Pucker Up

Look at this face. I have the cutest dog in the world.

Brrrrr!

To quote what I'm sure was one of Amanda's favorite hair bands of the 90's, "you don't know what you got till it's gone". For me, the "it" being "hot water".

I always thought I could live like a settler: rustic cabin, raising sheep and chickens, making cheese, churning butter. I could do that. No electricity? Sure! Even using an outhouse, I could live with that. That was until last Thursday when we ran out of oil.

We've been waiting for the tank to get low so we could make a few repairs to a valve that wasn't working correctly and since we heat the house with wood, we only use the oil to heat the hot water. It takes us about a year to go through a tank of oil (we're lucky, I know). So Thursday night, low became empty and there went the last of our hot water.

Being the unfussy settler woman that I am, I thought, "No problem. I like a cool shower." HA! Cool doesn't even begin to describe the water that comes from our well. Despite the heat we've been suffering in Connecticut the past several days, the 40-degree showers we've had to take were a wee bit cold for my taste. For the past few days I've listened to Luke suffering through a cold shower with many "woo!" and "aaaah!" noises while I heated my own bath water on the stove.

Because of the weekend and the insane cost of oil, we weren't able to schedule a delivery until today and I was never so happy to see that oil truck coming up the driveway this morning. He's lucky I didn't run up and hug him. I'm so looking forward to going home tonight and taking a proper hot shower. I will never take it for granted AGAIN!

Tease yor hair up and sing it with me everyone: "you don't know what you got, till it's gone..."

Making Lemonade

The Lemons: It's raining. It's been raining all weekend. There's nothing but rain in the forecast. Rain, rain, rain.

The Lemonade: This pretty leaf I saw on my deck during one very brief lapse in the rain. So pretty I almost forgot that it's RAINING again.

That Really Sucked... Now it Gets Interesting

Maybe it's my current, foul mood, but I doubt it. I've had this opinion for a couple of days now - The Cheese Monkeys sucked. Let me step back a second and say that The Cheese Monkeys is a book by Chip Kidd about art school in the late 1950's and "finding your calling" and "the loss of innocence" and all sorts of similar cliched book review phrases.

I bought the book because Chip Kidd is an awesome book jacket designer and he did a great job luring me in with this one. I love smallish paperback books with the satin finish covers. This one was the perfect size and had a weird cover that intrigued me. I picked it up and saw that the first few pages are printed off the page. The left half of a paragraph on one page, the right half on the back of that page. Interesting and fun. Then I noticed the spine! Is it called the spine? Not where it's bound, but the other side. The endpapers maybe? When you spread the pages out one way, you can read "DO YOU SEE?" Splay them the opposite way and it reads "GOOD IS DEAD" Fantastic! I must read this book on the spot.

Wrong.

The first half of the book I loved. I could see it all in my head. The characters, I had them all cast for the movie. Each one with their own twisted sides. The narrator, his best friend/worst enemy, the innocent Southern classmate, the loony drawing teacher and the insane graphic design teacher. Loved them all. And I was actually learning! The book follows the design class and some of the lessons the teacher rants about were great and right on. Very interesting. I told everyone how much I loved the book, told them all they had to read it. Well I take that all back.

It was as if one day I was reading the book and I loved it, the story had been on a path for some time now and I looked forward to finishing. Then the next day I picked up the book and it was a different book. Or written by a different person. Suddenly it was much darker. The characters were turning really bizarre and they were all starting to use a lot more 50's slang. And am I crazy, or did the font change? What's going on? It picked up momentum, destroyed everything I ever enjoyed about the story and SLAMMED to an end. A seriously messed up ending. A dark and desperate, sleep deprived, vomit-descriptive, bloody, frantic and UNFINISHED end. I looked for more pages. I knew when the ink of the dialogue of a certain character started to get lighter and lighter that the end was near and I wasn't going to be happy.

I decided to go to my computer and write about how disappoined I am in this book. But first, I wanted to Google a name from the book. The narrator's best friend/worst enemy (not sure what to call her) is named Himillsy. Himillsy Dodd, to be exact. An odd name, but I like it when names are used to add meaning to the story, so maybe this one means "crazy little woman in need of serious therapy". I Googled Himillsy and found this blog, cowritten by not only Himillsy Dodd, but also Winter Sorbeck - that's the crazy graphic design teacher's name! Now I'm curious. Who are these people? Does Chip Kidd hate them?? They appear to live in D.C. and be a normal, young, modern couple blogging about life and work and politics. Where is the connection? I read several interviews with Kidd after the publishing of The Cheese Monkeys and I see no mention of his friends Mills and Winter. Weird.

Upon further digging, it appears that there's a band called Himillsy Dodd also.

Still disappointed but now also intrigued...

Happy Birthday Andrea!

A big happy birthday to my little big sister Andrea - look how cute you are!

Hooker

Although I make pretty jewelry, I don't usually wear much of it. I'm not sure why, I just like to keep things simple. A necklace here, a bracelet there. I like rings, but only one on each hand. I wear earrings sometimes, but I won't wear a necklace AND earrings at the same time. Whenever I do, I feel like it's just too much sparkle. "Overdecorated" is how I like to put it. Other people look great with matched sets of earrings and neckalces but for me, it's just too much.

I once told this to my friends Amanda and Flannery who somehow took "overdecorated" to mean "street walker". Now whenever they wear a necklace and earrings together, they will point out the fact that, thanks to their jewelry choices, they're prostitutes. They point out coworkers and people around them who wear jewelry like prostitutes.

I think of them whenever I put my jewelry on and this morning I decided to go wild. I chose to wear my Mandi necklace AND a pair of stud earrings from Lia Sophia. WOAH! It felt like too much when I put it all on, especially with my shiny glasses and the stripey shirt I'm wearing, but it's summer and it's hot - why not be wild? So this post is for you guys. Just a warning, I'm looking like a hooker today.

Ow, My Arm Hurts

I'm gonna need an ice pack if I pat myself on the back any more about this thing - but I just love it!


Here's how the base for Dan and Mitzi's birth announcement came out. Is it cute or what? I drew that! That's the craziest thing for me to believe. I keep looking at it and admiring it and then I think, I drew that. How cool.

OK, enough about that. My big ego and I will leave now.

Weeding

Among the weeds in my garden yesterday...

Sea Creatures! (with measles!)

My friend Dan is about to meet his new daughter any day now and he and his wonderful wife Mitzi asked me to create the announcements for the soon-to-arrive Molly. What an honor! Yesterday I got to work creating some fun underwater animals with a tropical feel since Miss Molly will soon be arriving in the very tropical Tampa, Florida. Here's how it all went down.

First I sketched out some rough ideas of the creatures in pencil.Then I inked them by hand with my favorite Penstix pens. (If there is a way to do this in Illustrator or Photoshop or anything - please don't tell me - I don't want to know. It's bad enough that I used to win penmanship awards and now, thanks to my friends the keyboard, you can barely read my handwriting. If I learned to ink fancy lines with the computer, I'd forget why pens and pencils were ever created in the first place.)
Then I played and played in Photoshop and added color and had a little fun with the polka dots and - VOILA! Here they are. More on the announcement to come soon.

Speechless

I have several half-formed thoughts I wanted to write about today but my brain is still not operating at full speed thanks to either the beautiful weather, turning 30, or the unshakable sleepiness due to the vacation I can't seem to get over. While I collect my thoughts, I thought I'd show you this hibiscus I shot while we were in Glens Falls. Hibiscus in New York state? Who knew!?

Americade 2006 - The Recap

Wednesday

Our original plan was to leave in the afternoon on Wednesday to ride up to Americade (in Lake George, NY) and stay with friends until Saturday or Sunday, then ride home. Well, 3am on Wednesday I was laying in bed, wide awake listening to the rain that wasn't supposed to come until the late afternoon. Now what? We went through so many plans and scenarios - we weren't going, then Luke was going without me, then I was going to meet him up there Thursday, then we weren't going, then Luke was going but coming home Thursday. The clothes came out of the bags, back into the bags, out of the bags. Luke was suited up and ready to go by himself when he said, "why don't you come with me?" So I went. In the rain. The POURING rain. If you were in Connecticut on Wednesday, you'll remember that rain - it was awful. I was looking to get a little rain riding experience under my belt and I got almost 5 hours of it that day. It didn't stop raining until Thursday and my rain gear started to fail before we were even 20 minutes from home. It was a wet ride. It was so bad that I was crazy-laughing to myself, thinking of how I would write about it here and maybe title the entry "Wetmericade: Sogfest 2006". The cold was getting to my brain.



We survived and got to the Hill of Happiness in Lake George around 5pm, wet and tired and alone. The group we were staying with had gone for a nearly 300 mile trip that day (despite the forecast) and were in Vermont trying to make it back - some had no rain gear and it was pouring. We found an open cabin and hunkered down until the all made it back around 8pm, wet and exhausted. We all dried off and went to bed hoping the rain would be gone by morning.

Thursday

Although I wouldn’t call it sunny, at least it wasn’t raining when we woke up. About twelve of us piled in the van and drove downtown to go to the big vendor area. We shopped and wandered and had a lucky rain-free day. Luke was looking for heat grips for his bike but had no luck. He bought a few little things like a neck-warmer and a throttle-rocker and I got ice cream and my Americade 2006 pin.



Don’t tell the cops, but back at the Hill of Happiness, we put four chairs from the motel in the back of Joe’s van and managed to pile fourteen of us in there to drive to dinner. Squishy but interesting. We all had a great meal at the restaurant and, despite the waitress whose name was B.J. (I kid you not) and who had a squeaky voice and no concept of personal information, we all had a great time.

Friday (Luke’s 30th Birthday)

The forecast said rain possible but we saw the sun peeking through the clouds so we all geared up and took the long ride to Fort Ticonderoga for breakfast at the Hot Biscuit. A table for fourteen is not usually an easy thing to come by, but the Biscuit was ready when we got there.


Luke got started his birthday off right with a happy birthday song from all of us and a candle in his eggs. After the Biscuit, we took a nice ride on some curvy roads around the lake and beyond. I rode second in the pack most of the time and had such a blast taking the turns and checking out the scenery. It rained on and off but it wasn’t too bad.



That night we went into Glens Falls to a great brew pub, Davidson’s maybe? I can’t remember the name, anyway, great food, great beer, and Luke got a birthday candle in his salad, in his mashed potatoes, and then in a piece of cake from the waitress. He gradually started to loose patience for the candle and the singing, but come on! How often do you turn thirty?



Mark planned ahead and grabbed a shopping cart in case Luke needed a ride to the car but he was fine when we left. He hopped in the cart anyhow, never one to refuse a free ride, and got pushed back to the car. It was a fun night.

Saturday

Guess what? More rain in the forecast! It didn’t look too bad, though, so we set out, just me, Luke, Fran and Tracy for a little riding with Fran’s friend Billy. Billy has a house up there so he took us to all the local bars and stops he likes to make.


He showed us some great, swooping, empty farm roads and we had a great afternoon of wandering around the area. We ended our ride on the strip in Lake George at DJ’s.



At DJ's, there’s a deck right against the street and you can sit there and eat and drink while you watch the crowds walk by and the bikes drive past. That’s my favorite part of going to Americade – people watching. One of the guys sitting next to us was shouting to all the girls who drove by to tell them that his friend there was single and interested in buying them a drink. He even had a set of beads, Mardi Gras-style for whoever wanted to flash him. Some girl walking by with a sexy little outfit on took him up on his offer and gave the deck a free show. Interesting. And no, I didn’t take a picture of that. There were several people walking their dogs in strollers and many interesting outfit choices. There was a terrible-looking pregnant girl with an over-burdened t-shirt stretched across her huge belly that read “M.I.L.F. in Training”. Yeah… I don’t think so. A couple we kept seeing were wearing matching t-shirts that said in big, yellow letters: “Sex Police, K-9 Unit, Doggie Style” Really? Do you think maybe she doesn’t know how to read? Why would she proudly wear that shirt down the strip for all to see?

We spent a while at DJ’s and then brought the bikes back to the Hill of Happiness and drove back downtown in the car for some dinner and more people watching. I forgot my camera, unfortunately, because there were two young girls riding this thing that looked like a three-wheeled quad. Two wheels in the front and one in the back with a motorcycle seat. It was cold that night but these two chickies were cruising the strip in tiny half shirts and low-rise jeans with their thongs proudly displayed. When people asked if they could take a picture, they half stood on the bike and posed with their butts half-exposed. Again, interesting.

Sunday

Time to go home. We packed up the night before and planned to hit the road as soon as we got up. Well we didn’t get up until after 8:30 and got on the road a little late. We wanted to take the nice roads home but had somewhere to go at 4 back home so we rode some nice roads, then hit the Mass Pike and 91 back home. I was exhausted and stiff and all I wanted to do was go pick up Molly and go to sleep.

Molly was so happy to see me and licked my face all over. She stayed with my mom and my mom’s dog, Aimee, who Molly’s not entirely fond of. I called on Saturday to check in and my mom told me that the two dogs were riding in the car with their heads out the window when Molly pulled her head in and stepped on the automatic window-up button and rolled Aimee’s head up in the window! HA! She was sick of Aimee’s crap, I guess.

So now we’re back. We sort of glommed onto this group of friends and luckily they were nice enough to welcome us in. Now I feel like a part of the group and for that I want to thank all of them. Thanks, we had a great time!

Serious Vacation Hangover

600+ miles, about 8 inches of freakin rain, one birthday celebration, four days and five nights of riding motorcycles, hanging with friends, making new friends, eating too much, laughing a lot and drinking beer. I'm beat. Americade was wet, but Americade was fun. A full recap with pictures will come after I drink a gallon of coffee, but in the meantime you can see my pics of the weekend here.

Has This Ever Happened to You?

You enter a seemingly empty, very quiet room, like, say, a public restroom. You go about your business, your mind caught up in some plans, maybe what you need to pack for your vacation, you're deep in thoughts and mental lists, when you suddenly hear FLUSSSH!! There's someone else in there! Not only are you now startled, but also suddenly embarassed and searching your recent memory wondering, was I talking to myself? Did the mysterious flusher hear me talk or sigh or wonder aloud?

I hate it when that happens. Maybe it's just me...

Lazy, Crabby, and Maybe Having a Bit of a Panic Attack

I'm feeling very lazy and very sorry about it. My friends Flannery, Amanda and Beth all pitched in and nearly drowned in this year's Relay for Life. I was a member of Team Blue Ohana last year and wanted to help out this year but wasn't able to commit and now feel really bad about not being there. I want to congratulate the ladies for being so awesome and for braving the torrential rain. You guys rock.

I'm feeling crabby... I'm not sure why. Maybe it's from the guilt. Maybe it's because Luke's home on vacation now and I had to go to work. Maybe it's worrying about our little mini-vacation this weekend. Which leads me to the panic attack...

I am worrying about the packing and the logistics of finding a place for Molly to hang for the weekend, and the things to buy and the bills to pay before we leave and the money I don't have to spend when we get there. I feel like I've been holding my breath all weekend. I was psyched when I found out that we were going, now I'm freaking out. It's a vacation, for Pete's sake! For four short days. I really need medication.

Inked

Here it is - all done and ready to be delivered early tomorrow morning. Bonus points if you can find my signature mark.

Artsy What?

Yes, I changed the title of my blog. I wasn't feeling inspired when I set up the blog several months ago so I figured that I'd name it after my website. Now, after seeing the traffic my firends' blogs are getting and seeing how no manner of searching Blogger brings up my blog because it has such a boring, non-descript title, I've decided to change it. Welcome to Artsy Fartsy!

Big Bertha

She's baaaack.

Big Bertha, the gigantic snapping turtle came back yesterday to find a spot to lay her eggs. This picture really doesn't do her justice - she's huge. And prehistoric-looking. Her tail looks like a dinosaur tail with the spikes going down the center and those claws are ridiculously long. Here's a shot with my shoe next to her for scale. It was raining when I took the shot and my camera wasn't cooperating so it's kinda blurry.

That's a size-8 Teva there, so I'm guessing that from tail to nose, she was about 24-inches long. She lumbered around the whole yard until she found the sandiest spot to dig a hole for her nest. She picked the same spot as last year when we caught her in mid-lay. Here's what she looked like then.

At least we think that's her. I can't imagine (and don't really want to imagine) a whole clan of these giant snappers living behind the house, so let's just say it's her. She looks bigger this year. Yeah, she could have snapped my leg off if she really wanted to, but she had better things to do.

Molly was really ticked that I got to play with the turtle and she didn't. She barked at her through the window every time Bertha made a turtle sprint across the yard but we wouldn't let her out to investigate - we like Molly with all four of her legs.

Color Blocking

I forgot to update you on the illustration assignment I've been working on. There was another edit after my client's client looked at the sketch and the final sketch was approved.

Last night I started to put ink to paper. First I transfer my sketch to the watercolor paper, then I lightly ink the lines, then the fun part - color! I started to block in the big areas of color which will help me to decide what color the smaller, detail areas will be. This is how it looks so far. More progress to come tonight!