sometimes even welcome the disappointment, so that I don’t have to be surprised by it. My birthday will never be the vision I hope it will be because I don’t have it in my capacity to make it so. I’m not socially capable of it. And I can’t be shitty enough to expect people I care about to make it special for me even though I can’t really reciprocate that kind of investment.

Mt. Jefferson, saying hi from his layered nest of hills.

It all sounds very selfish in many ways, but it’s difficult to explain. Depression and Anxiety and all those conditions are not selfishness, they are genuine roadblocks to normality.  Finding people that understand that is paramount, and even those paragons you are lucky enough to find who can play that role are prone to get sick of your shit now and again too. They want to feel special too.

The Oregon Cascades. It was sooo windy and cold up there today.

That is why I absolutely DESPISE my birthday. Because I KNOW for a fact that I will end up in tears at some point. I do it because I am so disappointed in myself for not being normal. And for hoping that the people I love understand that all the time.  I’ve spent a great deal of my life being taken for granted by my family, and having my birthdays forgotten or dismissed as ‘just another day—get over it’. So that baggage is already the looming sword of Damocles that dangles above February 22 every year. Add that and my fucking depression and this confounded anxiety that makes me want to SCREAM, and frustrated family and friends who feel like they can’t do anything right, and it’s just the shittiest day of the year for me. Cake or no cake.

I hate my birthday folks. It’s the one day I want to be important, and I can’t even put in the energy and the investment to make it that way. And so, it sucks, and I hate it. I really do.

The thing I worry about most is my abnormality having an adverse affect on my child's upbringing. His birthdays will always be special. Even if I have to cut off a leg to make sure of it.  He is my horizon. I watch him when everything else feels like it's crumbling around me. As Dan once said: "He is the light in your very dark world." He is. He was the best birthday gift I have ever received (and conceived--meh heh). 

My beautiful horizon. In overalls no less.

...and my stoopid cat. Just because I love this pic of him and his mouche-mole.

/wallowing in self-pity