The Hungarican Chick is still kickin'

Yeah. I'm alive. My poor blog, which has been going strong for so long, has been criminally neglected. I'm so focused on my Author stuff, and Feffie's Cottage, I tend to forget that I have this wonderful place where so much of my life and experiences have been shared for so long. (Feffie's Cottage INSTA and Feffie's Cottage ETSY)

My readers have followed me from my infertility through my unexpected pregnancy, to the birth of y beautiful son. Through the loss of 45 pounds (and the subsequent re-gaining of it). Through a tough stage in my marriage, where I experienced infidelity, to the ups and downs of my Regency life. My costuming posts are still my most popular.

I have not given up on the Hungarican Chick. I'm still here, Hungarican-chicking around.

So let's catch up.

I don't have chickens anymore. They brought rats. So that was not okay. Although there was a great plus side to having chickens and that was my rooster, who crowed at all hours of the night, and that in turn affected the ratings of the vacation rental next door, so there was that. But I miss my kippies and their fresh eggs. A lot.

Six years old. Taking his first ski lessons
at Timberline Lodge. Stop growing,
little man.

Alex is now SIX YEARS OLD. Can you believe that? I can't. Every day, I look for the secret rewind button hidden on his little body somewhere, so I can have my baby back again. He's in Kindergarten, and he's using five dollar words--with their own unique pronunciations like: Lidderly, and Use-a-liss. And the best one was last week, he said they were learning the Peasant of Egpyts (the Pledge of Allegiance).

On Valentine's Day, my dog Simon was killed by one of the vacation renter's malamute. He was partially eviscerated and it was devastating.

Hubby is having the hardest time dealing with this loss. This was his dog through and through. We are puppy hunting. Turns out Jack Russell Terriers, particularly shorties, are pretty hard to find around Oregon.

Minatures-wise, progress is slow, but it is happening on my McKinley re-structure & remodel.  I've been working on building my Feffie's Cottage business both on Facebook and on Etsy. Right now my big project is a 'Witchly/Wizardly Workshop Kit, which has a variety of elements, pictured below. The element in progress right now are tiny mortars and pestles, which I have been working on with my new miniature lathe. So here's a little pictorial of stuff:

So my little living room area is heading towards completion. This stage is before I put the flooring in.

Installing the flooring was fun. 

One of the kit prototypes. I made it pretty quickly and pulled the upholstery too tight. That is real leather, something like .5oz weight, which was super-fine. I'll get it better next time. Gotta try it a few times to get it right.

I soldered this little rack to hang pots, pans, herbs, and cured meats from. Kitchen has been coming along slowly as well. 

I made a little iron fence and gate for the front. Still another work in progress. I will be starting on the exterior pretty soon. As soon as I finish converting the victorian roof to the hip roof. I have the right tools now (a 4" table saw, yes, really.)

This is the .5" oz leather. A-frickin'-mazing. Look how prettily it tufts! I wish I hadn't cut it so small or pulle dit so tight, because look how adorable that is.

This is a tiny tub I made. At present it it still bottomless. This was after the first application of the patina chemical.

This is after several chemical applications.

A settee for the parlour.

Miss Huxley, giving it a test.

This is the 'stained glass' window for Miss Huxley's 'witching room'. It will replace the window that's in that room at present. I made this with #6 plastic from a take-out clamshell box and a few coloured sharpies. It shrank down nicely, but it did not shrink completely evenly. So it's not perfectly round. But oh well. It'll do.

The witching room in progress. I drew the rough placement of the new window. The other one will be boarded up and bricked over like it never existed. I made some built-ins for this room. 

Experimenting with copper and solder. Just sold this on etsy. All the linens are hand-stitched.

Some of the Witchly Workshop Kit elements. Most of these are my personal ones for Miss Huxley's supplies.  Jars of eyeballs are a witchly necessity.

A snapshot of what we've got so far. A skull in glass; a geode (real), some bones, a crystal wand, a magic book, an orbiculum (or crystal ball), a jar of eyeballs. There are already more things to be added to this image. 

I had to add this image of the little chess set I got for the price of shipping alone ($2) from Wish. Too fecking cute. It's in the Huxley House library.

These are the additional books and the bottle of poison for the Witchly Kit. There's one more book that I haven't shown yet. Next... the Mortar and Pestle. I will only be selling 4 of these kits.

 I'm still drawing, of course. But since I'm no longer working an office job, my Office Specials are a thing of the past. But the occasion comes of for me to draw. Inktober was fun. I did that.
These are my two favourite from this year.

This is a time-witch, stealing your time. She is inspired by my beloved friend Maryanne Piro, an artist from New England, who did witches and halloween like nobody else. I have not been able to reach her for the past couple of years, so I've been missing her. 

My whale. I think he's cute. He needs to be remade in detail, I think.

I have not really been doing anything with the Oregon Regency Society for a long time. After having heard a lot of nasty things being said about me, I simply got tired of it. It wasn't fun anymore. So I passed the responsibility onto some people who had been critical of my efforts. I was asked recently to take it back, and honestly, I'm not sure I'm 100% ready for that workload again. I've been approaching it as baby steps, but even small amounts of effort seem daunting to me right now. I don't even feel compelled to sew, which is pretty telling.

I miss my girlfriends from this group tho. Like crazy. And have missed them. However, I've found a crew to hang with up here on the mountain, and they've been like an injection of life for me, and have helped keep me from diving into a terrible depression. We call ourselves the Mount Hood Coffee Coven because we can be found pretty reliably in the mornings at the local coffee house (Coffeehouse 26) cackling like a bunch of hens, playing ukulele and just generally loving being around one another on a given weekday morning. It's been a lifeline for me. And I love these women like my sisters.

This is our logo. Yes. We have a logo. And we have matching coffee cups. Because.

Yes, I'm still K-drama obsessed. I watch them rather regularly, probably not quite as avidly as I did last year, but they're still a big part of my life. I have found another favourite actor, his name is So Ji-Sub and he's fucking beautiful and I'm going to stalk him like the 48-year-old chubby mom that I am. Isn't he just noms?

This is So Ji-Sub. He is my next husband.
He is beautiful.

So that's my update. Let's hope it's not an 'annual' one. LOL. Here's a picture of a hedgehog mom carrying her little baby. Because hedgehogs. Please bring your attention to the baby's feet in particular. No reason except... look at the feets!

HC, where have you been? Dealing. I've been dealing.

It's not unusual for me to go dark around the holidays and come out of hiding come the end of February, but add to that a medication issue, and you've got someone who is high-anxiety, low-spirits and all around distracted and unproductive.

Yes. I'm alive. I have been however, struggling a great deal with my brain chemistry, and in part, it's given me little energy to focus with. I have been writing. That's a good thing. And doing some editing work to finish up the next two books I will be releasing this year. But I haven't done much else except try to take care of my kid and sometimes, even myself.

I started going back to talk therapy for one. And my anti-depressant seems to have hit the two-year poop-out, and stopped working, so my doctor doubled the dose, and I have been creeping out from under my rock to see the light, hissing and scowling all the way. But this week, I've been feeling something close to normal. Which is amazing after having spent the past quarter of a year in depression and anxiousness.

Part of my crash was the significant reduction of a creative outlet. Another part was my removing myself from the Oregon Regency Society, which took a lot (way too much) of my emotional energy, and without that, I sort of got lost. When you've had something like that to keep you focused for ten years, and suddenly there's all this open space in your head where the drama used to live, yeah, it can be jarring. It's been healthy for me to leave that aside. To give me the chance to dream up new ventures without the baggage of difficult, unkind and attention-hungry people.

In the meantime, my husband, who is a fucking hero, was talking about using our tax returns to put together some kind of she-shed for me so I could have space for my sewing, crafting, writing and miniatures without taking over the house, and without tiny fingers getting into all my stuff. It's something I've wanted for a long time. I've literally stopped sewing because it's been such a pain to hear the complaints about the mess and such.

When we realized our tax refund was a tenth of what we hoped, I was a little disappointed but didn't say anything. But hubby, who I think has been particularly worried about my state of mind lately, went without my knowledge and took out a little loan to create this little retreat for me. So this Friday, a troupe of three guys showed up with a double-long trailer full of materials, and five and a half hours later, their assemblage retreated, leaving behind Feffie's Cottage. My little she-shed.

A trailer of bits and bobs arrived at noon.

Leveling took about 15 minutes. The blocks were arranged, and the
floor frame was made in record time.

They built the walls, tyveked them, put windows
in, etc, before they lifted them in place.

They spread the two end walls to make the fourth outside
wall.

The bit left unfloord was for the decking.

Wall 4 goes up.

Then it's time to put in the porch wall.

Then one guy goes up and puts in the rafters for
the loft. He did the roof and rafters
pretty much on his own.

Helpers handed up materials.

Sheathing the roof. 

These guys move fast.

Metal was about to go up. Foreman was starting to
do the trim, which meant the project was almost done.

Adding the pre-built railing. Cute huh?

Adding the ridge cap and rake. finishing touches.
Trim is done.

There it is in all its glory. My she-shed dubbed 'Feffie's Cottage'.
Feffy is my nickname.

We went and bought some paint to match it to our house yesterday. It's a little humid to do that today, but it will get done soon enough. It's a dark teal blue. I also got a creamy tan called Crepe for the trim. When I was on the Behr website they suggested a colour story and I'm kind of in love. The house colour will be the Juniper Berries, which is what our main house colour is. The trim will be tan, and I'm toying with the idea of painting the door either the soft bluish white or the track green. What do you think?

This morning, my husband got up early and let me sleep in. We had some leftover flooring from my nesting period/home makeover attack when I was pregnant, so he went ahead and used it up on the floor in the cottage. It's only about 128 square feet of indoor space. Enough room for my cutting and sewing tables, a few chairs, a large IKEA shelf I plan to buy, a small armchair, and my desk and chair for writing. I have them all laid on my floorplan already.

The main 'area' is about 8 x 10 give or take.

This little bay area is about 8 x 5 and it's where my writing
desk will be (by teh window).

The loft is pretty big.

The little porch. :)

So there you have it. If all goes well this will be my creation central from now on. I'll be able to do dollhouses again and sew unrestricted. I'll post progress pics as the Feffie's Cottage takes shape.

:Squee!: