Bb

The second letter of the Latin alphabet also a consonant.

Words related to B:
Blues - I have the blues today (unrelated to the weather or work)
Blue - The sky is blue today but i'm stuck inside
Boo - for work

Topics related to B:
Baby - My sister sent me the funniest email yesterday about being all freaked over having to recover from delivery* and how to take care of a new born. They'd gone to a birthing class talking about postpartum depression and how much time the baby spends eating, sleeping & pooping. I think she was more freaked out about having to ask for help, which she'll ask and receive in abundance! I told her all this scary news made me just want to rush home and get pregnant. She emailed back "After the class i wanted to take back mine but I don't think God takes returns or exchanges, LOL" - lol indeed! *a little over two months away

Bolthouse Farms - They make this really yummy protein drink that i can only seem to find in the cold drink section of Albertson's. It's called Perfectly Protein: Mocha Cappuccino with Whey Protein but here's the thing, i shouldn't drink it. Sure it has 19g of Protein per bottle but it also has milk and whey which is a by-product of milk. I shouldn't be drinking milk it does bad things to my stomach and skin. So, alas I'll have to give up this tasty drink. Good news, they have several fruits and veggies that are not milk based. The Green Goodness really is goodness in a bottle.

Bark - I have a good friend in Texas that sends me postcards about once a week, maybe every other week depending on her life and all. I have been meaning to make it a regular thing to post her postcards but just now getting around to it. Turns out that she sent me one recently with bark as the picture. On the back she writes a quote sometimes two.

"Even if money did grow on trees it would never get a change to ripen." Anonymous
"The social ideal is rooted in than quality, not enthusiasm." - Mario Vargas Llosa

Link related to the alphabet:
San Serriffe - started as an April Fools joke about a whole island all based on fonts, fun readin'.

***
To follow up a topic under A - the art group that was disbanded met last night and the only conclusive thing that came out of it was the group of people still want to meet as a group.

The general thoughts:
- The possibilities for the group are endless
- There will a collaboration of a few people as "leaders" but who those people are it has yet to be determined.
- Small groups will split off from the large one to do various classes, project, outing etc.
- The church that the group started in is very willing to work along side us. For example if the church would like to have an artist during a service then he'd contact our group about who wanted to do that. If the church wanted to host a gallery on a particular theme the group would be contacted to help organize and contribute art. This all seems very good.
- Communication is HUGE HUGE important and clear concise communication needs to start now.
My general feeling is, a lot of people have huge dreams for the group but in general we don't really know what our very next step is. I feel a little overwhelmed by the options. I think our next meeting will be about what did God show you this past month. I'm willing to stick through the transitions to see what God does.

Crafts

As part of heading up the art groups Christmas party I was thinking of party favors. On Martha's site I found these cute little paper stockings. Of course this is what I choose to do for the favors. However, I will not be sawing these things. No, no, the glue stick is going to be my best friend.

Here is the first stage:


I'm using left over wrapping paper from last year. This is causing the stockings to be curly right now and those were the only small paper weights i could find for the photo. I will be smashing them flat for a few days and then applying the backing and little decorate things for the "cuff" of the stocking. There will be about 30 when finished.

Today I also made a list of all the project I need to get done for Christmas. Many of them still have to do with wedding photos that I was suppose to get to people by last Christmas but we waited so long to order them that we didn't get them until Feb. of this year. So, this year it's wedding stuff. Plus, I'm making a new snowflake block print for everyone like I've done the past few years. My family seems to like them but if they didn't I don't think they'd tell me. They're much too polite - instead they'd just put it in a drawer somewhere and I'd forget to notice if they were out or not. Of course it helps that I'm not there every year for the holiday. So, point is, I'm gonna be busy!

I have to share this photo of my husband and his dog Nitro. Sure, I could say "our" dog but really Nitro doesn't listen to me very well and being a Heeler he can only be super obsessed loyal to one person but can be protective of a whole family. I thought the paw on his shoulder was really cute.

Art Every Day Post - finally

I came home from a blah kind of day. Realized, I have this whole evening to my self*. My office is clean and I really like sitting in there**. Lets do art!

I found my mp3 for some Jars of Clay. I pulled out my sketchbook - it is a big 11x14 thing, love it. I pull out my oil pastels which i have not used in-for-ever. I have doodled this little flower with only half the petals for a couple of weeks now. The thought popped into my head that it looked a lot like a crown. Tonight I doodled it out and created a full color version and a more duo-tone but um, i like the full color better. Also as part of the process i moved my hand over the little colors until one said "pick me!". I doodled some little shapes. It was fun.

It only took 45 minutes.

But i felt satisfied and told my self i don't have to make this a long process. I can do fun, quick, sketches and be done with the night that quickly.

Of course after taking pictures, editing said pictures, uploading and posting about it. I'm pushing an hour and half on time.





*hubby is working a night shift (4p-midnight) at a different branch of the vet company he works for.

** even though there is a mouse that is somewhere between my office and the living room. Yeah, gross but sooo much better than roaches. Except we can't get the apartment complex to call us back and no one is in the office! But i'm not really sure what they're going to do because the last time this happened they just put sticky traps in my kitchen (thats where it was last time) and then one actually worked and I had to have someone else deal with a dead mouse - blah!!!

Art Every Day

I almost didn't do anything creative today out of sheer self pity. What motivated me? I didn't want to type "I didn't do anything today, again". I over looked my office being a mess and took advantage of my dinning table being clean. I grabbed my giant clip board and supplies for watercolor. I had been having the urge to play around with them. I've had a couple of quick lessons on how to formally use them. Considering i have a very cheap set of pan watercolors and equally cheap but about a 2 year old never used before tube set, I didn't think formal training needed to be important for tonight. While my husband was a way playing basketball I played.

What I most like about watercolor is the layering look that is archived using layer after layer. I've been admiring Irisz Agocs* and she's mentioned using coffee to paint with. I had heard of this before but she has had some nice results. I thought I'd give it a try with my left over coffee. The mug is the result. The bird and the little spots of color were playing around. I think the yellow layered the best. Of course this could have something to do with the fact that I actually got pigment out of the tube instead of only the colored oily liquid. Anyway, I'm glad I did get something on the page for the day.



Interview with Irisz Agocs

Day 2 And...

Coming off of the high from the news of yesterday, today was kinda boring.

At work I had a few small projects after a week of nothing. My boss and I talked about possibly upping my salary and reworking my schedule so I work 4 days of 10 hours. This is all basically happening because I'm hitting my one year mark in a week and they want to keep me. They've hinted at more responsibilities after the new year and to hang in there for the next month or so of basically nothing to do. By the end of the conversation my boss made it very clear that he realizes it's not exactly what i wanted to be doing with my career but that they're open to doing just about anything to keep me another year. I hinted at him with no promises that I could give him another year. My husband and I have a lot of traveling planned for next year and a goal of buying a house - not the exact best time to go job hunting. He's talking with the higher ups about everything and will get back to me in a week or so.

This is all very flattering but part of my brain is saying "What?! Another year of this monotonous crap?!" Although, my other part is saying "Take it. Build up your own art. Sit with your self a little longer to really figure out if you want to stay in corporate graphic design or if you want to move in a different direction." I'll see what happens.

***Art Every Day***
Unfortunately I don't have any new art today.


***NaNoReMo***
I'm only a few pages behind to finish the 4th chapter of Catch 22. My first impression is, it's a little boring and I don't really care for the main character Yossarian yet. It's a good thing I have the general philosophy that i have to finish a book once i start it. Just this time i have to finish it with in a set time limit...

Got to go my husband has started Hot Fuzz and I must go watch. It's the best movie!

Now For Some Really AWESOME News

I'm an Aunt!!! this font is not big enough

My older sister and her husband are having their first child! I'm ecstatic!

This baby will be the first everything - First child, grandchild, great grandchild. The first to christen me and my siblings aunts and uncles. The first child to make great aunts and uncles out of my beloved aunts & uncles. The first to have second cousins. I find this so fitting for my sister because she is also the first grandchild and so forth.

How she told me since I'm in Oregon and she's in Texas:
I get home from work to log in and write my NoBloPoMo first entry. I check my email because you can't have the computer on with out check email. I find one from my sister. It goes something like this: "I took this interesting picture tell me what you think. I'll be out of town this weekend so call me. How are Christmas plans going? love..."

I open the attachment and there is her hand holding her pregnancy test with a little + in blue. Much squealing and shouting and celebratory dancing goes on in my living room. I call her. She doesn't answer the phone!!! I try her at home and it just rings and rings. I try her hubby's phone, voice mail. I leave really excited messages both times I get the voice mail. I must share this news with someone. I call my husband at work - i can barely keep from squealing while I'm on hold. Once he picks up I shout the news into the phone! He's all very happy sound and saying things like "that's great news" but then has to go.

I'm giddy and bouncing around the living room. My dogs have retreated to the hall way and stare at me from a safe distance. I must have been really freakin' them out because usually they are all for jumping up and down with you. I notice my mom is online... I wonder if she knows... I can't keep this to my self I must find out in a round about way if she too got an email from S. So we him-haw back and froth beating around the bush and finally we figure out we're talking about the same thing. In fact it turns out I am the last family member to know. My mom calls me and we squeal some more and lament about how S won't answer her phone. Then my sister finally calls!

Here is what I know some from her some from my parents:
- She's 3 months
- She has a midwife
- The birthing center is beautiful
- They have heard the heart beat
- She wanted to wait and tell me at Christmas in person by picking me up at the airport. I'm so thankful she didn't because if one of the family members had slipped and told me I would have been so bummed not to find out from her. I loved the photo email anyway.
- Beatrix Potter is going to be the nursery theme
- They're going to find out what they're having when they can
- Each family member found out in person in a cool way. She's yet to have time to tell me all this because she was out tonight and had to get back to the meeting she was attending. My dad told me how he and my siblings and his parents found out. I'll document this later I think.
- The due date is May 23rd. It will share my birthday month! My paternal grandfather wants her to wait another 2 weeks and have it on June 4th, his birthday, lol.

I spoke with my step-mom and we discussed maybe having a baby shower in Dec. when I'm down there for Christmas. We're wondering if this is too early. Maybe it could just be a cool women get together to celebrate the new life.

*Sigh* I can't wait to do all these little cool things for my sister who has done so many cool things for me at special times in my life.


*** Art Every Day ***

Growing up my mom always decorated for fall/thanksgiving with pumpkins, gourds and cobs of corn in different colors. I liked this tradition so I continue it. Here are pictures of my arrangement for our dinning table, I don't have a fireplace to decorate like I did growing up.



The green pumpkin is from my in-law's pumpkin patch, it didn't ripen and I liked the way it looked. I was so excited to find the gourde with the little legs. I really want to glue eyes to it and a little mouth to make it a little creature. Maybe I'll do that later this month. The card is a Halloween one a friend sent me. I thought it had a nice pattern.

While shooting I found a few limitations on the depth of field options for my camera. Also, that I don't have very good lamps for lighting in the apartment. This was shot using a lamp with a twist able arm and one bulb.

A little different perspective:



I told ya'll November is going to be a good month!

p.s. if you want to find out my mom's reaction you can go to MarillaAnne's site and I'm sure she'll post tomorrow - she lost internet connection tonight.

November Is Do Everything Month

Finally, I think I have everything set up for National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo)! I switched back to blogger after a short stint with a different blog provider. Oh, why I ever left Google I'll never know...

I have been blogging off and on for several years. Never have I kept a consistent blog but I've started several. Come November I'm taking the challenge to post everyday for the whole month! If you're interested in participating you can sing up nablopomo.com - or go through the link badge to the right.

Topics for this challenge won't be a problem. I might struggle more with my aversion to the computer once I'm home from work. Although, our evenings seem to be falling into a nice pattern of come home, cook dinner, husband plays Halo and I turn on the computer and puts around online. I'll do my best to keep this blog up to date.

*** Other Things To Do In November ***

Art Every Day Month - hosted by Creative Every Day.
I like her rules, the guideline is to be creative everyday for the month of November. Although, she still encourages you to be creative even if it's only once a week.

Again, I haven't been consistent with my art either. I am part of an art group that meets weekly to practice drawing and new mediums. Although, I've only been producing about one piece per month if that. I'm going to take this one a little more relaxed and work towards one collage a week with a little photography mixed in.

National Novel Reading Month - NaNoReMo - Hosted by Defective Yeti
This is another bloggers twist on NaNoWriMo but you read a novel and discusses it instead. This years book for the month is Catch22. This will be a new one for me but I've been told I should read it.

I figure that I read a lot anyway and I am currently way behind on the To Be Read challenge I started earlier this year, sooo... why not start a new challenge! If you'd like to participate, grab a copy and follow the syllabus for what chapters to read by when and comment about it on Yeti's site or blog on your own.


We'll see how productive I am this coming month!