Still haven't made it to the insectarium - was going to try to go yesterday, but got out of work late, and they close at 4, and I was wary of ending up in the same situation I was in last week, i.e. it's too close to closing and they won't let me in. Also this past week, despite being interrupted by the holiday, has been absolute unmitigated insanity at work, and I was pretty tired.

Anyway, over the holiday break I made myself a photography website: http://www.toomanythoughts.net/photography.html I'm now working on adding species-specific galleries (fork-tailed bush katydids still have more fun).

. . I do not have more fun, right now, because it's 34 degrees out and I had to kick a wolf spider outside this morning (if it were me, I strongly suspect I'd just throw it into the terrarium until we hit a warm day, but I think this would not amuse the housemates - especially as the terrarium is open-topped and it could decide to venture out exploring again if it wanted). So I tossed it into an area with lots of decomposing leaves, which should provide it warmth, but still, poor spider. I do not like winter. I do not like winter at all. (Why do I feel like I'm reading from some sort of seasonal-affective-disorder parody of 'Green Eggs and Ham'?) I really, really wish I could go outside and take pictures, but sadly, see above re: raining, 34 degrees, lack of bugs (except the poor spider).

I did find a boxelder bug (or possibly a large milkwood bug - I have difficulty telling them apart) drinking from the cat's water dish the other day, and that I did throw into the little greenhouse shelf in the kitchen . . and it did decide to venture out again, because I can find neither it nor its spiderwebby corpse (as there was apparently a wolf spider around) anywhere near the greenhouse shelf. Oh well. I did take its picture.

Which I could show you if my computer were recognizing my SD card. Which it's not. Because life hates me.

Okay, okay, /pity party. 111 days until spring.

I attempted to go to the Philadelphia Insectarium today. The gift shop / ticket counter shares space with an exterminator's office. I have the distinct impression I'm being laughed at in some abstracted sort of way, by way of this arrangement. Oh well.

Anyway, I managed to drive past it about three times before I actually figured out a.) what building it was, and b.) where I could park (streetside parking was prohibited by special police order today, for no apparent reason that I could discern). This resulted in it being about 20 minutes to closing when I finally got there, and the nice older man working the desk at the gift shop / exterminator's office / ticket counter (who looked downright shocked to see a person walk in his door) wouldn't let me in. He was pleasant and polite and gave me a free admission pass for next time, though, so it's all good. I do intend to go back and be mocked by the whole set-up some other day, because they apparently have bugs that look like leaves and preying mantises from India with purple eyes.

I also emailed these people: Minden Pictures - to ask the proper procedure for submitting a portfolio. I don't seriously expect anything to come of this, but hey, it's worth a try.

This past month has been full of re-writes and sewing projects; while I haven't heard back from the various folks who have the re-written novel bits just yet, I'm fairly confident in them. They probably need polishing, as first drafts of anything usually do, even random bits of new in the middle of lots of has-been-edited-80-times, but I think they make the book better overall. I now have vampires that don't feel so tacked on, further illustration of Darren's abilities and what exactly the vow of Wardenship does, and a tiny little bit of character development for the vampire formly known as Claudia - I've re-named her. She's Lydia now (just as of today, actually, so that'll be news even to the people who have the re-writes). And all of the above, when combined, make this fictional supernatural world that I'm building a little bit more ominous - which is good. So generally, I feel accomplished about this.

In the way of sewing, my most ambitious project was a winter coat. It's finished, sort of, but I'm not entirely satisfied with it. I wanted it to close in the front with these pretty pewter-looking clasps, but after a few weeks of use, I'm not sure I'm sold on their practicality. I sort of want a zipper, just for convenience. But a zipper would just look so much less cool. I'm still waffling on this. It'd be easy enough to go back and put in a zipper instead, but it'd make the coat not nearly as nifty.

Also, the cuffs are huge. This is owing in large part to the sewing machine on which the coat was made - the cuffs, to get sewn, had to be able to fit around the . . . part of the machine where the bobbin goes? I'm unsure of its official name, but it's significantly wider than my wrist. I'm debating on ways to fix this still.

So the coat is in use, but it's not really quite finished, so I'm not posting any pictures just yet. I'll post pictures when I have a truly final version of the coat to photograph.

Also, I've been making skirts from curtains.

This is an idea that had occurred to me some time ago, but at the time, I'd been thinking mostly of buying fancy curtains and making fancy dresses, and I have a number of fancy dresses already and very few occasions for wearing them, so this possibility was never explored. Last week, though, I was in the Linens & Things (which is closing down - the entire chain, apparently) buying some flannel sheets, when I saw a very pretty one-panel curtain package, in a floral pattern, at a very clearance-like price, and thought, hrmm . . . that'd make a pretty skirt.

And it did make a pretty skirt, and I was so amused by the idea of having all the many truly nifty fabrics used for curtains available to me for much, much cheaper than the home decor fabrics are sold at the fabric store ($20/yard and up, mostly - a bit out of my budget), that I went out and bought two more on-sale curtains. The one was a really gorgeous red silk that was so cheap I figured it was worth getting even if I don't have a particular use for a red silk dress at the moment - something will come up eventually, and I'll never see red silk for roughly $3/yard again in my life, I'm sure. The other was a sort of jacquard chenille tapestry-ish thingie, which I though would make a nice winter-weight skirt. It did.

The skirts: