Carol BelleA website full of music and non-sequiturs – Home of Selene Audion

Ah, the strange things I like to do . . . like cross-stitching. Here I’ll be parading my newest completed project of frivolous arts and crafts. Though, actually it’s not that frivolous. What started as a project to keep me occupied, ended up being the perfect idea for a wedding gift for some good friends of mine who will be married in early December.

I know I procrastinate a lot, but eventually things get done. The hardest part was buckling down and finishing the thing, really. There’s a couple good shots of all the little stitching I did, which took approximately two and half weeks of nightly applied discipline (sometimes I even picked up the thing in the mornings even!).  The design was a kit that I had purchased quite a few years ago and packed away, unopened and still in the retail bag from the little stitchery shop I bought it from (with receipt!).

After about four years of the kit lying around and packed away somewhere, I decided I wanted to do a little cross-stitching (as I had grown tired of sewing and soap making). The kit is from a . . . I guess it’s a company . . . called “Just Nan”, and the design itself is called “Spring Orchid” or something like that. It came with a little metal orchid charm that I omitted from the final product because I thought it was too gaudy (and it would cover my fine central stitching) . . .

The box is an old cigar box that a friend of mine gave me for the project. As if you couldn’t tell it was a cigar box, heh. . . Anyway, I had made a sweet little box for myself long ago with some cross-stitch designs I made myself, which I eventually used to keep my stationary and writing materials (sealing wax, seal, stylus, ink pot). So the idea came to me after I realized I wasn’t going to be able to attend the wedding in Wisconsin, and therefore decided on transforming my cross-stitch jaunt into a very nice, hand-made wedding box. Well, the box isn’t hand-made, but the stuff I put on it was . . . Semantics. Moving on.

Yeesh, you’d think I was some 80 year old lady with nothing better to do than make soap and cross-stitch. I’m almost 28, in point of fact.

The box itself had beveled edges, which make it nice looking but also made it challenging to mount the background fabric around the corners! So they have a little character and they stick out a little, but I don’t think it looks too distracting. Just more of a hand-made quality, I guess. I used a powerful fabric glue that described itself as also being good to adhere fabric to wood, and it dries clear. I used the same glue to mount the finished stitching pattern (done on 28 ct. linen, btw) and frayed the edges a bit to give it a little more personality.

And voila! A Wedding Box! To put pictures, tinkets, charms, and any small thing of sentimental value. Or whatever!

So Tuesdays are when I have my private lessons for voice. Tuesdays are usually good days. But for some reason, yesterday was just a less than stellar lesson. I’m now going to tell you that I’m extremely disappointed in myself and felt I should have done better! (must be perfect!! Always! Even if it’s completely unrealistic!!)

Anyway, I just felt I could have put more energy into the lesson. My teacher is always great and positive for me, and she helps me significantly. But I was so tired, and my high notes were squeaking, and I wasn’t carrying through the syllables of the Italian aria, and . . . well, basically I think I sounded like crap, and came home feeling slightly unfulfilled.

In the meantime, I like to look up weird things like UFOs and various other mysterious things. I did that before going to the lesson, so maybe that was partly on my mind, but I didn’t think it was entirely that distracted. Maybe I really was just overtly tired. The winter depression thing doesn’t help either. It’s getting darker earlier, and that helps to change people’s moods sometimes.

I’ll say one thing about the UFO stuff that might be of interest, and then I’ll move on: at least six major countries have officially declassified all their UFO case files, telling the world that many reported sightings have been explained, while there are a few that they admit they cannot. It only takes one. That’s all I’ll say now.

So when I’m not singing horribly or looking up the strange grids in the Atlantic ocean that could have been an ancient city, I could be doing one of a few things mentioned in my previous post. (I’m an arts and crafts geek too, on top of everything) Why is it that a young person like me just loves to make useless little things, I have no idea. But the video games is more understandable, even though that goes against the stereotype that video games are mostly played by guys (which isn’t far from the truth).

Lately, I’m rediscovering Neverwinter Nights 2. I bought it a few years ago, loaded it up, played it for 10 minutes, and then lost interest. So I never got into the tutorial, even. I played the first NWN, and got into playing around with the tool set (which was way too much fun and distracted me too well from my studies at the Fashion Institute when I was still attending there). So I’m toying with the idea that if I play the new game a little, I may get interested in messing around with the tool set, which may lead to actually finishing my D&D adventure system that I wanted to create eight years ago…

God, I’m such a nerd.

And I still have to finish a present for someone, AND make five little gift bags that I promised my grandmother (which she officially bought from me, because my gramma is cool like that).

Today is still unfolding. But the plan in short is to take one of the cars in to get new tires, go see Old Dogs with Robin Williams and John Travolta (no, they’re not coming along to see it. They’re in it, of course), and to have delicious baby clams with garlic toast in a white wine garlic sauce at Cafe Renato. . . should be a good day.

So, again, I fail to surprise myself with not really keeping up the blog thing like I said I was going to try to do. Ugh, so I haven’t posted anything since August.

You know, I’ll be honest; I really hate talking about myself. It’s kind of the same way I really hate listening to my songs (unless I’m being completely over-critical of myself and therefore will listen with morbid curiosity and disdain), or looking at pictures of myself . . . It’s all the same. I try to avoid seeming being vain, I guess. Sure, maybe sometimes when no one’s looking, I’ll take a little longer look in the mirror, trying to decide if I’m actually someone to be considered “pretty” or not. . .

I settle for knowing I’m not ugly, instead. Calling myself pretty makes me a little uncomfortable.

So stuff like that. I ask myself, “Who would want to read ridiculous, inane things that happen to you in a blog that’s barley even known to exist by your own friends, anyway?”

The answer? “Good question . . .”

But for shits and giggles, I’ll do a little bloggy thing right now:

I’ve been taking lessons again with a voice teacher here in Taos. She’s also the conductor of the community choir, which I joined. And I’m taking an additional group voice class on Thursdays, with the same nice lady. So my schedule went from being a derelict bohemian playing video games to working hard as an actual singer three days a week.

Yay, progress.

And even better is that it seems like my new teacher really likes my voice and is very encouraging. She’s even mentioned that since I started only about a month and a half ago, I’ve already improved. Now I just have to work on recordings so I can post them up here and share them with . . . whoever . . .