Sketchy

I know, you've all been wondering, Lisa, what's it like to get an illustration job? Well, being the passive marketer I've been lately, I have to admit, I almost forgot. Thankfully, my favorite clients Ford Folios, called recently to ask me to work on a new project for a local fair catalog. I thought it might be fun to share the steps of a new job with you.

#1 Ideas and Rough Sketches

The wonderful folks at Ford Folios are brilliant and creative and usually have a good idea of what they'd like to see before they call me, so for me, that's very nice. Their specific ideas and my little touches make for a fun project. For this one, they wanted a picture of the kids' pedal tractor pull with kid on a pedal tractor pulling a wagon of candy or apples or something like that. The catalog is small, and there needs to be room for the title and some text here and there. I got to work on some very rough sketches and here's what I came up with.


#2 Fine-Tuning the Design

The FF folks thought that the girl looked more like she was in a parade than a tractor pull and neither of us was thrilled with the boy with the apples. We both liked the thrid boy with the puppy and the girls i nthe background, but they asked if I could also add a weight to the wagon. After redrawing it with the weight, I decded that the wagon looked a little crowded wit hthe puppy so lef thim out. I thought the wagon needed a little character, so I decided it should be made out of wood, and I thought that the background didn't look like a fairground, so I added some fair details. The FF folks liked the girls in the background because they thought it looked like that boy was trying to impress them. This is what the next sketch looked like.
The FF folks liked the weight, but missed the puppy (me too!) and they said they liked the simpler tree/bird background a opposed to the fair background. I had to redraw the wagon to make it a little bigger to accomodate the puppy, and move the girls back a bit so the puppy didn't cover them. Here's what I came up with.
It's up to the fair officials now to approve the sketch and then when I get the OK, I can put paint to paper. Now for step 3, waiting.

Twenty-frickin-Four

I don't watch a lot of TV. Sometimes I wish I did so I could share in the conversations about Survivor or Lost or House (which has awesome commercials that make me want to watch it) or whatever everyone else is talking about. I'm so out of it. I only have two shows that I watch every week: Gilmore Girls and 24. I've been watching GG for years, but I was only infected with the contagious 24 virus at the beginning of last season. Our neighbors talked about it all the time and were so hooked on it that we wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Well. Let me tell you. All the fuss was about Mr. Jack "I can kill you with just about anything including my penetrating stare" Bauer. And the super-suspenseful structure that keeps 24 going (which, for anyone out there who might watch less TV than me, is that each season takes place over the course of only one day, each weekly episode is an hour in that day). We were hooked and watched every week until the end where Jack had to fake his death and disappear forever to avoid imprisonment by the Chinese government. Forever? Really? I had a feeling he'd have to come back for some reason and I wanted to see that, so we started to watch 24 this season. And he came back. Surprise, surprise.

Since this season began, I have been loyally watching every show even though I get so emotionally wrapped up in the show that I get physically uncomfortable and want to leap through the TV to slap that smug bastard President Logan and I shout things at the TV like, "slap him with your pistol!" or "kick him in the nuts!" (which I yelled last night). It's not healthy. I don't sleep well on Monday nights because I go directly from watching 24, holding my breath for an hour, to trying to sleep and instead, having fitful dreams of the CTU and things exploding and me running from bad guys.

So we had agreed that we wouldn't watch 24 next season. Luke doesn't like to have shows that we watch and he'd be happy to just get rid of the TV altogether and I thought I could do without the stress, so it was settled.

Until last night. Last night was the season finale. The last two hours. The wrap up in which Jack Bauer saves the day again and gets hit in the head with a wrench and shot at and kills many bad guys and then gets to go back to his girlfriend and actually have a happy moment. A moment where he might actually smile for the first time in the two years I've watched this show - but wait, before you go home with your girlfriend and live happily ever after Jack, there's a phone call for you, and even though we all have multiple cell phones and calling devices, we've forwarded this call to the phone inside this creepy dark warehouse. Go there, take the call in "private".

It's at this point that I said to Luke, "there's still the small matter of the Chinese government who are going to want to kill him now that they know he's alive." Well. Wouldn't you know, the Chinese government kidnaps Jack and beats the crap out of him. He tells them to kill him, they say that he's too valuable to kill. And the show ends with Jack's girlfriend noticing that he's missing and a view of a container ship sailing away, toward China I assume.

NOW I HAVE TO WATCH IT NEXT SEASON! Damn it! All I wanted was to see President Logan go down (check), I wanted the terrorists to be stopped (check) and I wanted to see the creeps who worked with Logan (like that weasely little jerk with the wireless headset and the irritating glasses) to get what was coming to them, too. Then I would have been happy. But noOOoooo. Instead, Jack Bauer has to be dragged off by the Chinese and now I have to wonder about him until next January when I'm sure I'll be too weak to resist the lure of the commercials and I'll be hooked again on another emotional season of twenty-frickin-four.

Thanks a lot FOX!

Not Interested

Every spring the turtles come up from the river to lay their eggs in the sandy ground around our house. Every year Molly tries to convince them to play with her.


Molly: (sniff, sniff) Hey! What's this?

Turtle: (from inside shell) Go away.

Molly: Hey, you're not a rock.

Turtle: Go away.

Molly: Let's play!

Turtle: I'm out of here...

Changes to Etsy

Things haven't been moving at my Etsy shop, but I'm just convinced that I can sell my jewelry there. It seems so easy and convenient and so many other people are doing it! One woman is even selling homemade cookies for $15 a batch! How does she do it?

In an effort to make my shop clean and easy to navigate, I've decided to create two separate shops - one for my jewelry and one for my art. You can now visit the new and improved Jewelry by Lisa Gaumond or the new (and currently empty) Lisa's Studio.

Jewelry by Lisa Gaumond now features new photos, new styles, and even a new "Amanda" bracelet! I still have the double bracelet to name, should I call that one the "Paula" or maybe the "Flannery"? I've been naming the jewelry after the person who inspired me to make it or who bought the most of that style, but I don't make many of the double bracelets so I don't know who to name it after...

Well, stay tuned, more lovely things will be added to Lisa's Studio very soon and new pieces will be added to Jewelry by Lisa Gaumond as often as I can make them.

Finished!

Here's the final product for the crayfish postcard. What do you think? If you're in the area in July, shoot me an email. It's a fun time. You don't have to ride a motorcycle to partake. All you have to do is like to eat.

I pinch.

Have you seen the recent commercial for the Honda Element? The one with the crab? If you haven't (and even if you have) you should treat yourself to this link: I Pinch. Luke and I are now bruised everywhere from sneaking up on eachother and saying like the crab "I peench!" or "maybe little peench?" or "why no peench?" Yes, we're cruel. And easily amused.

This little guy on the left won't pinch. He's a little sketchy sketch I did for a postcard announcing our third annual motorcycle campout and crawfish jambalaya extravaganza. We host a campout for my dad's motorcycle "gang" every July and the first year I wowed them all by catching crayfish in the river and making jambalaya out of them. Y-U-U-M-M-Y! So now it's tradition. Catching them is 90% of the fun. Peeling the little buggers sure isn't a party. You can see a slideshow of last year's festivities here, just click on the "DHMC Sweaty Boobs" (that's the old name for it, the summer version of the "Frosty Nutz" trip they take to Vermont in October - it will be renamed this year).

Oral History

I was so excited that my computer was finally hooked up again after being down for almost three weeks, so I could finally update my iPod. Along with all of the podcasts I was missing out on, I suddenly had the urge to buy music from my high school years. I don't know where the sudden taste for early 90s music came from but I went with it. Now strange floods of memories are hitting me whenever the songs play. Strange memories, weird points in my life, bad haircuts, awful outfit choices, they're all coming back to me and I just had the urge to share them with you.

18 and Life - Skid Row

It's 1990, my friend Jen and I spend every weekend at Golf Land, playing video games, eating at Subway, and irritating the patrons like no one but a 13-year old girl can. We're too cool for ourselves, even, and we're trying to look foxy in front of the (loser) guys who hang out there, too. (I say loser now, because looking back, they were a group of 18+ guys who hung out at Golf Land. Come on now! At least we were 13 and had to be dropped off by our parents. They had cars and could have gone somewhere else!) So I was wandering around the video game machines, I'm sure I smelled like Loves Baby Soft, when on the radio comes this guy singing this song - wait, is it a guy? That voice is pretty high. No, it must be a guy. "This song is AWESOME," I think to myself. I have to buy the tape! I go home and tune my radio to 107.3 WAAF and wait for them to play it again.

House of Pain - Faster Pussycat

The funniest thing about this memory is the thought, "I can't believe I did a project for English class on this song". They actually let me get away with that? I can't remember what the assignment was, but I loved this song so much that I remember illustrating a poster about the song with lyrics and blue flames. It rocked, I'm sure.

Ocean Size - Jane's Addiction

Probably sometime in 1991, I'm riding to school in my sister's 1981 silver Camero and this song is playing, not loudly enough for my taste, but it was a feat of patience on my sister's part that she actually let me play my tape in her car so I didn't complain. I think to myself, "god, I love Jane's Addiction. Who doesn't? I can't wait to have my OWN car with my OWN tape player so I can play Jane's Addiction all day every day as loud as it goes!"

This Love - Pantera

It's about 1993 and Luke convinces me to let him drive my car up to this spot above the highway in Willimantic where there's a lookout. It's over route 6 and I'm not sure exactly how we got there or if it was illegal, but we ended up way on top of the highway, looking down on all the cars. It was late at night and it felt like we were miles away from everything, we were so high up. We parked the car and cranked the stereo and this song came on, it was awesome. The sad part to this memory is that one of Luke's high school friends was in the car with us and a few weeks later he died in a drunk driving accident, so I can't hear this song without thinking of Dan. But it's still a great song that needs to be played loudly.

And one more memory, this one from elementary school and no, I didn't download the song from iTunes. But I'm thinking about it...

Elvira - The Oakridge Boys

When I turned eight, I had a birthday party at Skate Fantasy in Manchester (which is now, sadly, a Big Lots store). When you were the birthday girl at Skate Fantasy, you got to pick a song and have it played just for you. What song did I pick? That's right - Elvira. My heart was on fire, for Elvira. I think I was the only eight-year old who knew all of the words and I'm still amazed that they had it there to play, but play it they did and I skated and sang my little heart out. I also have a memory of sitting in the TV room at my parents' house and absolutely blasting this song on the record (yes, record) while I worked on a paint-by-numbers picture of a horse.

Well thanks for taking a walk down memory lane with me. Does this give you any insight on the strange person I've grown up to be? From the Oakridge Boys to Pantera to Jack Johnson. Interesting.

She's a Star!

Molly's profile finally showed up on Old Navy's mascot search page. Isn't she cute?

But look at her competition. These two perfect pups belong to my friend Amanda.

It's not too late for you to enter - the deadline is May 29 (which also happens to be my brithday in case you haven't bought me a present yet). To enter, visit the Old Navy website.

Visual Overload

PICTURES! Finally! And so as not to overwhelm your poor little eyeballs, I broke everything up into separate posts. I hope you like the pictures. I'm working on some great before and after shots of the house, too. Stay tuned for those.

The Office

No, not that Office, my office! Here are the shots of my beautiful new space.

This is the computer/beading area. Please take a moment to admire Luke's beautiful built-in desk. It's everything I hoped it would be!

Here is my painting/drawing space. Much time is spent here gazing out the window, daydreaming of new things to put on paper.

And here's another shot of the beautiful desk. See, I'm on Blogger! There's still a box of desk stuff that I haven't unpacked yet, so the surface will be much more cluttered with beautiful things and it will look much homier very soon. Even now, I just love it! I wake up in the morning and just look in here because it's so pretty and so much better than it was before!

The Mandi

Here we are, finally, the shots of my new necklace design, the Mandi, named after my cousin (who knows nothing about this) who was wearing the necklace at my mom's Lia Sophia jewelry party.
I figured that since Lia Sophia jewelry is "inspired" by designer jewelry, my necklace can be "inspired" too! The necklaces are 36-inches long and strung on colorful nylon cord (more colors coming soon). They can be worn as a single strand, or doubled up and worn as a two-strand look. Very pretty and very versitile and only $22. Soon to be listed on my Etsy shop.

Woof!

Here's miss sassy in her fancy new haircut. I cropped out the grass stain but you can still see her lovely new pink collar. (Blurry action shot due to her "sitting pretty" while I took the picture.)

Dilated

No, I'm not stoned, I had an eye exam this afternoon and was lucky enough to have my pupils dilated. This shot is three hours later and not as impressive as right after the exam when you couldn't even see what color my eyes were. Talk about uncomfortable! But I did score a new pair of prescription sunglasses, thank you Davis Vision. Everything is still kinda blurry and I'm typing in a dark room because light makes it feel like jagged spikes are being forced into the back of my eyes, but it's starting to go away. Just thought I'd share that with you as sort of a warning in case there are loads of spelling errors in these posts.

Pretty

It's very pretty. Too bad I don't have any pictures to show you. This weekend Luke and I busted our rumps to get the studio/office back together and organized. He built my dream desk and shelves in my closet, I cleaned and painted and cleaned and organized. I still have a little nesting and decorating to do, but it's just about finished. I love it. It's been so long since my studio was a place I wanted to be. When we moved into our house, my studio was in the nastiest room in the house with no carpet and bad lighting and none of my old office furniture fit well in there. I didn't feel at home in there and I ended up painting at the dining room table and making jewelry on the coffee table. Now I have a creative haven, complete with new floor, a built-in desk with room for my beads, and an organized place to stash all of my supplies. I'm in heaven. All thanks to my honey. (Here's a piece of advice for you single girls out there - marry a handy man. Seriously. I'd be living in a dirt floor shack without Luke. I don't know what I'd do without him in so many ways.)

So anyhow, yesterday we had the moms over to celebrate mothers day and I wasn't able to play in my studio because I was too busy fussing over the moms so I still haven't gotten any of the new pictures off my camera. Tomorrow - I promise. Your eyes will fall out of your head after all the fantastic things I have to show you. First there's my beautiful studio and the rest of the floors (which are DONE!!), then there's the new necklace design, and Molly has a new haircut.

Speaking of Molly, I just have to say that we've got one super-tough little pup. She may look small, but she can take a licking like you wouldn't believe. She jumped into Luke's truck once and slipped out, falling on her back on the concrete; she's attempted to leap up onto the deck without using the stairs and instead ended up wedging herself into the space on the back of the stair (in other words - through the step); she once had a tree stump fall on her when she was playing where she shouldn't have been in the river; and yesterday, she pole-vaulted herself into the ground using her little snout as a pole.

We were out in the yard and she was running around, herding imaginary sheep or whatever it is that causes her to run in giant circles at breakneck speeds with her body leaning in at a 30-degree angle, when something went terribly wrong. Maybe the rain got in her eyes, maybe the g-force knocked her out momentarily. Whatever it was, she took one fantastic header that actually left grass stain on her shoulder. She came around a bend and was about to slam headfirst into a tree stump. She managed to pull out of it, but then she tumbled and planted her little nose in the ground. He body was still going too fast to stop and she, as Luke described it, pole-vaulted herself over, slamming her body to the ground and making her skid to a stop in the grass. I missed the most dramatic portion of this show, thank goodness, and only showed up after she had popped back up wet and dirty, and was panting and shaking with excited energy, ready to keep running. I poked at her, I squeezed her muscles and moved her limbs and she seemed perfectly fine. I can't believe it. She's made of rubber, I swear. I hurt my back walking to my car - she body slams herself at 30MPH and she's ready to keep running. She's a tank.

So anyhow, tomorrow, my three faithful readers. I will have plenty to show you tomorrow!

Misery Loves Company

Looks like someone else is freaking out about an upcoming birthday. One of my regular blog reads, the very funny Ultratart. Hey, at least I'm younger than she is!

Sorry the blog's been photo-free lately. My home computer is still in three different rooms of my house, patiently awaiting its new desk which my wonderful hubby will build for me this week, so I have to bring my pictures to work to upload. This scheme was working fine until impending old age or the large amount of pain-killers I was on last week caused me to jam my CF card into the reader backwards and bend the pins. CRAP! Now I can't get it to work and I have buy a new one.

I promise I do have some new things to show you, like my newly redecorated, reorganized, refloored studio and the new necklace design I'm adding to the line. I like naming my jewelry after friends who inspired it (like the"Christy") so I think I'm going to call this one the "Mandi" after my cousin who was wearing a Lia Sophia necklace that inspired me to create my own. So just imagine how fabulous everything looks right now and I will post pictures for you very soon!

Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit

I'm not a superstitious person. I walk under ladders, I don't "knock on wood", I open umbrellas indoors, but there is one little thing that I must do on the first day of every month or else all hell breaks loose.

My third grade music teacer, Mrs. VanSickle (no I didn't make that up) cursed me by telling me and the other impressionable eight year-olds that on the first day of each month, the first thing you say in the morning right after you wake up should be "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" and then you'll have good luck all month long. Now, Mrs. VanSickle also taught me how to play the recorder and sing silly songs, none of which I can remember twenty-two years later, but "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" has stayed with me these many years. I've even brainwashed my husband into doing it. I usually wake up, roll over, look at him and say "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit". He says it back and then we bicker about who has to get up and go make coffee. This has become normal. I have succeeded in passing along the curse. Nearly every month for the past twenty-two years, I've said "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" on the first of each month. Except for this month.

This month, on Monday May 1st, I woke up early and took Molly for a walk, making sure not to say anything. I figured that Luke generally plays along with the "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" thing but at 5:45 in the morning, he might not be so accomodating so I was planning to hit him up with it when we got back from our walk. We ventured down to the river, Molly frolicked and swam and chased the birds, I whistled to signal that we were heading back (because whistling doesn't actually count as talking) and we went back to the house. When Molly ran straight to the door without me having to whistle again, like usual, I was so happy that I just said "GOOD GIRL!" ...and then a sharp intake of breath - oh crap - I didn't say "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit"!

Gloomily, I went in the house, knowing that I was now doomed for the rest of the month - my BIRTHDAY month - and I went to see if Luke was up and said the standard "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" then told him what happened. He laughted, because he thinks I'm crazy already, and we went on with our days. I headed over to Max Downtown before work to fix their chalkboard again, then as I was walking back to my car, the curse of the rabbit hit me like a ton of bricks - I had a back spasm. Crap. I managed to cram myself into my car and tried to breathe through the spasm as I called work to say I was going home to lay on an ice pack. I drove home and hobbled inside, made an appointment with the chiropractor and cursed that Mrs. VanSickle. This is all her fault.

I've been out of work and away from the Internet for three days now. I came to work today, partially to do some work, but really to check my email and catch up on the blogs I haven't been reading. I was starting to feel twitchy. I can't go that long without going online! The real kicker is that we just put the new floor down in my office and had to move the computer out. If I was desperate enough, I could have put it back together and gone online from home except for the fact that the darn thing weighs a ton and right now, carrying my purse and a bottle of water at the same time is a little more than I can take. I've missed you internet. I'll file this under reason #679 that I should have bought a laptop.

A Milestone

Happy Anniversary BBCS! What a day - we've made it a whole year and today I've been getting so many messages from well-wishers wanting to congratulate us on a year of book-clubbing. Look, even Wally sent a message to say hello:
(click for a bigger picture)

Happy one year to my fellow BBCS members. (The only ones who will possibly understand this post.) It's been a fun year. See you at Chili's!

-Your President

My Recommendation to You

Today is a rainy, chilly, nasty-looking day and I am trying to pay my bills even though I don't have enough money and don't get paid again for another week and I'm feeling really sad and blah and Eeyore-ish, so what do I do (besides whine about it to the vast expanses of the Internet)?

I visit Cute Overload!

You must go. Several times a day. There's nothing better than furry puppy faces to brighten your day. Like this one, and this one. And even this one.

See? Don't you feel better already?

The Exhausting Life of My Dog

Yeah, she's got it tough. Lucky for her she's cute...

Buns

I know I'm so very late posting this, but I forgot to do it on Friday and time has gotten away from me. So happy late Easter everyone.

These two cuties are the Easter gifts I made for my two cuties, my nephews Cameron and Alex. Here they are from the other side:I wanted to give them something that wasn't candy and I saw some bunnies like these on another blog so I stole the idea. Unfortunately, compared to the candy that Grandma gave them, my bunnies were no big deal. But that's all right, once the M&Ms are all gone, the bunnies will still be there.

Here are some shots of the wonder boys since they're just so darn cute. This is Cameron "The Egg Hunter" with my Grandma (who will be turning 89 next week - you go Grandma!):And here's Alex "Action Jackson" who took a digger off the couch the day before Easter. He's going to be a stunt man when he grows up:Happy spring everyone!

Early Morning Haiku

For some reason, at the edge of consciousness, in the early morning I seem to have this mental clarity that doesn't occur any other time of the day. For instance, this morning, as Molly performed her very persuasive get-up-and-put-your-sneakers-on dance, this little haiku came into my head:

Lick, lick, six-fifteen.
Get up let’s go for a walk.
Cold, wet, puppy nose.

Thirty

Welcome. Pull up a chair. Today is shallow day at the LisaGaumond.com blog.

Looking at the calendar just now, it occurred to me that, in less than two months, I will be turning thirty. Thirty. I can't stop saying it. Thirty. How old are you? I'm thirty.

Now, I don't dread turning thirty because I feel old - I've always felt older than I actually was. I've been mentally thirty for years and years, but not I'm going to actually BE thirty. I'm going to be physically thirty.

The physically thirty part is the hardest for me. Walking across campus today, looking at the healthy, young, tan, happy college girls on cell phones everywhere, it hit me: I will never look that good. I've already looked as good as I'll ever look. That year was 1994 and I was a senior in high school. I was a slightly malnourished vegetarian, I was the skinniest I've ever been, my hair was long and full, I was tan and my skin was smooth and freckle-free. Now, twelve short years later, I'm going to be THIRTY.

I have to wear sunscreen and cover-up. I have a bunion. I have spider veins and cellulite. If I get any more freckles, they might actually converge and I'll finally look tan again. I have a bad back. I need glasses. I'm a mess. Thank god I met my husband when I was 14 - if he met me for the first time in 2006, he'd scream and run the other way.

It's not at all fair because he's turning thirty, too. Only I get the privilege eleven days before he does, and I'm sure he's planning to let me know it. Eleven looong days when I'll be thirty and he'll be twenty-nine.

And he gets to look BETTER as he gets older, now that's just wrong. Sure, he complains, but it's only out of courtesy to me. Standing in front of the mirror and admiring how you're aging to perfection is really annoying. If he complains, it makes me feel better. He thinks he's getting a little softer around the edges, but he was too skinny to begin with. He thinks his hairline is receding but only a little on the sides of his forehead which looks like Sting's hair does and really, can that be a bad thing? I can't imagine he'd say the same thing about me - "Oh she complains that she's got spider veins, but I think of it as a lovely purple pattern on the backs of her legs. Like fine marble. They were too plain and boring before, now they have character!" I don't think so.

I'm looking forward to being thirty because I've always felt mentally that old. I'm not a sassy mid-twenties girl who goes to bars and stays out late. I'm a thirty year old. I like quiet nights, reading and gardening. Watching movies. I'll finally be as old as I act and that's fine. I just don't want to FEEL thirty. Does thirty feel nauseous? Cause that's how I feel now.

Time Flies

Holy cow. Alex is almost one year old. Already sporting a set of pearly whites...
and already walking better than his clumsy Auntie Lisa.
I can't believe how big you're getting! Slow down, would you?

In Defense of Girls' Night

Girls' Night, Ladies' Night... whatever you want call it, Girls' Night is a fun concept that my adorable husband just cannot grasp. I have plans tonight to go to a Girls' Night with my former co-workers and earlier, on the phone with Luke, he referred to it as Girrrls' Night (with a long "rrrr" sound and in the same tone you'd mention toenail fungus). His exact phrase was "since it's Girrrls' Night, I can't stop in. Huh?" No honey, cause you're not a girl.

I held a girl's night for the same crowd at my house a few months back and we had to turn it into a girls' and guys' night because he was so saddened that no guys would be coming over to keep him company. It was still a lot of fun but somehow I think the night would have been different of the guys stayed home. For instance, I'm sure I wouldn't have been walking back to the house with Megan and Angie at two in the morning in my socks, and we wouldn't have been covered up to our knees in mud. Long story involving a Jeep. And testosterone.

Don't get me wrong, I love hanging out with the guys, but there's just some overeating and complaining that can't be accomplished when the men are present. I need the girls' nights to remind me that I am a girl. I spend so much time with men that I need this time set aside to eat junk and talk about whatever comes to mind and hang out in a room where everyone has showered recently and no one farts and the only time boobs are mentioned it's when we're complaining about our bras.

My family started the tradition, several years ago, of a Girls' Night Out every year on the day after Christmas. It eventually turned into Girls' Morning In and now it's even harder to keep my persistent guy out of the group. He can't understand why he can't hang out when he knows and likes most of the people in the group, too. One year he even got the flu just so he could stay home and not go away when the girls arrived. (The nerve!)

I think I might know the reason for this Girls' Night aversion. The two of us have been together for 14 years now and we've sort of become one person. We do everything together, good and bad. Going somewhere without Luke is like going without my arm. My sometimes irritating, often grumpy arm. He's so used to being with me all the time that Girls' Night seems like a personal attack on him. I'm so used to having him with me that I get to feeling antsy after being without him for too long. I guess that's sweet... or maybe co-dependant, I'm not sure which.

So honey, I love you, but I need my girl time. I'm going to Girls' Night!

More Places To Buy My Stuff (cause I know that's what you all want)

Da-da da-d-da-daaaa! An exciting post announcing the opening of my new Etsy store located here: http://lgaumond.etsy.com Woo-hoo! What's that you say? A what store? Let me explain...

Etsy is a place to sell handcrafts of all sorts where a person like me can have a little store and sell things to nice people like you without having to program a shopping cart and update my webpage constantly. Yes, it's all about me. So go, shop, enjoy like crazy! Check back often, I think I might try to sell all sorts of fun stuff on there if it goes well. I might even have a few tie-dyed onesies left in the closet that I could throw on there.

I was signing up for my Etsy store and one of the questions it asks is how did you find out about Etsy? How DID I find it? Well, I'm not entirely sure.

You know how you can be riding in the car with a friend and you're talking about, I don't know, something that happened at work maybe, and then you stop talking and look out the window and see a street light on with moths flying around it, which makes you think of summer, which reminds you that you wanted to buy some sunless tanner, which makes you think of going to CVS, and that CVS is right next to a sushi place and then you remember that guy you were listening to on the radio who talked about mercury poisoning from sushi, an then you wonder if tuna has a lot of mercury, too and tuna makes you think of Chicken of the Sea, which of course makes you think of Jessica Simpson... then your friend asks you, (since it's been all of 10 seconds now since you stopped talking), what are you thinking about and you have to say "Jessica Simpson".

Yeah. That's how my net surfing goes. I go from one site to another following links and recommended sites and links in blogs until I'm absolutely lost and can't remember how I got to where I am. So thank you, whoever it was who had an Etsy store that I followed a link to in order to find out about Etsy. Ths announcement wouldn't be possible without you whoever you are.

So browse Etsy, there are some great shops on there, and be sure to stop by my shop every now and then!

Floored

My husband and I bought our house about two and a half years ago from a woman who was a professional chain-smoker, who had lived with her now deceased, also chain-smoking husband and their blind, elderly, incontinent Yorkie who peed on every 90 degree corner in the house, and also in the center of the floor, and on the walls. Anywhere he felt the urge, he peed.

So as you can imagine, the carpet was a little, well... nasty. We had it shampooed and we did our best, but it was still ugly, stained, and tan and on hot, humid days you could still come into the house and smell cigarette smoke. We were dying to tear up the carpets but we were waiting for the money to do it. Well, this year, the IRS was nice enough to direct deposit our floor money and we went out and bought ourselves 1,100 square feet of laminate flooring.

We picked up our new floor on Friday night and were so excited that we tore out the carpet the next morning. We worked round the clock, despite the cold I have and the raging fever and the aches and pains and the blood Luke shed in the process, we were determined. Two days down, we now have a beautiful new living room floor, the hallway is almost done, and the other rooms aren't far behind. Here are some lovely before and after shots. Notice the miserable Molly who thought we were moving and couldn't understand why the couch was no longer in the sunshine where she liked it.

It's a little dark, but this is the living room before:

And here it is after: (Feel free to Ooooh! and Aaaahh!)

And here's the dining room before:

And here's part of it after (we haven't gotten to the new floor yet, but the absence of nasty carpet still makes a difference):

Notice the sad, far-off look from the dramaic pup. She's happy now that the couch is back where she likes it, but this morning she insisted in laying on the dusty, nasty dining room floor.

Next weekend, my pup. We'll have the dining room floor done next weekend, if it kills us.

A big thank you to Amy at DIY Flooring for actually making it fun and not scary to buy a whole crapload of laminate flooring off the Internet from a company all the way across the country.

All These Books and Nothing to Read

I've been poking around online looking for a book to read and nothing looks that interesting to me. It could be the cold I'm fighting off or it could be that I just don't know what the heck I want to read next. Picking a new book is a big commitment. First there's the $14 it costs to buy one, then there's the couple of weeks I'll be spending with it, then there's all the doubt about the choice I made. It's hard!

I used to work at Borders where it was much easier to be daring and try out books - they were free after all. On lunch breaks, I could just take any book off the shelves and give it a try. I did this every day and read a store full of books without ever having to pay for a single one. Sweet.

This led to my favorite game of "What's Your Favorite Book?"

I asked the retired French teacher who stocked the Literature section (84 Charing Cross Road), the video game and comic book freak who stocked the Sci-Fi section (anything by Tim Robbins), the awkward Music Clerk (The Perks of Being a Wallflower) the dramatic Cafe Barista (Danielle Steel), everyone got asked.

They would tell me a book and I'd read it. No matter how freaky. Or boring. I figured it was reading after all, so even if it was Danielle Steel, there were worse things I could be doing with my brain cells.

This was the best thing in the world, I'm telling you.

Free books and I never had to choose for myself. This of course led to a frightening variety of tastes in books and led to other games like "Whatever Books Are Left On The Floor" where I'd read whatever someone hadn't thought to reshelve at the end of the day. That game was riskier and led to such delightfully bizarre books as Tex and Molly in the Afterlife.

I eventually left Borders and had to start choosing my own books. Which is so hard. I've resorted to choosing books based on their covers. I have to say it's worked out well for me. Being an illustrator who aspires to have her own artwork on the cover of a zillion books all over the world, I can appreciate a beautiful cover illustration and it makes me want to touch the book, to find out more. The covers are what interested me in these three awesome books by Garth Nix: Sabriel, Liriael and Abhorsen. (I think it was Leo and Diane Dillon who illustrated those covers - I love the Dillons' work. ) So I figure, if a publishing house thinks enough of a book to hire a good illustrator (or in the case of Mr. Nix's books - two phenomenal illustrators) then the book has got to be worth reading.

When there aren't any inspriing book covers to peak my interest, I often pick through my mom's enormous collection of books for something good. My mom works full time and goes to school and somehow manages to read three books at a time and, like a dozen a month. I don't get it. But anyhow, my mom likes to read books about serial killers and crazy people. She's interested in the psychology of it all, which I get, but when my mom tells me that she loves Augusten Burroughs and I should read Running with Scissors... Well, if any of you have read Running with Scissors, think about YOUR MOM telling you she loved it. It's like when my grandmother recommends a book with a big, nasty love scene in it. As I'm reading it, I'm thinking, "Grandma read this (eeew!) and now she knows that I'm reading it!" It's just a little disturbing, that's all.

Then there's the best-ever book club in the world, the BBCS, (I could tell you what is stands for, but then I'd have to kill you), which was started with four of my former co-workers. We have very few rules in the BBCS, (and actually reading the chosen book is not one of them), we're more interested in eating than reading, but having a common book to talk about for a few minutes just gives us a good excuse to meet for lunch more often.

The only rules a loyal BBCS member must follow are these: the chosen book must never be sad; never have anyone in it who dies, (unless it's an anonymous character in a murder-mystery book whose death, although unfortunate, is necessary for the storyline - it's the long, painful, harrowing deaths-by-cancer that we're not interested in reading); never have any dying pets, (that's a new one I added after a conversation about this evil book); and never ever ever are any books written by Alice Hoffman allowed in. We read one Alice Hoffman book early on in the organization of the BBCS and we all developed serious allergies to Ms. Hoffman's writing on account of the thick, heavily descriptive, overly abundant flora in her books. We now have an aversion to all apples, apple trees, flowering trees in general, and anyone named Jorie or Collie.

Other than the Hoffman mishap of '05, the BBCS has been a great resource for different types of books that I'd never choose on my own. I've read two murder mysteries, a collection of short stories, a book about a blogger, and my last selection, A Long Way Down, which I really enjoyed, and which added some fun new British curse words to my vocabulary, but which the rest of the BBCS wasn't to keen on. I told them to bugger off. I liked it and that's all that mattered! Our current book is Without You: A Memior of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent, which I haven't read yet because we developed a policy on hardcover books where if you don't feel like investing in the book, you can wait to borrow it from the person in the BBCS who chose it in the first place. So here I am waiting, and now I need a book to read.

I just finished reading The Secret Life of Bees which I read in three days and which I loved very much, but what do I read now? There was a little teaser in the back of The Secret Life of Bees about The Mermaid Chair which sounds fantastic but I just can't bring myself to read two books by the same author back to back. It just seems like a cop out. If I wanted to read the same author over and over, I could just read Danielle Steel for the rest of my life. I need to separate authors by at least a few books. So now what?

I got the idea in my head that I should take stock of what I've read recently. Maybe that would help me decide on what to read next. So here goes, in no certain order, just as I remember them, the books I've read in the past year. (This is March '05 to March '06 - not books I've read since January - I'm not that good.)

The Secret Life of Bees
The Dog Walker
A Long Way Down
Why Girls Are Weird
Good In Bed
I'm Not the New Me
Everybody Into the Pool
Dancing Naked at the Edge of Dawn
Dress Your Family in Courdoroy and Denim
Killer Summer
Sammy's Hill
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

And now I'm sad. Is that ALL I've read? In a year? Well, I have been busy. And I do read a lot of blogs, so that has to count for something.

All right, now I'm depressed at my illiteracy and I still don't know what I want to read next. Anybody got any suggestions?

The New Christy Line of Jewelry

Exciting news! I have a new jewelry offreing that I think you'll love - the two-strand necklace (AKA "The Christy").

My friend Christy is getting married this June and asked me to make her wedding party some personalized necklaces but she asked if I would make them two-stranded instead of three. Well, I made them, and by golly, I love them!

Just as much casual fun as the three-strand, but a bit more delicate and $10 cheaper! What more could a girl ask for. I don't have a large quantity of them at the moment, and there still aren't jewelry pictures on the website (I know - let's all make a collective "tsk" sound) but feel free to email me with your special orders anytime.

The new Christy is $20 and the earrings are still $10. I even made one for myself and I'm wearing it now as I type.

Sorry for the funky pictures - I took them on the lovely beige counter top in my kitchen.

And thanks Chrsity for the inspiration!

Before and After

Wow, it's been 8 weeks already!

Here's the before and after of Miss Puppy's most recent haircut. It's kinda hard to see in the pictures, but she was sporting a seroius case of rockstar hair on her head before. Now she's sleek and smooth and she knows she looks good.

Scruffy before...
Sleek and slightly aloof after...

This One's All For Flannery

Here are some of the fonts I liked for your postcard. I put them on both the hand-painted version and the Photoshopped version becasue (although it kills me to say it and I can hear my paintbrushes gasping as type this) I think I like the Photoshopped one better. You tell me what you think.

Here's Tangerine:

And Blackjack/London:

And finally, I thought I'd throw in a fancy font, but I only added it to the Photoshopped one. This is Freebooter:

So what are your thoughts? We never talked fonts, but since you're cute and funky and laid-back, I figured that your font should be, too. Cute and fun, not stuffy and fancy. Let me know what you think and if there are any fonts you had in mind.

6 months and three days...

Pretty Things

I'm too sleepy to write today so I'll leave you with some pretty pictures I've taken recently.

Like this one:
The old red barn at my friends Dave and Sharon's place.

And this one:
The side of our little wood bin near the house which looks like an outhouse when you look at it from the other side.

And this one:
Which I took last night when Molly and I went out for an after-work walk down to the river. The sky was such an amazing shade of blue - this shot just doesn't do it justice.

OK, time for a nap - enjoy your day!

How Do I Ever Get Out of the House

When I get this look every time I put my coat on.

It's says "I know, you're leaving without me, right? How could you? You're leaving me here ALL ALONE? No, the cat doesn't count, she won't play with me and she's too small to snuggle with. Can't I go with you? You know, you might as well just beat me if you're just going to abandon me like this. How could you?"

She's perfected it. Does she practice in the mirror when we're at work.

Here it is again:

This is the look I got this morning. She knows how to break my heart, that little booger. And this morning when I was so cold and tired and wanted nothing more than to climb back into bed and blow off work, she had to give me the puppy eyes while snuggled into the fleece blanket.

She's probably going through the trash at this very moment to get back at me...

New Job Update: Thrilled, Art-Drunk, Tired, Happy

I was looking back at some of my old posts and read Sad. Scared. Excited. Happy. and got that same sad feeling of loss and lonliness again so I thought I should post a follow-up .

I'm happy.

At my old job, I used to handle checks. Today I handled art. Real art. Amazing art. I held it, I looked at it, I moved it, I rolled in it (no, not really, but I was so excited and art-drunk at one point, I might have).

Sure, I sit behind a desk for most of the day, but a short walk from my desk is a collection of fantastic art. A few more steps down the hall is the gallery. And I have the keys!

I like to go in there before the gallery opens to the public when the lights aren't on but the sunlight is indirecly lighting the space. It's so quiet and private. I can look at everything and be alone with it and not feel self-conscious about looking at one piece for a really long time. It's the best.

So I might still feel a little lost and confused, I might be exhausted at the end of the day from trying to remember everything, I might not feel as comfortable as I was a my other job yet, but I'm getting there. It's good. I'm happy.