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28 Monday Oct 2013
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26 Saturday Oct 2013
Halloween 2013
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So, about a week and a half ago, my upstairs neighbors put out some spiders and mouses from the Halloween store right next to my front window. And, it seemed only right to make a spider to go with them and this was it.
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For the center, there is a scrunched up bit of newspaper with a takeout round aluminum tin – the disposable kind with struts in the legs from the laundry bags that are collapsible but have metal hoops in them for strength – the mesh kind. It was no good for laundry anymore and the metal hoops I cut to size for the legs to have support inside them.
The spider is about a foot square – maybe more like 18″ and about three and half to four inches high. It is covered in paper mache which was done with strips of newspaper, the old-fashioned way dipped in rice starch rather than flour and water – built up, dried, then painted black with gloss black spray paint.
After that, I decided to cover it with pieces from an old pair of velveteen pants fabric which hadn’t been worn in four years anyway. Turned out very nifty. The velvety fabric was placed using wood glue after cutting the various pieces to shapes that fit the spider.
I like him – or rather her. The eyes came from a window sparkly bead piece which were then cut apart to individual bead pieces and covered with wood glue and pink sparkly glitter by me and my granddaughters. They didn’t get to help with the rest of the spider building but I hope they will on the next one.
– cricketdiane
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26 Saturday Oct 2013
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cricketdiane, extreme sports skateboards, new designs, nifty stuff, pink, pink skateboards, purple, skateboarding, skateboards for girls, stuff that is pink
Designing today – girls’ skateboards and other nifty things –
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I wanted to go into New York for this weekend to do something in person, but since I can’t because I’m sick – this is what I’ve been creating today. It seems appropriate that girls and women skateboarders who love skateboarding should have pink skateboards. That’s all there is to it.
And, then I get to designing and there are lots of pink skateboards to choose from – and a few purple ones, polka dots ones, hot pink and bubblegum pink ones. And an artsy one or two. This series is from this morning and I think I’ll add some more to it because the world does not have enough things in pink. That’s a fact.
– cricketdiane
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Note – I do not know what happened with that last pink skateboard and it probably would be dangerous to ride – especially wild ride.
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Anyone could actually play chess on this one – perfect for any girl or woman or young hipster that loves chess and skateboarding, which is probably everyone.
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The reason I was designing these today and got to thinking about it in the first place is because I used to make nifty Christmas presents by hand – arting them, crafting, creating, inventing and applying what I know to make things for gifts. But, now – what would I make for my daughters and granddaughters and friends since I can use online platforms to create using my art and design? Well, skateboards for girls obviously is one.
And, although I’ve done a few things lately for Halloween – mostly I’m thinking now of things I would like available as Christmas gifts if I had the money to buy them and give them – like pink stuff, and pink sparkling skateboards and hoodies that have something nifty on them – which I’m about to do next.
Or make some clocks and wristwatches like I was doing the other day – but on this blog, next I want to post about the spider I made for Halloween of paper mache and crafting rather free-hand. Plus some other of the things I’ve been doing for Halloween that is arriving this week. There were some shirts and hoodies I made for it with vampire lips and fangs on them and Samhain – Day of the Dead saying on a bright red background. I did those the other day. So, my next post today will be more in keeping with the current holiday of the moment rather than Christmas which will be here quick and in a hurry.
I do love designing. And, creating and making and inventing and stuff.
– cricketdiane
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25 Friday Oct 2013
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Designing today – very nifty.
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24 Thursday Oct 2013
05 Saturday Oct 2013
Tags
Congress, cricketdiane, GOP, Senate, US Constitution, US Constitutional guarantees, US Economy, US govt, US govt shutdown, USA
When a law is enacted (or legislation) creating an agency, service or program of our Federal government, a Constitutionally based contract is made. It legally obligates our House and Senate to disburse our tax dollars and US revenues to cover these legally mandated services, agencies and programs.
By not covering the costs of those agencies, services and programs enacted into law – Congressional members made a choice to break the law.
To not remit those moneys from our Treasury, revenues and taxes to pay for these Constitutionally contracted and legislated agencies, programs and services is to break the fiduciary oath of office, to abandon its duties and responsibilities, and to do so in anti-thesis of the oath taken and the purposes of that office.
So, either Congress needs to a.) not pass these agencies, services and programs into law and therefore, not into existence in the first place; or, b.) remit the funds to cover those programs, agencies and services that were created by the legislation that the Senate and Congress have passed into law.
To not do so is to say that the Constitutional Contract creating them is not your duty to uphold despite the oath you took and the office you were elected to hold. In which case, you need some other job, because those elected seats do require an oath and the intention to uphold the laws of the land including our Constitution and those contracts made as a result of the power it has given our legislators.
The holders of these Constitutionally created legislative seats are also required by law to make proper disbursement of our tax moneys, Treasury assets and other revenues of the United States including appropriate disbursements to cover the costs associated with all programs, services and agencies created by legislative process and law by the US Congress’ and Senate’s actions.
Now, what we have is an entire class of actors seated in our Congressional seats that have decided none of these fiduciary duties apply to them. The oath means nothing to them and to shut down the US government serves as a goal to them rather than the health and well-being and continued strengthening of our nation.
That makes each and every one of them – (including you, Mr. or Mrs. Congress member who is proud of shutting down the US Government) – something other than a trusted public servant worthy of that seat in any US legislature. But such individuals are especially unworthy of the trust and power inherent in any seat of Federal and Constitutional mandate.
Unfortunately, many in our nation believe there is nothing illegal about what Congress has done in shutting down the Federal government of the United States of America. But, if they were asked – is the job of Congress to destroy the US, to destroy US businesses and communities, to destroy families and children’s lives, to destroy the US economy and its future opportunities – or rather to build it up, strengthen it and uphold its trust – which would they answer?
Obviously, our tax dollars, revenues and Treasury assets are not being remitted to pay for those agencies, programs and services that were created by agreement of our Representatives and Senators. That alone makes what these Congressional members have done to be illegal and in intentional aberration of their Constitutionally mandated duties and trust of office. Clearly wrong.
Clearly the actions of those who would destroy rather than build the United States and her people as well as attempting to destroy our future as a nation and those opportunities that such a future could afford us all.
There are no words to describe the abhorrence and abomination of these actions made by Congressional members, most of which were members of the Republican Party and were operating under the direct instigation of the GOP leadership. It is a shame and a tragic misfortune to have to call any of them, Republican because none of the tenets of the Republican Party have been followed nor honored in this horrendous set of actions.
These are the strategic workings of enemies of our nation rather than of supporters and upholders of the Constitution and our national interests. It is a tragedy unparallelled in American history if only for its unfortunate timing and obsequious intention of causing massive harm to as many Americans as possible simultaneously. Only terrorists to date have had that distinction. Now – our Congress and the GOP has succeeded in hitting that mark as well.
– cricketdiane
10-05-13
02 Wednesday Oct 2013
I am an American. I was born in America. My family are Americans. We plied the trails of America as Colonists. We shed our blood and gave the lives of our loved ones to fight for the freedom and very existence of this country in the Revolution. We’ve offered our services and skills as a family and as individuals in every war and peacetime effort America has fought to insure peace and freedom in the World and for our Nation. We belong here and it is part of the fabric that has created who we are and what we can do as human beings.
And today, we die and are hindered from adding any real contribution to our time by economic wars that America has lost. We are the victims of Wall Street’s gambling debts and unethical practices. We are being trampled under their feet as they destroy America’s companies where we would have worked and prospered. We have been made homeless and hungry and desperate by the lack of employment or any decent, living wage. Our politicians of all sorts have allowed wolves to pillage our nation, destroy its economy and run us out of our own homes by trickery and deceit. And, our American dollars seem no more than scrap paper to try and buy food, or shelter, or the most basic of things in life.
My family going back generations have lived, fought, breathed and honored the freedom of this country. It is with great sadness that I see, that we and our ideas have become no more than a sentiment and no longer a greater truth.
It will not have been the economic wars and our losses that deal the final blow to America’s greatness. It will be apathy and the jaded cynicism of powerful Americans blinded by self-interest, division, divisiveness, derision for the nation we cherish and absolute unconscionable greed for power that dissolves its existence. And, they are doing that now – again today. It is wrong. They can’t even replace one iota of what they are destroying and really don’t care. What a real tragedy.
– cricketdiane
10-02-13
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Deep into the far reaches of our nation’s past, there was a dream – a real dream of hope that was worth fighting for – and now, for no other reason than the selfishness of power – it will be undermined for future generations. What can stop this aberration of a few that are choosing to destroy America?
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