The Inner Bean

My personal cemetery is under way! As of this afternoon I have 5 homemade tombstones in the front yard, and I’m pretty proud of them. I did take some photos, but haven’t had a chance to upload them yet.

My only disappointment is that the styrofoam insulation we bought was a little on the thin side. The tutorial I watched showed this amazing, thick styrofoam insulation that would be the perfect thickness for carving into if you wanted to get creative with your tombstones. For example, I had some ideas for doing relief etching that would add awesome depth, especially once painted. The paint tends to eat into the styrofoam, causing it to look more like stone. The pieces I got weren’t very thick at all, maybe a third or even just half the thickness of the pieces in the tutorial that got me inspired.

Nevertheless, I made due and am very proud of the outcome despite the thinness. I still have enough left over to do between six and eight more tombstones. It’ll be a fun project to get Devon into, especially now that I know what to expect from the materials. So, tomorrow we will probably spend the afternoon working on adding to our cemetery. We’ve been laughingly discussing which ex-boyfriends names we should add to the lawn, just for fun…

Once we have them all in place, I’ll take more pictures and get them cropped and loaded in. Overall, it’s been a fun project. I’m glad I tried it out and can’t wait to play around with the thicker grade styrofoam insulation.

One of the cool things about working for Mahalo is that as a guide I get exposed to a lot of really neat things on the internet. Recently I’ve been part of the Halloween project, getting our pages ready for Halloween, as well as adding awesome new Halloween pages. One page I worked on inspired me to get crafty with my own Samhain decorating: Halloween Tombstones

While I was scouring the net for awesome links on the best places to buy them, I also came across a few tutorials with patterns, as well as a great instructional video. So, while visiting the hardware store this afternoon I picked up some foam insulation pieces, a can of spray paint and I’m ready to start my own persona cemetery. We have a great front yard, so I’m really excited to get started on this.

I will definitely post the photos from my endeavor, so be on the lookout, and if you’re looking to get crafty yourself this Halloween, check the links on the above page. Like I said, there are some really cool do-it-yourself and craft tutorials.

I don’t know what it is about scientists, maybe it was all those revenge of the nerds movies during the 80’s, but let’s face it people, the new face of science is ME-YOW!  Long gone are the days of Poindexter with his polyester pants and horn-rimmed glasses… well, maybe the glasses are still here, but they’re not so dorky as they used to be.  Just ask all the chicks who think the character Noah Bennett from Heroes is sexy. And come on, tell the truth, who hasn’t thought Steve Jobs was just a little bit sexy while they were synching their iPod?

Lo, tho, before I digress, as I am want to do from time to time, I couldn’t help but marvel the changing face of science.  And not just science, but all things once considered “nerd” are now tres chic. Take the recent trend in ghost hunting.  Compare the original “Ghost Hunters” from the 1980’s film, “Ghost Busters” to today’s savvy sleuths.  Now I”m sure there are women who aren’t afraid to admit to finding Venkman and Egon just a tad bit attractive, they were certainly no Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson from TAPS, or Josh Gates of Destination Truth.

The first ime I noticed this trend was in college while taking a space and aeronautics course to fulfill credit requirements. I went into the class thinking I was going to spend three days away using toothpicks to hold my eyelids open, but the professor, who was only about 8 years older then me, was so passionate about science (and not hard to look at either…) that I found myself paying attention to thinks about the Kuiper Belt (including how to spell it properly!!) that I would have never retained had the professor looked like Ben Stein.

And it’s not just hot science guys, either. One environtmental science professor I had managed to pack a classroom full of 20 year old men twice a week.  There were about 4 women in the entire class of about 35 students…. And they actually participated in quite a bit of the class discussion because they enjoyed the attention she lavished on them.

Now here’s the thing… if this trend became realized they could slap sexy science teachers into classrooms all over the world and people would actually LEARN things.  They might even find that they LIKED science.  Imagine the things we could do  with a country full of young minds filled up on astrophysics and geoscience.

And if you get the chance, check out NOVA’s next airing of Monster of the Milky Way on PBS.  It’s a very sexy program all about black holes.  Maybe not all of the scientists in it are sexy, but there were a few, and beside a growing appreciation for science IS sexy.  You will be too if you watch it.

I’m excited to announce that in the last 12 days I have had two of my stories accepted for publication.  Both stories are creative nonfiction memoirs.  The first to be accepted is titled “Manhunt,” and recaps a romantic game of flashlight tag from my youth.  It will appear in the January 2009 edition of Watershed: The Journal of the Susquehanna.

Last night I received notification that another creative nonfiction piece I wrote about my daughter growing up titled, “I Do Believe in Faeries” is going to be published in the November 2008 edition of MotherVerse Magazine.  Check out their page for subscription information!

I’m very excited. I haven’t written many memoirs since graduation, but both of these publications has me a little itchy and I think it may be just what the writer’s block doctor ordered to get he creative juices flowing again.

I’ve been absent for a couple of weeks due to starting a new remote position with Mahalo , who I have worked for remotely for since last August. Currently I am working on pages for Halloween, all kinds of fantastic costume information and ideas, party tips and retailers, origins and customs. It’s been a lot of fun and really gotten me into the spooky spirit.

Some of my favorite pages from the last couple of weeks include

Halloween Crossword Puzzles,

Halloween Poems

Halloween Customs

Halloween Pranks

Also, being pagan I have had the opportunity to add a lot of Pagan resource pages to the database, and was excited to build the Mahalo page for Samhain .

I have done everything on Mahalo from greenhouse working and mentoring to building How To pages, and I’m excited now to be  a part of the RFTG team, building great pages for the Halloween season.