Oh procrastination, definitely my best skill. Right now I’m supposed to be writing an article on what it was like being raised by a teen mom for Buttercup but instead I’m sitting here listening to music and contemplating a full day of Dragon Age Origins.

The last few days have been phenomenal for me. First, on Sunday my country won gold for hockey and the game was unbelievable, one of the greatest games I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I told Blake at the beginning of the Olympics that if Canada’s men took gold, he wouldn’t be able to stop me from ordering myself a Team Canada jersey, which I’ve always wanted. So, minutes after Sidney Crosby scored the final goal in overtime that gave Canada the win, I whipped out my credit card and ordered my Team Canada jersey. I wanted a medium, which is the same size as my Leafs jersey, but Blake wanted to be able to wear it too so I got a large.

Then on Monday, it was my birthday, which was pretty low-key. Blake got me Y the Last Man books 6, 7 and 8, so I spent the day reading those and eating half of a McCain’s chocolate cake. (I also did a show that afternoon, which is available in the archives, although it’s nothing spectacular.) My mom sent me a card in the mail with a $25 gift card to Michael’s (an art supply store) and on his way home, Blake asked me what I wanted for my birthday dinner, but I felt too sick to eat anything (I’m just getting over a stomach flu) so I told him I’d take a raincheque on that for another night. And that was pretty much my whole birthday.

But then YESTERDAY was like, an extension of my birthday where many good things happened. It started off not so good, as I was awoken by my dogs freaking out because someone was knocking at the door. I tried to ignore them but they kept freaking out so I got up and by the time I did, whoever was knocking was gone and there was a DHL post-it on the door saying that they’d try again tomorrow (today) to make their delivery. Since DHL is an international shipping company, I knew the package they were delivering was contraband from Cuba that our friend Drew had sent to us when he was on vacation there since he couldn’t send Cuban stuff to his home in MI. I signed the post-it saying that they could leave the package at the door and stuck it back on the door and put one of the large magnets we have on our door so it wouldn’t blow away.

After that, my neighbours called and asked me to come over, so I did and we sat & chatted for a couple of hours. They gave me a birthday card with a scratch off ticket inside for my birthday and that was cool. Then I came back home and made myself eggs and watched the movie Private Benjamin, which I’d never seen before and now that I’ve seen it, I cannot for the life of me figure out how or why Goldie Hawn won an OSCAR for that role because she was as Goldie as she’s ever been in any other movie I’ve ever seen her in. It must have been a slow year that year.

While I watched the movie, I renewed a couple of domains I own and registered a new one (my youngest sister’s name), and then I put in my order with Vesey’s for the seeds for the veggie garden we’re going to have this year. Our house came with a veggie garden already “built” in the backyard that’s about 14 feet by maybe 6 or 7 feet and bordered by railway ties. I ordered Royal Burgundy Beans, which are a bush bean that is purple, but when you cook them, they turn green and for that reason, they’re a big hit with the kids. I also ordered napoli carrots, thunder cucumbers, simpson elite leaf lettuce, parade green onions, super sugar snap peas, fat & sassy green peppers, purple star peppers (that are sweet peppers that are PURPLE and look lovely in salads), bobcat tomatoes and sugary cherry tomatoes. Truth be told, I’m not sure the garden’s big enough for all of that stuff, but I’ve never had a veggie garden before so I’m kind of going by trial & error. Mostly I’m worried about the cucumbers because I think vines need a lot of room to grow, but I figure if I plant them along the top of the garden they can drape over the 3 feet of lawn between the garden and the house and we just won’t mow there or we’ll move the vines when we mow and then put them back. And as I do every year, the whole gardening experience will be documented on my site.

After I ordered the veggie seeds, the movie was over and I took a nap which I was rudely awakened from by the dogs freaking out again because my kids were talking to other kids in our driveway.

When I finally got out of bed, after the kids had come inside, there was an Amazon package sitting on my desk that Madison told me had been sitting against the front door when they came home. So I opened it and inside was all kinds of birthday presents from a friend, including Dragon Age Origins which I’ve been wanting to play since it was released.

After I opened the Amazon package, I sent a thank you to the person who sent all of it and after it was sent and my browser came back to my inbox, there was an e-mail from Vancouver 2010 telling me that my Team Canada jersey had shipped and that it should be here in a few days. Score!

Shortly after that, Blake called me on his way home and I asked him if I could have my belated birthday dinner and he said yes, so I asked him to bring me home an assorted sub from Mr. Sub, because I had full intentions of installing Dragon Age as soon as I got off the phone with him and a sub is an easy meal to eat at the computer. See? Always thinkin’ ahead.

Well, I got distracted by Madison, who had sprained her toe and required drugs because she was in pain. Her toe looked horrific, it was so purple it was almost black, but she could move it, so at least it wasn’t broken. She said she sprained it when she fell at recess. Soooooo I drugged her and she went to bed.

Then Blake came home and I began installing Dragon Age, which I played for about 5 hours and then I went to bed.

Annnnnnnnnd now you’re up to date with the past couple of days of my life. :o)

So as I mentioned, it’s Love Your Vulva month over at Buttercup (NSFW this month!) and in honour of this month’s theme, my friends Alex and Ronny baked the most obscene cookies ever made. Would anyone care for a tasty vulva snack?

I don’t know what’s been up my ass lately but I’ve been super productive over the last 4 or 5 days. My bee girl painting is almost finished and so is the one I’m doing for Ashley for her baby shower. All I’ve been doing is drawing/painting and watching Six Feet Under starting from the first season (I’m now on season 3). Today I’ll continue to work on both paintings and watching Six Feet Under and then I’ll watch the Leafs game and repeat.

An artist once told me that in order to produce work in more volume, I should stop watching TV and I thought that was insane advice because I paint while I watch TV. Or more to the point, I paint while I listen to the TV, looking up when i need to, but mostly just listening to it while I concentrate on whatever’s on my desk. The very odd time I’ll paint while listening to music, but that’s pretty rare and usually only happens when there’s nothing on TV or I’ve seen all of the good movies on The Movie Network On Demand that month. And even then, I’m more likely to put in a DVD of a movie I’ve seen a thousand times than to paint while listening to music. Music is for writing. TV is for painting.

Perhaps predictably because I never finish anything, the story I was writing last month has been put on the back burner.  I was going strong on it, got 10 pages down easily and then Xmas happened and I just kinda lost steam. I fully intend to go back to it, but probably not until the spring when painting urges start slowing down.

The ACEOs/ATCs…I haven’t really been working on them. The ones I posted a while back are still sitting on my desk without arms (because I really really fucking hate doing arms, I cannot say this enough!) but as soon as I’m finished the two paintings I’m working on right now, I’ll go back to them. I mean, I have to, I have no money for more canvases so unless I want to paint on wood (which I don’t), ACEOs it is. A lot of people have been asking me about them and when they’ll be ready and the fact of the matter is, I’m going to finish all 60 of them before any of them go up for sale. Because I’m working on them all by colour, I don’t want to release them for sale as I make them because say I release the ones I’ll have finished in a couple of weeks. Those ones are purple and gold. So someone buys a purple one and then 2 months later I put the pink and turquoise ones up for sale and the person who bought the purple one thinks “dammit! I like those better!” and regrets their purchase. I don’t want that, so that’s why I won’t be putting them all up for sale until they’re all finished. Or at least that’s the plan at this very moment. I’m glad to hear that there’s interest in them though, that makes me very happy. Sometimes when I’m painting I get into negative self-talk and think “why the fuck am I even doing this? No one’s going to like it, not enough to buy it blah blah blah” but I don’t with the ACEOs because I know people want them. So that’s a good thing.

Anyway, onto what I’m working on now. My bee girl is almost finished (she needs arms), or at least I thought she was. When I was drawing her, I made her slightly smaller than 8 inches tall to give me headroom for her antennae on a 12 inch tall canvas. Well, I needed less headroom than originally anticipated, so now there’s all this space above her head that I need to fill with something. Warning: Shitty picture…

She needs words. I just don’t know which words. The idea to paint her came from the “No Rain” video by Blind Melon, so “No Rain” is the obvious choice here, but truthfully I don’t think she’s  grungy enough for that. The girl in the “No Rain” video was an outcast, with nerdy glasses and a plump body. This bee girl is obviously a little more glamourous. (After she’s varnished, she’s going to have a fluffy black tulle tutu.) I think if I were to see this painting when I was out somewhere with the words “No Rain” on it, I’d probably laugh at it for trying to hard. So that’s out. Also out is a play on words (unless it’s very clever) on the word “bee”, like “Bee Yourself” and stuff like that, but I’m not opposed to bee references in general like, “It’s good to be Queen” (although I think that’s too long and doesn’t fit with this painting). So if anyone has any suggestions for this one, I’m all ears because I’ve been looking at it since last night trying to think of something and I’m at a loss. Later today I’m going to look up bee facts on Wikipedia to see if anything pops out, but if anyone thinks of something in the meantime, shout it out! Just try to keep it to 3 or 4 words, if possible. (And thank you in advance!)

The painting I’m doing for Ashley’s baby shower is pretty straight forward, just a pretty girl on a REALLY REALLY sparkly background. (And I mean REALLY REALLY sparkly, I kinda went nuts with the glitter on hers.) Her background is crackled white paint over metallic purple paint, with light purple, light yellow, champagne gold and metallic purple splatters and light purple sparkles over top because the baby’s room is being done in all purples and yellows, apparently. I asked Ashley to send me samples of the paint she bought for the baby’s room, which she did, and I matched the samples to my paint pretty much perfectly, she’s going to love it.

The girl for the painting is basically Ashley herself in a fancy dress:

That pic (and the bee girl pic) is kinda crap because I took it outside thinking the white light from the grey day would make for better pictures, but it didn’t and I didn’t really realize it until I’d already uploaded the pics. Her eyes are a metallic light blue which is essentially the same shade as Ashley’s eyes and Ashley’s hair is long, straight and dark brown and she wears it in pretty much that style every time I see her. I’m assuming, since her boyfriend also has dark hair (but I don’t know what colour eyes) that the baby will have dark hair too. They’re both Italian and everyone in their families has dark hair, so I figure that one’s a given.

If I have time before the shower (and money) I’m going to make a trip to Michael’s to see if I can’t find metal words for the girl to be holding. I’m pretty sure Making Memories makes a set that includes the word “family”, which would work, but I’d really much prefer “daughter”. If I can’t do that then the girl will just be clasping her hands in front.

The baby shower is on the 24th and is in downtown Toronto. I told everyone I’m going and Judy’s excited for me to come, but in all honesty, there’s a very good chance I won’t go. Being in a hall with about 50 strangers with weird food 2 hours away from home for a baby shower is not my idea of fun at all. I’m gonna need so many drugs to pull this off that I just don’t even know if I’ll be able to. Judy really wants me there though, so I’m going to try my best to make it. (Ashley probably won’t care either way, as long as I send a gift. That’s just how Ashley is.)

Anyway, I think it’s time for me to make my eggs, start watching more Six Feet Under and get back to work on these paintings. I hope you’re all having a wonderful day!

PS. Buttercup‘s got lots of interesting stuff in store for January, you should check it out!

I woke up today at 1:30pm and I was amazed when my eyes adjusted enough for me to look at the clock. I got up at 8am on Sunday, for some ungodly reason, and last night I ended up staying awake until around 3:30am because someone on a forum I go to started a thread about this A&E show called Hoarders, which I’d never heard of and it sounded interesting so I (stupidly) decided to start watching episodes on Ninja Video.

Also last night, I wrote one of my articles for Buttercup, called “So This Is Xmas“, all about why I hate this particular holiday and it left me emotionally ravaged. I know I’ve told the story as to why I hate Xmas on my site before and last night I promised myself that this would be the last time I open that wound ever again because afterward, I was a complete mess. (Mom, if you’re reading this, you probably wanna skip that article. You know what it’s about and I really mean it when I say it’s the last time it’s going to be brought up.) It’s strange how something that happened so long ago can leave me a a crumpled mess on the floor wanting to throw up more than half a lifetime later.

Anyway, that’s what I did last night.

There are a couple of arty things that have been topics of discussion lately and I figure now’s as good a time as any to talk about them. The first is that some friends of mine have asked me if I’ll ever start making videos on YouTube, specifically art tutorial videos and vlogs and the answer to that is quite simply “no”. There are millions of art tutorials already on YouTube, I suck at video editing software and have no intentions of improvement in that area and I just don’t want to. Vlogs? Why? I already have a blog and write quite well, thank you, so I don’t see the point of sitting in front of a camera essentially talking to myself and saying everything I’m saying here only a hell of a lot less eloquently. No thank you. One person said that there’s no difference between recording a vlog and doing a streaming show at Camwhores and I guess that person has never been to Camwhores before or seen any of my shows. Yes, there is similarity in the fact that you’re in front of a camera, but that’s where the similarity ends. At Camwhores, there are people watching you and talking to you, it’s live and to me, that’s a lot less awkward than sitting in my office talking to myself about the weather.  Plus, there’s no editing to be done and only a select audience is going to be viewing it after it’s been recorded and put in the archives. So it’s completely different and no, I won’t be making art tutorials or vlogs for YouTube in the new year. I may do little videos of my finished paintings so people can see how they sparkle (which we’ve found impossible to photograph), but that’s about the extent of it.

The other thing I’ve been asked recently is if I’ll do a tutorial on how I do backgrounds and the answer to that one is “sure”. If people want to know how, as it appears they do, then the next time I make a painting (which should be in the new year, unless I become inspired before then) I’ll take photos of the process and whip up a tutorial on all that goes into the background. It’s actually extremely easy, as long as you’ve got the right products and I think the end result is pretty cool. So that’s something I plan on working on in the new year.

Since I have nothing to read right now, I dug out these back issues I ordered last year of a magazine called Artful Blogging. Yes, even I was amazed that such a publication existed. Basically, last year someone suggested that I write a piece about my blog for the magazine so I ordered the back issues to see what it was all about and then someone else told me to “let them come to you”, so I kind of put the idea out of my mind. Then last week when I was looking for something on one of my bookshelves that I haven’t read yet, I found them and started reading. Long story short, I don’t think I want to be in this magazine and the suggestion of me being in it is actually kind of laughable because I so wouldn’t fit in. This magazine is not for people who say “fuck” a lot, it’s for people who inspire and make friends through their blogs and network and all kinds of other flowery “uplifting” bullshit. And while yes, I’ve done all of the above with my blog (or more to the point, my Live Journal) and I’ve had mine longer than any of the people in at least the first two issues of the magazine, I’ve done so with a hell of a lot more edge than the women profiled (and they’re all women) and this magazine doesn’t appear to be the place for that. I’m going to read all of the issues I have, even though every article is practically the same, and then I’m going to forget it exists again because it’s, well, boring. Hopefully I get some new books for Xmas.

And with that, I think I’m off to my Sims Bunker since I have to write a review for the expansion next week and I still haven’t been to Egypt.

A new month of Buttercup begins today! Check it out! (Especially our hot ass cover. ;o))