Anxiety

It's hard to understand something you've never been through. I don't understand alcoholics, how could someone spend all their money on booze and drink themselves into a coma? For an ex alcoholic it's probably easy to understand because they've been through it, they've experienced it for themselves.

It's the same concept with anxiety, for someone who has never had anxiety disorder it's hard for them to get it. They don't know what it feels like and it's hard to explain it to them. My mum once said to me that she only truly understood anxiety disorder after going through it herself, and that it was worse than she thought.

It's easy to underestimate it.

I mean what do people have to compare it to? Usually a time they were scared or nervous, like before a test. To them they just see it as nerves. They don't get how debilitating it can be.

The truth is anxiety is so much worse than that. It's a mental illness that can effect your everyday life. It's that uncontrollable feeling of panic and dread. It makes you feel ill. It makes you sick. It makes your guts feel like they are trying to escape. Your heart takes on a life of its own. Your brain runs rings around you. And before you know if you are having a major panic over seemingly nothing at all. But you can't make it stop. It's so physical. It's so real. It's terrifying.

Every time I get anxious my body gives up on me. My mind drives me wild. It's not like any nerves or any fear I've ever had. It's different. It's more scary and more real than anything else I've felt.

But it's hard for people to understand. You can't just "snap out of it" you can't just make it stop. You can't just face your fears and be done with it. It's not a matter of "manning up". It's not as easy as just moving on.

It might seem ridiculous.

And maybe it is.

Maybe it's over nothing, maybe it's over something you could do easily. That you could face. But it's very real to them, it's very scary to them, and if nothing else it's very physical to them.

It effects every part of that persons life.

Even if you don't understand. Or you can't understand. It doesn't stop being real to them. It doesn't stop the palpitations, the dread, the sickness, everything.

Just trust me when I say, it's the hardest thing I've ever had to deal with in my life and every day I wish I could man up, move on and face it.

It's not that easy.

I'm the water drinking designated driver and here's why...

So this is more me having a rant about how boring people think I am.

I'm going to start with my favourite drink to have on a night out; water. I've always been able to have a good time without drinking, I've been known to jump on pianos and sing loud and proud, I rarely drink but it's never stopped me having a great night out.

There are several reasons I choose not to have soft drinks and alcohol.

1. Migraines. Anyone who gets them bad will be able to sympathise with me here, alcohol and caffeinated drinks such as cola are triggers for my migraines and they are no fun at all - every time I've been out and had a drink I've come home with a bad migraine and it's not much fun at all.

2. I don't want to get drunk. When I do drink the most I've ever drunk were 3 JD and cokes, I've never been drunk. I don't want to either. I'm a major control freak and the idea of losing control scares me.

3. I may put a TMI warning with this one...It makes me pee. A lot. Even after just 2 glasses of fizzy I'm non stop in the toilet wishing I'd drunk water instead. Oddly enough water doesn't do that too me.

All of these things stop me enjoying my night. I can't enjoy anything when I have a migraine, if I'm sitting in a toilet stall the whole night or if I'm worried about how much I'm drinking - it just puts me in miserable, anxiety fuelled place which I hate.

The very last reason is;

4. Water is free! I always end up having a cheap night, usually we get into most places either cheap or free because we get there early and then on top of that all my drinks are free! My purse absolutely adores me for this.

Now for the reasons why I drive to these places.

1. People don't pressure me to drink. It's great driving somewhere, people are aware that drink driving is illegal and so they don't put any pressure on me to drink. Oh, the times I've gone in the taxi with them and all night "have another drink" "I'll buy you a drink" "is that all you're going to drink" it's very annoying

2. I like the comfort and warmth of my car. I love being able to wack my radio up and enjoy my own comfy, warm car. I don't have to sit around waiting for a taxi, and I can sit in my car waiting for them to arrive if I want to. Yes I do offer lifts to people as well which I like doing if I can.

3. Petrol is cheaper than a taxi. It seems to cost so much to get a taxi anywhere, even if there are loads of us sharing the cost, petrol always seems to cost me less every time.

4. I can go through the drive through at Macdonalds while everyone else is standing outside in the cold at the 24 hour slots for pedestrians. And I always get a Maccy d's!

Maybe I don't do things the way everyone else would, maybe I'm missing out on a world of fun, but I like the way I do things. Most importantly it gives me a great night out that I actually want to remember.

Things I would change about AC

Dream Suite 

Dream Suite is one of my favourite features in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. I only built it a few days ago but have spent the majority of my gaming time visiting lots of different towns. The only thing you can take away from a dream town are custom designs, everything else disappears when you return to your own town. 

The main thing I would change about it is I want to get more out of it, I want to be able to change my outfit for a start, even when I wear one of my patterns I still have no shoes. 

I would love to be able to order furniture, so many times I've gone to a dream town and seen an item which I have been hunting for for ages, and I have no way of getting it (It's such a tease!). Even if we had a limit of only a handful of items we are allowed to order, even if we could only order 2 items per dream, I would still love to see that become a feature.

Patterns that eat fruit and bells 

I have found this very annoying for a while now. If you have patterns near trees and rocks the bells and fruit will be abosrbed into the pattern - very annoying if you want to have lots of patterns around your town. It would be nice if patterns just acted like other squares.

Disappearing grass

Since this feature came out all it has done is cause stress - I have been spending a lot of time attempting to regrow my grass - I understand the idea behind it - it makes unique dirt paths, I get it, but I'm one of those people that run around my town like a headless chicken and I'd like to be able to do that without losing all my grass.

Problem Neighbours

Villagers can be a pain, they are allowed to place their house anywhere it seems - and that can be a pain when you have spent a long time making your dream town vision come true. I wish there was an option where you can choose to pick a spot where your villagers are allowed to live, that way you could put them all in a spot where they wouldn't mess up your town!

Tool box

I have an issue with the fact my tools take up so much room in my pockets, but you can guarantee when I put them away I will see a reason to have them with me. I think maybe a tool box would work out - where you could still pull them out using the arrows but you don't have to take up precious pocket space.

Grand opening of Club LOL

I was pretty excited to see Dr. Shrunk outside my house asking for my permission to open his new live venue "Club LOL" I said yes right away! I got all 6 signatures I needed.

It seemed to take forever for it to be built, that may or may not have been caused by Kicks being built around the same time, I'm not sure - anyway I didn't know if it was being built or not, no screen around the area, nothing. So I was very happy when Isabelle told me it had been opened today.

Club LOL opened on the 6th of September!

Damn I closed my eyes!

Looks a bit empty and bland, I hope it's not empty later!

The stage is pretty awesome I haven't seen a Gyroid lately

I gave Dr. Shrunk a cherry and he started doing a performance. :) (Cherries are my native fruit)

He gave me the Emotion "Anger" I'm excited about getting all the emotions! 

I'll be sure to go back later on today to see the live music!

Update!

So I went back later.....K.K. Slider is there...but no one else is here!!

Hopefully more people will turn up next time!

Animal Crossing: Kyra is the Mayor!

I became mayor of Pineford on the 16th of August.

Currently Kyra is living in a tent, but the upside is I actually got to choose the location instead of just getting given a random location or set locations like in the older games.

Sleeping in a tent isn't so bad but I only have a lantern at the moment, nothing to sleep on! 

For some reason I couldn't resist buying this item I just thought it was a funny/strange accessory!

ProMarkers by Letraset!

ProMarkers are Alcohol based permanent markers. Unlike other felt tips they do not feather up the paper. You can layer them to create shading, and can blend and overlay the colours. They offer a lot of artistic freedom. These pens need to be used on bleed proof paper as they will go through normal paper onto the surfaces underneath.

ProMarkers are good to use for cartoons, comics, drawing characters, people, animals, lots of uses. You can make clear crisp lines with them, they give a smooth look unlike other felt tip pens or pencils. The pens have a fine tip and a larger tip, you can also get fine tip pens to draw out lines, and a blender pen.


Left to right - Ruby showing small tip, Petrol Blue showing large tip, Blender pen & Fine tip pen.

Blending 

There are a few ways you can blend two colours together, alternately you can blend your shading of just one colour together. The easiest way I find to use the blending pen is to lay the lightest colour you want to blend down first, then colour over it with the blending pen.



Layer the second darker colour over the top in the places you want it and use the blending pen again over the top.

Overlaying 

If you wish to you can over lay colours. Depending on the colour under it the colours will be slightly different which is good if you want to mix colours. Try to test the colours on a separate sheet before putting it on your work - this way you will know what colour it will turn and how much layering you have to do.



In this second image I layered the colours showing next to it which colour I use - this will give you an idea of what to look out for when you layer colours yourself.

Shading

One of the things I really love about these pens is the ability to shade with them. You can build up several layers of shading. Bellow is an image with block colour (Using the colour "Blossom")



The next image uses one layer of shading.



Two layers of shading - leave a bit of time for drying between each layer - leave more time if you want the layers to look more defined,  leave less time if you want the layers to blend. (It's a good idea to test on a separate bit of paper how much time is needed)



Three layers of shading - you can build up several more layers.




I hope if you are really into art you consider trying ProMarkers, they are a fantastic tool, are easy to use and don't take long to get used to! If you want to buy some get onto Letraset's website :)

Counting sheep

Blue nose friends 11-14

011 Truffles the Pig

012 Cottonsocks the Sheep

013 Coco the Monkey

014 Konker the Hedgehog

Safari

Blue nose friends 7-10

007 Twiggy the Giraffe
008 Chip the Zebra
009 Rocky the Lion
010 Buster the Leopard

Starting point

Blue nose friends 1 through to 6

001 Patch the Dog

002 Kittywink the Cat

003 Blossom the Rabbit

004 Dilly the Duck

005 Toots the Elephant

006 Binky the Panda Bear

Albinism in Horses

Albinism occurs in a lot of animals; mammals, reptile, birds, it even affects humans. As of yet, though, there have been no reported cases of albinism in horses. Many people think and even speak with confidence about owning or seeing an albino horse – but albinism has never been reported by any stud farm, there are NO true albinos! This article sets out to explore why that may be and exactly what these people are mistaking for albinos.

The definition of albino is:

A person or animal having a congenital absence of pigment in the skin and hair (which are white) and the eyes (typically pink).

Baring this in mind, I will explain why there are no true albino horses.

Basic horse genetics

A good place to start is with the basic colour genetics of horses. Understanding the foundations of coat colour genetics is important for understanding the coat colours people mistake for albinos.

The very basic colour genetics start with base colours; these are the colours black and chestnut. Dilution genes are added to create new colours. The most common dilution gene in horses in the Agouti gene which causes the bay colouring on a horse with a black base colour.

Bay - Caused by the Agouti gene, which restricts the black pigment to the legs, mane and tail.
Brown – Caused by a form of the Agouti gene which restricts the black pigment to soft areas of the body (sometimes called seal brown or tan)

Grey

Most commonly seen “white” horses are usually greys. They differ from real white horses in many ways.

Grey horses are born any ordinary colour (bay, black, chestnut etc.) Gradually over time they will “grey out” which is where more and more grey hairs appear in the coat, some grey horses get to a point where they look almost brilliant white, others will form dapples, or stay a steel grey colour for the majority of its life, and some older horses can form flicks of colour called “flea bitten grey”. The occurrence of “greying out” varies from horse to horse, some horses start to grey out at a young age of around 3 or 4 months old and some will show no signs of grey until several years later.

Grey horses which look brilliant white can be told apart from white horses by their skin colour. Because grey horses are born a darker colour they have darker skin (usually black or dark grey skin), these are noticeable around areas where the coat is thin, such as around the eyes, in the ears and the muzzle. Grey horses usually have brown eyes.

Extreme or Maximum Sabino

Sometimes Sabino horses are mistaken for white or even albino due to their eye colouring.

Sabino horses are a group of horses who have a white spotting pattern on their coats. There are many extremes of Sabino colour, in the heterozygous state there are usually only a few flicks of white. In the Homozygous state they can be almost completely white – and in some cases they are born completely white. Other colourings like Tobiano or Overo may be present in a heterozygous Sabino, which may make them appear mostly white. A horse which is both Tobiano and Sabino is referred to as Tovero. Sabino horses can have blue, partially blue or brown eyes – so it can be easy to mistake them for an albino (it’s important to note that true albinos have red, pink or violet eyes)

(References: http://www.horsetesting.com/sabino1.htm)

Cremello

Cremello horses are often mistaken for albino horses due to their pink coloured skin and blue eyes.

Much like bays, Cremello colouring is caused by a dilution gene – this gene is commonly called the cream dilute. Cremello is a double dilute which is derived from the base colour chestnut. Cremello horses have blue eyes and pink skin, they’re not exactly white (more an off white or cream colour) but can appear white.

Base colour	One cream dilute	Double dilute
Chestnut	Palomino	Cremello
Black	Smokey Black	Smokey Cream
Bay (Agouti dilute)	Buck skin	Perlino

(Double dilute information: http://www.doubledilute.com/color-chart.htm)

White

Finally, we are onto the white horse. The true white horse is caused by its own “white” gene.

In the existence of the dominant white gene (Ww) a horse will be born white. The skin will be pink; the eyes are usually brown (but can sometimes be blue). A true albino cannot produce any pigment therefore making the eyes red or pink. Since the eyes in a white horse are actually brown, therefore not lacking pigment, it would be incorrect to call a white horse albino. They are not truly albino! Horses with ww (non-dominant white) will not be white.

Lethal White

The white gene is truly dangerous in horses – this may offer an explanation as to why there are no albino horses alive today!

There are two types of lethal white: Embryonic Lethal White and Overo Lethal White.

Embryonic Lethal White
Some theories suggest that in the presence of the homozygous dominant white gene (2 dominant white genes, WW), the foetus will be naturally absorbed by the mare in early pregnancy. Since no horse has ever survived past early foetal stages with this gene, we are not sure whether it would be the albino gene or not, although it is likely this is the case. It is not clear what causes this to happen.

Overo Lethal White
In the presence of the homozygous dominant Overo gene, outwardly healthy foals die within the first few days of life. This is due to the defective Overo gene (frame Overo) which is passed on by both parents.


Hopefully this has explained why there are no albino horses, while also explaining why what you may have thought was albino is not!

Christmas of 2009

I just wanted to share my Christmas screen shots with you! These shots are from City folk from 2009 in the month of December, they aren't in order of date.

I spent some of Christmas Eve in a friends town and we had a lot of fun

I caught sight of Jingle! (He's real!)

Me and Jonny made some snowmen

Jonny's snowman was not happy at all with his disproportionate head

A tiny melting snowman :(

Meeting and greeting animal villagers in Waldo, the town I was visiting! 

Ahh, that was a good Christmas!