Thanks, E. <3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oooooh my god I have so many thoughts swirling around in my head right now that I can’t even begin to process them all unless I start writing shit down, so that’s what I’m going to do. It’s been a busy, happy (mostly) few days so I guess I’ll sort everything by day, starting with Thursday night.

Thursday night I was playing WoW with my friends Stephy & Keenan and eating Crispers when I lost a filling. I have nightmares regularly about this very thing and while I anted to freak out, I stayed mostly calm, especially because our dentist is awesome and I was pretty sure I could get it fixed, if only temporarily, the next day. Plus, it didn’t hurt. Still, when I got into bed I woke Blake up and freaked out a little bit, but not as badly as I would have in the past and then I went to sleep.

Friday morning Blake told me that our dentist could see me in the afternoon, after my shrink appointment, so yay.

My shrink appointment didn’t go as planned. See, the thing is, I only see my shrink once a month or sometimes once every 3 months, so she doesn’t always remember things about me or what we talked about last session. Plus, she’s sometimes quite a bitch, but despite that I mostly like her. It’s not her fault she has like, 500+ patients and at the mental health clinic I go to, where she works 2 days a week, she gets paid peanuts compared to her private practice and probably has more clients, all of whom she usually sees once a month. I’ve been in the waiting room with a lot of her patients and believe me, I’m definitely low priority and to me, that’s a good thing.

Anyway, I was excited to tell her about doing yoga because yoga is a huge deal for me in terms of social awkwardness and agoraphobia in general. A year ago I couldn’t do this. Two years ago, this would have been an impossibility. I expected my shrink to be like, “yay you!” but when I told her she wasn’t really that enthused about it and that wasn’t the reaction I was going for. She was more amused, I think, that Blake was doing it – omg a MAN doing yoga, imagine! – than me and that kinda bummed me out.

Then I thought she might be happy that I still haven’t smoked since April 23rd, but she didn’t seem to care about that either.

So the next thing I wanted to talk to her about, or at least make her aware of, is that article about picky eating adults I linked in Live Journal the other day and how researchers are thinking it might actually be a disorder and that they were doing a study on it, which I signed up for. So she read the article, which I’d printed out for her, and the whole time she had a kind of smirk on her face like she was trying not to laugh and when she was finished, she said that she didn’t believe it was a disorder. (She spent about a minute 30 seconds skimming the article, I might add.) Then Blake and I started telling her about all of my issues with food, which are actually pretty immense when you lay them all out and I think I’m going to write a page about it on my site sometime soon because maybe it would be interesting to other people, but anyway we told her about ho sometimes it takes literally 2 hours to decide what to have for dinner and then in the end I usually end up eating something separate from the family anyway and after laying it all out on the table, she looks me dead in the eye and says, “is it possible that you’re just a spoiled brat?”

I had no idea how to respond to that. This is my shrink. This is the person who’s supposed to help me with my issues and help me figure out how to live with them or fix them and here she is completely invalidating what Blake and I spent the last 10 minutes trying to explain? I mean basically what we were saying is that we think I have OCD and that it manifests itself with food. Y’know how some people with OCD are germaphobes? Well I’m pretty much a foodaphobe in a very similar way and she asked me that? What kind of bedside manner is that? That’s bullshit. Your shrink isn’t supposed to CALL YOU NAMES.

And what really kills me about this shrink in particular is that when I first started seeing her, almost  years ago now, I told her “hey I sleep ’til 1pm and work at night and smoke and live a really weird life”, she said “that’s okay. It’s your life and you have the right to live it how you want to.” And she stuck with that for like, the first year, but after that she started trying to change me or openly disagreeing with how I live my life. She thinks I should go to bed at 11 or 12 and get up early in the morning all of a sudden. Most of the time I actually DO do that but it’s the principle of it, she told me before that I could sleep however I wanted to as long as I was getting enough of it.

And then there was the one time where I walked into her office and like, almost the first thing she said to me is, “why don’t you get a job?” Like lady, have you not been listening for the past few years? Do you not remember my issues? That was the most asinine suggestion I’ve ever heard in my whole entire life. I’m not offended by people thinking I’m whatever because I don’t have a 9-5, I don’t expect people to understand my life and I don’t care, but SHE SHOULD because I’ve (we’ve) spent hours upon hours explaining to her how we are, how we live, how life is, and she just doesn’t pay attention or listen or write the right things down.

And by the way, I have a job, thank you. I have several. I’m an artist. I’m a camgirl. (A bad one at the moment, but whatever.) Those two things are what I do to bring in money so my kids can have the things they want, which brings me to my other job, being their mom. They LIKE that I’m always home and that I’m always there for them. Our family is extremely close and that’s the way we like it and a lot of that has to do with the fact that 85% of the time, I am completely available for whatever they need. So fuck you and your “get a job” crap. I’m all full up. It pissed me off when people negate being a stay at home mom as a job. That’s fucking bullshit, especially considering the fact that I also work from home at the same time.

Anyway, she pissed me of with the accusation that I as a “spoiled brat” and after she said that, I sort of shut down and stopped participating in the conversation, but I guess Blake explained things to her and she conceded that I probably have OCD tendencies but that I wouldn’t like the main treatment (exposure, which wouldn’t work in this case anyway, if you read the stories on PickyEatingAdults.com) and I couldn’t have the other treatment which is high doses of anti-depressants because they would make me manic. So we all concluded that the best thing to do is to just continue trying to work around it since I’m not exactly starving and Blake can deal with it with me. And really, I’m getting better. Not with food, I’m still a wreck over food, but I’ve been actively trying to make things easier on Blake when it comes to my stupid idiosyncrasies.

So after my shrink appointment we came home for a while and then it was time to go to the dentist where I got a temporary filling and I have to go back this Thursday for the real thing. I hate when the assistant dentist girl tells the secretary that they’ll need 40 minutes for me. :o/

But that’s a milestone in and of itself. I have had a lifelong fear of dentists but I’ve been really lucky to have two really good ones the last several years, especially the one I see now, and now it’s really no big deal because I know after the needle part, I’m good. The dentist I see now is really gentle and understanding and I’m really going to miss him when/if we move or when/if he retires. (He’s kinda old, but I don’t know how old. He’s spoken of retiring while I’ve been in the chair so I know it’s on his mind. Oh yeah, and he’s the only dentist in town.)

After the dentist I had a much needed nap and when I woke up, we went to Wal*Mart to get Madison a new bathing suit and flip-flops because hers were fuX0red and last year’s bathing suit wasn’t fitting so well. So we did that and while we were there, Wes said that he wished he could have a Zhu Zhu pet, which is a mechanical hamster that makes sounds and runs around on the floor and is about $10.

We went to the toy aisle after getting Madison situated and I looked at these mechanical hamsters and when I saw one that was pink, I was sold. I told Wes I would buy him one but that he couldn’t have it until he earned it by doing basic chores around the house. He was good with this, so we put two of them in the cart, one for him and one for me, so we could play with them together just as I played with Tamagotchis with Madison at around the same age.

I also picked up the new “Hole” album, Nobody’s Daughter, which is really a Courtney Love album that she decided to brand as being Hole for reasons I can’t even comprehend. I wasn’t going to buy the album out of principle but then my completest nature too over and suddenly I had to have it. Also I watched Courtney’s “Behind the Music” the night before and that made me want the album. (Have I ever mentioned how goddamn susceptible I am to advertising?)

I also bought two spiral notebooks because my current one is almost full and they were on sale for $3 a piece for the big fat ones, so score! And I also bought new underwear because my bum is no longer a large (it hasn’t been for quite some time, but I haven’t had any money) and is now a medium to small – w00t! I just grabbed a 3-pack of Hanes Her Way bikini underbums because ideally I’m going to be needing to buy smalls eventually.

I know, you totally care. We also bought shampoo, how exciting!

When we got home, I opened my Zhu Zhu pet to see what it did and then I started listening to Nobody’s Daughter, which I expected to hate but I’ve gotta say it’s actually growing on me, or at least some tracks. I think it’s better than the abysmal America’s Sweetheart, but only by a fraction. This may sound kind of weird, but America’ Sweetheart was kinda contrived while Nobody’s Daughter feels more honest. What I mean is that Live Through This was about Courtney’s Life, more or less, as was Celebrity Skin because that’s when she was going through her Hollywood phase. During America’ Sweetheart she was completely fucked up on drugs from crack to coke and getting hauled off to Bellevue because she was out of her mind and hardly any of that is present on America’s Sweetheart. Nobody’s Daughter is very much a comeback album and what she went through to get here, I think, what she learned along the way. (I think certain songs might be about people she met in rehab and some of it is definitely what she discovered about herself through therapy.)

Anyway, I won’t lie, I kinda like it – so shoot me. (But I still refuse to call it a Hole album because it’s not. Certain songs are VERY Hole-esque, but it’s just not Hole.)

So as I’m listening to the album for about the 3rd time, I’m reading my Facebook feed and one of my friends posted that he was going to the Courtney Love show the next day and I was like “WHAT????? HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS????” and immediately I was upset that I couldn’t go because I was sure it was either sold out or we couldn’t afford the INSANE $50 ticket price, which was a shame because on Saturday, the night of the show, we were celebrating our anniversary by going to get ribs and strawberry pie like we do every year and thus, we had a babysitter (two of them in fact!) and could conceivably go.

I sulked hardcore and tweeted about it several times, trying to figure out a way we could go. I have two paycheques coming any day now (well one is) and Blake said he could lend me the money for us to go and I could pay him back with that but the cheque is only for $200 and change and I need that money for the kids for the summer so I didn’t want to blow half of it on this show.

But just as I was considering it, Saturday morning, my friend Heatha messaged me and was like, “hey I can give you a deposit on the painting I want to buy so you can go to the show” and I was like “fuck YES” and that’s what happened. The deposit was exactly enough to pay for the tickets, parking and if we added $10, which I did, get a tour t-shirt.

Before I get into the show though, first and foremost Blake and I were celebrating our 8 year wedding anniversary by going to Haugen’s for the best ribs and fresh strawberry pie in the world, stopping in Greenbank where I grew up, to the bakery there where we bought the best garlic cheese bread in the world, as well as some pretty kickass ginger cookies.

Voila:

Normally we get a whole strawberry pie to bring home with us and share with the kids, but we didn’t this time because we were going to the Courtney Love show afterward and we didn’t think it would keep well in the trunk of the car that long. Plus, we were trying to be as frugal as possible because really, we can’t afford to celebrate our anniversary, but it’s important to us so we do it anyway.

I slept all the way from Haugen’s to the venue and since we were early, I continued to sleep in the car until the lineup to get in was considerably smaller and after fixing my makeup we got in line. Security confiscated my PENS! I had 3 BRAND NEW Pilot Precise V5s in my bag, which are kind of expensive as far as disposable pens go, and they confiscated them because of graffiti. I didn’t protest because I know there’s no point in doing that in situations like this, but man, that sucked. Plus you’d have to have a lot of time and be really dedicated to tag the bathroom with one of those.

The security chick was like, “after the show just come out and I’ll give them back to you” and I thought “yeah right”. And of course after the show, those security guards were nowhere to be found.

Anyway, the show. The show was pretty awesome and I can’t help but love Courtney Love. I’m sorry, I know some of you hate her guts and don’t get why I like her so much, but whatever, she was great. Here’s a review of the show, which I agree with. Her voice was different than usual (I’ve seen her as the REAL Hole twice before), even different than on the album, and I noticed that her annunciation was different too and actually very Jagger-esque. She belted out tunes old and new and the audience sang along to a lot of it and all in all it was just a really great show. (Well, except that she sang Doll Parts, which is the worst Hole song, imo.)

We started off in the “pit”, which was full of little girls like me when we started, and we were about 3 people back from the barriers but when it got closer to Courtney coming on, all these goddamn Amazons pushed and shoved their way in front of all of us and when Courtney came out, the “pit” went fucking mental (as to be expected). We stayed in there for the first 3 songs but when the girl to my left threw her totally full beer into the air all over the crowd and the woman to my right started literally punching people, I decided it was time to get the fuck out, so I grabbed Blake’s hand and we watched the rest of the show from the back where it was cooler and I could actually have a drink.

Luckily, being a primarily female audience and not a very tall one, I could actually see Courtney from the back from the waist up and the sound at the venue is actually really good so I was happy with our position, except when 6 foot tall dickheads decided to stand right in front of me. Repeatedly. I was a 6 foot tall dickhead magnet, I don’t know why. Luckily they never stayed in front of me very long and the back was sparse enough for me to move around so I could see better.

When we first arrived at the show I went to the bathroom and it was totally clean. When Courtney finished her encore I went to the bathroom again and it was absolutely trashed. The men reading this may or may not know this, but in most womens’ public bathrooms, to the right of the toilet, is a receptacle for used menstrual products. When I went to the bathroom at the end of the show I checked every available stall and I swear to god that every girl in the whole venue was on the rag but me. These receptacles were so full that all around them on the floor were used pads and tampons. It was beyond disgusting and made worse by the fact that the floor was all wet for some reason in the whole bathroom, which made the tampons bulk up. SO GROSS.

After the show, we went home and hung out with Ronny & Alex for about half an hour, then they went home and we went to bed and now it’s Sunday afternoon and I’m writing this post.

The only thing I have left to say is that Ronny now lives in Canada (he’s from MI) because he and Alex are getting married on Saturday and he brought me Vanilla Coke Zero, Cherry Coke Zero, Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper and Cherry Dr. Pepper, none of which we have in Canada because….I dunno, we fucking suck. I just had a can of Vanilla Coke Zero and just about had an orgasm on the spot. When they discontinued regular Vanilla Coke up here I was so upset because I LOVED it and when Ronny told me that they had Vanilla Coke Zero in the US I was like “that’s it, we’re moving” so that’s why he brought these all up.

Right now I’m drinking a can of Cherry Coke Zero and I actually think it might be better than the vanilla.

Oh and one more thing: I got the most BEAUTIFUL wedding invitation from our friends Alicia and Tim in Georgia that blew me away on Friday and I wish so badly that we could afford for all of us to go because those two actually kinda met through me and I’d really like to see them become husband and wife. Alas, financially it would be an impossibility, but I hope they know I’m there in spirit. (And I think they should totally webcast it…*cough*)

Anyway, that is all. Have a great week everyone!

This morning I blipped Tequila by the Champs and told everyone on Blip.fm & Twitter to do the @peeweeherman dance.

AND GUESS WHAT?

Pee-wee Herman himself retweeted my blip, causing like, a million people to do the same AND he posted it on Facebook too. So I’m like, semi-famous right now.

See?
(Click to enlarge.)

My life is now complete.

Have some Scratching Post. :o)

(Fun Fact: On The Mike Bullard Show (last clip), I showed my underwear on national television. :o))

Anyway, these clips are not in chronological order. The official videos are, but the live stuff isn’t. I was digging all of these up to show Madison when she woke up, in honour of Canada Day so I thought I’d share. Enjoy!

So, I mean, I’ve been around…I just haven’t been updating with anything of too much importance or excitement or anything and this post is really no different, but I figured I’d tell you all what I’ve been up to.

Mostly I’ve just been keeping my nose to the ground and trying to win this contest over at Camwhores where I can win Blake a pretty cherry new laptop, which he could really use because his laptop’s basically held together with duct tape. That’s why I’ve been going so hard with the Camwhores posts, but don’t worry, at the end of the month I’ll stop pushing as hard as I am right now.

There’s also the fact that right now I’m #1 on the site (I could be #2 by now, I haven’t checked – Kaitlyn looked poised to overtake me last I looked) which means I can do shows every 3 days instead of every 7 days and I’m really trying to make the most of that as my Camwhores earning potential decreases in the summer months because the kids are home from school. And the truth of the matter is, the proceeds from this week’s hardcore camming is primarily for the kids, so I have cash money in my wallet to send them to McDonald’s for ice cream or so I can send Madison to the store on her bike to get the ingredients for pizza or so we have the money to get subs for dinner and eat them on the beach after Blake gets home from work or so, if Madison needs $20 worth of fabric to create something with her sewing machine, I can give it to her. So I can buy my kid Lunapads when she has her first period. Blake’s income has no room for things like this, but mine does, so I’m trying to make the most of it right now. Tips are appreciated, by the way.

So that’s the deal with Camwhores. That and I’ve been having a lot of fun over there as I tend to always do. And you probably would too. I’ll shut up now.

In other news, I have a garden. A garden that seems to be filling in nicely. These pictures were taken last week and it started raining on me today or I would have gone out and taken new pictures because the lettuce is starting to come up.

Beans!

Peas!

The whole shebang!

The tomato vines are getting pretty unruly, so the plan for today is to tie them to the cages as opposed to staking them, just to get them up off the ground. The stalks of the pepper plants are turning kinda woody at the bottom and the plants are getting big, which is good. The ones at the back are still a liiiiittle piddly though, but I’m not sure there’s much I can do about it. Peppers need a long, hot growing season and for the past week or so, it’s actually been kinda cold. Last week I even wussed out and turned on the furnace for a day because it was only 12 degrees (C).

We’ve also had a lot of rain, which means the peas and beans are almost twice the size they are in these pics and next paycheque (next weekend), we have to find some way to give the peas something to climb up on that’s CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP. My suggestion was to get a piece of wood lattice the length of the garden and just stick that in the ground but I’m not sure how much that costs or how feasible it is. We’ll figure something out. There are wire “pea fences” you can buy, but the ones I saw in the Vesey’s catalogue were like, over $50 and I’d need 2 of them so screw that.

I haven’t even looked at the herbs I have growing in pots on the porch, so I have no idea what they’re doing and truth be told, I kinda forget what I planted (thyme & rosemary?). Oops. The front garden is filling in nicely in the parts that were established last year but the part where we cut the sod earlier in the spring is taking its sweet assed time. The filled-in part already has a metric fuck tonne of blooming bachelor’s buttons and the cosmos are about ankle high. The part we sod cut? So far all I see growing in there is more goddamn GRASS despite planting literally LBS of bb & cosmo seeds there. Hopefully with the rain we got this week and the heat we’re supposed to get next week, those seeds will start growing.

I am pausing this post because an oldschool song just came on my iTunes that I feel I need to share because to me, it’s such a summer song. This band (Chaka Demus & Pliers) has another song I like called “Tease Me”, which I’ll also embed:

Okay I’ll stop being random now. I’m gonna guess that Dirty will be the only person on my LJ friends list to appreciate those two videos haha

ANYWAY…

I’ve been making art. Quite a bit of art actually, I’ve been fairly productive over the past two weeks or so. I have two paintings almost finished, a new one started and I’m painting a very mysterious sign that’s going to hang beside my front dor which I will reveal as soon as it’s ready.

So here’s what I’m working on right now. This is the turquoise version of “Love Fairy” that of course needs arms, but don’t they fucking all…*grumble*….I haaaaate dong arms….anyway, here she is (and she should have been finished two weeks ago but I got sidetracked by too many things – oops):

The turquoise love fairy or “Love Fairy II”, as I’ve been calling her, is exactly the same as the original, using confetti glitter as opposed to rounded glitter, the only difference is her palette and her lips are bigger than the pink one’s. All she needs to be complete is definition of her wings using white metallic paint, arms of course, a wand, my signature and a 2 coats of varnish, all of which I should be able to make happen this week if I stop procrastinating. (Or as Jackie says, “procrasturbating” lulz.)

Also on my coffee table is “Shimmer II”. The original “Shimmer” had a kid-related accident and can no longer be sold. I’m still gonna hang her in my house, but she’s got some cracks now and she just can’t be sold, so I’m painting a new one.  Because I can’t really paint the same girl twice, despite it looking like they’re all basically the same, “Shimmer II” and “Shimmer” actually look quite different and since I sold “Shine” last week and the triad (?) is no longer complete, I’m debating as to whether or not I should actually write “Shimmer” across the top like the original or if I should just leave it plain. What do you think?

With “Shimmer II” there are quite a few differences between her and the original, some intentional, some not. First of all, her background is a lot more turquoise than the original and that’s basically because I’ve forgotten how to do backgrounds the way I was doing them a year ago. That’s another strike, I think, in the column for not writing “Shimmer” across the top because she no longer fits with the other 2 paintings in her series because of the different backgrounds. If you were to hang all 3 side by side, you could tel that “Shimmer II” was painted at a different time.

Also, I fucked up her hair, but I didn’t realize it until it was too late. The original “Shimmer”‘s hair was a custom mix of champagne gold and metallic white so it would look more sun-bleached and I forgot to do that with “Shimmer II”. You guys would never be able to tell the difference by pictures, but putting them side by side in person, you can tell.

If you look at the original “Shimmer”, you can see that her boobs are a lot more, hmmm, is “siliconey” a word? With “Shimmer II” I tried to make them a more realistic shape for someone who’s never worn a bra in her life. She will, of course, have jewels for nipples, but I can’t do that until I give the poor girl some arms. After she has arms, all she needs is my signature and 2 coats of varnish and she’s done, but I’m still really torn on the “Shimmer” issue. Seriously, do you think I should write “Shimmer” across the top or should I treat her like a whole new painting? This is why I’ve been procrastinating on getting her done, I just don’t know what to do. I’m leaning towards not putting it and just leaving her plain, but I just don’t know.

And like I needed to start another painting…but inspiration struck…here’s what I’m calling “She’s Like a Rainbow”, inspired by my internet friend Megan who just had her hair dyed this way:

She doesn’t even have a dress yet (and I don’t have one in mind) or a canvas prepped (which I usually do first but with the other 2 on my coffee table, I don’t have room!) so I’m not really sure what I’m doing with her at the moment, but there she is all the same. All I know is that she will probably have a purple bindi jewel on her forehead and her dress is going to be of the petticoat variety, although I don’t have any papers in mind yet.

Annnnnnd last but not least, I’m working on a sign for the front door of my office (which acts as the “front door” of our house, even though it isn’t actually our front door) and this project is priority #1 right now. In fact, as soon as I’m finished with this post, I’m probably going to finish watching The Runaways (is it just me or is this movie really really ungood?) and work on this sign. What the sign is going to say is top secret for now, but it’s something you’ve all heard me say (or write) a thousand times before so it should come as no surprise to most of you. It is also going to be the first of probably 3 signs that will hang next to my front door. So, saying all of that, I’ll show you the girl I made for it, tell you that it’s on wood as opposed to canvas and leave it at that:

Lettering always makes me nervous, so I’ve been practicing on paper first and it will be the absolute last thing I do on the sign. Really all that’s left to do is her dress, which will take like, 10 minutes tops, and then the lettering which I know is going to be metallic red, possibly with a black outline…I haven’t decided yet.  Part of me thinks the outline will look really awesome, part of me is thinking “why make it more complicated than it needs to be when you suck at lettering to begin with?” So we’ll see.

So as you can see, when I haven’t been whoring it up on Camwhores this month, I’ve been pretty busy creating and the rest of this month is dedicated to actually finishing. I signed myself up for The Square Foot Show, which is August 21st-September 5th at AWOL Gallery in Toronto but I have no idea what I’m going to enter yet. The original plan was “Sparkle”, “Shimmer” & “Shine” and they were painted expressly for that purpose last summer, but things happened and I didn’t do it last summer and now “Shine” is sold and the original “Shimmer” is damaged, so all that really remains is “Sparkle” sooooooo I’m just going to work my tail off creating from now until the drop-off date (August 10th) and just see what I come up with, then pick 3 to put in the show and that’ll be that.

The shitty thing about The Square Foot Show, which I know I talked about last year, is that you have to pay a $20 fee to get your work in, first of all, and then they sell your paintings for $224 each – which is fine since that’s only $4 more than I usually charge if you don’t count the exchange rate – but then AWOL Gallery takes 50%. And that sucks. But that’s apparently how galleries work and according to the people who give out Ontario Art Council grants, you’re not a real artist unless you show your work in galleries, so that’s the price I guess I have to pay. *shrug* I’ve decided that if I get turned down for another grant next year, I won’t be applying again and will just focus on building my business myself through Etsy. So far I think I’m doing pretty good, my only hang up is that I don’t get the work done fast enough and because of that, my shop is a little bare right now, as far as variety. All summer my focus is going to be 12×12 inch paintings, which is the size I prefer to work in, but I plan on doing some works on wood in the fall, as well as getting back to ACEOs since people seem to like those. (Although I wish people would buy up the ones I’ve already made! I have red & gold, black & gold, green & gold and purple & gold!)

Anyway, that’s what’s what. Blake is up now and I think we’re going to have breakfast sooooo I’m going to stop writing now and pay attention to my family. Hope you’re all having a great weekend and the rain’s not gettin’ ya down!

PS. True Blood tonight! w00t!

The show was awesome!!! The unfortunate part, however, is that I’m 5 foot fuckall and the pit was huge, so Alex, Deanna and I had to stand on a platform at the back of the venue to be able to see the band and people kept getting in my way so I couldn’t see at all unless I leaned over to the left and tried to see around them. It was still good though, the venue just kinda sucked.

I tried taking pictures and video to show you all, but because of my position and the fact that it was dark, neither r eally turned out very well but I uploaded them anyway because, hey, why not?

Blake bought me a tour t-shirt that I absolutely love and is now one of my prized possessions. There was an afterparty where Eugene was going to be DJing, but it was $10 to get in and it was already about 12:30am and Alex had to get up for work the next day so we didn’t go. I really want to though, because I figured that would be my best chance to get Eugene to sign my ticket, but it’s not a big deal that we didn’t go. It just would have been the icing on a very delicious cake.

I was supposed to meet an internet friend named Katie at the show and I kept an eye out for her but we never connected. Katie where were you? Deanna I also know from the internet and this was the first time we were meeting and she’s a really rad chick who I liked a lot. A+++ would hang out with again.

Anyway, here are my pics and I’m going to link to the video of Through the Roof ‘n’ Underground because if I embed it, it’ll be too small to see anything because I was so far back. I tried really hard to get good video for you guys so you could “experience” the show too, but I couldn’t because of where I was standing. I tried though!

Okay, here’s pics:

My tour t-shirt. It has the tour’s dates on the back.

Deanna constantly texting!

Ronny & Alex. I wish I got a better pic of Alex’s hair because it was super cute.

The love of my life.

Crappy pictures of the band. Like I said, I tried! I can’t help it that I’m practically a midget. :o/

And finally here’s me, completely exhausted and after taking off most of my makeup. I think we got home around 2:30am and Blake & I stayed up to watch LOST and V, finally going to bed around 4:30am. I woke up today at 3pm haha

A HUGE special thank you to my mom & John who looked after the kids so we could go. I love you both and really really appreciate it. <3

Three girls cover Toxicity by System of a Down on violin and drums – and in my opinion are better than the original.