Last Post Continued...

In my last post, I was answering questions posed about my blog.  As I mentioned last time, I was tagged for this set of queries by Rich from the fantastic film review blog called Wide Screen World, and here are his answers.  I'm to choose past posts of mine that fit these categories.  Onward!

The Most Controversial Piece

I suppose in the context of my blog, any piece could be considered controversial wherein I speak of my change of views regarding faith and religion, particularly to those who have known me for a very long time.  The funny thing is, I really started this blog so that I could post photos of different art projects and anything creative that I might be up to.  Very quickly, this place became a mish-mash of stuff, and a common theme around here is religion.  At the time I'm writing this, the largest tag in my cloud to the right is RELIGION.  It's a topic I frequently visit, so it's sort of second nature to me now.

The first time I wrote about my changing beliefs felt a little tenuous, just because it wasn't something I was speaking about publicly a lot yet.  Here is the first post about religion, and I remember clicking "publish" after writing it and wondering what would come of it all.

Mask


Here is one that has been misunderstood, and therefore I suppose is a bit controversial.  A few people spoke to me about this, and thought that I was saying that Christians should not get tattoos.  I don't care if Christians get tattoos.  I think that those Christians who get tattoos should be consistent and not oppose homosexuality, because the same passage in the Bible "discourages" both.  God hates tats!!!

Bible Buffet


The Most Surprisingly Successful Piece


I don't know if this makes it successful, but I got several text messages about this post...people thought it was funny, I guess.  It's kind of a tidy little entertainment piece.  I remember thinking about it during a boring day at work, and working it out in my head.


Television is Over


The Most Underrated Piece


I don't really know how to judge if any post is underrated, nor do I know if I've ever written anything that is worthy to be highly or even moderately rated!  As I scroll through past posts, though, I see that these are a couple of posts which go together and some who have come to the blog more recently may find them fun.  Or not.  But here they are!


Magneto von Bulow, Part I
Magneto von Bulow, Part II


The Most Pride-worthy Piece

The pride here is for my friend and our Alma Mater.


Spectrum

7x7 Award

Rich, who writes a wonderful blog entitled Wide Screen World, tagged me awhile back for something called the 7x7 award.  Here goes!

First, I'm supposed to tell something about myself that no one knows.

Some people know this, of course, but most who read this blog probably don't.  I was in a car accident when I was nearly ten years old.  I was in a van filled with my mom, sisters, niece and nephew.  We were in Illinois, and  there was an accident that caused our van to go off of the road and roll four times.  I have worn a seat belt every single time I've ridden in a car save that time.  I'd had it on, but my nephew, who was a toddler at the time, had fallen asleep next to me and was pushing over against me.  I took off my seat belt so I could scoot over a little farther and not have him right up in my grill.  (In those days, toddlers his age didn't ride in car seats, but he had his seat belt on).

Anywhoodles, our van rolled around with me going about like a pinball.  When the van stopped rolling, and thankfully it stopped right side up, I had landed in a seated position on a tricycle that was in the storage area in the back of the van.  It had been mine and my siblings' before me each in turn, and was being given to my nephew.  I was fine save a few scratches, but a few of my sisters had much worse injuries--no worries, all survived and are good as new, though one sister had a long recovery.

My mother had a small cut on her head that took maybe eight stitches to fix, not a big deal, but I very vividly remember my mom with blood all over her face from that small cut.  I knew she was alright, because she was walking around holding my niece who was a baby, but it was a scary sight.  My brother and dad had a very scary ride out to come see us, because the hospital folks basically wouldn't tell them anything.

Oh, I should say that it was very serendipitous that right behind the accident were two car loads of doctors and nurses carpooling on their way to work.  That was a good thing, indeed, and I look back with fondness to those people and the help they readily gave.  Some who hear the story say, "Oh, they must have been angels."  Nope.  They were people--people with specialized training that was hard won and learned over many years of study.  I don't know their names, but I thank them, and all who make their living cleaning up the bad things that can happen when the human frame meets something stronger, heavier, and coming much too quickly.

The whole thing was such a defining moment in our family at the time, but now we hardly ever think of it--I don't, anyway.  Every once in awhile it comes up in conversation, and we all kind of have a moment of gratitude that we're all still around.

Sorry if that brought the mood down!  On to the next things.  I'm supposed to link to posts of mine that I think fulfill these titles.

The Most Beautiful Piece

I haven't written a beautiful piece, not even once, but I've been in some beautiful places and taken pictures.  Easily the most beautiful place I've ever seen is Ireland, and here are two posts that have pretty pictures of it.

Ireland Photos
More Ireland Photos

The Most Helpful Piece


Gosh, I can't think of anything helpful on this blog, ever.  In this little post, I guess I was trying to be helpful, if in a sarcastic way, to a televangelist.  It's interesting for me to see that I mention my old church, which I really wasn't attending anymore by that time.  Maybe I had attended a few times at the end of 2010.  The memory fades...

Love, Sarcasmo

Most Popular Piece


I get a ton of hits on posts that mention any celebrity or pop culture icon, as is evidenced in my "Greatest Hits" column somewhere on the right.  These hits are from Google searches, obviously, so they really don't count as most people probably move right on when they get or don't get the picture or info they wanted.  (Paranthetically, my blog recently came up for someone who was searching for "satanic paraphernalia."  I rather like this.  Also, I feel really sorry for those searching for tchotchkes with the phrase "I'm keeping Christ in Christmas" only to find my post entitled, "I'm keeping Christ in Christmas, and Stretched Across My Tits).

Anyway, apart from pop culture stuff, the post that has had most hits to date is this one.  It got a shit ton of hits because Kiley posted it somewhere, and she is super famous.  :)

But How Seriously Did You Take it, Michelle?

To be continued!

Last Egg Post--Pinky Swear!

Here's my awesome art group (half of us, anyway) and the eggs we made tonight. We had a ball, and will display these and some more of the goodies we made this year at our big group's annual dinner in a few weeks. (My art club has about 200 members, and we are broken up into small groups that meet each month. I'm biased, but I think our group is a collective rock star).

Tired of Omelettes and Quiche...

...but having fun with the shells.

Here's the progression of an egg getting wax and dye in stages.  After the last color, you hold the egg over a candle and wipe off the wax as it melts. Voila!

The wax protected everything I wanted to be white from the yellow dye.

Before adding wax to all of the space that I wanted to stay red.

Wax sealed off the red from the black dye.

Hold it over the candle, wipe, repeat.

Wipe a little off, and the design starts to come through.

My dining table looks like a meth lab.

A Very Young Rachel Maddow, Already Kicking Ass

My sister sent me this video today.  I love that the intelligence and snark were already in place.  That voice is  unmistakable, even with all of that blonde hair!*

___________________________________________________________
*Oops!  Sorry, Tina Fey.  YELLOW hair.  (See Bossypants).

Ukrainian Easter Eggs

Here's my first and very experimental egg. I did these in Russian class more years ago than I'd like to think about, then a few weeks ago happened upon a class at our downtown gallery. I had planned on doing this with my art group, as it's my month to host, so that was serendipitous. I'll make more purposeful designs this time, but this was a good go for practice.

The last one shows the egg before I put it in blue dye and then melted the wax off over a candle (see, this is why it smacks a little of Wicca). These are just egg shells--I have poked holes in the ends of each egg and blown out the contents. I will not post pictures of the egg blowing. It's not attractive, and this is a family show. You can see the holes in the eggs in the picture on my previous post. So, there ya go. I'll have a prettier one next time, and rest assured that these will not be hidden in the meadow for Eostre to find and therefore grant me fertility. That bitch gets enough eggs.

My New Habit...

...has some strange paraphernalia. Actually, I should've included a lit candle in the photo. It doesn't involve Wicca, and I won't go to prison if caught.

More pictures to come.