What Have I Gotten Myself Into? - Again

This seems to be a question I've asked myself a lot lately.  Most recently when I hurled myself in a college Japanese language class.  That turned out well, so maybe this latest crazy adventure will too...?  Oh boy...

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I have always loved to sing.  I grew up in a musical family.  My Granddad sang, played guitar, and harmonica.  My uncle does all of that, fronts a couple of bands, and has a recording studio in his house.  My mom has one heck of a set of "pipes".  She was the lead singer in several bands when I was young and even recorded a demo tape at one point.  She also won singing contests at the professional level.  I grew up surrounded by music and I was singing from an early age.  I've never had any formal training, I just sing what I hear.

At some point in my young adult life, I discovered karaoke.  The first song I ever sang did not go well at all.  I was extremely nervous and didn't actually know the song as well as I thought.  But I practiced, tried again, and ended up loving karaoke.  I've done it off and on over the years ever since.
Along the way I've entered a few singing contests, but have never won anything.  I get the same feedback - after a regular karaoke song or contest...  "Your voice is great, but you need to move around!"  I have such awful stage fright that I stand in one spot, deer in the headlights, or eyes closed, often with my knees shaking.  Despite all of that, I can belt out a song.  To quote Genesis: "I can't dance".

A couple months or so ago I went out with a couple of friends to a local club to celebrate one of their birthdays.  It happened to be karaoke night and I decided to sing.  My new friends here had never heard me sing.  After they had, they - and the two hostesses of the karaoke night - all started pushing me to enter "Misawa Stars" - a singing competition that was being advertised here.

I said, "Nope. No way, no how.  Been there, done that, not going to do it again."

Well...

I'm not sure what I was thinking, but one day I signed up, a week later I did my audition, and...  made it in.  *shocked face*

My audition went the way of all my past performances - or maybe even worse.  I think I was more nervous than I had ever been.  (thankfully it was a closed audition!)  The judges loved my voice, and I guess that alone was enough to get me into the show, but they all told me I'd have to: "own the stage" - "wow the crowd" - "get the audience on my side"... and so on.

I have a little less than two weeks to figure out how to do that.

The whole thing is going to be run like American Idol: including several performances, judges, crowd input, eliminations...

I say again, oh boy.

Studio Plant Nursery - Japan Edition

My studio has often doubled as a plant nursery.  I love plants and at our house in SD, the window in the studio was one of only a few to get sunlight.  It was also a room I could close off from the cat who loved to eat some of my plants.  So the studio window sill always had a collection of plants in it.

Out of habit, I suppose, I've been keeping my small collection of Bonsai supplies in the studio here, as well as a few of the trees themselves.

As of today, a few more plants will be joining the studio plant nursery.

We went to an Orchid Festival today in a town about an hour away.  I took a bunch of pictures, of course, and will probably do a post with them soon.  However, I wanted to share the new additions to my plant family right away!

First up is an orchid.  There were many for sale, and it was hard to make a decision, but in the end I chose this one:

Pretty flowers.

Many of the orchids had no tags on them, but this one did.  It has the name on the front and care instructions on the back - in Japanese.  I'm hoping I can translate them, or find care info online.

I am nervous about having an orchid; I've always heard they are hard to care for.  I hope I can keep this one alive!  We did some reading on our smart phones/tablets while there and about all we learned are that there are thousands of types of orchid, all with different needs.  Yikes.  They do seem to want humidity and it certainly has that here, at least in the summers.  This one, while gorgeous, was one of the cheapest...  I just wasn't comfortable spending much, since I'm not confident I can keep it alive.  They had some stunning orchids for sale at upwards of $150.  (I'm sure some can go WAY higher than that...)  Mine was $8.

Next up...  I was excited to see a few Fittonia for sale.  This was a favorite plant of mine back in SD.  It is another one that I had learned wants high humidity.  Hopefully it will do well here.

I love the red-vined leaves.

I also got another Jade plant.  (I have three of them here now).  Jade have always been a favorite of mine and of all of my house plants that I had to rehome to come here, my "mama" Jade was the hardest to give up.  It was "mama", because I had taken several leaves off along the way and sprouted "baby" Jade plants from them.  I had actually resisted getting another Jade plant here, because I know I'll have to leave them behind when we leave.  However, we are going to be here for a while and I really enjoy them..  so, as of today, I have three.

This little one kinda looked like it needed some love.  I had to bring it home.

The last addition are these tiny succulents.  I don't think these little ones are very happy (they were sold to us with quite a discount).  But I thought they were very cute (they are all itty bitty) and maybe I can help them.  I used to be good at saving plants off the "clearance rack" - most of my collection back in SD came from those parts of a store.

I'm excited about my new little additions!  They now join my collection of: bonsai trees, a large Jade that I bought not too long ago, a small philodendron that came from a clearance rack (had been marked down a few times and was not happy - now it has new leaves), and a tiny succulent garden in a pot.  :)

Finished Saddlepads

I did a quick photo shoot of a batch of cross-stitched saddle pads that I've gotten all finished up and ready to go.  Most of them have been featured in posts on here while they were being stitched.  I have a few more needing finishing touches and then I'll be all caught up on finish work for these.

So Excited!... Now What?

Well, after wanting to for a long, long time, I finally took the plunge, or rather dipped my toe in, and bought a small container of mold builder and casting resin.

Unfortunately the resin did not come with the catalyst, so I have to see if I can find that here.

It's also a clear resin, not quite what I might want (?), but I noticed that it can be dyed.  It will all be experimental anyway - despite researching this for almost forever, I haven't actually ever done it.

So now...  I can try to make a mold and (hopefully soon if I find the catalyst) cast something!!

But... what?

I don't think I have enough here to do a horse (maybe micro minis?) but there are other things I've wished that I could duplicate lately.  Saddle trees?  Wings for customizing?  Or really get brave and try to sculpt a medallion??

I think I'm heading off to the mall today with a friend.  There is a small, nice, craft store there and I had noticed they have quite a bit of supplies for casting resin jewelry - such as: silicone molds and resin pigment.  I'm wondering if I can find the catalyst there.  If not hopefully I can mail order it.

Photo Show Photo Shoot

Today was exciting; I did my first quick little photo show photo shoot in...  a long, long time!

I focused on my custom Stablemates for today.  It was so much fun to get fresh, new pictures of the old horses, and to finally get some nice pictures of the new(er) ones.

Tomorrow I'll be labeling pictures and getting them in the mail!

Motivation Monday - The Whole Fire

The last few days have been a busy.  Jeff came home, I took my Japanese final, we had a booth at a vendor show, and I auditioned for a signing contest.  Tomorrow I have a dentist appointment and then we will have contractors coming by to work on the house.  Whew.

I'm really hoping to finally get in some studio time this week.  Also, this week, I will be mailing out my first photo show entries in... a long, long time.  :D

As always, I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Minor Update

Hello?

(That is an adorable fox ring that I got out of a vending machine!)

Sorry I've been so quiet.  I've been keeping busy studying Japanese for the class, continuing the house cleaning crusade, and...  creating some things off and on.

A few days ago I randomly decided to see if I could laser engrave a rock.

Yep.

I present, a rock star.  ;)

That was exciting!  I'm already thinking of other rock designs that could be done.


Jeff will be home tomorrow and so I've spent the entire day in "finish cleaning the whole house mode" - aka: "No, honey, I have not been living like a bachelorette while you've been gone"...

Tealight was a big help.

Also happening tomorrow is my final exam for the Japanese class.  Eeek!  I'm not feeling very ready for it.  However once the class is over, I'm hoping to be able to enjoy my now, mostly, clean studio and get some real work done in there.

On Saturday is the next vendor show that I'll be a part of and I have not even really started getting ready for it...  So after Jeff's homecoming and my final exam tomorrow, Friday will be a flurry of show prep and probably making a bunch of last minute stuff.  Wheee!

The latest studio project, that I've started over the past few days, is another Arabian costume.  This one being much smaller than the first one I started...  ;)

Stay tuned...