Issues. He has them.

I can’t even remember half the stuff we talked about really. We of course talked about the fact that this Dr. Mays who’s supposed to be doing my pseudocyst-draining procedure, still hasn’t contacted us and the furthest we’ve gotten with him is an estimation of like, JUNE for the procedure. Apparently he still has people waiting from July of last year. Dr. Hanrahan said she was going to put the feelers out to try and find someone else to do it but that we shouldn’t get our hopes up because it *is* a complicated procedure.

It’s complicated but it’s only going to put me out of commission for a day, three days tops, and then I’ll be ready for my big surgery.

My big surgery is going to go fine. I’m not worried at all. I was before, but after she squished my guts all around yesterday to make sure that they’d fit where they’re supposed to, I’m not worried. She said that I should do what I can to maintain my current weight. I asked her how long recovery from the surgery would be and she said 6 weeks. But then she corrected herself and said 6 weeks of not lifting ANYTHING (her emphasis). I asked her if I could still type and stuff and she said I could and I asked her how long I’d have to be in the hospital and she said “a few days”. So not the WEEKS Siske was leading me to believe, thank god.

Dr. Hanrahan did remind me that she would be working with muscles and that there would be a lot of pain to deal with, but I’m glad I’ll at least be able to type because that’ll give me something to do while I recover. I might even still be able to paint.

Before I segue into painting, I took these pictures when she sent me for blood work.

They claim that’s less than a tablespoon.

Just routine blood work. Oh and I told the doctor about those weird pains I get in my pancreatic region now and then, those stabbing, radiating pains that sent me to the ER about what, a month ago? She said it’s just the pancreas being unhappy having those cysts on it and that there’s nothing that can be done. She wrote me an rx for Percocet, which scares the living shit out of me because I know it’s habit forming and I know I have a super addictive personality. I have just heard so many horror stories of prescription painkillers, this one in particular, causing so many people’s downfalls that I’m terrified to take any. I want to take one just to see what it’s like, but I have to wait until I’m in pain so I’m kinda hoping I’ll have one of those attacks soon so I know whether or not Percocet is going to knock me on my ass. Like, is it going to make me pass out or will I be totally fine? I’d really like to know *before* I need it so I dunno, so I just know that if I take this, I’ll need to lay down or if I take this, I’ll be fine.  But I can’t just take one, so I have to wait.

I took those pictures of blood work paraphernalia because I’m sloooooooooowly getting over my fear of needles.

So yeah, that was my yesterday. So much fun, let me tell ya. I feel like I’m forgetting something about yesterday but I can’t, for the life of me, think of what it is. Oh well.

So painting…I royally fucked up my orange tiki girl when I pasted her onto the board and I’m afraid she’s not fixable. It’s kinda hard to explain, but I kinda accidentally gave her knees. Oops. I’m going to have to give her a loooong grass skirt and if I do that, she’s totally recoverable.

The sun mandala painting is ready to be scanned, but I don’t know how to use the scanner, so I have to wait until Blake can help me  and teach me how tomorrow. Bummer. So the agenda today is working on hula girl and to try and reshoot the video I made yesterday.

Yesterday I tried to make a video of me drawing one of my girls because someone said they would like to see it. So I made one. But now that I’m looking at it, I see that the angle is all wrong and I’m going to have to reshoot it today. The problem is that I have nowhere to put the tripod for it to be on my left so my right hand isn’t in the way of the shot. But I’ll figure something out. I’ll either use what I shot yesterday ANYWAY or I’ll see what I can do about reshooting it.

I’ve decided that the colouring book is absolutely going to happen. I just have to figure out the logistics, draw everything of course, scan everything of course, lay everything out of course, and then I’ll publish it through Lulu or Amazon. I think Lulu has the most choices as far as types of paper and the covers and stuff. It’ll be a softcover because I’ve never seen a hardcover colouring book in my whole entire life, and the paper won’t be “colouring book paper” because that bleeds through with markers or wet media, so I’m going to use heavier paper for the scribblers, daydreamers and those who colour outside the lines.

I thought about whether or not I’d just draw the girl and skip making her a scene and I’ve decided that that’s probably the way to go. The kids (or the kids at heart ;o)) can draw their own scenes. They’ll probably be better at it than I am. I do think I might write a little bit about each girl though. I always envision their lives while I’m drawing them so I thought maybe I could include my drawing daydreams. We’ll see.

But this is absolutely going to happen. I’m going to start drawing it TODAY.

The other thing is that I really liked my friend Mariko’s idea of magnetic paper dolls. I was thinking normal paper dolls in the beginning but I wondered like, do girls actually play with those anymore? And they probably don’t. Plus it’ll be really hard to make sure the dresses fit and the tabs are where they’re supposed to be. Magnetic paper dolls, like these, just make sense.  But the thing is, where was I going to get those printed? There’s no print on demand company like Lulu or Zazzle or Cafepress that’ll do those and we don’t have money to pay another company up front to have them printed and then, could I even sell them on Etsy since they’re not exactly handmade? But then Mariko, because she’s a fucking GENIUS, linked me to these bad boys and now I’m obsessed with the idea of magnetic paper dolls.

If I ever get my job back, the very first thing I’m going to do is buy a whole bunch of those magnetic sheets, a new printer that I can use for both the magnetic paper dolls and prints and then I’ll be in business.

My only real concern now is A) what should I call my girls? I liked Madonna’s “The English Roses” so I would like a name like that, but I can’t think of anything and B) how do I package the magnetic paper dolls? Should I cut them out myself or leave them for the parents to cut out?

Lots to think about. The thought of real live little girls colouring in MY little girls on rainy days fills me with such joy, you have no idea. Like, I never would have imagined that was possible. And the idea is so obvious too! How the hell did I not think of this sooner?

Okay, today’s my big day off so I think I’m going to go find breakfast, do my morning pages and then get to work. This colouring book isn’t going to draw itself!

PS. OH. MY. GOD. I just had a thought. It’s too late to do it this year but NEXT year I could totally do a colour book of Valentines for little girls to cut out and give to their friends. That would make my life.

PPS. For future reference, it’s never a wise thing to tell me I *can’t* do something.

I’m really pleased with how my new girl is coming along. Behold!

She looks way super awesome in person. She has gold glitter flecks in her eyes, which I’ve never done before but I think it looks pretty cool. In hindsight I probably should have made her flower a different colour but I couldn’t think of what colour to make it so…yeah…doesn’t matter. She’s going to have a real grass skirt made out of garden twine and her boob holders are going to be glittery brown/bronze because I couldn’t figure out how to make a coconut bra. Her background is just plant orange glitter and it’s going to look wicked after I varnish it. I’m pretty stoked about her.

So, I was reading this article on art patrons and collectors and this is something that I’ve never given much thought to, to be perfectly honest, but I think I should because this is the second time in a week that art patronage has come up in my life and I think that’s a sign from the universe to say “hey, listen up!” so that’s what I’m choosing to do.

What IS an art patron? Well, the people donating to my Squam Fund are art patrons I would think, and anyone who’s ever bought a painting would be too, right? I am grateful to have people in my life who truly want me to do what I believe I was born to do and who enable me to do just that.

A long time ago I had a friend who we’ll call “Tom” because that was his name. Tom was an art patron. My biggest one. He’s responsible for me even picking up a paintbrush and *trying* and for that I have nothing but gratitude because art has saved my life on so many occasions since. If it weren’t for him and his generosity, I would have never tried painting on canvas or even trying to make paintings at all.

Tom and I used to go shopping and it was fantastic. I would make a list of tons and tons of art supplies from Curry’s and Stockade and he would purchase it all and have it sent to my house. Then he would call me up and ask me to tell him what each thing was for. Like, he was keenly interested in how crackle medium worked, for example (I should do a tutorial on that, actually), and would ask me to explain how it worked and what I had in mind to do with it. He would ask what each type of paintbrush did or what I was going to do with purple mica powder. What on Earth was I going to do with a 36 x 24 inch canvas, etc. And it was great because I *love* talking about art supplies and I love “good mail” and I love shopping for art supplies and I loved everything about it and it was just a really high period of my life. Boxes and boxes of stuff would arrive weekly and it was bliss.

So thanks, Tom. <3

He always said that he supported my artistic aspirations because he himself was not very artistic but he wished he was and he was basically living vicariously through me. So I did what I could to give him that experience, I explained everything in excruciating detail and we would spend hours on the phone or by e-mail just talking about art and art supplies.

So that’s my “patron of the arts” story. I think he was the most traditional because aren’t art patrons traditionally the people who keep you in paint without trying to make a buck off you or claiming all your work? People who just want you to be able to create? I am a very very lucky girl.

I just also wanted to thank everyone for donating to my Squam Fund. I’m 51% there and I’m so so so excited about going! I devour their blog every time they post anything and I’m practically memorizing the Painted Pages book because it’s by two of the teachers I’ll be having while I’m there.

One cost I didn’t factor in when doing my tally is a passport to get across the border. I don’t think I need one, I’m sure a birth certificate and driver’s license is sufficient but my mom’s insisting on it because she doesn’t want to take any chances of them not letting us in. I don’t even know how you get a passport so I guess I’m going to have to Google that and I’m going to have to do it soon because I think it takes a long time to get yours in the mail. I think a passport is $80-$100. Bummer. :(

But yes, my birthday is March 1st and all I want is Squam money. <3

Speaking of birthdays, Wes is going to be *9* on Monday! Time flies, eh? If anyone felt like spoiling the greatest kid on Earth, his wishlist can be found HERE! We can’t afford to have a party for him right now so we’re postponing things until the summer and possibly taking him to Canada’s Wonderland with his girlfriend Emily.

Tomorrow morning I go see Dr. Hanrahan just to see where things stand with the procedure I need in Toronto. She’s probably going to order another CAT scan to make sure I even need the procedure, which is going to be totally fun…not. :o/

Anyway, today’s my day off. I don’t even feel like thinking about tomorrow.

I had THE BEST idea EVER the other day. Are you ready? Are you sitting down? How genius is this: a Sunny Crittenden COLOURING BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is that not the best idea ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Little girls all over the place colouring my girls would make me so very very fucking happy that I have to somehow make this happen. I don’t know if I should do a colouring book or paper dolls or maybe both? Probably the colouring book first though because that’s the simplest one to do. I don’t know if I should use Lulu.com or Amazon’s publishing thing or what though. Should I publish it myself, zine style? I’m betting Lulu/Amazon don’t get a lot of people wanting to make colouring books so I’m not sure how to get “colouring book paper” in one of  those types of books or maybe I shouldn’t use colouring book paper, maybe I should use GOOD white paper because these girls deserve the best?

I’ve gotta say, I’m kind of obsessed with this idea and I think it’s something that really needs to happen.

And with that, I’m oot. Time to have a wee nap, do my morning pages and get to work!

I decided we’d just go back to Michael’s for artist date #2 since artist date #1 was so successful. Michael’s is probably my favourite store on Earth because I get in there and I just feel like I’m home. I look around at all the beautiful things and just kind of enter this trance-like state where I’m in absolute creative bliss where all there is IS imagination. My brain starts firing a mile a minute and I’m bombraded with images of the things I could do with the things all around me. I don’t just see a package of Swarovski crystals, I see the bindi of a mermaid in Fiji. Know what I mean?

The first priority was getting a sheet of foamcore because I need it to make my girls sturdy so I can put them in the shadowbox and have them stand up straight. Jeck is sending me some vintage Valentines and what I have envisioned is two girls giving each other Valentines, but what I’m afraid of with that is that it’s too specific. *I* would have something out like that year round, but would anyone else? I dunno. My other idea, which I kinda like better, is to make a burlesque girl or two and make the background like a stage. Then I’d paint the outside of the shadowbox black with red sparkles and get Blake to drill small holes all around the sides of it so I can wire the inside with Xmas lights just like the bulbs on a burlesque stage. The lights are LED so there’s no heat from them to burn the paper so it could be left on/plugged in indefinitely.

I’ve been looking for a way to make girls with “mink” stoles (made out of marabou) but it was bugging me because you can’t really do that with canvas for fear of the canvas fraying and wood would be difficult because you can’t sew through it and if you drilled through it, it probably wouldn’t look right, but the shadowbox idea would work extremely well for it and I think I’ve just convinced myself that this is precisely what I’m going to do. I think one should be in a long, red “va va va voom” kinda sequined dress with a red stole and one should be in a white flapper type dress with a black or white stole (thoughts?). I’ve got this lovely metallic ruby shade that would be perfect for hair that I’ve been dying to use (which they’ve now discontinued!), so I think I’d put that on the girl with the white dress and I’d probably make the girl with the red dress a blonde.

It’s funny…a couple of weeks ago I was pissing and moaning that I was all out of ideas and now I’m so full of ideas I hardly know what to do with myself. I feel like I have so much work to do between the shadowbox, which is going to be a lot of work, and this “orange girl” I’m doing.

Blake got me that orange Martha Stewart glitter paint last week called “Orange Sorbet” that I’m completely obsessed with so I think I mentioned that I painted two boards with it, one a thin layer for putting under white crackled paint and one a really thick layer to use on its own as a background for an undetermined girl. I’d been staring at the second board all week, not knowing what to do with it, when I turned to Twitter yesterday and asked for ideas. Katie suggested “Creamsicle”, which I liked, but it still didn’t feel right and neither did anything else anyone suggested so I tweeted that I’d put the board away and work on something else rather than force it when my friend TE came up with a genius idea that is so good I can barely stand it. I don’t wanna say what it is though in case I mess it up and get frustrated with it and it never happens, which is a possibility because it’s not the easiest thing I’ve ever attempted. I think it’s going to be pretty easy, to be honest, but it’s something that could frustrate me easily too, so I don’t wanna count my chickens before they hatch. If I can pull this off though, I think it’ll be really cool.

So anyway, foamcore. For those who don’t know what that is, it’s two pieces of Bristol board (er, cardstock weight paper, I guess) with a piece of light foam sandwiched in the middle of them. I don’t know what other people use them for, but we used it a lot in ad school as the background for our print ads when we were doing presentations. Because of that, I thought it would be a good idea to check Staples on our way through Barrie because it was on the way to Michael’s and it was also on the way home, so if it ended up being cheaper at Staples, we could easily go back and get it.

Well, foamcore at Staples was $5.56 a sheet. For the same size sheet at Michael’s, we lucked out because it was 3/$5! I only needed one, so I could pay for it with the change in my wallet and still not put a dent in my $10 artist date budget!

On our way to Michael’s, we were behind this guy:

You can’t really tell because my camera was focusing on our dirty windshield instead of the car but that’s a fucking HUMMER with the license plate “SIZDZMTR”. It was being driven by a guy, so is he admitting that he’s overcompensating for his tiny penis?

Anyway, at Michael’s I got sidetracked by the Martha Stewart paint again because it’s on sale for 40% off, which is an extremely good deal that was very very hard to walk away from. The glitter paint is just so goddamn beautiful. But I can get paint any time and god knows I have enough of it and what I don’t have, I can mix myself anyway, so I figured paint wouldn’t be a wise investment at this juncture.

We kinda wandered aimlessly for a few minutes, just going down aisles and looking at stuff, when we got to the bacck of the store where the yarn is and it sucked me in like a Dirt Devil: GLITTER YARN. MARTHA FUCKING STEWART GLITTER YARN. Check these bad boys out:

I had a REALLY hard time deciding on colours. They had a nice light purple, a nice light turquoise (but I figured I’ve done enough turquoise for the time being), a really interesting bright green, red, a really crazy magenta that I almost bought but Blake said it was too overwhelming and again, I decided that until “Magenta Love Fairy” sells, there’s no point in doing another girl with that colour scheme. They were $5.99 per skein BUT they were also on sale for 40% off so I could afford these TWO plus my foamcore and this:

That journal was $1.50 but I had a 40% off coupon so I saved 60 cents! So not only did I get all that for like, $13 but I had $1 left over to get a ginger molasses cookie from Tim Hortons on the way home. SCORE!

For some reason Madison laughed at me, I think, for taking pictures of my yarn. I set the yarn up on my desk to take the pic and when you turn my camera on it makes a tinkling sound and when Madison heard that she ran into my office and almost wet herself she was laughing so hard. o_O She never did tell me why she was laughing, but I think that was why. I dunno why that’s funny.

Anyway, she is one smart cookie who is definitely on the same wavelength as me because she told me exactly what I intended the yarn to be: the trim on a girl’s dress.

So for those playing the homegame, I’ve got the shadowbox on the go, the orange girl and now a pink girl and a blue girl who are going to have frilly trim on the bottom of their dresses. Busy busy!

Now I think I’m going to go do my morning pages and then when Blake wakes up, I’m going to have eggs and breakfast sausages. I am SO glad he’s home! I am SO glad everyone’s home! The house just wasn’t the same without them.

PS. We ran into Raymond & Lauren in the Michael’s parking lot and it was really good to see them. Sometime soon I think we need to invite them over.

PPS. Argent is so fucking wise and amazing and he said something to me yesterday that he probably wouldn’t want me to share but that I will cherish always. Thank you so much for being my friend. I am not worthy. <3

PPPS.

~*PLEASE DONATE SO I CAN GO TO ART CAMP!*~

…ARGENT, DON’T LOOK AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST!

Blake and the kids left for Militiagan on Monday morning and my time alone has been both interesting and bittersweet.

Monday afternoon I started watching that stupid Red Riding Hood movie with Amanda Seyfried BECAUSE Amanda Seyfried is in it and she’s like, the embodiment of one of my girls but I got bored halfway through, turned it off and decided to have a nap. This was at about 4:30pm. Well when I woke up, from a nightmare about being in the middle of nowhere in the dead of winter with a serial killer on the loose, the house was pitch black because it was still light out when I went to bed and it didn’t occur to me to turn on any lights before I laid down. So I laid there in bed, in the pitch dark, listening to the wind and the heat register in my room making ticking, knocking sounds as the metal cooled from the furnace being on and I freaked myself right the fuck out because I was convinced there was a serial killer casing the house. Then the goddamn dogs started freaking out and barking in my office, which they do when someone’s at the door. I was practically crying by this point and it took me 20 minutes after the dogs calmed down to convince myself it was okay to leave my bed and go turn on all the lights and close the living room curtains.

I’ve been carrying my pink, aluminum baseball bat around with me in every room I go to ever since and I’ve only been letting the dogs out one at a time because I figure if there IS a serial killer out there, the logical thing for him to do is to poison the dogs so I have less protection right? So if I only let them out one at a time, theoretically he’d only poison or kill one of them so I’d be left with the other for protection. DO NOT FUCK WITH MY LOGIC, PLEASE! IT IS KEEPING ME SANE!

On Tuesday I woke up in a lot of pain in my pancreatic region, the same pain I had when we went to the ER a few weeks ago. I took all my drugs in the morning, including the morphine, plus a handful of Tylenol 1s and that didn’t help. By 1:30pm it was time to take more morphine, so I did and also took more Tylenol 1s plus a mega strength Ibuprofen. That didn’t help. Then I took my last Gravol and that DID help so I got worried about what I would do if the pain came back and I didn’t have any Gravol to take so I messaged Ronny to see if they would come keep me company that night and if they would bring Gravol with them but he wasn’t replying so finally at about 4:30pm, I called Alex and explained what was going on and she said they’d come over around 6:30pm for dinner because I was in the process of making beef stew in the crock pot. She said picking me up Gravol would be no big deal and so they came over at around 6:30pm as promised, I took more of the Gravol they brought me and I felt totally fine.

We ate beef stew and watched Glee, which I’d never seen before and I’ll probably never see again because it was stupidity on a scale I couldn’t even comprehend and I think the stew turned out pretty okay. It wasn’t phenomenal but I liked it enough and was hungry enough to have one & a half bowls of it. Ronny and Alex only had one bowl each so I’m not sure if they were genuinely full or if they didn’t think it was so great and were just being polite haha (It won’t hurt my feelings if they didn’t like it, I used a mix.)

Then it was 9:00pm and time to watch their shows, New Girl and Raising Hope. Now one thing you need to know about me is that I traditionally can’t stand sitcoms. Especially ones from the past 10 years or so. Roseanne? Wicked show. Loved it. The Cosby Show? Television genius. Golden Girls? As Jax said the other day, “Betty White is a flawless human being.” I loved Blossom. My Name is Earl was pretty good. Love The Office. I can’t think of anything else I really watched that was a sitcom growing up. I watched a lot of one hour shows that were more drama or comedy than a sitcom like My So-Called Life and Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Six Feet Under and those are the types of shows I prefer to this day.

Anyway, Raising Hope was just “blah” to me but New Girl was FANTASTIC. I love Zooey Deschanel in movies so I kinda figured I would like this show but I never knew when it was on or what channel and I didn’t really care enough to figure it all out. I didn’t realize it only started this fall and we’re only 11 episodes in. I thought it started last year and I didn’t really feel like catching up, y’know? But now that I’ve seen it and I’m in love, Blake will be d/ling all of the episodes that have aired so far and we’ll be keeping up with it because it’s great.

Another show that Kevin actually recommended to me is Up All Night with Christina Applegate. I’ve still only seen one episode of it, but it’s like New Girl in that it’s shot more like a movie than a TV show and what I saw was really really funny. (I forget what I saw now though. My mind is a like a sieve.) I think that one only started this fall too, but I don’t know when it’s on or what channel and it’s not OnDemand like New Girl is. (But they only have the last two episodes of New Girl OnDemand, which sucks, but we have a PVR so I can just record it.) Anyway, I think that’s a show I’m going to get Blake to d/l so we can catch up on it too.

Ronny and Alex left around 11pm I think? And then Blake called and we talked for a while about what he’d been doing in MI and then I stayed up until about 1am working on a painting (more on that later) but had to get up at the asscrack of dawn yesterday morning because stinky Cheryl left a message saying that she was going to be at my house at 8:30 in the goddamn morning. I really dislike Cheryl, she makes me get up early even though we’ve asked her not to (they’re supposed to work around OUR schedule), she never listens to me when I tell her that I need a strip of drape across the top of my dressing or the Hypafix tape they use will pull down because my belly hangs over and is heavy, and come unstuck and the whole dressing will fall off. (She listened to me yesterday morning though because she knew Blake wasn’t around to patch me up. She just likes rushing through my dressing and doing the bare minimum so she can get off of work early and leave Blake to do the drape. That’s my hunch, anyway.) Plus she reeks of cigarette smoke which she tries to cover up with perfume and it’s just friggin’ gross. I mean, she’s nice & all, but out of all the nurses I have, she’s the one I like the least. Siske’s my favourite because she’s just awesome, I can’t even explain how or why, she just is, Janice is next, she’s just so nice and bubbly and she has a great sense of humour, then there’s Blue, who’s brand new and doesn’t know how to do my dressing AT ALL (I really hope I don’t get her on Friday…) but she’s nice and funny and chatty and I just really like her. And then there’s Cheryl.

After Cheryl left yesterday morning, I was exhausted from staying up the night before, so I fell back asleep on the pull-out couch in the living room until about 10:30am, then I made and ate waffles, then I feel asleep again until noon and then I was up for the day. I watched The View and Ellen and Dr. Phil while I worked on this painting I’m doing. The painting is hard to explain, I guess it’s sort of a mandala of the sun, but my intention for it is to either photograph it or scan it and make prints of it to raise money for Squam. My dilemma is that I don’t know how to go about making prints and because I used glitter (of course), I’m not sure how well that’s going to print. I don’t know if I should take orders and then go to an actual printing place and print that many or if I should use a 3rd party service like Zazzle or CafePress. I’m thinking the latter would be a lot easier considering we’d have to *find* a printing place around here that does giclees (because if I’m going to go to an actual printer, that’s what I’d want) and do a test printing, so that’s one trip, then another trip to set up the printing and pay the money up front for them, then another trip to pick them up, then more trips if I sell any more and time is a really precious thing around here because I don’t drive and Blake has so little of it. So I guess I have to decide between Zazzle and CafePress and I’m going to have to order testers from them to see if the quality’s good enough to sell to the public. Do you think I should do products too? Like mugs and t-shirts and stuff? I suppose that question is best answered once you guys see the finished painting. Hrm.

My plan for today is to nap, since I got up at 5am, and then to watch movies while I finish this painting. Blake said I could order a pizza tonight, so I fully intend to do that even though I’ve been living on pizza products all week. Monday night I made a frozen pizza (which was disastrous, my god can I ever not cook), then yesterday I had Bagel Bites for lunch/dinner and I have Pilsbury Pizza Pops for lunch today and tomorrow. Right now, y’know, just to mix things up, I’m eating a chicken teriyaki TV dinner. Blake really needs to come home so I’m not eating absolute crap. I feel like garbage from eating so much processed junk. I mean, I *love* microwaveable junk, but only sometimes, not as my main diet.

So, Argent’s painting…

ARGENT, STOP READING NOW!

Argent’s painting is a disaster. :o( It gave me trouble from day one, right up until the very bitter end. I think I explained the beginning but I’ll go over it again in case I didn’t.

Argent plays the lottery so I intended to make him a lottery fairy and I succeeded at that, but I had him send me old lottery tickets, which happened to be black, white and pink, so the painting’s colour scheme was pink and blue. (I added the blue so it wouldn’t be as girly, but in the end you could barely tell there was any blue in it.) I went through TWO canvases trying to glue the lottery tickets on as a background because my exacto knife went through them when I tried to trim the excess off the edges, so I switched to wood.

When I was done with the background, you couldn’t even tell there were lottery tickets in there but I figured that was okay, I could just use the tickets as the fairy’s skirt. Well, that didn’t quite turn out as intended either. When I used matte gel medium to adhere the sparkly overlay across the skirt, it totally wiped out all the numbers so all that remained was the pink strip across the top. *head desk*

Then I spent a million hours doing the lettering. They were stick-on letters, I didn’t do them by hand, but they didn’t stand out so I had to make a paste of white glitter and acrylic glazing liquid and a bit of water and I had to VERY carefully smoosh it next to and in between the letters, then let it dry over night and then once it was dry, I had to sand it so it looked like an outer glow. I think I was successful at that in the end, but it was a total pain in the ass to do and I was damn lucky that I thought to do that because it wasn’t planned.

But then this bitch of a painting bit my ass pretty hard when it came time to varnish her. I usually use Micron Pigma pens to do my outlining, usually an 02 or an 005. This time I decided to use an 08. The difference between the two is just how big the point is, an 02 is finer than an 08 and a 005 is finer than both of them. I wanted a thicker line, so I used the 08 and I left it for 3 days, doing other things, so it should have been completely dry and “cured” so to speak.

Well, when I went to brush on the varnish, the ink smudged, ruining the entire painting. I can’t sell a painting with a flaw like that, so I sent a letter with it to Argent saying that I couldn’t accept payment for it because of the flaw and that he could just have it.

I was really  upset about this. I worked so damn hard on that painting and it was such a pain in the ass to do and I was really counting on that money to help pay for Squam, but I just couldn’t, in good conscience, sell it like that. Because Argent’s my friend, I was only going to charge him $250 for it which is the same price as almost all of my paintings, even though it was custom and I normally charge a more for that. That would have dented my Squam fund pretty nicely, it would have covered my deposit and then some, but at the same time, it’s not like I’m really out anything but my time and the cost of the letters ($20 because I had to buy two packs to get both colours), everything else was stuff I already had. The stars are pretty expensive because they come in a kit and ONLY in a kit (12 colours I think), so it kinda sucks that I’m now out of white ones but it’s okay because I really do think stars are lucky and that this painting is lucky and that Argent’s going to win the powerball EVENTUALLY because he has this painting. It was such a pain in the ass that I figure it HAS to be lucky! haha

Anyway, I took some pics of it before I sent it off (oh that was another thing; I had it all wrapped up and addressed when I suddenly remembered that not only did I forget to take pics of it beforehand, I also forget to take pics of MYSELF with it, which was my new year’s resolution…so I slapped on some makeup and Blake took some goofy pics of me laughing because he was making fun of the fact that I take pics on burst all the time…you had to be there…):

I’m trying to train myself – and I think I’ve maybe mentioned this, at least I know I have on Twitter – not to let things be “precious”. Meaning that I like to hoard things and I’m afraid of wasting materials or making mistakes. For example, I would normally only use one jewel on a painting because I only have so many in my stash. On Argent’s painting I used five: three stars for her necklace, one for her bindi (that one was a Swarovski crystal, actually) and another for her wand. This painting was definitely an exercise in things not being precious, believe me.

Anyway, here are the goofy pics. I look like shit (keep in mind, I’ve lost a LOT of my hair from being sick), be kind:

THE END.

~*PLEASE DONATE SO I CAN GO TO ART CAMP!*~

PS. Blake and I got our sketchbooks for The Sketchbook Project out in time! He finished every page of his, I didn’t. My mom didn’t finish hers either, I don’t think, but I know John did. My friends Stephy and Alicia also finished theirs, who else participated this year?

I am absolutely in love with those little Martha Stewart glitter stars. I used white ones and pink ones and they’re all iridescent and they have names like “sugar cube” and “sugar plum”. I used up almost all of my white ones on this painting and they only come in $30 kits, so I won’t be using white ones for a very long time.

Next up is…Blake’s Uncle John died yesterday morning. He had early onset dementia and from what I’ve been able to gather is that he either basically starved to death (in a home) because he stopped eating or he had a heart attack because he was anorectic. Blake said that John was around 100 lbs when he died and he was a very tall man. He had apparently been sick all week but no one told us that until yesterday morning. I happened to have gotten up at 7am and when you see a 248 area code on your call display at 8am on a Saturday, you answer it. So I did and it was Blake’s Aunt Pat and she was so upset because that was her brother and it’s all just very sad because he was a wonderful man and the person in the family Blake related to the most. He’s taking it pretty hard.

Originally just Blake and I were going to go to Michigan for the funeral because hey, it’s not like I have anywhere I need to be, but then he wanted to bring the kids basically for comic relief and so they could get to know the Albanian side of the family and there was a chance that his sisters would be bringing their kids as well, the youngest two Blake has never even met because they live in Lake Tahoe.

Last night Blake and I decided that it would be best if I stayed here because I’m just not ready to be that far away from home and the hospital and my nurses just yet. I would be completely self-conscious about my belly and my extremely thin hair and I’m really emotional since being sick and if anyone mentioned me being sick, I’d probably lose it like I do, still, when people bring it up here. We’re just not okay and we’re not really ready to talk about it. Also we would have to bring all of my medical supplies and pills because I have a dressing that needs changing every other day and while Blake is perfectly capable of doing it, it’s just one more thing for him to worry about so I’ll just stay home and let the nurses deal with it. Another thing is food and feeling sick and potentially throwing up. I get really worried about it and then Blake worries about it and he doesn’t need to be dealing with that on top of a funeral for someone he was really close to and keeping track of the kids.

He also wants to go visiting Michigan friends while he’s in town and he wants to stay longer than is necessary for the funeral and I just don’t have that in me. I get tired really easily. I’m on really heavy doses of certain medications that makes me forgetful, not good company and I need to be in bed by 10pm. And I usually need a nap in the morning because I get up at like 6am and then I take hydromorph. I can’t just be go go go go go which is what this week in Militiagan is going to be.

So, we agreed it’s just better for him if I stay home where he doesn’t have to worry about me when things will be stressful enough. Ronny and Alex are around if I get scared or if something bad happens and I have the dogs. The nurses will be coming every other day to change my dressing and make sure I have all the necessary medical supplies. People will be around.

And honestly? And before you call me a selfish bitch, Blake and I have discussed this; 4 or 5 days of being alone and being able to watch all the bad TV I can handle and making art in my office and eating what and when I want to and sleeping where and when I want to sounds pretty damn good to me! Blake says I can do that now, but I can’t really. Someone is always wanting my attention or I feel guilty for not giving it to them even when they don’t ask and my “me time” suffers as a result. (That sounded horrible…please don’t take that horribly.) It’s taken me 5 months to feel okay enough to even go in my office and spend the day in there, when that’s where I belong.

So that’s what’s happening.

Onto yesterday! Yesterday we went on my artist’s date and it was GREAT! I had my $10 and I decided before we left for Michael’s that I’d bust open my Buddha bank to get some change for tax in case something was $9.99 and what I found in there was $20 in twoonies, loonies and quarters! So I loaded my wallet with that and put the pennies, dimes and nickels back in the bank and off Blake and I went to Michael’s. My mission was to first of all, buy gesso because I need it both now and for Squam and now that I was $20 richer, I could afford to get it, but my artist’s date mission was to buy something for $10 that I wouldn’t ordinarily buy and then come home and make something with it.

On our way to Michael’s, Blake wanted to stop off at this health food store because right now he’s eating 5/6 meals vegan as per Knives Over Forks. He’s been using the crock pot to make veggie soups and stews for the week’s lunches and he’s been having steel cut oatmeal for breakfast. Then sometimes a salad or tofu or stuff like that for dinner (but sometimes he eats what we eat). We’ve also, as a family, completely switched to wholegrain breads and cereals but I can’t do pasta because whole wheat pasta is just way too disgusting.

Anyway, Blake went to this store while I stayed in the car and he bought tempeh and this weird soy sauce stuff that I forget the name of but he put it on his salad last night and it smelled really gross. While he was in there, I could see in my side mirror that right next door was a flower shop. Wanna know a secret about me? Flower shops are one of my favourite places on Earth. Especially in the dead of winter. When I had my job, all winter I would make sure that I had flowers on my desk because I just absolutely love them. I cannot stop touching them and smelling them and staring at them. The kind doesn’t even really matter but I love flowers where the edges of them are a different colour than the rest of their petals. Carnations and roses often have this and those are my favourites. Next I love daisies, particularly gerbera daisies because they come in all kinds of colours.

When Blake got back to the car, I told him I wanted to go to the flower shop to look around, which we did, and they had a bucket of pink and orange carnations so Blake and I decided to go halvesies on them, using the change from the Buddha and his change from the car.  I was very happy because this kind of carnation is one of my favourite flowers, I just cannot even explain my love of them, I think they’re absolutely gorgeous.

After that we were back on our way to Michael’s and when we got there they had coupons at the front of the store for 40% off any item and Blake explained to me that this was better than the coupon I had for 25% off my total purchase because I was only buying one thing and with a 40% off coupon, I could get something for like, $17 for $10.

Just because part of my mission was to go down aisles that I normally wouldn’t go down, I went down the wood aisle and looked at little wooden plaques that were around $2 and I thought I could paint girls and put them on these but ultimately I decided not to get any of those because really, how would those little wooden plaques differ from the big pieces of wood I have sitting in my office? Or even a canvas? It’s just another substrate for the same old thing!

But in that aisle, something caught my eye. It was on the very bottom shelf, kind of hidden by other things. There were 3 or 4 of them but I only needed one. It was a wooden shadowbox with a wood-framed glass door that stayed shut by magnets. And it was $17. With my coupon it would only be $10 Blake said and the moment I saw it, ideas practically melted my brain so I had to have it. So I put it in the cart, declared I was done, let’s find the gesso and get the fuck outta here.

Well, we had to go down the paint aisle to find gesso because it would make sense that it would be there. For the record, it is not, but what IS there is that gorgeous Martha Stewart paint that I love so much. I had to stay there and look at all the colours again for a little while because they are just so goddamn beautiful. What really struck me this time though, was this orange glitter paint called Orange Sorbet. Paint was not in my budget so we left the paint aisle and found the gesso which was $11. Just then I had the crafty idea that if Blake got another 40% off coupon and we went through the checkout separately, I could get the gesso for $9. So that’s what we did because we are very very sneaky!

I went through the checkout first and my shadowbox was $11 with tax and I was practically laughing on my way out to the car because I felt like I was getting away with murder! I just couldn’t believe I was getting this magnificent thing for such a low price! And then to get $11 gesso for $9 on top of that, I was laughin’!

So I got out to the car and put the shadowbox in the back seat and checked into Foursquare while I waited for Blake. I knew he’d be a while because Michael’s was having a major sale on custom framing and there were a lot of people in line behind me so I screwed around with my phone and when Blake got into the car he handed me the gesso AND the orange Martha Stewart glitter paint I oh so coveted because he is just so goddamn romantical! I almost cried!

On our way home, Blake said he was feeling kinda bummed out about John and wanted to know if I’d go out for dinner with him to this new burger place he’s been wanting to try called South St. Burger Co. so I said “sure” because they serve New York Fries, which make the best poutine in Ontario as far as I’m concerned (not counting actual poutineries in Toronto and Ottawa). So we went there and Blake got a big burger with pretty much everything on it and fries while I got a small burger with just ketchup and a small poutine and the food was great. This place only uses grass fed, free range, hormone and antibiotic-free beef and I didn’t think there’d really be a difference but there really was. It was just…beefier, if that makes any sense. Anyway, it was good and afterward we just went home.

Once I got home, I was in a pretty good mood and eager to use my new paint so I decided to smash my date into my Smash Book, so here are pictures of that:

So all in all, a good time was had by all and Blake’s mind was taken off the funeral for at least a little while and I got inspiration IN SPADES. I am going to be very very busy for the next week or two, I think! I don’t even think I’ll need an artist’s date next week! Or if I do, I think it’ll probably just be a trip to Starbucks or something (which Blake may need after being in MI for a week) because I was literally flooded with ideas yesterday. There’s no more room right now for any more because I have to get these ones out first!

Okay, now I think I’m going to go start my list of things Blake needs to get from the grocery store so I don’t starve to death while he’s gone and then I’m going to hide out in my office staring at my flowers and wiping orange glitter paint on my apron.

Or maybe she’s more your type?

Either way, it’s almost Valentine’s Day and I’m getting pretty giddy about it. I don’t have anything planned for it, I never do (which is kinda weird considering it’s my favourite holiday) but I’m looking forward to everyone’s blog posts on Valentine’s Day themed cards and art journal pages and crafts. :o)

Yesterday was crazy productive. I finished my girl for the Sketchbook Project book so all I have to do now is slap a quote on her page, do something with the cover, varnish the cover and I’m done! But then I have to start working on the Sketchbook Project Limited Edition, which honestly? I know I’m going to do a half-assed job with because my heart’s just not in it. For me, the Sketchbook Project is a lot of work and I just can’t afford to spend my energies there right now. It’s not due until April though so maybe I’ll find some time between now and then.

I worked on Argent’s painting yesterday and she’s almost finished. I have NEVER worked so hard on a painting in my life. This one was a lot of work and I really hope he likes it. I”m really really worried he won’t. :o/ The point of the painting is for it to be good luck so I’ve been putting as much positive energy into it as I can and only think happy thoughts while painting it no matter how frustrated I get with it. And if this fucking thing wins him the Powerball, I’d better get a cut! :oP

Anyway, there will be pics of Argent’s painting AFTER I send it to him so I don’t ruin the surprise.

Now I have to go write my morning pages and start working. Cheryl was my nurse today and I don’t like her, she never listens to me and she comes to fucking early it just ruins my whole day. Hopefully today will be okay.

Happy Wednesday!

• Morning pages (I’m doing The Artist’s Way again. Last time I did it for a week and gave up, this time I’m doing it for real because I think the crux of my depression is that I’m creatively blocked. Very little makes me unhappier.)
• Waffles with REAL maple syrup (because my mommy loves me) and butter
• Moulin Rouge and sketching (I got brightly coloured feathers on my last trip to Michael’s and I want to use them in a burlesque painting)
• Burlesque (with Xtina Aguilera) and more sketching
• Figure out what to do with BEADS. If anyone has any idea on what I could do with brightly coloured glass seed beads, I’d love to hear it. I mean like, in my paintings, not in general. They were on clearance in tubes for $1 at Michael’s a while back, good quality ones too, so I got a whole bunch of them  and they’re really really pretty. The only thing I’ve been able to think of for them is to make them gravel in mermaid paintings. There’s gotta be a better use for them.
• Read The Artist’s Way for at least an hour.
• Read Painted Pages, which came today, for at least an hour.
• By that time, the kids should be home, so I’m going to see if Madison wants to watch The Sweetest Thing because that was the movie I won in the grocery store’s colouring contest (actually it’s 3 movies on 1 disc but the other two are stupid; Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle and My Best Friend’s Wedding)
• While we watch the movie, I’ll finish my last Sketchbook Project sketchbook page.
• Salmon steak and salad for dinner

Then the rest of the evening is a mystery! I know I’ll watch something with Blake, maybe The Tempest if there’s nothing else on TV because I know we have that downloaded and maybe we have The Ides of March too (I hope so, Ryan gosling, rawr) but whatever we watch, I’ll be working on Argent’s painting, which is fast becoming the bane of my existence because I keep FUCKING IT UP but hopefully tomorrow I’ll get a handle on it.

Tonight we’re having steak and grilled garlicy buttery potatoes for dinner (with peas!), and the Leafs are playing the godforsaken Islanders and we’re gonna win GODAMMIT and that’s all I have to say about that.

Today was pretty uneventful. I sat in my office all day and watched Oprah-related television while I wrote in my Artist’s Way workbook about my issues right now involving all things creative, then I started reading The Artist’s Way from the beginning because the last time I picked it up, according to my last morning pages, was the winter of 2005 and that was before I went nuts and considering I remember very little in this house before I went nuts, I figured I should just start all over again instead of where my bookmark had left off. Evidently I only read a chapter of the book the first time around too. No wonder it didn’t help me.

Janice was my nurse today. I like Janice, she’s nice and bubbly and funny and probably my favourite out of all of them. She also listens to me, for the most part, whereas the others don’t really. :o/

Anyway, I spent most of my day away from the internet and it was pretty great, so I think I’ll do the same tomorrow. I need to have better days than the ones I’ve been having, that’s for sure.

Have a lovely evening!

~*PLEASE DONATE SO I CAN GO TO ART CAMP!*~

PS. I love Zots, especially when dealing with vellum.

If you go on YouTube and search for “Smash Book”, you’ll find the official videos like above, but you’ll also find “flip through” videos from people who have started using their Smash Books, as well as flips through homemade Smash Books. (Some are good and some are lame. And some are made by 12-year-olds so before you judge one as “lame”, consider the source!)

So by now you’re probably wondering what in the holy hell IS a Smash Book, because I certainly wondered myself after watching the videos and getting a two-tweet explanation from my friend Jazmin. Like I said, I Googled and there was very little out there that really explained the concept. A Smash Book is basically a scrapbook or more to the point, a journal with ephemera. The idea is that you use the accessories – which I’ll get to in a minute, just you wait – to “smash” into the book your memorable receipts, ticket stubs, notes, ideas, lists, doodles and stuff like that. Ideally what you would do is keep the book and a few of the accessories in your purse or bag and when inspiration strikes or whatever, you pull the book out and smash in your thoughts.

Like say you were at Starbucks waiting for your date to arrive. You’ve never met him before, it’s a blind date, and you’re feeling nervous because he’s not there yet. You take out your Smash Pad, which is a pad of lined paper that looks pretty (basically) and you jot down your feelings. Then you use the Smash Stick, which is a pen on one end and a glue stick on the other, to glue that little piece of paper onto a pre-printed page that has a picture of a cup of coffee on it. You close the book just as your date walks in and as you’re putting the book back in your bag, he sits down and he has the loveliest smile you’ve ever seen. Instantly you feel butterflies in your tummy and you can’t help but blush and smile back as you push your warm hand into his and shake gently, never taking your eyes off of his.

The date goes wonderfully and you can’t help but think that this could be the start of something big. He leaves before you and when you stand up to go yourself, you see both of your cups sitting on the table and inspiration strikes. You quickly take the lid off of his and cup it into yours and you walk back to the office. Once there, you pull the cups apart and cut out your names from each of them, flattening them against your desk. You take your Black Dots Smash Tape and carefully tape each cup piece onto the page in which you jotted your thoughts previously, leaving space to write out the details of the date when you get home.

THAT, my friends, is a Smash Book. Here’s mine, I got the Retro Blue Smash Folio:

Attached to the book are Smash Bands, the black and white thing and the blue thing. They’re just over-sized elastic bands.

Inside the book are pre-printed pages. Some are nice and some I’m not really sure what to do with because they’re cohesive on their own and it would be weird to write and “smash” over them. Like some of them have a lot of words on them that all fit together or one big photograph across the whole page and it seems (to me anyway) that you “shouldn’t” smash over them. On the page above, it would seem “wrong” to start smashing over the left page, don’t you think? But you’re totally supposed to! I think, anyway! That’s what people are doing in their YouTube videos, so I guess you just do whatever? That’s going to be hard for me.

These are Smash Sticks. The top one is black pen on one side and the bottom is pink pen on one side and they both have the glue stick on the other end. I think these are genius. The black one came with the book and I ordered the pink one. Actually, I thought the book CAME with a coloured one, I assumed blue, which is why I ordered the pink one. I don’t mind the black one at all, I was just surprised when I opened the package.

This is a Date Smash Stamp and I have mixed feelings about it. First of all, it was $5.49, which was the most expensive thing, besides the book, in my order but I got it precisely because I’ve wanted a date stamp for a long time and they’re normally like, $10-$15 at Michael’s so when I saw this one for significantly less, I jumped on it. And as an added bonus, it has interesting phrases too. Now realistically I’m not going to keep a stamp pad and a messy stamp in my bag, this is something you use at home after the fact, but I think it’s cute and I also think it’ll get a lot of use beyond the Smash Book.

These are brads (Smash Captions – although I have no idea why they’re called that because they’re not captions o_O) with the added bonus of the little date pad at the bottom. Brads are good for adding little pinwheels to your pages maybe, or securing thicker stacks of paper. If you’re unfamiliar with brads, they are metal with little winged backs that you spread to secure them to the back of the paper you’re pinning, like this:

These ones are very pointy and sharp, so you could have some of these in your Smash Kit in your purse or bag and be able to use them “on the run” without needing a hole puncher, depending on what you’re trying to do with them. For most things, I think they’d be pointy enough to go through the paper.

This is Black Dots Smash Tape, which was a whopping $3.29 and if I was paying ANY attention, I probably wouldn’t have bought this. It is washi tape, which you can get at any craft or art supply shop for about the same price, but you can get nicer ones. And I happen to have 3 rolls of it in my office that I never use for anything, including black, so I really didn’t need this. That said, you do get a lot more tape in the Smash roll than you do in the DeSerres one.

This is a Smash Clip and it came in a set of 6 for $3.29. They’re metal and various colours and they say things like “Yes!”, “LIKE”, “WANT”, “CANDY”  and then there’s a green one with a mustache. They’re really just fancy metal bookmarks but I like them and think they were worth every penny.

These are Paper Smash Tabs and what you do with them is you use your Smash Stick and you fold these in half, gluing each inside and you fold and attach them to the side of a page so you can find it later. Then you write whatever you want on the blank part (or do it beforehand, that would make more sense).

These are Secret Smash Pockets and they’re about two inches tall with their flaps down. 6 for $2.19! What a deal! I actually got 3 different types of pockets/envelopes (the Secret Smash Pockets are actually more like envelopes) and my beef with all of them is that they SHOULD have come with a double-sided adhesive strip or two on their backsides rather than making us rely on our Smash Sticks. Glue stick glue is okay for light things but the pockets could get pretty weighty depending on what we’d put in it and I’d feel better if they were stuck in using double-sided tape. I fully intend to add double-sided tape to my pockets before I put them in my Smash Kit.

More pockets, these ones are pretty big and would take the whole bottom of a page.

These ones are also big but they hold a whole month’s worth of calendar so I think I’ll be buying more of these. In the background you can see the Smash Clips on the left and on the right are Red & Blue Smash Stickies and Write In Smash Stickies which are just little stickers that have pictures and sayings on them. I forgot to take individual pictures of those. Oops!

These are the aforementioned Smash Pads. They’re just these little pads of pre-printed paper and each pad has themes. Here are a few examples:

These will definitely be a part of my Smash Kit, which I’ll carry around with me in my bag for moments of inspiration. I already have a little book that I carry around in my bag that’s similar to a Smash Book, I suppose, but I don’t carry around things to put in it and it’s not as big as the Smash Book. Instead of writing in that little book, I’ll probably write things on my Smash Pad and smash them into the Smash Book. Smash smash smash!

What I really like about the whole concept of the Smash Book is that it’s made to be portable and it’s really for people like me who have a hard time with a traditional scrapbook or art journal. I don’t really print photographs (expensive, my printer sucks) so I don’t scrapbook and I am HORRIBLE at art journaling for reasons I’ve previously explained, so the Smash book is really perfect for me.

I get really really antsy in public places, that’s part of my agoraphobia obviously, but with this to play with, I could probably sit in Starbucks (or wherever) for an hour and have a conversation with Blake if I wanted to and not worry about people staring at me. In fact, I plan on testing out that theory once I find a good container to use for my Smash Kit. I mean, I could even whip out my Smash Book while I’m waiting for a movie to start and Blake’s left me to get popcorn and drinks so I don’t lose our ticket stubs. I’d just open the book, select a page, whip out my Smash Stick and glue them in. Normally I tape my ticket stubs into my paper journal (where I write pages and pages and pages of text) and don’t really do anything with them other than that, but I do save them all and this is just another way of doing things.

The Smash Book has kind of been controversial in the art journaling community but I don’t think the criticisms are fair. Comparing the Smash Book to art journaling is really an apples and oranges thing, I think.

Anyway, do you have a Smash Book? Can I see it? If you don’t have one, would you be interested in one? I’m just curious to see if I’m alone in my excitement over it. Let me know!

X-posted to Live Journal!

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Around 9am, Cheryl, one of my nurses, was scheduled to come do my dressing, which the night before I was really pissy about because I didn’t want to get up early but I was glad for it when I saw the sunrise. God I love sunrise.

As I was looking out the window at bliss, the phone rang and it was my mom. She said that I should check my e-mail very carefully because she got her Squam registration e-mail. I checked and checked and checked but I didn’t get one yet. My mom said hers said that I was her roommate and that we were staying in the Longhouse, which I know is a 13+ person cabin. Let the games begin! I cannot even imagine the fights to use the bathrooms haha I will most definitely be bringing my Lush “No Drought” dry shampoo! Since my mom’s e-mail said I was her roommate, I’m assuming my e-mail will be coming shortly. So excited!

After I got off the phone with my mom, Cheryl came and that was pretty uneventful. Cheryl is a smoker and she tries to cover up the smell of the cigarettes with perfume, which just makes it worse. When she leans over me to change my dressing, it smells and I can’t stand it. Also, she comes early and I hate that, whereas Janice and Siske come in the afternoon (and they don’t smoke). BUT since I had such a great day yesterday, I’m thinking getting up early isn’t a totally horrible thing to do on “office days” (days where I stay in my office the whole day making art, as opposed to the living room/computer).

After Cheryl left, I made waffles with the REAL maple syrup my mom got me for Christmas, which is one of my favourite things in the world (if you’ve never had real maple syrup, I truly feel sorry for you because it is one of the Earth’s most wonderful treasures) and I brought them into my office and started flipping around to see what was on TV. I watched Wife Swap, the UK version, which was nice and trashy but as always, one of the moms had a revelation that her life sucked and they all became friends and it was heartwarming.

After that, I took my plate into the kitchen, filled up my drink and came back to my office to make some ~*SERIOUS ART*~ (not really) while I watched…something. I honestly don’t remember what. Something that was an hour long and was probably a talk show. Whatever it was, I worked on Argent’s painting as I watched (or more to the point, listened). Argent’s painting is turning out to be a royal pain in my ass and I can’t wait until it’s finished and out of my house! EVERYTHING I’ve tried to do with it has failed miserably and I’ve had to make corrections like crazy. It’s making me mental! But it’s almost finished and I think he’ll be happy with it and that’s all that matters.

Once Argent’s painting was in a state of “no touchies”, I started working on my girl who will be on my last page of the Sketchbook Project sketchbook.

I think I watched Ellen while I was doing this and Colin Firth and the little dog from the movie The Artist were on it. Colin was very animated and talking about Gary Oldman being “hung like a water buffalo” and the little dog was very charming. Truthfully though, I can’t see myself seeing either of their movies. Just not interested.

After that, was The View. I like this show a lot, I’ve always been a Whoopi fan, but I don’t normally watch it because when I was working, I didn’t watch TV at the same time, and after I got sick and now that I’m home all day with my thumb up my ass, I spend most of my time in front of the computer which is something I’m hoping to change and yesterday was the first step.

(Paper peony)

On The View, the women did their hot topics but they weren’t all that interesting or I’d be able to tell you what they talked about. I know there was a story where Sheri was on a plane and Courtney Love was there with a short skirt and no underbums and she caused quite a ruckus. Their guest was an old guy from that Tom Hanks/911 movie I have no interest in. I just listened and worked on my girl.

Then it was Dr. Phil and boy, what a show. o_O They had on there a guy who was into infantilism. He liked to act like an 18 month old, sleep in a crib, play with baby toys, act like a baby, eat in a high chair and wear diapers. He had a regular job at a “big box store” working nights, but when he got home in the morning, he’d put on his onesie, hop in the high chair and his poor girlfriend would feed him and change his shitty diaper. I felt so bad for her. She was doing everything for him and he never did anything for her, like nothing, and Dr. Phil was like, “are you having a relationship with an 18 month old or a 24 year old?” and the answer was an 18 month old. And she said she wanted to marry this guy and have kids with him one day, but only if he could “tone things down”, which Dr. Phil said would not happen no matter what the guy said. And it wasn’t even a sexual thing, the guy didn’t get OFF on being a baby, that’s just how he felt naturally. Which I think is weird, but fine, it’s not hurting anyone EXCEPT your significant other who you’re lying to about it and basically using. He needs to find someone whose thing in life is wanting to take care of an adult baby and that girl needs to run away as fast as she can in the opposite direction because he will never change and things will only get worse as he takes it farther and farther.

Normally I don’t watch Dr. Phil because I think it’s pretty trashy and only a few degrees away from being Jerry Springer, but if there’s nothing else on or if the topic is interesting, I’ll watch. Yesterday’s was interesting.

By then it was 4pm and the kids came burting through the door just as a Roseanne rerun came on. They asked me what the show was about and I said it was about a family a lot like ours. They decided to watch it with me and they wanted to know who in the show was like who of us in real life. I said that I was Roseanne, Blake was Dan (obviously), Becky was Madison and Wes was DJ. I also told them that it was probably the best sitcom to ever grace the airwaves. Wes was really into it (it was the episode where it was Dan and Roseanne’s 20th wedding anniversary and he took a part-time job to pay for her present) and Madison not so much. Right after the first episode there was another episode so we watched that one too and in that one, Darlene and David break up because Molly kissed David and Madison got more into it because David is on Big Bang Theory and apparently so is Darlene. This, along with Mayim Bialik, makes me think I should give that show a second chance because when I first watched it, I just wasn’t into it but everyone I know loves it and the various clips I’ve seen online of it, I really liked.

Anyway…after Roseanne, it was Golden Girls, which I knew the kids wouldn’t be so much into (although I was into Golden Girls when I was their age) but they watched it with me anyway. The two episodes we watched weren’t very good ones (one where they were remodeling the garage and Rose is dating Mr. Terrific and the other was where Rose’s boyfriend retires and wants to sail around the world) but I explained to Madison, who’s very interested in gay issues and equality, that the Golden Girls was an extremely progressive show for its time because Blanche’s son was gay and they had some episodes dealing with that, but also the show itself was about women at a time in their lives that you just didn’t – and still don’t, really – see on TV. This made her more interested in the show, but only snippets found on YouTube, not the actual episodes. I’d still really like to get the whole series on DVD or Blu-Ray. It was probably my 2nd favourite sitcom of all time.

By the time the Golden Girls was over, I’d finished my girl and stuck her in the sketchbook and today I’ll give her arms, sew the trim on her dress and give her a quote. Then all I have to do on the sketchbook is a girl for the cover and then I’m finished! YAY!

The only difference between this pic and the one above is that I inked her hair and legs/feet.
She’s just so damn pretty, I wanted to post her twice!

After Golden Girls, Wes went into the living room to watch Pokemon, which he’s obsessed with (by the way, his birthday is in 3 weeks if anyone was planning on getting him anything – e-mail me if you need our address), and I flipped around channels to see what I could find. Blake and Madison were going to the high school for like, a parent/teacher transition night type of thing  so I took that opportunity to watch something Blake would never in a million years watch with me: Toddlers & Tiaras.

I can’t help it. I love this show. I never know when it’s on, so I don’t watch it all the time or anything but every episode I’ve seen I’ve really liked. I think that show falls into 3 categories: ones where the kids are total brats to their parents on camera and therefore the episode is funny because it makes their parents look like losers, ones where the kids are really into the whole pageant and they’re just cute as hell and ones where their parents look like monsters and you feel sorry for the kids. Yesterday I saw 2 of the above.

The first one I watched was where the theme for the pageant was Groovy Girls. Or maybe that was the pageant’s name, I’m not sure. Either way, there were 3 categories in the pageant: beauty, costume of choice and one other one I forget the name of and the pageant was “full glitz”, which means that the girls had acrylic nails, spray tans and “flippers” which are like fake teeth. In this episode, all of the girls were actually really into the pageants and they were old enough to choose that this is what they wanted to do. The mothers weren’t overbearing at all, they were just supportive and this was just what they chose to do with their daughter, like any other family would do hockey or soccer. I *DO NOT* like the spray tanning and acrylic nails and fake teeth, I think that’s dumb, but it’s part of the competition, just like shin guards and helmets and sticks and shoes, so as long as the kid’s okay with it, and all these ones were, I don’t have a problem with it. I don’t have a problem with the makeup either, a lot of little girls like to play with and wear makeup. And as long as the kids are GOOD winners and losers, I don’t have a problem with it. In this show, two of the girls who apparently compete a lot and win and lose to each other all the time, are actually friends. I liked that.

Anyway, seeing the girls in their little bell bottoms and vests and sunglasses and go go boots and stuff like that was sooooooo cute. I especially liked seeing like, the 18 month – 2 year olds all dressed up in their little costumes, they were just adorable. And really,  thinking these kids were cute in their costumes is no different than Halloween. The whole show was just cute little girls being cute little girls and I enjoyed the show immensely, enough to watch a new episode that aired at 10pm.

The one I watched at 10pm was vastly different than the one I watched earlier. The one at 10 had horrible parents pushong their kids to do this when they really didn’t want to do it. The one little girl was SICK and feeling like crap but her mom made her compete anyway because the grand prize was $10,000. This mom made the poor little girl not wear her glasses when she was on stage and then belittled her when the little girl didn’t do her routine – which she’d only learned 2 DAYS prior – because the girl couldn’t see the judges or her mother in the audience telling her what to do. Then another mother, who was a hardcore Russian immigrant, was just a monster. He would withhold her daughter’s favourite stuffed bear, “Micha”, and only give it to her when she had to do pageants because apparently when the little girl held and played with Micha, her thumb would go in her mouth and this is how they stopped it. The little girl, Mia, would only get to play with Micha at pageants and seeing the reaction of the girl, who was only 4, when she got to see Micha, it was just heartbreaking. I almost cried. She was just so happy to see her friend again. Then in one of the cutaways, Mia said to the camera, “I want to do good at the pageant because that’s how I know my mommy loves me” or something like that and I *DID* cry, it was just so horrible. And worse? When Mia was on stage doing her beauty routine, she wasn’t listening to the emcee who was kinda like telling her to get off the stage but nicely and Mia’s mom flipped out and started screaming in their hotel room that the emcee hated Mia and that they had to “forget about it” (winning) and that they should just go home. In the end, Mia won a high title and $500 and the FIRST THING she wanted to do when she won was to show her mother and her mother PUSHED HER AWAY. OMG my poor heart. :o( That woman was just a horrible person and she was so blessed to have such an adorable, loving little girl and she didn’t even appreciate her in the slightest. If I can find a clip, I will show you this awful woman so you can wretch with me.

In between episodes of Toddlers & Tiaras, I actually watched a show called “I Cloned My Pet” which was the most pathetic hour of television I have ever watched in my whole entire life. These people were all fucked in the head. There was literally nothing else on except a rerun of the same Wife Swap I’d watched in the morning and that’s the only reason I watched this extremely stupid show.  EXTREMELY stupid.

After that my choices were a show about hoarding or American Idol and because hoarding shows just piss me off because the world just does not need that much excess, I chose American Idol because as much as that show bugs me, I have to admit, the auditions at the beginning of each season are always entertaining.

As I watched American Idol, I started working on an art journal page that uses vellum as bubbles which is a technique I’ve used before and I’ve always really liked, but the only vellum I had on hand was green, yellow, orange and red so my bubbles actually look a lot more like polkadots (hmmm, polkadots are also apparently two words OR one word and they have their own Wikipedia entry). It’s not finished yet and it was night by the time I started working on it which meant that the light in my office was garbage so I figured I’d work on it again today and take pictures of it tomorrow when it was finished. I have absolutely no idea what to write on the page, but I’m sure I’ll think of something.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnd that was my (mostly) internet-free day yesterday in support of the SOPA protest! I will say one thing though: I didn’t tweet yesterday because Twitter was supposed to be part of the black out but I had TweetDeck up just out of habit and I was really disappointed by some people who I *know* knew about the blackout and who tweeted inane bullshit anyway. Some people retweeted SOPA-related things instead of posting which was better than what other people were posting, I guess, but posting at all is the opposite of the concept of a “blackout”. I really, truly thought my Twitter feed would have been completely dark yesterday but it wasn’t and it’s making me evaluate who’s on my feed and why. There are some folks I have on there who I’ve kept just to be nice, but they’re not nice to me back or they don’t interact with me so I wonder why I bother. Soooooooo, I think over the next few days, there are definitely going to be some cuts. Hopefully people won’t make a big issue about it.

Okay, going to go to my office now…WAIT, one more thing! Apparently my posts aren’t always showing up on peoples’ LJ friends lists for some reason and I don’t know if it’s my x-poster or if it’s Live Journal but I’ll x-post an entry and it’ll go through fine, but when I go to edit a post via WordPress and click “update” it’ll tell me that my password for LJ is wrong (it’s not!) and it’ll only update the version on my site. So I dunno what’s up with that. Also when I go to a Live Journal entry and manually edit a post’s userpic and mood, which I do with everything I post, I’ll come back a few hours later and the post will be back to my default userpic. The mood will still be set to what I changed it to, but the userpic will be default. So I dunno WHAT the hell is going on but if you guys on LJ don’t hear from me for a few  days, either check my actual LJ or my site. I *think* the error is with LJ because they were having a lot of problems over the weekend so I’m just waiting for them to fix their shit before I investigate further.

NOW I’m going to my office! Happy Thursday!

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