No more Bat Blog

As you can probably tell, I've stopped blogging here. It was too hard to try to post daily, and thinking of things to post. I've started another blog that I hope will be easier to keep up, because I don't plan on posting every day but it's more about crafting and I always have something to say about crafting! If you are interested in following my crafty blog, it's here at D.I.Y. Daily!

Beauty Tips the First

Following with my pre-arranged blog post plan, I am going to post things like this, tutorials, home decor tips, and things for sale in the second week of the month.

I have a simple tip for tonight for those of you with acne problems: Pop them.

Tons of people say not to pop zits in the case that your hands are dirty and they will get infected. But a zit isn't a wound, it's crap in your pores. Based on personal experience, when you pop your zits, they DON'T scar. If you don't? They DO. Horribly.

If you get zits on your back, have your mom pop them for you. Just get rid of them. Don't listen to people who tell you not to pop them. They don't know what they are saying, and you will end up with a scarred face because of them.

I might sound a little vicious about this, but I am sick and tired of the people who believe that they will scar you if you do anything about them. It isn't correct, and by them telling other people that, people end up with ugly faces. So many of them could have had nice faces!!! So stop listening to your friends and family and listen to ME.

.....hehe ^^

Very basic overview of a Low Carbohydrate Diet

My boyfriend and I are starting a low carbohydrate diet. We're not going to follow a specific plan, because they are all pretty much the same: Eat about 20g of carbs per day for 2 weeks, gradually up the carbs until you've lost all the weight you wanted, up them some more until you reach a plateau but NOT gain weight.

Some people want to just to do the "Induction" Phase, where they eat a very low amount of carbs per day until they lose all the weight they want, and then go back to eating the way they did before. Well, you COULD do this. However, you will simply gain all the weight back.

The point of eating very little carbs in the first weeks is to switch your body from burning the sugars from all the carbohydrates for energy into burning the fat you eat for energy, and then continue burning the fat your body has stored for energy. Once your body has switched from sugar to fat, you will start dropping pounds.

The second phase is usually called Ongoing Weight Loss (OWL). In this phase, you begin to gradually raise the amount of carbs that you eat daily, between 5-10g per week. You need to find how many carbs you can continue to eat without gaining weight. If you reach a "plateau", try dropping some carbs. If you need help, you should exercise. Exercising REALLY helps accelerate the weight loss!

At the end of OWL, when you are closing in on that weight loss goal, start upping the carbs even more. You will lose weight more slowly, but at this point, you don't want to go below your goal, you want to stop at your goal. When you have lost all the weight, continue eating as many carbs as you can without gaining weight. You will feasibly do this the rest of your life. This is the third phase, Maintenance.

I've recently read that if you do a low-carb diet, and then end up gaining weight because you didn't follow your individual Maintenance plan, it's harder to lose weight the second go around. Nobody knows why, but I read from plenty of women that this is the case with them. It doesn't seem to happen to men quite as much, but it still does happen. This really worries me, but I have been doing fine, especially when I get to the gym!

UN-PROCESSED meat and eggs have no carbs, so you will be eating those a lot. You can cook the eggs in any which way you like! The meat must NOT be breaded though. That's extra carbs! That first 2 weeks you will be eating a lot of meat, eggs, and salad. However, if you plan to do a low carb diet, you will need to research. Some vegetables have a lot of carbs, some have almost none. Most fruit have a lot of carbs.

In order to figure out how many carbs you are getting, look at the nutrition facts on whatever it is you are eating. Subtract the grams of fiber from the total grams of carbohydrates. That's how many carbs you are getting. However, some packages have mistakes about the amount of carbs. If something says it only has 2g of carbs per serving, but the fiber and sugar add up to be MORE than 2g, it's WRONG. Always look at the package!!

Another mistake people make is trying to do a low-carb, low-fat diet. The fat in all the meat you are eating is what is helping keep you full. You need the fat, don't worry, you are BURNING IT ALL OFF! If you don't eat the fat, you will get tired, you will be hungry, and you will fail and just start eating carbs again. Again, you need to do your research about a low carb diet before you start one.

Maladaptive Daydreaming

All my life, I have rocked back and forth while I am sitting. I shake my leg violently at other times, like when I am laying in bed. While standing, I sway side to side. In all this time of moving for no apparent reason, I am actually daydreaming without being aware of it. When I snap out of it, I am not confused if I am in reality or a fantasy world. I know where I am, what I am doing, and that I was daydreaming. At least, now that I have realized that I AM daydreaming.

A couple of weeks ago, I finally googled this strange behavior. I never thought to do that before, but now that I have, I'm kind of sorry about it. I found pages and pages of people talking about their symptoms, wondering what they could do about them, and how it seemed impossible to stop. They talked about their addictions to spending hours at a time daydreaming, and how they wanted to stop WASTING their life doing NOTHING.

I never realized that I was daydreaming while rocking back and forth until I read about other people with the same condition. Then it clicked. I have Maladative Daydreaming, I have had it all my life, and I wish I never found out what it was.

Usually, and apparently, it starts with a traumatic incident in your childhood. It's a way to escape. I however have had it since birth. I would rock at night until my crib would block the door from being opened. My younger brother seems to have it, too. He doesn't make friends well, he would rather be by himself... Like me. People just get in my way of daydreaming...

Maladaptive Daydreaming is much worse than having idle daydreams while in school and your teacher is boring you. It's addictive. You can't stop. It's like a drug. If you can daydream for hours at a time? You might have it. While daydreaming, you do some kind of movement over and over. Shake something in your hand, rock back and forth, shake your leg. It will bother people, and they will ask why you do it. Most people don't have an answer. Then they make fun of you.

It's not a very nice existence. You waste your life. You stay in. You daydream during jobs and get fired for it. You don't keep friends. People yell at you.

You can stop it yourself. I would suggest doing so, unless you want to spend years of your life doing nothing. but daydreaming. Just catch yourself, and stop. Just keep trying.

There are usually triggers... Something that gets your mind start being creative. A book, a movie, music... The weather. I've noticed when there is a lightning storm, I start daydreaming about North Dakota. I used to spend summers there, and there is a lightning storm almost every night there. I am terrified about tornadoes, and then I get scared. That feeling remains with me when I snap out of it, but I know I am not in N.D. I'm still in a lightning storm though.

You end up with weird feelings and thoughts and it's just annoying. I feel like now that I know about it, I'm diseased. I never thought it did me any harm before, but now? How much of my time am I spending daydreaming?

May Holidays

So from now on, in the first week of the month I plan to do one of these posts. Just letting you know what monthly events are coming up and when, and possibly how they started.... If I feel like that last part.

I recently restored this laptop back to it's factory install, because I felt like it was going to die on me soon if I didn't. I had high hopes for speedy internet to come back to me, but now this laptop is slower than ever! I will type out a sentence and then stop to watch it slowly come into view, letter by letter. Blogging has now become a complete nightmare! Especially since I have finally wrote out enough things to actually start up again. Bah! This computer will become better if it's the last thing I do!

Well, today, May 1st, is May Day. This is, (in some countries) a celebration for the coming of Spring and Summer. In other countries, I guess it's a celebration for the workers. It's not really celebrated in the U.S. yet it's on our calenders.

May 5th is, quite obviously, Cinco De Mayo. (Spanish for Fifth of May.) This is really a celebration for Hispanic descent, however many people chose this day as an excuse to party and drink. It's on a Saturday this year, and Saturdays are MY excuse to party.

May 6th is Teacher's Day! Well how about that? Get them a Red Delicious! Wait, no... This year it's on a Sunday. Aw, well.

May 13th: Mother's Day. This also goes for your Grandma: She's a mother, too! Mother's day is really the second Sunday in May. Mother's Day doesn't seem to have much history, except that it has been going on for years.

Armed Forces Day this year is May 19th. Like thanksgiving, Armed Forces Day is actually set for the third Saturday of May, instead of a set date. This day is a sorta screw-over: Each military branch had it's OWN day of celebration, but then the Secretary of Defense and the President (Harry Truman) decided that they wanted to put it all into one day.

Then, Memorial Day is May 28th. This year. This is also one of those dates Congress decided to change from always on May 30th to the last monday in May, so they could always get a 3-day weekend.

So, now you know that Holidays are subjected to personal gain. Either it's many days consolidated into one day, or it's changed to get a day off. President's Day was made so instead of getting the day off on both Washington's birthday AND Lincoln's birthday could be celebrated in one day, but it also was placed on a Monday to ensure another 3-day weekend instead of a day off in the middle of the week, or during the weekend.

I encourage you to change holiday dates for your own personal reasons if you have too. In order to spend Mother's Day with mom, you've got to BE with mom, and if that's not possible, decide on a date that's good for the both of you! The dates aren't important... Celebrating them properly is!

Pretty chainmaille!

I have just ordered a LOT of chainmaille for very cheap. I buy rings from a website called Blue Buddha Boutique, where they make cheap, quality rings. They have a page where they sell a variety of rings for even cheaper, because they didn't make the cut in order to be in regular packages.

When I get the chainmaille, I will definitely write a review about the quality, and if it is worth getting these cheaper packages. They are in different sizes, may have paint chipping off, or are slightly cut wrong, or a myriad of other things, but what I am worried about most is whether I will have enough to make nice designs. I figure I will, because they are measured by grams, so depending on the weight I will probably get enough. I got 50g of aluminum, which is a very light metal, easy to work with, so I should get about as many rings as the other two, 100g each of copper, and jewelry brass. Or more. Or less.

I have only worked with aluminum rings,  stainless steel rings, and copper wire. I am glad I didn't get any stainless steel, as it is very hard to bend open and closed. Of course, that way it's a lot harder to accidentally yank apart a piece. Aluminum and copper are much easier to work with. They bend open easily with pliers. Bigger rings are easy to open with your fingers, even. Aluminum is cheap and it is much lighter than other metals, but if you made a tunic with it, it wouldn't protect you very well.

Tangent: At Radcon 6, my boyfriend and I went to a panel that taught us to make chainmaille. Or, rather, gave us chainmaille and we simply started working before the guy had a chance to tell us how. At one point, my boyfriend tried on a chainmaille tunic. When I looked up, the guy running the panel was stabbing him in the stomach! With a real knife! He wasn't hurt in the slightest, but my god looking up and seeing that was terrifying!

I have a friend that could tell you more about metals, but I am telling you about chainmaille in this post. I don't make armor out of it, I make jewelry.

Source

I prefer simpler stuff, but I am trying to sell things to OTHER people who don't exactly match my taste. With these new packages coming in soon, I hope to try more weaves involving different sizes of rings in one piece. This creates awesome jewelry the likes I have never attempted before!

Now, making chainmaille jewelry is difficult to start. You have to choose whether to MAKE your own rings, which is APPARENTLY cheaper than buying them, like I do. I have tried this DIY ring making, and it is NOT cheap. I have friends who have read online that it is cheaper to make their own rings and have stood by their internet knowledge, but I have tried this and it is absolutely not true. There are so many things that you need just to get started, not to mention actually making them. The biggest problem is finding wire. If you are not incredibly serious about this, and attempt to find wire at hardware stores and craft stores, you aren't going to find any. It is either too soft, too hard, too easily chipped, or rubs off metal into your hands. You want nice wire? Good luck finding it. I gave up, because I knew I could buy rings cheap online.

CHEAP.

Source

If you want to start making chainmaille, I recommend buying rings first, instead of investing a lot of money and time into making rings and then finding out that you can't figure out how to weave them together. There are plenty of websites with tutorials, such as CGmaille, or M.A.I.L. Check out Spiderchain for more links to tutorials. There are also books, which I haven't looked for yet, that you can buy at craft stores, book stores, or online. You can buy rings online, (I suggest Blue Buddha Boutique, because it's much easier than The Ring Lord imo) or at craft stores. I have found them at Micheals, and a small amount at Walmart. You could also buy rings that are meant to be jump rings, but these are usually not as quality as actual chainmaille.

What's the difference between jump rings and chainmaille? A lot of people call chainmaille jump rings, and that really irritates me. Jump rings are not made with the same quality, they are thinner with a large diameter, bend too easily, and are made for connecting jewelry to clasps. They are ALL the same silver color. Chainmaille comes in different sizes, different colors, different metals, different thickness... etc.

Jump Ring Jewelry

Chainmaille is fun, frustrating, a challenge, with a beautiful outcome, whether it's armor or a piece of jewelry. It's definitely a recommended activity for those looking for some creative outlet!

Have any questions you think I might be able to answer? Go ahead and leave a comment.

Review - Tithe by Holly Black

I promised you all a review soon a couple of posts back, but of course my Nook Color's charging cable splintered in about 3 different pieces. Luckily, this apparently is a common experience, so Barnes and Noble is replacing it for free. Just have to wait for it in the mail.

However, I did finish reading Tithe and Ironside by Holly Black. There's a book in between those two that I also have on my Nook and HAVE read before, but I can't remember the name of it.

Basically, Holly Black wrote about Faeries. Faeries, in her description, are all sorts of creatures, from Ogres and Nixies to Hobs and Pixies. They are mean, they are cruel, but they cannot utter a single lie. The main character, Kaye, finds out that though she looks and was raised human, she is in fact a Faerie. She is about 15 I believe, and when she returns to the land of Faerie, she doesn't know much about mannerisms Faeries practice.

The 3 book series is undoubtedly dark and gruesome,  at least the first and last book, and a much better read than Twilight would be to a darkling. I recommend this series if you are interested in the Fantasy genre, especially if you enjoy books that have a perfect mix of real life and the fantasy world. These characters are set in the real world, yet they do not belong in this world. Iron makes Faeries sick, yet some are "banished" to live in the city.

They have a magic called glamour, in which they make themselves and other objects look like other things. When they need money, they pick leaves out of the gutters on the streets and make them look like any bill they wish too. They make themselves look like whatever they want, even down to their clothing. They can take a knife and glamour it to look like a pen.

Strangely, the glamour makes Faeries see what other Faeries want them to see. Regular people who have "the sight" can see through the glamour. They see that what Faeries are eating is actually old, rotten fruits and mushrooms. Faeries themselves don't see that.

It is a good read and, while I haven't read other books by Holly Black, I think I would recommend her as a favorite author. Don't say you got that from me, (yet).