Schedules

Found out Friday that my husband's work schedule is going to change in June. June marks the end of school for the summer. It also marks the leaving of 2 employees and 2 prego ladies. He'll be working swing shift - 2pm till 10pm tues - sat. I am not pleased. There is not anything that can be done to change it until school starts again in the fall. Basically this means he'll be getting home when i'm going to sleep. Unless i throw off my sleep schedule, which i'm not completely rejecting the idea of adjusting it a night or two, we won't really see each other tues - fri.

The only silver lining is he'll be available to go on Saturday mornings art adventures. I have a group of friends that do summer field trips on Saturday for artsy stuff. We'll be going to lots of gardens this summer for photography, painting, drawing and the like.

On happier news I went to The Dancer exhibit at the Portland Art Museum. They are show casing works by Degas, Forian, and Toulouse-Lautrec. It really made me want to buy color paper and pastels for sketching. They showed a number of sketches by all the artiest - i have to say i liked this best. While the paintings were great and to see a real poster from the time of Toulouse-Lautrec was great - there is something about seeing how they worked quickly in a sketch, or how with ink and water color wash they gave such strong impressions of placement. I almost wouldn't mind going back before the show closes on May 11th but i doubt i'll get there.

I went with 4 other people and I liked it when we were all going at about the same pace. We could wander from one piece to the next and bump into each other to give a though. But when one of the guys and i started talking about art and longevity and making a living out of it half way through the exhibit - the other people moved on and finished up before we did. I have to say i felt a pressure to hurry along on the second half of the exhibit because they were waiting. So, i'm not really sure museums are the best for group socializing. Or maybe we are all to socially polite and we should have said our goodbyes so the faster group wouldn't feel they had to stick around.

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Oh, yeah!! I have to share the new books i got:

Wreck This Journal by Keri Smith

Figured out pretty fast that I'm afraid to get this book wet. Now, I like the idea of dribbling my coffee on a page but to take it into the shower?! The pages will get all warped! So we'll see if i get over the fear of that. I've already added a piece of lent to one of the pages, it's from the drier the towels were in, it's this cool teal color - don't worry that's the color of our towels. Those that love texture will also love that the tape on the front of the books is embossed and glossy *drool*. I'm pretty excited about toting this thing around and beating it up, as long as it doesn't get too wet, lol.

Doodle Stitching: Fun and Fresh Embroidery for Beginners by Aimee Ray

That's right i'm going to learn how to embroider! I use to cross stitch when i was younger, so i at least know that one. The book has great pictures and clear instructions, now if only i'd start. I have an idea to incorporate embroidery into my art. I'm very excited that she also includes directions on how to incorporate beading. It'll be exciting to see what happens.

A cool thing is you can buy more patterns from Aimee's Etsy shop "Little Dears" as pdfs.

Tuesday Night Thoughts

I just finished watching Juno for the first time. It's a great movie. The writing is excellent, the actors perfect - I even cried at the end. It is a movie more apt to interest female viewers because the main topic is pregnancy and the awkwardness that is teen pregnancy but it's also about family and relationships. It's just very very good.

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Today is earth day, whoo-flippin'-do. The big thing in the media (radio, tv news) is what're you doing to be greener? Green, hybrid, recycle, reuse, renew, biodegradable, global warming, one thing, renewable resources, mother earth, save the planet... Alright, yes, we should not trash the planet we have but do i believe that it's absolutely has horrible as the media makes you think? Not quiet.

Here is the thing, as an example of the "one thing you can do" is take your coffee cup to work and or local coffee shop to save on using paper cups that can't biodegrade (or at least not quickly). What is the problem with paper not degrading? Eventually we're going to run out of room. But how can we affect one area w/o affecting another? Because that coffee cup that i'm toting around has to be washed which requires electric energy and hot water and soap. So, by keeping a paper cup out of the waist i have now burned energy that is linked back to a power plant that is probably emitting something bad. I've used water which again linked back to a power cleaning plant which i'm sure is emitting something bad. So, is the carbon foot print more or less by me using a normal mug? Which may or may not be made of plastic or metal which is a whole other thing about what kind of carbon foot print happened while making this reusable cup.

Here is the other twist of irony, i'm required by law to pick up my dog's poo and dump it in a plastic bag (the plastic bag is not specified in law as far as i know but that is what's available to me). Why, when plastic is not biodegradable should i put something that is completely biodegradable in it?

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I'm tired of pretending that everything is ok in my life. Marriage is extremely hard! My husband and I last night came to the conclusion that we both feel a pressure to do everything in the marriage. Yet oddly enough nothing gets done (like budgeting or real grocery shopping) because i think we're waiting on the other person to do it. I know i've been waiting to see some initiative. After I made the statement about the pressure and he agreed - we didn't say a word. Probably 3-5 min. later i told him I didn't know what to say and he agreed to that. Another 3 min. and he leaves the bedroom to go finish a movie he had started prior. I put in a call about 2 weeks ago to a counselor on my insurance list about making the first appointment, i haven't heard back. I'm thinking i'll need to call someone else.

It was probably about a year before i got married I was having a conversation with my step-mom and it lead to her commenting that people in a relationship can feel lonely. I told her that didn't make sense to me, how could people being part of something be lonely? Sadly, i totally get it now.

What?

I fell off the face of the earth but i'm back now!

The most important thing to remember when you take that kind of trip is to pack your good shampoo and conditioner. I picked up Herbal Essence as a back up because i ran out of the good stuff. I no longer like Herbal Essence, I even purchased the one labeled "conditioning" and my head has never been so dry and itchy!

While i was gone I also got my Oregon drivers license. I know, very exciting after 9ab4djf8 year(s). Now I only have to spend the next month converting my name every where I go. I hate dealing with the state or federal government on anything. They make me so nervous! Even though i know logically they can't do anything to me except require more paper work or more payment but still I never feel they are on my side wanting to help me and this causes high levels of anxiety. Except my experience at the dmv was really good, everyone was friendly and i got in and out (including a computer test) in an hour. So, maybe i can go through even more paper work to get my tags and license plates with less fear.

As shocking as this is the other thing that i did - i made art! I made one block print and two pages of digital collage. The collage is for a colaberative project that i get the results back in a couple of weeks. I'll upload some photos soon!

In other news: i'm a little addicted to Flixster.com - it's a social network of sorts having to do with movies! For the number of movies I watch(ed) this is awesome. You can rate movies, give reviews, make lists, make lists of favorite actors and more. So there is my pro-mo for that. Also, because of this account and because i'm obviously not posting to my movie blog, i'll be deleting my movie blog or renaming it for something else for like photos. I found yet another blog All Things Littleput, that started a group that shoots photos weekly based on a theme (honestly, i know of two but the first one is a little convoluted to participate in) and this group requires you have a sepearte photo only blog. We'll see if I actually get into it but i'm thinking about it.

OH, to also update you go check out Those Little Big Things - there is a new challenge up. I'm excited about it. I also really want to go back and do challenege 3 "collections" - I have SO MANY collections.

Nine (9) days till I leave for Texas!