Throw Back and Current Pictures!

I usually don’t add pictures of me or my friends, well not full pictures just images for my hair accessories on this Book Worm Blog. These are both a Then & Now Pictures of me and one of my fellow Author Friends, Kendra. Kendra is not my only writer friend but she is my oldest. We met when were teenagers, about 13 years ago.

We bonded over writing and to this day we have innovative, juicy and fun stories, both inside and outside our heads, lol! We both have stories only thought out in our heads and others we have put on the page. Both ways are fun and keep the creative juices flowing!  

So here is a picture of us then and now. The first is from July 2007 when we were 19 years old and the second from a few days ago, we are now 27 years old. We have developed wrinkles and our weight has fluctuated over the years but that is simple because we laugh a lot and love food, well I will speak for myself, and we laugh while eating, so there you go, lol.

We talked of many things on our recent lunch out together but writing was a big one so I thought to add a wonderful picture here and show off two awesome up and coming authors, well hopefully!

We have changed in both our personal and writing lives since the Then picture from 2007 which has shaped the tone of our stories, both the good, bad, and ugly elements. So in the Then we were so confident, we knew just what we wanted but the Now we are wiser and have reached a pretty good place in our lives and have created characters much more developed and wonderful. 

If you have explored my Book Worm Blog you will have seen who I am but in case you haven’t I am the dark haired one in the two pictures. I am the one in the grey shirt and jeans in the older picture and the one in the blue shirt in the newer one.

 

 

 < Then, 2007

                                   Now, 2015 >

 

Reinvent Your Characters Wardrobe: Two Particularly Wonderful Renaissance and Medieval Clothing & More Sites that are Wonderful for Characters Wardrobes!

http://www.pearsonsrenaissanceshoppe.com/

http://armstreet.com/

 

I absolutely love the two above websites, Pearsons Renaissance Shoppe and Arm Street. They have Medieval and Renaissance Costumes for those that LARP, go to Renaissance Faires, do CosPlay, etcetera.

I have found so many dresses, pants, tunics, shoes, extras on there that have inspired many of my characters wardrobes, as many of my characters live in the past or a future that has gone very medieval again. I make certain changes to how a certain outfit will look for my character versus the site but for the most part I stay true to the things on the site because I love them so much.

Of course many, many times I will just make up a dress or something from my imagination, because that is so fun and necessary to bring out that characters personal unique style.

I wanted to tell everyone about these sites though, if they haven’t already found them. It may help you to better visualize one of your characters outfits like I do, I am a very visual person. Or perhaps you go to Renaissance Faires or LARP or CosPlay and would love to find a place that has awesome attire, so these sites are it.

My Favorites on the Sites:

The Archeress

Autumn Princess

Lady of the Lake

Woolen Coat “Red Riding Hood”

Fantasy Dress “Wanderer” Linen Robe

Medieval Woolen Dress “Green Sleeves”

Elven Fantasy Wedding Dress

Forest Princess

To just name a few! I hope you enjoy exploring these sites as much as I have!

A few of the names on my other Character Names Galore Blog I have found on another site that has Fantasy, Medieval, and Renaissance Wedding Gowns which I have used for inspiration for my characters wedding dresses before. The three names on my Character Names Galore Blog are the names of three of the dresses on the site, but there are many more dresses, I just only used those three names.

I have put a link to the site on those name posts but I will now put the site link here. So maybe if your characters getting married or you are getting married and want a unique dress then you can try looking on Rivendell Bridal, it’s a UK designer BTW.

http://www.rivendellbridal.com/

If you have sites that you find interesting and have used to help with your characters wardrobe and want to let me know just leave a comment and I would love to go explore those sites.

If you find the sites I have put here of use and would love to tell me which outfit fits your characters then leave me a commit and I would love to take a look on the site of the outfit to get an idea about your characters personal style!

DIY Body Powder, Perfume, and Room Deodorizer!

I created a Jasmine Nutmeg Body Powder, Energizing Blend Perfume, and Energizing Blend Room Deodorizer from recipes I found online. I will put the link below to the sites and I will put pictures of my finished products below as well. I hope you enjoy and try these at home if you like!

I used garage sale tie on labels to write what was in each of the containers. I used a 2 oz. Finger Spritzer Spray Bottles from Wal Mart for $0.97 each. I bought a dark blue plastic one instead of glass as is suggested when putting products with Essential Oils.

I bought plastic as it is cheaper and I won’t reuse on anything else and I wasn’t too worried about the plastic leaching into the spray. I did however use a really dark blue bottle so it would last a bit longer as light wouldn’t penetrate it as much as a clear bottle. However if you prefer you can buy amber or blue glass as is suggested.

I bought two glass cheese jars from Dollar Tree for $1 each. Any container will work as long as it has a lid with holes but I bought the jars as they already had holes, so I wouldn’t have to punch them myself and the jars are attractive even if they are said to be cheese jars. My Jasmine Nutmeg Body Powder I leave in my bathroom and the Energizing Blend Room Deodorizer I leave in my bedroom and both turned out wonderful.

I bought Grapefruit Essential Oil, Lavender Essential Oil, and Jasmine Blended Oil at Wal Mart for $5.97 each. They are by Natures Bounty Earthly Elements. I will put a picture below of them. Though people may be skeptic about buying Essential Oils at Wal Mart I tried it and I am fully satisfied by the brand and price. Given price plus shipping and handling of online Essential and Blended oils this price is a bargain but you aren’t sacrificing quality at all. The price and product are wonderful in my opinion but I am new to using Essential and Blended Oils but I am satisfied.  

In the recipe it gives examples of Body Powders to make but they say make what ever kind you like and I did just that. I fell in love with Bodycology Enchanted Forest Body Sprays smell so I decided to mimic it in my Body Powder as the Bodycology Enchanted Forest Body Spray used Jasmine, Nutmeg, and Musk.

Mine: Jasmine Nutmeg Body Powder

½ Cup Cornstarch

¼ Cup Baking Soda

½ Teaspoon Ground Nutmeg

5-6 Drops Jasmine Blended Oil (Jasmine Blended Oil was blended with Jasmine, Sweet Almond Oil and Vitamin E Oil)

I combined the Cornstarch and Baking Soda and Ground Nutmeg in the glass jars and then I slowly added 5-6 Drops of Jasmine Blended Oil and whisked it all together.

It is my favorite fragrance so far. I absolutely love it. It has a romantic exotic fragrance and I sometimes just go sniff it and it uplifts me. It is wonderful all over the body or I have even used it as a dry deodorant. The Jasmine Nutmeg Body Powder has held its fragrance and I have only broken up the clumps once so far.

Now the Energizing Blend Room Deodorizer I took the fragrance recipe from the Energizing Blend Body Spray by adding drops of Grapefruit and Lavender Essential Oils to the Baking Soda, I used about 5-7 drops Grapefruit and 3-4 drops Lavender in the Room Deodorizer.

The Energizing Blend Body Spray I found doesn’t really hold its fragrance well on the skin but is better when sprayed in the air. On the body you can’t smell it well unless you put your nose straight up to the skin and so no one would smell it unless they were right on you sniffing your skin or kissing you, so maybe would do well on date night! ;~)

I hope you enjoy and try some of this yourself! If you have any questions or comments just leave them below in the comment section and I will respond as soon as I can!

 

Websites For DIY Body Powder, Body Spray, and Air Freshener Recipes:

 

Homemade Beauty Gift Idea: Luxurious Body Dusting Powder-  http://www.crunchybetty.com/homemade-beauty-gift-idea-luxurious-body-dusting-powder 

Basic Body Spra/ Engergizing Body Spray- http://www.thankyourbody.com/natural-body-spray-recipe/

DIY Air Freshener using Essential Oils- http://doterrablog.com/diy-make-your-own-natural-air-freshener-with-essential-oils/ 

Wasp Sting! Ouch Relief!

Last year I was going outside to meet my parents and there was a wasp’s nest above the outside light by the front door. As I yelled Hi to my parents I noticed two black things dive at me. I put up my arms instinctively and realized I was being attacked by wasps. I ran back inside the house. Fortunately I had put my arms up and they got stung not my face or throat or chest. I felt the pain all the way to the bone, it hurt that bad!

I hated having to have it done but my dad sprayed the nest and killed the wasps and then knocked the nest down. We have kept them at bay since then. They are pretty defensive little creatures and I hate killing them but they are not a very welcoming presence at the front door or back yard where they are even worse, always diving at us and so we have to spray their hideaway nests when we find them.

So the pictures below, which by the way the reason I remembered to add this now was I was cleaning out old pictures from my phone and found these, are of before, during, and after my parents old fashioned treatment. They took baking soda and put a little water on it and made a paste. They spread it on the places on my wrist where I was stung. Once the paste dried and caked and chipped off I rinsed the rest of it off and added some more paste. It felt cold and relieved the pain a lot to my surprise. The redness and pain went away faster than doing nothing.

This Baking Soda and Water Paste will be my go to on stings from now on! I thought to share it, though some might already know this little old fashioned yet still effective trick!

 

 < Right After Sting!

 < Paste Treatment!

 After First Paste Treatment and Before Second Baking Soda Paste Treatment! >

 < After Final Paste Treatment! Reduced Redness!

2013, 2014, and 2015 Regional Convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses!

I seemed to have run out of time and forgotten to blog about the last 3 Summer Regional Conventions of Jehovah’s Witnesses which I attended in the summers of 2013, 2014, and 2015, well actually I go every year but I just wanted to blog about these as they are the most recent. I waited to blog after each so I wouldn’t spoil it for others who still hadn’t attended but then time went by and I forgot to blog about it. So I decided to blog here about the Theme of each and share pictures.

2013 Theme: God’s Word is Truth Location: Springfield, Missouri

2014 Theme: Keep Seeking First God’s Kingdom Location: St. Charles, Missouri, ours was in Kansas City, Missouri but we went to my sisters in St. Charles, Missouri

2015 Theme: Imitate Jesus! Location: Springfield, Missouri

They were wonderful conventions which lasted three days, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. They were chock full of wonderful information. I greatly enjoyed them. I can’t say much about this year as some still haven’t attended and I don’t want them to stumble on this blog and it spoil it but this years convention had so many wonderful visuals and so many wonderful ways to Imitate Jesus and how that will impact for the good our lives.

EDIT Sept. 07, 2015: I just now realized I did post about the 2013 Convention and added the below pictures under that post back in July 2013, LOL, I can't believe I forgot I posted it! But since I already added the 2013 conventions pictures and theme already here I will just go ahead and leave it below and at the original post. If you wish you can go to the July 2013 posts to find the orginal post about that convention.

                                              2013 Convention Theme: God’s Word is Truth

2014 Convention Theme: Keep Seeking First God’s Kingdom

 

 

 < My Brother-in-law Karl is in the Picture, he worked on the Audio-Vidio-Information Technology Commitee at that Convention.

2015 Convention Theme: Imitate Jesus!

When it Rains it Pours, When it Pours the Roof Caves In

Man when it rains it pours, when it pours the roof caves in, when the roof caves in you get swept upstream without a paddle and boat. I am so tired of all the bad news that seems unending. When we think things are going well something comes and crashes down on us. 

I know there are people in worse shape in the world but when we get hit we feel like it can’t get any worse.

I know though that Jehovah God won’t let us be tempted beyond what we can bear. 1 Corinthians 10:13- 13 No temptation has come upon you except what is common to men. But God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but along with the temptation he will also make the way out so that you may be able to endure it.

I pray that good news comes to my family soon!

Musings of a Lonely Writer! ----- My Characters Love Lives are Better than Mine

So this time in my Musings of a Lonely Writer segment I will be writing about my characters having way better love lives than I, I know I am probably going to regret admitting this, lol!

Okay so I write primarily Young Adult Novels and what is a Young Adult Novel without even just a hint of romance, even just a teeny tiny love sub-plot works. Romances are sub-plots in all my novels as the adventure, the goal of the characters or the dangerous intrigue are the main-plots.

So when I write about my characters often times a romantic element will pop up for said character, which some of those scenes are fun to write but often leave me mortified as I want no one I know to read them, lol, but I will leave this to my next Musings of a Lonely Writer segment entitled, Musings of a Lonely Writer! ----- Minimalist Intimate Scenes Between Characters Mortify Me.

Any how so some of my favorite characters have had some amazing romances, I mean the kind to make you swoon, even if a bit unrealistic, cause who wants a totally realistic relationship in fiction all the time. I love a far too perfect relationship than the ones that make it so real I hate the characters for it, lol, as you can see I am not only complicated but picky about what I like in a novel relationship.

Now we get to the real nitty-gritty center of things. So I have had some amazing characters fall in love and though I do throw in some troubles I tend to keep them perfectly in love and so maybe that has made me dysfunctional in my thoughts of real relationships and love.

As part of my religion we don’t date until we are ready for marriage. I always thought I would marry young and have kids young. As time went by I didn’t find a man I wanted to date, I’ve been asked out but I was young and wasn’t looking for anything serious and the guys were not of my religion so I said no. So I will admit I have never been on a date and I am 27 years old.

Now my thoughts and views have changed on real relationships and I am not sure I want one but at times I do, so way complicated I know, lol. I know if I get in a relationship the guy will be nothing like my male heroes in my novels and it sort of freaks me out. I mean I know guys in real life are real, not fictional so I know they will have faults, foibles, issues of all kinds but I mean who wouldn’t want to have a guy be like the kind of guy in a novel!

My characters seem to not only be more out going they are better in the way they live, love, raise families, ect. It’s a bit infuriating but then again I do write about them so maybe I give them everything I don’t have. In some ways I don’t want what they have but in other ways I kind of do. I feel right now that I can’t handle dating a guy that is liable to be so real I can’t stand it, lol.

Plus no guy I know even makes me want to think of dating them and I gather they feel the same about me because it’s been ages since I was last asked out. I started to even question if something was wrong with my looks, personality ect. But who needs those worries in their life so I quickly put it out of my head, well maybe not completely, lol!

***

So anyway I thought I would share a bit about my Favorite Couple-

Princess Jadzia Elizabeth Van ton and Jedrek. These two are two of my youngest couples and they are in, “The Green Haven Series”. They I call my Romeo and Juliet couple without all the dying.

Though I have had many wonderful couples in my novels Jadzia and Jedrek take the top spot because of the time and way their relationship blooms. It is a tumultuous time where the kingdom they reside in is on the brink or war. Jadzia is a Princess of a race that Jedrek’s race hates with a passion.

So when Jadzia and Jedrek’s races try to band together it is a very tricky and dangerous thing. Jadzia is young and helps Jedrek who feels older than his young age to finally be able to be young and enjoy his youth. It starts as a friendship and then progresses to more.

Jadzia and Jedrek made me laugh and cry and feel as if I were really along with them on the dangerous trip as Star Crossed Lovers who get a better ending than the couple they copy, Romeo and Juliet. Jadzia and Jedrek get a seemingly content happily ever after.

***

I used to be a hopeless romantic *see definition below* but I’ve seen so many friends and family members relationships end so badly it makes me realize how real and hurtful it can be. Maybe that has damaged me or my view of relationships and love. They tell me don’t let what happened to them stop me but in a way it does because I don’t trust easily and I would hate to put trust where it doesn’t belong or with someone who shatters my trust in them. So maybe that is why my characters relationships are so good even when they lean a bit toward realistic, because I don’t want my characters to suffer bad romances.

Maybe I am just so confused about what I want and don’t want for myself but know fully what I want and don’t want for my characters because with them its not real so no damage done but in real life damage can be done.

** Here is the best definition of a Hopeless Romantic: This person is in love with love. They believe in fairy tales and love. They're not to be confused as stalkers or creepy because that's not what a hopeless romantic is. All hopeless romantics are idealists, the sentimental dreamers, the imaginative and the fanciful when you get to know them. They often live with rose colored glasses on. They make love look like an art form with all the romantic things they do for their special someone.

My View Years Ago about being a Hopeless Romantic is: I liked to believe and hear love stories, I loved to see people in love. I believed in fairy tales and hoped some day to have a love story of my own to tell. I hoped, I dreamed and I thought being a writer and avid reader led to me being more of a Hopeless Romantic.

My Views now: I still tend to believe in fairy tales and true love as I know these kinds of relationships are a gift from Jehovah God and should be viewed as a gift. I have just never really seen or experienced the kind of love that would make me view myself any longer as a Hopeless Romantic.

I don’t have rose colored glasses on, I view things the way they are and sometimes that takes a toll on my stories. When I was younger the sweet sentimental love played out in my novels and now my stories tend to go darker in all aspects and the love is portrayed differently now. I often times wish I could see the world and relationships as I did when I was 17 verses 27, and that I could bring that to my stories again. **

Maybe these quotes which I love can have more meaning for me and others.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. -- Oscar Wilde *Maybe for now being okay and loving myself and what I have should be where I start before I look for another to love me and for me to love them.*

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined. - Henry David Thoreau *Maybe I don’t want romance yet because there are still things or dreams  I want to accomplish on my own before I start a journey with another person. Things change and so maybe what I always imagined having changed when I didn’t realize it. Maybe what the future holds will be better then what I imagined at first.*

So maybe for now I am slightly alright flying solo until I find some who makes me see reality is better than fiction. A guy who makes me see how great real can be and who could make my male heroes feel like they can’t hold a candle to him, lol! Someone to start a journey with that will far outshine any journey my characters have taken.

Or maybe I find out a solo journey through life is all I will get and I should make the best of it. Maybe exploring the world alone and embracing singleness is what I am to do. I will just have to see where this life leads me. Being 27 years old is not the end. I have many wonderful years ahead of me, and hopefully many wonderful stories, characters, and characters journeys.

This has been Musings of a Lonely Writer and until next time if you feel as I do about feeling your characters have better love lives than you drop me a comment in the comment section of this post, or if you simply have anything to say leave a comment and I would be glad to read it. Remember to Keep Reading, Keep Writing, Keep Inspiring, and above all Love Yourself no matter your relationship status, love yourself the way you are now and don’t feel bad if your characters have way better love lives, or at least come to accept it as I have, lol!