It truly is the perfect food. Well, “junk” food. I think I read somewhere that dark chocolate like, boosts your endorphins or dopamine something and that’s a good thing. All I know is that I love it, especially late at night when it’s hot and humid and I don’t want to go to bed yet because tomorrow’s going to be even hotter and more humid, so I need to use the night to get work done.

I’m taking an art class right now that is so fucking awesome that I honestly couldn’t be happier. My brain is exploding with ideas and I’m frustrated that my hands don’t work as fast as I’d like them to and paint doesn’t dry as fast as I’d like it to. I just want all of this creative energy out of me and into the world! I want to paint a million paintings and have them in homes all across the world! I’m close to that, which I should be proud of, my paintings are all over the US, a few in the UK and one – ONE! – in my homeland of Canada! If I could get one to Australia and Japan, I would feel immensely successful.

I’m still undecided about The Square Foot Show. Like, whether or not I’m going to do it. Blake says I should at least submit and be part of the show, but not commit to actually being at the artist’s gala bullshit thing that I totally do not want to do. Like, in the slightest. I barely made it through my friend’s wedding last weekend, I don’t know if I can deal with a bunch of Toronto strangers.

I guess we’ll see how it goes.

Oh one more thing about art before I switch topics: my art teacher? Totally awesome. I e-mailed her, asking if she could teach me how to shade people of colour because I learned how to shade my girls in a very specific, Caucasian way and I don’t know how to adapt that method to work for darker complexions. Shading is just something that doesn’t come naturally to me at ALL. So she e-mailed me back, actually really excited about the idea of darker complexions and said that in week 3 of the course, she’ll put up an extra video (it’s an online art class btw), teaching us exactly what I asked for: how to shade people of colour. I AM SO STOKED. I have had a billion ideas for girls of different ethnicities as it’s one of my goals in my artist’s statement to express Canada’s multiculturalism, but until now I haven’t been able to and it’s been making me CRAZY! Learning how to do this thing may be the difference between me getting a $5000 arts grant in the spring and not getting a $5000 arts grant in the spring. The same goes for The Stupid Square Foot Show.

So that’s art right now.

But let’s talk about yoga. Oh my god people, I LOVE yoga and I am in a continuous state of SHOCK that I love yoga. I literally failed gym class every year of my life. I can scan my report cards and prove it if you don’t believe me, it was pathetic. (How do you fail gym class? By not showing up, my faking injury or illness, by having a doctor who didn’t mind writing notes, getting kicked OUT of gym class for calling your gym teacher things you’re now too ashamed to admit you said…)

Anyway, yoga. It just works with me, it clicks, I can’t explain it. I feel both relaxed AND energized (and SORE!) after every class, it’s like I’m full of this weird energy or something. My teacher knows I’ve never done yoga before so in the beginning she took it easy on me but as we’ve gone along (I’ve only been going for 5 weeks), she’s been going harder on us and I think she’s a little surprised that I’m keeping up and practically begging for more.

I’m not very strong yet, but I am naturally flexible, so I’m better at some things than others. Like today we did pigeon pose and I rocked the shit out of it because my legs are super bendy and I sit like a freak all day in my computer chair anyway, pigeon was a cakewalk. But plank? Oh my holy lord do I fucking hate plank! My arms and upper body just aren’t strong enough to do plank-like things, like these crazy bitch push ups she made us do a few weeks ago? My god I was dripping with sweat and was sore for a full week afterward – BUT IN A TOTALLY GOOD WAY.

Honestly, I wish we could go twice a week, but we don’t have the money to do that and I think her classes are all full because her studio only fits 5 or 6 people right now. She’s planning on expanding, but I don’t know when that’s going to happen.

ANYWAY…*deep breath*, it is 3:34am and I think I have just enough energy left to get the paining I’m working on into the final steps of being finished. So I’m going to go do that and wish you all a happy tomorrow. :o)

So obviously Alex & Ronny got married yesterday. The event was very small and low-key and Alex looked beautiful. She wore this (in cream) with this underneath, which I’m linking because I took very few pictures and none of her dress. (There were like, 5 other people taking pictures with prosumer cameras, all of which I’m sure will be posted on Facebook and when they are, I’ll snag a few to show you guys, if that’s okay with the bride & groom [ which it probably will be].)

Anyway, it was a lovely event, Madison caught the bouquet, the guy who married them was a steampunk Asian with a fauxhawk and the whole thing couldn’t have been more perfect being exactly what they wanted. And as I said, when better pics are available, I’ll share them with Alex & Ronny’s permission.

Here are the pics I did take, though:

This was their wedding cake. Did I mention that Alex & Ronny met randomly playing WoW?
We were looking for people to sign our guild charter and “Trueblade”, a nelf warrior, was randomly hanging out in Darnassus and said he would and he was in the guild for the rest of the time the guild existed.

Alex was a nelf hunter so that’s what her figurine is, but they wouldn’t find a nelf warrior so they had to get a druid.

Wedding shots, courtesy of the restaurant. I forget what this one was called, but the others were “polar bears”.

I love Alex’s expression in this picture. It’s the kind of expression you can only give toward someone you love immensely, does that make sense?

Anyway, that’s all the pics I took. To be mushy for a minute…I am so absolutely happy for the two of them it feels like my heart might burst out of my chest just thinking about it. They’ve been doing the long distance thing for like, 3 years and now that’s come to an end, Ronny is here, they’re married and he can apply for his permanent resident card now. Everything’s falling into place so they can finally start their lives together and I just think that’s great.

I’m also a little selfish in all of this in that Ronny drives and has a car, which theoretically means that we’ll be seeing more of them and that’s a good thing because I love them.

And that is all.

So Alex & Ronny are married now and that’s pretty cool. They got married in a funeral home because that’s where Alex works and they have like, a banquet hall type of thing there.

It was a very small wedding and Blake, myself and the kids sat up front on “the bride’s side” so we could sign the marriage certificate when it came time to do that. We were honoured to be asked and gladly obliged and it was a lovely little event, followed by picture-taking and beer/Coke at a wings place afterward.

It took everything in my being to not completely come apart. I took 3 Ativans throughout and not to take anything away from their day or anything, but I was miserable. I don’t “mingle”, I don’t make “small talk” and the whole time we were there I just wanted to lose my shit completely. I wanted to go home right after the wedding but Blake said we had to go to the wings place which then meant we had to stick around for the pictures in between and I don’t know how Ronny & Alex felt throughout the whole thing, considering they both have issues similar to mine, but I wanted to crawl out of my skin and slither home through the sewers.

And dinner was….I hate chicken wings. Passionately. And that’s all this place served except for salads (that I’m not paying $8.99 for) and chicken fingers. I hate chicken fingers too, but that’s what I had and now I feel like throwing up despite taking 2 Gravols to quell the nausea.

And again, I’m happy for Ronny & Alex and I was happy to be there for them and stand up for them basically at their wedding and nothing in this post has anything to really do with them, it has to do with me and my issues. And based on how today went and how I felt all day (I came home and just bawled and that’s what I’m still doing now) I came to a decision: I will not be doing The Square Foot Show.

I know, I already paid my admittance fee, I bought my dress for it, jewelry for it, I’ve been working on paintings specifically for it but the fact of the matter is I just can’t do it. I just can’t be in a small space full of strangers. I don’t “mingle”. I can’t make “small talk”. There is no reason for me to be there other than to torture myself.

Touched By Fire was different. It’s put on by The Mood Disorders Association of Ontario so every stranger in that show was either mentally ill or worked with/knew someone who is. If I needed to sit in a corner and just be for a little while, that would have been okay. If I needed to leave, that would have been okay. When I couldn’t speak to the people who wanted me to do a commission, they understood when Blake spoke for me.

This is not so for Square Foot.

At Square Foot the whole point of the show is to mingle and network and schmooze and have your work seen. And I just can’t do it. Blake would have to take a day off to take my paintings down there, we’d have to get Ronny & Alex to babysit to go to the event and then if I didn’t sell all 3 of my entries, which I probably wouldn’t, Blake would have to take a day off work to go pick them up.

And they’re selling each piece for like, $224, but the gallery keeps half. Even if I sell all 3, I’m totally ripping myself off and after gas and everything, I might as well give the paintings away. And that’s IF I sell them all.

And why am I even doing this show? Because The Ontario Arts Council only seems to consider you a “professional” artist if your work’s seen n galleries and I think that’s bullshit. And why should I care what they think? Because they’re the ones who give out the $5k grant I’ve been turned down for two years in a row. And they consider their ROI to be gallery showings, that’s what they want your goal to be.

Well guess what? I don’t want my shit in galleries. Galleries that take half my money and tie up my inventory? Galleries that may expect me to mingle and make small talk and schmooze? I don’t want that world. And it’s not even so much that I don’t want it it’s that I can’t have it. Unfortunately it doesn’t work within the parameters of my issues and I kinda think the whole system is bullshit.  Or what little I know of it, I do.

So what will I write in my grant application in the fall? Well, more or less what I’ve written here, I think. That my goal is not to be a gallery artist, my goal is to create a self-sustaining art business instead. I pretty much have that now, I sell enough to keep me in supplies, to keep me creating, but that grant would allow me to expand, buy better quality materials, advertise. And if they still don’t want me, then that’ll be the last time I apply. My mom was told for years and years and years that what she did wasn’t art and she was rejected by the traditional art world and she’s doing okay. I’ll be fine. There are other ways to succeed and success is only how you define it anyway. In my goals for this year, I’ve been immensely successful, so there ya go.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been thinking about all day. If I can’t hack it at my best friend’s wedding and I fall apart the second I get home, then I can’t do this show where the complications of today are blown up twenty-fold.

It’s just not in the cards.

As I mentioned a few days ago, Willowing/Tam is having an online art class called World of Whimsy 2, where she’ll show you how to make and shade pretty girls, as well as animals, and show you how to make mixed media backgrounds. She’s also going to cover basic things like composition, layout, layering and embellishments. It’s going to be a great class!

It starts on Monday, runs for 6 weeks and is roughly $85 US/$93 CAD.

I signed up last night and I’m really looking forward to Monday. Along with the class, which is comprised of videos and PDF files, you get Tam’s attention and the ability to ask her questions and get critiques of your work.

As I said in my original post on the subject, Tam is a really great teacher and a wonderful artist, so if you think taking an online class is for you, then this is probably the one to take.

You can sign up/learn more here.

Have a great weekend!
(Alex & Ronny get married tomorrow, I’m so excited!!!!! SO that’s what we’re doing this weekend. :o))

I don’t know what I did, but I can’t believe the amount of blessings coming into my life right now. The pessimist in me is waiting for the other shoe to drop, but the optimist in me, who is winning out these days, is just going with it with immense gratitude.

Today a package came from Amazon. An anonymous gift. So a huge THANK YOU to whomever sent it, it was quite the surprise! And much appreciated. If you’ve been reading, I actually broke down and bought Nobody’s Daughter from Wal*Mart last Friday but I kept the receipt in case something went wrong with Wes’ Zhu Zhu pet, so I can return the extra copy. Thank you again though, anonymous person, everything you chose from my wishlist was just perfect and I cannot thank you enough. <3 (The book Neon Angel, which is Cherie Currie’s account of The Runaways and a book about photographing art and collectibles were the other two things, if anyone’s curious. Can’t wait to read both. :o))

Now the next order of business is something that I’ve been wanting to write about for a while, but wanted to wait until the story had reached its conclusion before I did. Do you remember the cat ring that I bought on Etsy in May? I know I linked it but I’m not sure if anyone actually clicked the link.

Well, it was from a seller called Freedom Jewelry USA who went so above and beyond that I couldn’t even believe it.

The listing for the ring was a size 8 and me knowing nothing about ring sizing, used an online ring size converter thing that told me my ring size was 10. So that’s what I asked her to make me and she gladly obliged.

Well when the ring got here, I tried it on and it fell off of each and every one of my fingers because it was HUGE. So I left her feedback saying how great her customer service was and everything and then I convo’d her and said that I must have screwed up the size (which I didn’t, the converter was wrong, we discovered) because it’s too big, but if I took it to a jeweler, would they be able to size it for me? She said that she’d prefer to do it herself and that I should send the ring back, she’d recast it in the proper size and send it back to me. All for the cost of reshipping.

Now, me being a skeptic, I was kinda thinking this could be a scam, but I sent the ring back anyway, along with two ribbons that were the circumference of the finger I wanted to wear the ring on, one tied in a loop, one straight, and waited for her to receive them and tell me what my ring size actually was.

So she got the ring back and told me that my ring size was “about a 9″, so I asked her if there was such a thing as an 8.5 because then I can wear the ring now and still be able to wear it as I lose this extra weight of mine.

So that’s what she did and then she sent it back. I got it late last week, tried it on and while it was a teensy bit too big still, it’ll get the job done (as a faux wedding ring at the Square Foot Show since my wedding ring doesn’t fit right now). I was so in awe of how nice she was and easy to deal with and just the whole situation that instead of the $1.50 postage she wanted, I gave her $15 instead because this was just so awesome of her.

Here’s the ring, my wedding ring that fits INSIDE the ring because I was damn near anorexic when I got married, and some shots of my Hello Kitty wedding ring because I’ve never posted proper pictures of it and I know people are curious about it:

My wedding ring was cast in white gold from an actual Hello Kitty ring sold by Sanrio a really long time ago that Blake jumped through hoops to try to find. The diamond is one of his mother’s. Even if it did fit, I wouldn’t wear it because I actually hate wearing rings, I find them all too heavy on my fingers, like when I’m typing or drawing, but I like to wear them if I’m going out somewhere, like The Square Foot Show. I’m bummed my wedding ring doesn’t fit right now, but I refuse to have it resized because to me, that’s like admitting defeat and accepting the size I am, which I will not do.

Anyway, the girl who is Freedom Jewelry USA was great and totally went above and beyond for a perfect stranger, so definitely take a look around her shop and if you like what you see, add her to your favourites!

Like I said, I’m not sure what I did karmically to deserve so much awesome in my life right now, but I am absolutely grateful for it all and want to shout it from the rooftops. For once in my life, I’m actually loving my life, which is definitely a new thing that I hope continues.

So thanks. To all of you. To the whole world. <3

I love flowers. Like, really love them. To me, having fresh cut flowers in your home that didn’t come from your own garden (unless you’re like, Oprah who has a million acres of roses that someone else tends to) is the epitome of luxury and for that reason – as well as others – I’ve been buying myself flowers since high school every now & then.

They’re just an indulgence. They’re really absolutely useless, they don’t do anything and then they just die so you have to throw them away and for that reason I’ve banned Blake from ever buying them for me because as much as I love them, I really do think they’re a complete waste of money. (So are greeting cards, for the record, unless they’re homemade.)

Having said that, I’ve bought myself flowers twice this month because I have the money to do so and I love them. Just grocery store flowers, nothing too fancy. The first bunch was roses that were a shocking $17.99 that died within a week. I gave each child a rose to keep in their room, which they loved, and the rest lived on my desk until they died. (I think the heat wave had a lot to do with their quick demise.)

Oddly, I bought these roses right after yoga class. This is odd because last night after yoga class, I bought myself some psychedelic carnations, which are the same colours that the roses were. These ones were also from the grocery store and were a more affordable $7.99. I love them. They’ll also last longer than the roses because carnations just do, but also because the heat’s not as crazy as it was a week or so ago.  Here they are:

I probably won’t buy myself flowers for a long time after this, but it’s still something I recommend if you happen to walk past a particularly beautiful bunch and have the cash to spare. It amazes me every time just how happy they make me. Maybe they’ll make you happy too.

“Turquoise Love Fairy” is now finished and for sale in my Etsy shop!
Check her out!

A couple of days ago, Madison came running into the house to say “OMG MUM! WE HAVE PEAS AND THEY’RE ALMOST READY TO EAT!”, so I went out with my camera to investigate since I hadn’t been out to see the garden in about a week.

Before I get into the peas, let me tell you about the tomatoes…we’re going to have a LOT of them if all of these yellow blossoms are going to turn into tomatoes. Already with the cherry tomatoes we have baby ones but I didn’t see any yet on the bobcat plants. Both types of plants are monsters though, check it out:

You can tell which ones are the cherry tomatoes and which ones are the bobcats because the cherries have lots & lots of little yellow flowers and the bobcats have bigger versions of the same flowers but there are less of them. The plan for the tomatoes is of course to eat some of them, but we’re going to have more than we need, so we’re going to make salsa with them and jar it so Blake can eat it throughout the year, as opposed to buying it and it would also make nice, economical Xmas gifts for Phil, my uncle Paul and my mom’s boyfriend John. Now we just have to find a really good recipe for it, preferably a really hot/spicy one. I figure it shouldn’t be too hard and if all else fails, we can just use Jamie Oliver’s.

Next up is BEANS. MONSTER BEANS. We planted two rows of these because we really like them and they are growing like crazy. Right now they’re in bloom, but I forgot to take a picture of the weird flowers they have.

I’m not really sure how my peppers are doing because I don’t know how peppers grow and I threw out the seed packet so I can’t check. The plants didn’t grow very tall, but they have white flowers and a couple even have a pathetic looking baby pepper or two. Voila:

But the real monsters in my garden right now are the peas, which, as Madison said, are about a week or two from being able to pick. It’s as if as soon as we staked them, they got happy and made peas all over the place like, overnight! Look!

That last pic’s a little blurry but right now the sun’s right overhead and any pics I took out there right now would look like crap, so I’m not going to retake it. You get the point.

These peas are sugar snap peas, which means that they’re very sweet and the pods are edible. As soon as the peas inside the pods are, y’know, “pea sized”, they’ll be ready to pick, which the children will gleefully do.

Next year, definitely, we’re going to grow tomatoes, beans and peas but probably nothing else since the weeds in that bed are out of control and those 3 things seem to thrive despite it and those 3 things are things we really like. Next year we’re just going to grow more of them. The peas, just because the kids will eat them and like them, the beans so I can freeze them and the tomatoes so we can make sauce and salsa, pending the salsa experiment this year goes well.

So that’s the garden so far. :o)