Posts Tagged With: daily duck

New Year, New Goal

Posted on January 3, 2016 by lifeisjustduckie

After years of being lazy with crafting and selling my crafts I made some decent strides in December. I went to my first craft show and started an Esty shop. I’ve even made a banner for it!

EtsyBanner1

It’s the little things like these that make me feel accomplished.

I’m going to join the new resolution bandwagon and instead of making a list for 2016 choose a word to focus on for the year.

My word is productive.

One of my biggest struggles is having too many ideas and not producing any of them, so this year I hope to be productive and make things happen.

I hope to stick with this the whole year, but I won’t beat myself up if other words/goals become more important. As my favourite playwright says:

OscarWilde1

Categories: Crafty Duck, Daily Duck | Tags: daily duck, Etsy, fun times, goals, me-made, New Year, quotes, theatre | Leave a comment

Getting Back in the Saddle

Posted on December 8, 2015 by lifeisjustduckie

Whew! I’ve been gone quite some time…I felt like I had nothing to post for the longest time, and then I just got out of the habit

BUT!

I’m ready to get back in the saddle, metaphorically speaking of course.

Anywho, I’ve decided to mainly focus this blog on my crafting endeavors, with the occasional book review, cooking tidbit, or Goodwill discovery making its way on here.

Now on to exciting news! On the 6th I participated in my first craft show!!!

It was very cold in the building hence me being all bundled up. As you can see, I have some lovely wares for sale including knitted wrist warmers, jewelry, and adorable holiday aprons.

Sadly I sold nothing.

I do have a few bright sides.

People said they liked my work.
People weren’t in a buying mood. No vendors really sold much.
I DID IT!

I think the last one is most important. I am really good at a few things, but I feel I truly excel at procrastinating. Why do today what I can put off til tomorrow?

And yes, I did sign up for this show two weeks before it happened so I have a ton of material leftover to make even more holiday aprons, but I now have actual stock to put in an Etsy shop. So be on the lookout for lifeisjustduckie on Etsy to fill all your holiday apron needs.

Categories: Crafty Duck, Daily Duck | Tags: daily duck, fun times, goals, knitting, me-made, WV | Leave a comment

Seeing ’71

Posted on April 2, 2015 by lifeisjustduckie

Monday was my day off so I spent it very responsibly…binge-watching the first season of Garfunkel and Oates and going to the movies. I loved Garfunkel and Oates, more about it later though.

I was excited to see ’71. It documents a British soldier’s experiences over a night in Belfast during The Troubles. In 2012 I went to Belfast for two weeks with my school. We learned about The Troubles and heard from active participants on either side.

I loved the movie. I thought the story, the actors, the visual elements, and the production values were wonderful. It feels like a documentary, which helped get you immediately invested.

I really enjoyed the costume design as well. The soldier takes a sweater from a clothesline and I spent a few seconds debating if I could make it. Being set in the 70s there were wonderful suits and fun short dresses. The colour palette was very muted; a lot of neutrals with the men’s clothing and uniforms with brighter additions on the women and children.

The movie was fast-paced, packing a lot of story into a short amount of time. At times I was a little skeptical about the events as they were unfolding, but it definitely helped to keep me interested in the story. I was a little confused about who was on which side until almost the end of the movie; I’m not sure if that was intentional or if I didn’t pay enough attention, but the confusion lent itself very well to the “I don’t know who to trust” theme.

While ’71 might not be everyone’s cup of tea, I definitely recommend it.

Categories: Daily Duck | Tags: '71, Belfast, daily duck, fun times, Ireland, movies, Northern Ireland | Leave a comment

Let me order last, please.

Posted on March 6, 2015 by lifeisjustduckie

When I was a little girl I was far from the most well-behaved child. I would throw temper tantrums…just terrible screaming and crying fits, and my parents wouldn’t know what to do with me. I think their general reactions were to try waiting it out or threatening me: with a spanking, time-out, having a toy taken away or otherwise.

These tantrums could happen at any moment, but were most guaranteed when we went out to eat at a restaurant. My most famous childhood story starts “Hey Kelly remember that time we were in Waffle House and you wanted pancakes…” I actually don’t remember that story.

The point is that eventually my mom wised up. She noticed that I took forever staring at the menu, going through every dish before I could choose one. Soon she started giving me a smaller selection to make a choice from, and I got better at restaurants.

To this day I am one of the last people to order at a restaurant because I have to read the whole menu.

This inability to make a choice without knowing all my other choices affects more than the time I spend at a restaurant. I put off starting on projects because I get pulled to other projects. I have more blog post drafts than I should. I have a to-read pile that’s about 20 books long at any given point in time. The amount of clothes I want to make would triple the size of my already packed closet.

Sometimes I get a little disoriented and panicked when I’m over-stimulated. I dislike the mall and big stores for this reason. I am a slow walker because I like to notice things.

I want to say that this behaviour will stop now…but I don’t want to lie. I will challenge myself to finish more projects than I start this year and I think that’s a start.

Categories: Daily Duck | Tags: childhood, daily duck, food, goals, Waffle House | Leave a comment

I’ve yet to see a deer…

Posted on December 20, 2014 by lifeisjustduckie

In keeping with the West Virginia homesick theme, I have to mention the other night. I was talking on the phone with my friend Tyler, who’s currently in New York, and as we were talking I was enjoying the cool night air. Back home I wouldn’t be outside at night this time of year without a heavy jacket, and probably a scarf and a hat, but only a light sweatshirt is needed so far in Tennessee.

Anyway, as Tyler and I were talking, I walked around the corner of the house and saw an opossum….in Memphis…in Tennessee.

Cute, in a scary stay-over-there kinda way.

Doesn’t seem too shocking, does it? In West Virginia, wild animals are all over the place. Our state is stereotyped for eating roadkill, of all kinds; we even have a roadkill festival.

For me, this sighting marked two things. 1) It was my first live wild animal sighting in Tennessee. (I did see a dead raccoon within a couple of weeks here.) 2) If opossums live here, then maybe there are more wild animals (not counting that one raccoon, he could’ve been a fluke). If there are more wild animals, they have to live somewhere, right? If they have to live somewhere, there must be wild green space, right?

So really, I’m just excited about the prospect of forest, or uncultivated green-ness.

I make it sound like I’ve never been to a city before Memphis. I have been to plenty of other cities. I lived in Morgantown last year and I thought that was a city…I never expected to be this confused living in a city though. I expected to panic about driving, and get lost all the time. I even expected Mom to tell me about all the crimes that happened here in the last year and a half. I just didn’t expect the city to be so grey.

And I’ve yet to see a deer.