mistressofmuses

Happy Halloween! :D

Our big Halloween season event was last weekend. We went to "Spirits and Spirits," an event at Four Mile House. (This is the same place that had the lantern festival we went to back in September.)

Spirits and Spirits was an adult-only event with some spirit tastings, drag shows, a fashion show, a vendor marketplace, tours of the historic farmhouse including Victorian-era mourning customs, and the chance to attend an optional seance. I did get us tickets for the seance.

It was a lot of fun!

We got there right around opening time, and wandered around for a few minutes. We went to get something to drink, and then wanted to go to the first timeslot for the drag show... but unfortunately they had to cancel the first time. But it meant we were right there for the first fashion show slot, so we did get to see that, which was quite cool!



The fashion show was put on by Bête Noire, a local designer who mostly does super fancy gothy stuff.

Always love models walking to some Sisters of Mercy.

Five more pictures:

Liked the candles and coffin decor.


I was particularly fond of the floating candles.

My phone was not terribly cooperative with taking pictures of anything moving, so my pictures from the fashion show mostly didn't turn out well, but here are a few more:






This model was the best. She was so energetic and fun to watch.

After that we had to head to our seance session, since those were timed entries. (They actually did not check our tickets, even though all the sessions were sold out, ha.)



The seance was held in the attic of the farmhouse.

It was led by a couple members of the Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society.

They talked a bit about Victorian seances, and the spiritualism of the era. We had some tarot cards, runestones, as well as some objects (like an ax, and a creepy doll). There were a couple ouija boards, a pendulum, etc.


Trying to use a ouija board.

Just a couple more pics from the seance:

Another ouija board.

The ouija boards did not get much in the way of any response, or the ones they got weren't very clear.

The pendulum was about the same; the only 'response' we got was a "maybe," ha.

They had someone do a phone recording to check for an EVP, and that was somewhat interesting: There was noise in the background that sounded a bit like an argument, though nothing was clear enough to hear. While there was some background noise from the tours happening downstairs, it didn't sound at all like that. So that was at least a bit interesting!

But no conclusive ghosts, haha.

We hung out and chatted for a bit, bought a couple books.

Then we went downstairs and sort of took ourselves on a tour of the house. We didn't start at the beginning, but just sort of wandered at random. They did have interpreters in most of the rooms to talk about the house specifically or customs of the era in general.


The parlor, and talking about Victorian mourning customs in particular. (Mourning attire, mourning periods, memento mori, covering mirrors, etc.)

Six more pictures:

I liked this little couch.


Some stuff!


Cool old stove. (I genuinely don't know what the white streak is. Maybe the kitchen is haunted!)

Most of the wallpaper and such is reproduction, but they have a few sections of original wallpaper under protective covering. (Allegedly including some fine arsenic green!)




(Eek, it's me.) Or no, I should say: ~but there was no one there when I took the picture~ It's a ghost!


Last picture of fancy wallpaper.

We also went on the little "haunted hayride" around part of the property. It was quick, and went through a couple little setpieces with fake headstones or zombies and such, but it was fun! There was also a shooting star, which I think was the highlight for everyone, haha.

We wandered over to some of the animal pens, and the goats came out and started bleating at us.


So we petted some goats for a few minutes.

Sadly, we never ended up getting to see the drag show. There were three timeslots, but the first was cancelled, the second was during our seance timeslot, and the third was packed.

We did get apple cider churros, which were delicious.

This was a really fun evening. I wish I hadn't had to go back to work the next day, but it was still mostly the kick-off to my time off from work. If they do a similar event next year, I hope we get the chance to go again.

Part three of our trip to the lantern festival! Only a month after it happened, haha.


Lovely morning glories. :) You could, obviously, pose with your faces in them if you wanted.


Pumpkins!

Twelve more pictures:

Pandas! And I loved the blue dragon.


The farm setup was really cool. A barn you could walk through, a bunch of different farm animal lanterns, very neat.


Cow! And I do like the light-up wheat. Such a nice golden glow.


I was particularly charmed by the chickens, haha.


A goat! (You can see the zodiac lights in the background.)


Geese and ducks!


I was also very charmed by the giant clover. The patterns on the leaves is so perfect.


Turkeys and pumpkins! (The turkey tom was animatronic, and would lift his tail up and down.)


Rabbits!


A paintbrush flower and a swallowtail.


Rainbow swallowtail!


Gooseberry arch. This was a whole tunnel of sorts that you could walk through.

The whole festival was really cool, and I'm so glad we got to go!

Back on September 18th, Alex and I decided to go do a fun splurgey thing. We went to the Four Mile Historic Park's "Bright Nights" lantern festival display. :)

Four Mile Historic Park is a historic farm in Denver (which was once a stagecoach stop, which is where the Four Mile name comes from, I believe.) They're typically closed on my days off, so we never end up going, but they had a booth at Pride, and we picked up a flyer for the upcoming lantern festival.

It was lovely!


The entrance. (Though I took this picture on the way out; it was still slightly light in the sky when we got there.)


Should have gone back over once it was fully dark, but I do love the peacocks. (The sign about this particular display talks about them representing love. They are, of course, both male, haha. And have a giant rainbow heart. Love my pride peacocks.)


I really loved this fae creature on their throne. <3

Twelve more pictures:

I was, of course, very taken with the jackalopes.


Fun fantasy deer... seaweed? creature.


Some charming little mushrooms.


It's probably zero real surprise, but the rainbow butterfly lights "room" was probably one of my favorite spots.


A kitsune!


Armadillo!


There were a bunch of interactive displays. This one has a crank at the front, and turning it moves the machinery to move the segments of the dragon's body up and down.


The dragon's face.


Some were like this, intended to be photo frames. Very pretty!


Birds and lotus flowers.


I really liked the bluebirds and bluejays in the tree.


And one final jackalope!

I'm splitting the pictures from the lantern festival into a few different posts, since otherwise it'll be very, very long.

A couple weeks ago, we wanted to get out and do something, but also got a late start on the day. We headed to the local greenbelt, since it's reasonably close and we haven't been there in a while.


A very cute bumblebee.


My other favorite insect from the day: a really big moth hanging out on a tree. :)

Eleven more pictures, including more insects and spiders:

One of the road bridges over the greenbelt path has some pretty mosaics.


Another of the mosaics.

(There are two more mosaics on the other side of the bridge, but someone was sitting there, haha.)


Crossing the creek.


There were many big, impressive spider webs along the path! With big, impressive spiders in them! I didn't realize until after looking at the picture that this one had a snack. :)


Not a spider, but a daddy longlegs! This one was almost orangey in color, which was neat.


These beetles were just face-first, going to town in the flowers. It was very funny. I believe these are "bumble flower beetles."


Some huge carpenter ants!


Some lovely little sweet peas in the overgrown/abandoned garden area behind some of the apartments.


Hollyhocks have definitely been having A Year! I saw them all over Santa Fe, and in a ton of gardens this year, and even a bunch of landscaping. This one is also in the abandoned garden.


A very charming little duck swam over just as it started raining.


I'm really not a fan of the influx of Japanese beetles that we've started having each year. They're terribly destructive. However, this one was very interesting - almost pink on the front segment instead of the usual green color!

It was also a two snake day, which was delightful! I didn't get good pictures of either of them, but Alex spotted one pretty large garter snake, which I got to see as it headed into the underbrush. Then I was leaning down to look at a little spider that scuttled across the sidewalk... and wound up pointing directly at a tiny baby garter snake that had been just at the edge of the path. Very tiny and cute!

It was a lovely day out. We got caught in a tiny drizzle, but not bad. It was pretty humid (especially for here!) so we were all a bit sticky by the end.

A long-time friend of mine (jeez... middle school...) kindly offered to do an art piece of Cy. She has long been an amazing artist. The picture arrived today, and is absolutely stunning. From one of my favorite photos:



Thank you so very much boujee_redneck. You captured him absolutely perfectly, and I will treasure this picture of my best boy. <3

Today we had to get a pair of tires for the truck, but before that we headed over to my mom's, to wish her a belated Mother's Day, since I had to work yesterday. Alex picked out an orchid, and I gave her a rooted cutting from my begonia. We'll do more later. Usually I give her plants to plant in the garden, but it's still just a touch early (we had temps in the 30s just over a week ago!) She's going back to New Mexico next week, and won't be back until the end of the month, so won't be doing any serious gardening until then. I think we're planning a trip to the Botanic Gardens once she's back in town.

Two pictures from mom's house:

While there, we appreciated her lilac.

Which is hiding...


A praying mantis egg case! (Technically an "ootheca".)

After getting the tires, we went to Pelican Pond for a walk. It was very warm today, in the mid 80s, and it was lovely to be outside. While it was to far off to get a decent picture of, there was a pelican today!

There were lots of flowers blooming:


Honeybee on honeysuckle!

Five more pictures of flowers:

Globemallow, with a sweet pea in the background.


Bluebells


Chokecherry


Blue flax


Another of the honeybee on the honeysuckle.

Also quite a few birds!


I really liked these three crows.

Four more pictures of birds:

Geese and goslings! One of the parents was hissing at us.


Red-winged blackbird! You can see his nice bright shoulders.


No actual bird in the picture, but you can see the woodpecker hole! I have seen flickers nesting there in previous years.


A crow!

Bella in the water!

Some things found on the shore:

Small claw.


Much bigger claws!


A very pretty shell. A lot more color than these usually have; typically they're very plain, matte white.

Less nice, I did find two different fishhooks, with their lures and lines. There are a bunch of fish line disposal receptacles all around the park, so it frustrates me to still find them just discarded along the shore. :/ Of course I took them and disposed of them, but I'd hate for a dog to find them with a paw, or a bird to see the lure and try to swallow it...

There's a little... water management structure at one end of the lake. I've never seen water through it, but it looks like the intent is to help control the flow of water into the reservoir. But there are some murals there now:

Two more:

They all appear to be views of the lake. Very nice!

It was a lovely day to go for a walk, though Bella was again very tired by the end of it, haha.

Back at the start of 2024, I set a goal to read 20 books for the year. And I did it! I really doubted that I'd manage it when I hit the halfway point of the year and wasn't even a quarter of the way through the goal. Fortunately I rallied a bit, and got through a lot more than I'd thought.

One thing that helped was that this was the first year that I really succeeded at reading ebooks. I've always struggled with ebooks, because they're so easily "out of sight, out of mind." I close the app, put my phone down, and... it's like the book has vanished completely, even if I was enjoying it. (I struggle similarly with fanfiction, often.) This year, I managed to build up a habit of reading an ebook any time I'd be using my phone to kill time; when I'm waiting for Alex in the car, or when I'm trying to fall asleep at night, etc.

So far, I've stuck to really light fare for the ebooks - romance and erotica titles that don't require terribly close reading. Since I'm also reading physical books, most of which have been things that require more attention to detail and remembering what's going on... I don't want to end up struggling to keep track of two stories or conflating details I shouldn't. So I haven't yet tried to read something more serious in terms of ebooks, though I have quite a few in my library.

(Note that this isn't a comment on quality, just on style and... "intensity," maybe. I like both and think both are great!)

I also managed to keep decent track in my habit tracker of the books I read. I drew them on a very fanciful bookshelf. :) I tried to pick an item significant to each book to draw as decoration, but also drew other decorative stuff on the shelves. Definitely the most visual art I did for the year, and I'm quite happy with it.



( Two slightly more zoomed-in images for a better view: )

I started on the bottom shelf, because you should always load shelves from the bottom up for safety, haha.

So from the lower left, and then zig-zagging upwards, here is the list of books I read, and the objects I drew for them:

The Innocent Sleep by Seanan McGuire: A (not terribly accurate) version of the Old Roads key they use to reach where the Luidaeg is imprisoned.

System Collapse by Martha Wells: One of Murderbot’s drones.

(A plant in a decorative pot.)

Backpacking Through Bedlam by Seanan McGuire: Two Aeslin mice.

Backpacking Through Bedlam by Seanan McGuire (again): Gold coins, since the dragons hoard gold.

Clutch by Piper Scott and Virginia Kelly: A purple dragon’s egg.

(A pothos-type plant rooting in a vase of water.)

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss: The handheld sympathy lamp that Kvothe makes as part of his studies. Also some smaller books, since his whole focus is getting into the library.

Aftermarket Afterlife by Seanan McGuire: A bundle of wheat, as a symbol of the Anima Mundi.

Welcome to the Show by Jules Kelley: The VIP lanyard that Sebastian gets.

(A spiderweb.)

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer: A set of test tubes, containing samples of the mystery tissue from the Crawler, a fungus, and blood. Behind it, the quote “Where lies the strangling fruit…” which is the start of the text on the tower wall.

Sleep No More by Seanan McGuire: The garnet-like blood gems the Luidaeg gives to October.

Ready or Knot by Jillian Rink: Photos, since the protag takes up photography as a hobby.

Hot for Her Bear by Ariel Marie: A bear claw.

Authority by Jeff VanderMeer: The undying plant (though not terribly canon-accurate) that Control finds in the Director’s desk. Behind it, continuation of the words from the tower: “…that came from the hand of the sinner…”

Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer: The wooden carving of a cat that Control keeps. Possibly not canon-accurate. Originally a chess piece, but he associates it with his cat, Chorry. And the words from the tower continue: “I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead…”

Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer: A candle in a jar. A repeated image from Old Jim’s (and even Lowry’s) dreams/hallucinations, wondering if he is the flame, the candle, or the jar. A different section of the longer passage, but the one relevant to and presented at the start of this book: “There shall be a fire that knows your name.”

The Innocent Sleep by Seanan McGuire (again): A potion bottle, one of the potions Simon provides to combat iron poisoning.

(A fan that I’m very proud of. A simplified version of a fan I got in Japan, which hangs on my wall. Goldfish and water plants.)

Space For More by Emily Antoinette: The little makeup compact that Eden and Mezli get as spy gadgetry.

(A crystal to fill space.)

Love Lights by Emily Antoinette: Christmas lights.

Reversing a Rivalry by Kit Kennedy: the only book I could not think of a single object to represent. A ring because I think it’s implied they’ll get married?

Witch King by Martha Wells: The finding stone the group is looking for, a disk of obsidian. (Did not come across well.)

(A spider plant.)

(A hanging crystal to fill vertical space.)

Winter’s List by Jordyn Kross: Hung behind, the eponymous list.

Incomplete books for the year:
The Infernal City by Greg Keyes
Aftermarket Afterlife by Seanan McGuire (again)

And brief thoughts on the books, as well as when I read them. These are very subjective ratings, based almost purely on how much I enjoyed them. It’s not always an objective measure of quality. Though I also have a lot more to say about the ones I don’t like, ha.

( Below the cut, because this part got long: )

This black widow set up camp in my mom's kitchen. She's since been relocated outside. A young one; not juvenile any longer, but not old enough to take on the classic "widow" shape, yet.


An adorable chickadee.


On Thursday we had a partial lunar eclipse. It wasn't terribly dramatic, but was even less so on camera, haha. You can just see that the top looks a little obscured. (It really was more obvious than this, though.)


(From Alex's phone.)
Alex took Cy out on Friday morning and there was a katydid hanging out, so he sent me a picture, ha.


A cute pit bull sticker. It makes me think of Bella. :)
There was another, bigger sticker of a different pit bull that I assume was by this same artist stuck to a street sign a few months ago, but it's long gone and I never got a picture.

We have internet again!

We're expecting an apparently near-identical storm this Sunday into Monday again, and I hope this time we dodge the power outages and lasting internet outages.

Cy is still doing well. He had one really wobbly day on Tuesday, but we think that was more a loopy gabapentin high than anything else. He finished his antibiotics today. In a little over a week we'll go back to the vet for his follow-up. The biggest struggle is that he still doesn't understand why he isn't allowed up on the bed at night, so I usually have to get up and tuck him back in to his bed a couple times overnight. (Spoiled monster.)

Went a little nuts on Backerkit's "Pintopia" event. Lots of cool enamel pins if you're into that kind of thing, which unfortunately for me, I am. That's my indulgent purchase for the next couple months. My art friends are included this year! There are also a lot of other really cool projects. I backed several, and wish I could back all the ones that caught my eye.

Apparently my company is cracking down on mandatory lunch breaks. For the most part I don't take them (and honestly prefer that, because it's meant I get to leave early one day a week in order to avoid the overtime I'm racking up by not clocking out midday, lol.) BUT now I have to start taking them, because they don't want me leaving early anymore, but even more they want to make sure that they don't have to pay out any overtime.

They're referring to the lunch breaks as ~clarity breaks~ and sending out chat reminders to "remember to take your clarity break!" and I fucking hate it, lmao.

Now I need to figure out what to do on these breaks, lol. It'd be very easy to just do a social media scroll for 20 or 30 minutes, but I don't really want to do that. Ideally I could use that chunk of time to work on something - writing, by preference - but I probably can't use a computer. If I stay at my desk, I will get dragged into working over the break, and if they want me to clock out I will not be doing that. I could bring my laptop with me and sit somewhere else, but that feels silly for just 20 minutes. I will continue contemplating.

Between the scare with Cy and then the days without internet, I feel like I lost another week+ of Stuff I Was Supposed To Do. Unfortunately, I keep wildly overestimating just how much oomph I will have after I get off of work. Like, yeah, I could do a cleaning project, and work on an editing project for a friend, and try to actually work on my own writing again someday, and find a way to get a little bit of reading done... but what if I just want to play a video game I don't have to think about? :(

Today was a 10.5 hour day at work so we could do a center meeting, so I am tired!

But the tiny plastic horse has color! Pics of each days' progress under the cuts, plus details about the colors and such. That's more for me than anyone else, so I remember what I did, ha.

( Wednesday was blue (3 pics): )

( Thursday was doing the wings (3 pics): )

( Friday was finally getting to do the back and the tail! (3 pics:) )

Still to-do:
- finish the peacock feathers in the tail
- paint the mane and the parts of the tail that aren't feathers. With my previous stained-glass inspired pony, I did the mane and tail in the pewter-black color that I used to outline the "glass" pieces. This time that remains my plan for the mane, and I'm deciding on the tail. Because the tail HAS been incorporated into the design this time, I'm not sure if I want to do the non-feather parts in the lead color, or the darker "negative space" black for more contrast.
- face details. The mask will be black and white, and the eyes gold. The beak will probably be a tan color. I think I'll do a bit of blue on the ear as the "crest" that peacocks have.
* maaaaybe do a sealant layer after this. I don't want to risk doing something to mess up the work I've done, and having a layer of sealant to protect it might be helpful. Then again... curing time.
- go back over aaaaaall the tiny little outlines in the lead color, because those have pretty obviously worn away/lost definition.
- paint the rest of the body that isn't part of the peacock design as dark and matte a black as I can, to try and make the design part stand out more. (Probably last, since I have to hold the legs to do the rest.)
- gloss the "glass" parts of the design.

Phew. Still quite a lot to do to try and be done by the end of the month! Though if I can do one listed thing per day, that will get me there... though I'm hoping to be done EARLY, if I can get multiple sections done per day over my weekend. (Though it is also very possible I won't get to anything tonight. Late at work, plus haven't slept more than a couple hours for the last few nights.)
Things like the gloss are semi-optional - it's a bit out of the spirit of the thing to work on it after the month is over, but the project will still be "done" without it, and it won't morally destroy me to do that kind of thing after the fact.