I saw a post somewhere a long time ago that listed a bunch of random facts about themselves, so I thought that it would be fun to try. Can’t believe I came up with 50 of them as easily as I did! I probably could do more, but I wouldn’t want to bore anyone TOO much.

Feel free to post some random self facts about yourselves in the comments, by the way! It’s kind of fun.

 1. I have lucid dreams in the morning, for an hour or so before fully waking.2. One of my main childhood nightmares consisted of an invisible man that was chasing me. He was not always invisible, however - whenever he passed in front of an object (a tree, a rock, etc), I could see him. That “sometimes he’s there - sometimes’s he’s not” quality made him even scarier to me.

3. I used to tell my poor younger brother that we didn’t know where he was born because he was birthed in an airplane between states… and he believed me.

4. I’m really tall (6′0″), and I love it - although I do NOT like trying to find tall sizes.

5. I’m extremely emotionally-sensitive. I can “read” others very well and sometimes get a feel for what they’re feeling. The downside? I get hurt too easily sometimes.

6. I’ve had just about every haircolor there is throughout my life, but keep going back to blondes and reds - they fit my personality best, too.

7. I learned how to walk before I learned how to crawl. I had casts on my feet to correct how my feet were “bent” when I was born.

8. I can sleep equally well on either side of the bed.

9. I can’t sleep unless I’m lying down, and even then I have a really hard time doing it in public/strange places.

10. I can touch my tongue to my nose.

11. I would love to travel the world, but have done very little of it.

12. I used to want to be the first teenager in space (I know, I know…), thought I was psychic (see the abovementioned #5 fact and this isn’t too far from the truth in some ways), and I wanted to own a bunch of horses (still would like to one day!)

13. Sometimes my imagination is more vivid than I’d like it to be, other times it’s not enough.

14. I’m low-maintenance (and my husband agrees - no, really!)

15. I used to stutter, and I still have a hard time thinking of words sometimes (especially when I’m nervous).

16. I love movies.

17. I’m very good at keeping myself amused, regardless of the situation.

18. I think that my best feature is my eyes.

19. I believe whole-heartedly in taking chances in life in order to make the most of your time and really experience life, but I don’t do it enough.

20. One of my biggest pet peeves is people that are ignorant about something, yet SURE that they are right. (Closed-mindedness, I suppose.)

21. I love inspirational stories. Sometimes I try to just take a slow walk and think about how lucky I am.

22. I’m stubborn.

23. I’m very secure about things that I think I’m good at, but can be very insecure about the others.

24. I LOVE the sound and smell of the rain. Thunder soothes me.

25. I am very philosophical, and love to think things over in my head that I find interesting.

26. I used to sing duets on stage with my father, as well as having a solo in a school chorus performance. Singing is still a huge part of my life, and I sometimes wish I’d had some kind of professional tutoring in the area to see how decent I could have been at it. I sang to my husband on our wedding day, at the reception.

27. I’ve had a few dreams where I was somehow granted omniscience (infinite knowledge). I woke up suddenly, with a wonderful feeling inside that I could never begin to explain, only to lose it a few moments later as I realized I was awake and no longer had the gift of understanding it all.

28. I’ve never had that many women friends. Most have been male, and I still have a much better success rate with male friends to this day.

29. I used to be a habitual liar, so people not trusting me (I’m all about truth now, though!) upsets me.

30. I don’t drink while I’m eating. I finish the meal, then have my drink.

31. I don’t like fish or any seafood that tastes salty.

32. I believe in God. I believe in science. I do not believe that one contradicts the other, because The Bible is not meant to be taken quite as literally as some people try to take it.

33. I worry about the world and what we’re doing to it… and to each other.

34. I hate doing laundry.

35. I love all holidays, and any excuse to give others gifts (I enjoy giving them more than getting them) and be joyful.

36. I don’t really watch TV. I download whole seasons of shows and watch them like I would a really long movie.

37. I’ve had an unreasonable fear, my whole life, that I would never be able to have children. And I do, obviously, want them.

38. I can be somewhat of a loner, and do very well when I’m on my own. However, I do love to socialize when I’m around people, and am very good at first impressions (and second, and third, for that matter…).

39. I’m a dog person.

40. I’m horrible at staying in touch with people.

41. I say what I think, even if I’m the only person in the conversation that feels that way and I know it.

42. I love sleep.. probably too much.

43. My favorite outfit in the world is and always will be: a pair of jeans, a fitted, simple white t-shirt (or tank top), black leather boots, and a black leather jacket. I think it, in a way, personifies who I am… or who I would like to be. A little of both.

44. I’ve never done drugs.

45. I’m usually too hard on myself.

46. I believe that you have to fight for the things that you believe in.

47. I love reading to my husband.

48. I’m good at a lot of things, but I don’t feel that I’m phenomenally good at any of them.

49. I like to watch people. Not in a creepy or stalker-ish way, mind you. I’m not sure how to explain it. I have to be in the right mood, but when I am, I find other people fascinating.

50. I can’t believe I thought of fifty of these things. I guess I’d better make this last one: “I tend to ramble”

I decided that I wanted a blog that was a bit more easily customizable, so I’ve switched it over to Wordpress, and am now hosting it here on my site.

For those of you that are interested in either my artwork or my brushes and don’t want to subscribe to an online mailing list, you can use the RSS feed for this blog to keep yourself updated. I will list all new brush sets, paintings, etc. here. This is also where I will be posting all of my tutorials in the future, as well - then linking them from my website.

You can view posts by category, too. So if you’re interested in my artwork and not my brushes, you can click on the Artwork category listing to the right and see all posts relating to that subject. Pretty swell, hmm?

Anyway, just a quick post to let everyone know about the move and the updates, etc. Until next time…

This tutorial is great for brush sets with images in them. Like, the Flames & Fire brush set, for example. Flames aren’t all orange. They have some oranges, yellows, and reds in them at varying stages of “hotness.” You could use this tutorial to add those colors!

This technique is the single most important skill that I developped that helps me to make brushes look more “real” - almost like images that you can control the colors of. Whenever people ask me how I’ve managed to make the brushes look so great and full of different colors in the preview images, THIS is the technique that I used.

Feedback on the tutorial is very welcome!

View the Tutorial Now!

 

I never used to go to the doctor. Like… ever. While I was going to college, whenever I would need proof of my immunizations that I had as a child, I had to contact my pediatrician. She wasn’t fond of that, considering that my records had gone into a warehouse somewhere because I hadn’t been there in over 20 years. Yes, that was the last doctor that I had before my current one… my pediatrician.

So, then I married an army guy. I get free health care, so I register for that, and finally have a doctor again. Then I hit 30.

I’m pretty sure that what happened was… I had a 30 year warranty when I was born. My mother must have tucked it away somewhere without telling me, simply because it was never needed. I was a perfectly healthy child, teenager, and young adult. But the second that 30 year warranty ran out….. BAM! Now it seems like I have more things wrong with me than right with me.

I’m pretty sure I can trace a good deal of it back to my nose. That’s right… my nose. My septum has always been slightly deviated (ie - my nose is slightly crooked), but it never really bothered me from a physical standpoint. You can’t really notice it unless I point it out. Anyway, it’s gotten worse as I got older. I started having headaches more and more often, and I’d take Advil for them more and more frequently. Then there’s the constant pressure on the left side of my nose. Now, more recently, dizziness and disorientation. That’s what finally got me to talk to my doctor about getting it fixed. Apparently, because of my allergies and my deviated septum, a nasal polyp has formed in my left nostril, due largely to a chronic infection in the tissue there. So now I’ve got surgery (it’s called a Septoplasty) scheduled for January 16th.

That means putting back my eye surgery (which they still haven’t gotten back to me about, so probably don’t have a second person for yet anyway), but that’s alright. It will feel SO WONDERFUL to finally have my nose fixed. Dealing with the constant pressure and headaches was bad enough, but when the dizziness and disorientation started, I thought I was going to tear my hair out.

Back to the whole 30 year warranty thing… some studies have shown that taking large amounts of Advil may lead to thyroid disease. I’m not sure if this is definitively proven or disproven yet, but if it IS true, then taking all that Advil for my sinuses (too much of it, mind you - more than the bottle recommends… but that was the only way to keep these headaches at bay) may have caused my hypothyroidism. Hypothyroidism has, in turn, made me overweight. My weight has caused all sorts of problems, from indigestion to heartburn to high blood pressure and high cholesterol to a general feeling of “blah-ness” (see? told you I liked to make up words).

So, even though most of my problems can be traced back to one or two other problems that caused all of the rest, I still can’t get over that feeling of everything going wrong at once. At least I’m still sane! (Then again, that may be up for discussion sometimes, as well)

I’m not complaining, mind you. I’m not that kind of person. I find this all highly amusing (gotta have a sense of humor in life), thought of the whole “warranty running out” thing, and just wanted to share those thoughts.

Anyone else ever feel that way? Perhaps it wasn’t a 30 year warranty you had, though… perhaps it was 20 or 45. Ahh, to have had a 100 year warranty. I’ll have to get on my mother for not purchasing that extended warranty option.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

It’s almost that time again! I absolutely love Christmas. All holidays, really… I love an entire season devoted to “jollyness” and giving and family. I haven’t started my shopping yet, but I can usually get that all done pretty quickly. Need to get some pretty soon, though, so that I can mail them out to get there in time! Tomorrow will be our first “Christmas Shopping” day. That’s half the fun for me, really, picking out presents. Seems like everyone veers more and more toward gift certificates each year, and while they’re a really good idea for a gift (heck, I love em), I really like to get something more personal at Christmas if I can. So we’ll see what I can find.

Keep your
Christmas decor in mind when planning the festivities.

Finally finished up the Holiday Brushes set! It has both Christmas and Hanukkah elements in it. Click on the image/text below to go to the downloads/info page on my site!

  On a sidenote, regarding that whole LASIK vs ICL decision that I had to make… I’ve decided to go with ICL. After a WHOLE LOT of research, it seems like a better option for me. ICL is basically a lens that goes inside your eye, just on top of your cornea. LASIK, as most know, is a laser surgery that actually alters/cuts away your cornea to make it shaped correctly in order for your vision to be “corrected”. Now, for me, “corrected” had a decent chance of not being 20/20. Because I am -8 and -8.75 in my eyes, I wouldn’t necessarily have enough of my cornea left to go in for a second “enhancement” LASIK operation, if the first one didn’t get me all the way to 20/20. If I was even -7 instead of -8, I would have had much better chances with LASIK.

Originally, I was thinking that it made more sense to actually “fix” my eye with LASIK then to put in a lens that was “temporary”, since the ICL lens has to come out when you get cataracts. But here’s the thing: if I get cataracts, I will very likely have surgery to remove them anyway. Regardless of whether I had LASIK or ICL. This way, they can take out the ICL lens, fix the cataracts, and then put in the new lens that’s a part of the cataract surgery. So, LASIK and ICL should theoretically last the same amount of time for me.

Also, I’m really coming to like the thought that this is both reversible AND isn’t cutting away at part of my eye (the cornea).

If some “miracle” procedure comes out 5 years from now, and I decide I want to get it, I could get the ICL lens taken out and have the “miracle” procedure done, no problem. If I had LASIK, there’s a chance that I wouldn’t be eligible for this “miracle” procedure simply because my eyes had been “messed with” and part of my cornea was gone.

The risks for both procedures are very similar. LASIK had some that ICL didn’t, and vice versa. For those of you interested in learning more about ICL and what I’ll be having done, check out this website:http://www.visianinfo.com/index.html

There’s videos there that show exactly how the procedure is done, as well as testimonials from some people. The ONLY downside for me about ICL is that it’s a relatively new procedure, and it costs more than LASIK does. But, if I’m going to get this done, I’m not going to choose the cheaper procedure when it’s not as good for me. I mean, these are my EYES. ICL was only approved by the FDA 1 year ago, although it’s been done in various parts of the globe for about 15 years. I will be the very first procedure done at this particular clinic in Dothan, AL… but the doctor doing it has done the surgery before elsewhere. The procedure is also VERY similar to cataract surgery, and my doctor apparently does about 20 of those a day!

It took me several months to switch from being gung-ho about LASIK to realizing that ICL is the better alternative for me. I did a lot of research, but what finally made up my mind was having several people tell me that I would be much more likely to have better vision afterwards with ICL. Even if I was seeing 20/40 with LASIK, and I could read those numbers on the chart, that doesn’t mean that it’s a “crisp” 20/40. With ICL, I can reasonably expect to see 20/20, and I can reasonably expect it to be a crisp 20/20. There were other little things that influenced it, too, but that was the bottom line. I mean, after all, why else am I getting this surgery if not so that I don’t have to wear glasses anymore and to have perfect vision without them?

I’ll be having the surgery done sometime in January, if all goes right. They want to find a second candidate and do two of the ICL operations around the same time period, so that’s all I’m waiting on… other than the fact that I wanted to wait until after the holidays to have it done.