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And She Was
S.E.P.N.9.S.L.L.D.
alien_sunset
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we are finally home.

labor was hell.

baby is awesome.

more later, now: nap.

here, have a picture:

baby tommy and bill home1

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well, sorta.

at 3:30 this morning my water broke.

we called the doc, i'm to report to the hospital at 7-8am for evaluation.
so far i am not experiencing any contractions, just lots of crampyness and uncomfortablenesses.

oh, and soggyness.

holy crap, thats a lot of fluid.


this may very well be my last post for a while (or i may make many many more...) depending on how active labor is when we get to the hospital they may send me back home, or they may keep me. if they keep me, we will be staying for at least two days after Tommy's here, and then i'm unsure of when i will have more time to post.

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on the way to the grocery store today, a Dolly Parton song came on the local Christmas music station.

at the same time Tommy began kicking me.

Bill commented that he was just trying to kick my colon...

because... )

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Current Mood: silly

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I'm still here, just haven't really had a lot to say lately.

yes, I'm still pregnant, four days past the due date, and counting. :(
(although, pre-labor has begun, this means I'm experiencing intermittent heavy cramping and contractions as my cervix dilates in preparation for the actual labor, but otherwise I'm going nowhere fast.)

besides the usual pregnancy fun, life is pretty boring, I can't do much, so I pretty much just hang around the house and knit, spin, embroider, read and futz around on the computer.

if you are interested in the crafty side you can check out my knitblog it seems to be getting updated a little more regularly than here. :-/

to add a little more entertainment value to this post:

here, have some pictures of a cute cat and Billy )

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said by Bill as my pants began to fall off while pinning the ham for a new baby wrap (i had to crawl around on the floor, and i'm so big that my pants don't fit anymore):

"Yay, naked tailoring!"

*sigh

i married such a weirdo.
tommy is doomed to a very embarrassed childhood.
it reminded me of a bumper sticker i saw one day "I Embarrass my offspring" yeah, we are totally going to need that one.

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you will either love these, or they will scar you for life...

pony one
pony two
pony three

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Finally!

I JUST finally had my first prenatal check up here in wonderful Troy, NY

we moved here in mid August.

a little ranting about the f-ed up medicade/managed care system )

everybody at the office was super nice, and awesome, the doctor we saw today (Dr, Melody Bruce, there are several doctors, and nurse midwives there, and they like to rotate, so that when you go into labor, you will have seen whoever is on call at least once) was totally sweet and nice, and was super gentile during the checkup and pelvic exam. then we listened to the baby's heartbeat (nice and strong!). we discussed the usual pregnancy aches and pains, and diet etc.
afterwords we made our next two week appointment, which will also be another ultra sound to double check the due date, and also to be sure that Tommy is getting into the proper (head down) birthing position.

everything is coming together so well now, and this OBGYN group seems so awesome, I'm finally beginning to feel a bit more relaxed about this whole baby thing! :d

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On Saturday Bill and I piled into the car and took a scenic drive to the Washington County Fairgrounds to attend the first annual Southern Adirondack Fiber Festival

It was a beautiful day, the temperatures were cool, perfect shawl weather, and it was bright and sunny all day. There were over 80 vendors there. On top of spinning, weaving, and rug hooking demonstrations, and a really interesting sheep sheering demo.

For the full rundown including bunches of pictures, check out my knitting blog.

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But I think I rather enjoy being 'barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen'

I like being a housewife.
Weird.

I like looking at sales fliers and planning out the weeks dinner menus, I like writing up the grocery list, household chores like dusting and vacuuming and even doing dishes aren't terribly arduous or terrible (ok, I admit that we have a dishwasher, so my most hated chore isn't even that bad anymore)

And I'm a trained cook, so I actually look forward to making dinner on the nights when it is my turn. And have been doing weirdo stuff like making bread too.

And strangely enough, I'm really excited about being a stay at home mom. I look forward to being able to spend all day with little Tommy, and when he's old enough I have a list of books that I want to get for making my own baby food instead of buying it. I've already knit him several items of clothing, and have even more in the works. And packing school lunches sounds exciting (I think I've been reading the vegan lunchbox for a bit too long...)

I'm turning into the kind of person that I thought was impossible when I was younger. Of course, I'm not doing all of this on my own, Bill has been amazingly supportive and helpful around the apartment, and if I ever need a break or some help he's always right there and willing to assist. I think if I didn't have him around this would really suck, but with him I'm having fun.


* ok, only BAD feminists think that its bad for women to choose to do 'traditional women's work' if that is what they want. A good feminist just wants women to be able to do whatever they want and get equal standing for it.

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this week I have made a batch of Chai spice, and a batch of apple/pumpkin pie spice.

yep, it's getting towards that time of year again for sweet spice blends, pumpkin smoothies, pumpkin pie, apple pie, spiced cider, chai tea and chai scones. (which I may eventually post my recipe for.)

and since I figure you all are thinking the same thing, here are my spice recipes:

apple/pumpkin pie spice, and chai masala (aka chai spice) )

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today Bill has a seminar to attend after classes so won't be getting home until quite late.

a little after his usual return time, Esmerelda started acting really lovey and cuddly, and then wandered off.

a few minutes ago I got up and noticed that she wasn't at her usual spot in the window, so I went looking for her

this is what I found )

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yep, everybody is settling in very well over here.

even Esmerelda who has discovered a new favorite Chair to shed all over, I mean nap on )

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things are finally settling down around here.
we're mostly unpacked (except for the books, which we have no place to put, as we could not fit the book cases on the truck)

this apartment is HUGE compared to our old place. we picked up a couch, two cushy chairs, a wardrobe (but no Narnia), and a small table from the stuff my grandparents gave to my mom, and we still have TONS of room.

we have an actual living room, a nice sized kitchen (with a pantry!!)
a dining room area, including a closet to hang coats and hide the vacuum and such things.
the bedroom is a good sized, and the closet is HUGE compared to our old one, thanks to the extra closet space and the wardrobe, Bill can finally put away all his clothes instead of piling the up in a corner!
the bathroom is actually slightly smaller than the one in our old place, BUT the toilet and sink both work perfectly, and the water pressure is amazing.

Esmeralda has adjusted quite well, she still yowls occasionally at night, but it's not too terrible. She loves the large picture window in the living room with its wide sill, and sits there for hours watching people come and go. it's particularly amusing to watch her have her daily cat crazies on the tiled floor. she's crashed into the linen closet a couple times already. (yes, a linen closet, I am in heaven!)

Bill finished up his week of orientation even more excited than before, and can't wait until classes begin on Monday.
meanwhile, I'm working my way into a domestic routine of house cleaning and cooking and other such things.
it's amazing, everything looks so airy and nice here, that I am really motivated to keep it clean and nice, before our old place was so dingy, cluttered and dark, that it never really looked all that much different clean verses dirty.

and the kitchen is so nice that I don't get stressed out when I try to cook, it's awesome! I haven't wanted to really do a lot of cooking at home in ages because our old kitchen was so cramped and messy, I could never find anything, and there was no place to do food prep. but here I know where everything is and we have tons of counter space and a nice big table to work on. Bill and I have already had a "argument" over who gets to cook dinner more. (he likes cooking beaus it's a de-stresser for him after a hard day at school.)

there was a little problem with laundry the other day, but it seemed to be an isolated incident:
two separate people left their clothing in the dryers and never came back for them. (there are only two washers and two dryers in our laundry room) one of them left their stuff for over 12 hours! we were forced to remove the clothing from one dryer so that we could finish our laundry. it was a bit annoying, but over all I haven't really noticed the laundry room being all that terribly busy, and every other time I've needed to use it it's been deserted.

ok enough rambling for now, next time, more about how awesome Troy and Albany are!

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phase three of operation oh-shit-oh-shit-we're-moving did NOT go off without a hitch.

the move was HELL.
we fully admit that we probably should have started packing earlier, and there was a lot of loose stuff still by the time we got the moving truck.
then we had too much stuff.
a large majority of our possessions and about 80% of what was boxed up was books. unfortunately, the book cases didn't fit on to the truck, so we had to leave them behind. this means that we have a room full of boxes of books which we have no place to put. this also sucks because this is supposed to be Tommy's room, so we will eventually need it to be empty.

then there was the rain. yeah, it was supposed to be clear here when we moved, so while hot, it should have been relatively easy to just haul everything inside and go. but then we got hit by thunderstorms and poor Bill was soaked and a lot of stuff couldn't be brought in without suffering water damage, so there were long periods of waiting for the rain to stop. and really, we probably should have had a few extra hands helping, but we thought we would be ok, and Bills arms kept cramping up, and the next day he looked like somebody had beaten the crap out of his arms. :(

we didn't finally finish bringing everything in until 11:30, and it would have been a 4 hour drive back home for Bill's dad, who was a major help with the hauling, and had been driving the moving truck, so we made him stay overnight on the couch, and he headed off in the morning. My parents had things that needed to be done in the morning, so refused to stay or get a room, so they headed home. and left me worrying until they called in the morning.

thankfully, that seems to be the worst of it. we slept in yesterday and this morning. and have been slowly puttering around unpacking things. the kitchen has been fully unpacked and put away, and we've already gone on a few exploratory shopping trips to check out the local supermarkets (and to buy a shower curtain).
the living room is mostly done, but for one area which needs Bill to find the long phone cord so we can hook the computer up. (the only phone port is in the kitchen, with no convenient place to put the computer, so we need a long cord to reach the nearest convenient set up place.) right now, the computer is set up on the dining room table, and we have to limbo under the hanging phone cord if we want to go into the kitchen.

the bedroom is a mess, as most of our linens and clothing were just shoved into bags and tossed into the room. but I plan on tackling that tomorrow while Bill is at his first day of TA orientation. overall everything here has been awesome. even Esmeralda is settling in wonderfully. (although shes yowling a bit more at night, we think she misses Cayenne.) the living room has a large picture widow with a nice wide ledge that she loves to lay on and watch the world go by, and she has been especially lovey and cuddly.

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alien_sunset
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we're here.

the move was hell.

very tired now.

more later.

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well tomorrow.

phase two of operation oh-shit-oh-shit-we're-moving is almost complete (bill is doing last minute packing of dishes from dinner as I type.)

tomorrow phase three begins, the actual move.

dun dun DUN!

as the computer will be packed up tonight or early tomorrow morning, I probably wont have a chance for another update until Wednesday. (hopefully, if the phone switched over properly)

wish us luck!

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phase two of operation oh-shit-oh-shit-were-moving has begun!

Bill has been spending most of the morning packing up books, while I putter around and try to stay out of his way. since most of the things that need packing are books, and Bill prefers to handle that himself (those boxes are HEAVY!) I haven't really had much I could do. I've packed up a few things here and there that I could do on my own, but a lot of the work for today needs heavy lifting.

right now Bill is taking a break from book packing and is hauling stuff out to the dumpster, as we seem to have run out of boxes... :-/
(ok, we haven't really run out quite yet, but it's getting close, and the boxes we have left need packing tape, which we don't have, but his mom said she would bring some over to us along with more boxes later this afternoon)

the place is really starting to look weird with boxes piled up everywhere, and things out of place as they get move to make room for boxes to to get to other things.
I think tomorrow I may be able to help more as most of the book packing will be done, and well be moving to other parts of the house, including the kitchen.

in the mean time I'll be spending the rest of the day sneezing. I swear there is a giant cloud of dust hanging over the house, from all we've stirred up as we pack and move stuff.

*ACHOO!*

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phase one of operation oh-shit-oh-shit-we're-moving is underway

yesterday Bill started going through old papers and dumping stuff we didn't need and today i joined him by sorting through my crafty stuff. and we both sorted out magazines to be donated to the library for the book sale. we still have a bit more to do, but everything is moving smoothly.

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doesn't it just figure that the time I feel like posting to LJ and I cant access it for three days?
anyways.

update time:

Bill and I have signed the lease on the new apartment in Troy and Bill has set up for our phone and power to switch over by the move date. (Tuesday August 18th)
bill has also reserved a moving truck, and his dad has agreed to drive it for us since he has lots of big truck experience.

on Thursday I went to my last appointment with the Clayton doctor. he says everything looks good, now I just need to find a doctor in Troy, because I'll need an appointment for almost as soon as we are settled in.

because of my weight, I don't really 'show' all that much right now, but I can definitely tell a difference, and my clothes are starting to get a little tighter. Tommy has been kicking regularly for a while, and the other night I was able to get bill to feel in time for a really big kick! Bill and I took a bunch of Dr. Seuss books home from my parents the other day and we have been reading them aloud regularly, it's really kinda fun.

last night my mom called me because the backyard neighbors had been having a yard sale and she picked up an almost brand new high chair, mobile, baby quilt, swing, back pack style baby carrier, a ton of newborn clothes and a bunch of other stuff for really cheap.

meep.

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yay we're home!

I slept almost 14 hours last night, it was an exhausting trip!

we looked at a bunch of apartments in troy and applied for a great one only blocks away from RPI!
(as well as very close to two different hospitals, this will be a very good thing come Dec 9th!)

Thursday night Bill took me to Diner at Peaches in Albany, OMG good food!

Troy is beautiful, so may flowers and trees everywhere! we also took a Tour of the RPI campus on Friday, it was really impressive! i think the best part was the discovery of a Ben & Jerry's scoop shop in the student union!

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today Bill and i a reading out for about three days in the greater Albany area to go apartment hunting.

well actually, we'll be staying in Albany but will be apartment hunting in Troy, (you know, where he's going to go to school.)

Bill has a stack of hopeful printouts, so our hopes are high.

wish us luck!

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Bill and I are back from the ultrasound appointment!
it went well, although i was originally very nervous about drinking a quart of water and then not being able to pee for an hour and a half. but i made it through alive, and have a ton of pictures of our little baby!

the appointment was full of surprises, we discovered that we are actually about a month further along than we originally thought (at about 19 weeks) and the little critter is due around December 9th.

we were able to watch the heartbeat (at which point I cried) to count fingers and toes and the tech took lots of measurements.
then we were able to see his penis!

WE'RE HAVING A BOY!

i am proud to introduce to you Thomas William! (4 photos and two very short videos) )

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for all those weirdos who don't read my husband ([info]oaksong)'s journal, I have a little announcement...

I'm pregnant!

unfortunately I'm also suffering from an abundance of morning sickness (or as I like to say, every freaking time of the day sickness) which is why I haven't really been all that active the last couple of months. (it's sad, Bill actually bought me my own special little bucket that I take from room to room with me in case of a puke emergency)

we don't know the due date yet, I have a really messed up menstrual cycle so going by my last period is unreliable. we have an appointment with the obgyn on the 14th of July for the official examination, and we should know by then. Rough estimates put it around mid January though.

ok, time for my nap. (oh yeah, pregnancy has turned me into a cat, I sleep 12 hours, get up, eat, go back fro a nap, get up for lunch, go back for a nap, and then maybe stay up for a little bit before going to bed. but you know when I'm asleep is like the only time I'm not feeling sick. :( )

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Bill and I just got back from the most awesome weekend ever.

in which we attended the wedding of [info]riki_kiki_taco me as co-maid of honor and he as sexy in a suit guy.
the wedding was awesome and about 500 times more festive than mine, (mostly due to the fact that Lee's family REALLY likes to dace, and that over half those in attendance were Oswego alumni) the fun included a rousing game of volleyball with the bride in her wedding dress, and me getting all weepy over their first dance. also, Bill and I got plenty of slow dancing in, he rocks. Bill also took like 5000 pictures, and will posting them eventually so keep an eye out.

then today before heading home Bill took me out on a date at the Rosemont Gifford Zoo at Burnet Park. where we spent hours wandering around checking out all the cool critters and taking pictures and just plain enjoying ourselves. we even watched feeding time at the penguin exhibit.

then we headed home.

and we found a new birds nest on out bathroom window. no eggs yet, but none the less, awesome!

like I said, awesome weekend. now I need to go collapse.

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On Thursday my Grandpa Homan died.

it wasn't exactly sudden, he had been failing for a while, then Monday he became non responsive and they rushed him to the ER. on Wednesday evening the took him off life support and Thursday morning he was gone.

even when you are expecting it, it's hard.

on Friday Bill and I drove up to Carthage to see the rest of the family that had come up, but a lot of them had gone out shopping, so we missed them.

today is the calling hours, and we'll be going. I really want to see my Uncle Tom, he was in Syracuse picking up Uncle Kevin from the airport yesterday.

you can see the obituary here

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calling all Wavy gravy Ice Cream fans.

I'm working on putting together a copycat recipe for the ice cream that my husband describes as "it tastes like god would taste if you made it into an ice cream"

so far I have the description from Ben & Jerry's flavor graveyard, and a general idea as to how to proceed, but I need more info:
I need to know what it tasted like to you, more cashew or more Brazil nut? lots of caramel, or not very much? how many roasted almonds were in it? was it overwhelmingly fudgy, or was there only a modest amount of swirl?

once I start making test batches I will need testers, if you live close enough and used to love Wavy Gravy let me know and I'll pass some along.
(please! Bill and I should not be eating a lot of ice cream! although I will warn you, the ingredients are not cheap, so I don't know how many batches I will be able to afford to make)

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i have a couple of people on my FList who may be interested by this:

several ways to treat a thunder(or storm) phobic dog

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a while ago I challenged [info]bunnykissd to a week of figure drawing. and we both came out alive and with better drawing skills.
as a reward we sent each other ATCs, and this week, Bill and I finally framed ours.

framed platypi
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as usually, totally NSFW

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For those who don't know, my friend [info]riki_kiki_taco is getting married, and I'm a bridesmaid (payback, I'm sure, since she was my maid of honor)

A month or so ago I ordered the bridesmaid's dress and it finally came in. I tried it on last week and nearly cried.

You see, when they measured me I was exactly on for one size, but they always say to order a little bigger than what you measure, due to sizing weirdness. So I ordered the next size up.
Well, when I tried it on it fit perfectly from the waist down, YAY!

But I could have fit a whole other person into the gaping space at the bust. BOO!
I swear to god, the dress was at least a good six inches past my bust and I'm not all that small, I wear a D cup! It was horrible!
Bill jokes I could have padded my bra with a couple of basketballs and still had room, and he wasn't far off.

In a panic I called Lillean's Alterations in Watertown and took it in. through shear luck I managed to get the same woman who made my wedding dress for me, this woman is magic with a sewing machine, so I began to feel a little better. (Although she did nearly laughed when I came out of the dressing room wearing the dress :( )

Anyways after pinning off a good two to four inches on each side, the dress began to actually look like a dress again. I go in next week with the strapless bra for fine tuning and then I can take it home!

(By the way Momo, everybody in the shop while I was trying it on commented on how nice the dress looked (once it was pinned) and I do have to admit, it looks really awesome!, you are like, the best bride ever! Oh yeah, and Inga wants to know if you want us to use the straps that came with the dress or no? She says she can make it fit better with straps, but you are the bride.)

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AKA geographile

I know you've mentioned geocaching before, but hove you heard of earthcache?

it sounds like something that would be right up your alley.

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A week or so ago I was wandering around the web looking at other peoples art, and I noticed a lot of talk about ATCs and ACEOs (Artist Trading Cards and Art Cards, Editions and Originals)

Essentially it goes like this: )



What do you all think?
Do you guys have any opinions or thoughts on the matter?
Anybody wanna trade?

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This week has gone pretty well on the art end of things.
I was given the wrong date for the watercolour class, it actually doesn’t start until tomorrow. But I still got plenty of drawing in, and some painting too!

This last week I got a 40% off coupon to Borders and found this really interesting book Drawing Words and Writing Pictures its all about comics. It takes an in depth look at comics terminology, materials, scaling, getting published how to write good stories, how to frame the action, a little about how to draw, and a lot of other really interesting things, like a whole chapter on inking with a brush, and another on using pen.

I read through it in about 3 days. The book is really laid out to be used like a text book (although it's not nearly as dry and boring as most textbooks) and covered a 15 week semester. It's really opened my eyes to a lot of interesting methods of making comics, and I see all the web comics (and comics in the newspaper) that I read in a whole new light.

After reading I tried my hand a little one panel comic. And then promptly decided that while in understood most of the principles in the book, I really needed to get better at drawing things from head before I went much further, because, frankly I suck, and it was annoying me.

I've decided to start concentrating on figure studies with my daily sketching for a while, so that I can really get the human for ingrained in my mind. Once I get a little better I may someday start my own little comic. It's something that has been bopping around the back of my mind for a while now.

After I found out that the watercolour class wasn't until tomorrow, I was a little sad. But after a while I decided to pull out my paints and paper and play a little, just to get a feel for things.
I've been reading a lot about ATCs and ACEOs (artist trading cards, and art cards originals and editions) and have a pot about them I plan on making later this week. Suffice it to say for now, that they are little mini (3.5 x 2.5) works of art. And it struck me as a neat idea, and a great way for me to try out new things without the worry of wasting a lot of materials or time.

So I've been playing around with those and have come up with some very pleasing little paintings!

Which also got me to thinking about using my art to make greeting cards and prints and the like. I know of at least one artist that does a special painting every year and get a bunch of greeting cards made up from it to send out for Christmas, and then she sells the leftovers. And I really like the idea of something like that. And I figure if I can make a little extra cash from it, all the better!

So I've been looking around at places to get art prints made, and to get pictures put on greeting cards. I especially like this idea because (hopefully) come Christmas, bill and I will be pretty far away from our families, and it would be super awesome to be able to make something special like a custom Christmas card to send out.

Ok, enough rambling, on to this week's highlights: )
and as always if you want to see everything I've done this week, check out my deviant art page, or my flickr set.
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Pretty uneventful and boring week over all.

I played around with colour a little bit more, but not much else. I did spend some time researching water colour paints in preparation for my class tomorrow. I now have a pad of water colour paper, a set of brushes, a palette, and a set of water colour paste and a set of dry water colours.

Besides that, this week has been rather uneventful drawing wise. I'm still practicing, and drawing, but not much progress to speak of.

If you go to me deviant art page, or my flickr set you will notice that there are two days missing.

I've been having trouble getting inspired and deciding what to draw lately, and I have been very unhappy with the results when I force myself. So I decided that if I really just could not decide on a subject to draw that I shouldn't force myself. I don't want this to become something I dread.

That's not to say I haven't practiced drawing in some way on that day. On Thursday I practiced shading with a pencil and getting a wide variety of tones using different techniques, and I also practiced some hatching and cross hatching with a ball point pen to see how it acted compared to the ultra fine point sharpie I've been using. And yesterday I did a lot of doodling, mostly silly little cartoon birds that I just didn't feel like scanning in and posting. I'm working on being more free and spontaneous with my sketching, and right now, everything just looks too close to what other people do for me to feel comfortable posting it.

without any further ado, the highlights: )

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tomorrow will be the fifth anniversary of our first date, so Bill and I got all dressed up and went to the Thailand Thai restaurant to celebrate. (we went there for our first date, and have done for every anniversary since)

in preparation of an upcoming wedding we will be attending, and for grad school interviews, Bill has been spending a lot of time researching men's fashion and acquiring the necessary components. today was his first opportunity to get dressed up, so I just had to take pictures!

spiffed up Bill bw 3

two more under the cut )

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Good progress this week.

I've been very happy with the majority of the drawings I've made this week, and I think am slowly making more progress.

One problem I am experiencing, though, is the lack of interesting things to draw.

I often put of my daily sketch until late in the evening because I just haven't been able to find something that inspires me.

The weather is getting nicer though, so maybe I'll be able to find more subjects outside.

I also signed up for a water colour class. It starts on the 18th and I've both excited and nervous.
I have this little voice in the back of my mind saying that I'm not a good enough artist to learn how to use water colours and I'm going to go into the class and be constantly frustrating to the teacher and her won't be able to teach me anything.

*sigh.

Bill tells me it won't be so, but it's difficult to get over the self doubt.
But I won't let it stop me from going. I will learn even if I need to take several classes before I'm good enough.

Blah. Ok, if you want to see everything I've done this week, you can check out my flickr set, or go to me deviant art page.
Now, on to the highlights! )

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Well, the first month of my draw every day resolution has passed with flying colours. (Literally!)

I have now worked my way though Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards and have read almost every book on drawing from my local library (don't be too impressed, it's a small library) over the past month my skills have improved greatly and I am incredibly happy with my progress. I have already met one of my main goals of being able to make embroidery patterns from my drawings. Which has opened a wide world of possibilities and excitement for me, my fingers are itching to embroider more of my own designs.

I still have a long way to go before I'm completely happy; I only just within the last week branched into colour, and only then very tentatively. Pen and ink and made occasional appearances, but that as well need quite a bit of work.

as a way to increase my rate of improvement I am opening up my drawings for constructive criticism and critique. Please, of you want, each week either go to my flicker set, or deviant art gallery and comment on my pictures, tell me what you like, what you don't like, and how you think I can improve. I have one restriction; please only critique the more recent pictures. I have already made great steps, and am all too well aware of the faults of my earlier work, and in most cases have gone paste that, and no longer need somebody else to tell me how to improve them.

Thank you again to everybody who has already begun helping me improves my skill, and thank you in advance to everybody else.

Now go out there, and be brutal, I need it!

this week's highlights: )

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Another rather slow week on the drawing front.

I tried out a little pen and ink, and rather liked it but I still need a lot of practice. I really wish I could go out and draw outside. Nothing is really appealing to me inside, and pictures just aren't as good as the real thing.

Did a little more pencil work, some good, some not quite so much.

The speed sketching is going ok, I did a lot of practice for that with the pen and ink (sketch in pencil before going over it in ink then adding details and shading) I had a lot of fun with the pen and ink, and want to do more, but like I said, I'm feeling a bit short on inspiration and drawable subjects.

I think I'm just feeling very listless over all. (S.A.D. rears its ugly head)

I signed up for a couple of classes at the library, one in water colour and another just a plain drawing course. These are free (besides materials) so I can take as many as I like.

I won't know if I can take the classes offered at the museum until I teach a class, the museum charges $30-$50 per class, and while there are several that I would really like to take I just can't afford it unless I am able to teach a class myself (I have a stranded color work class coming up on the 7th if anybody is interested! :D) and get paid.

Ah well.
As always, you can see everything I've done this week on my deviant art page or in my flickr sketching journal set

this weeks highlights (if you can call them that): )

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to prove to Bill that it wasn't an Imaginary Cartoon:
one of my favorites, and also one of the weirdest loony toons cartoon out there (and that's saying something)

(the colour on this version isn't the best, but it has the original intro and outro, and better sound quality that the other available version on you tube)

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this hasn't gotten quite as much hype as Obama's Guantanamo Bay decision, but I think it very rightly deserves a great big FUCK YEAH

a very positive step towards women's rights and women's health both here and around the world.

good going Obama!


(also, I totally need to make, like, a vagina icon or something...)

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This week has been rather lackadaisical when it comes to drawing. The second Betty Edwards book wasn't very helpful, and I realized (with Bill's help) that it was because the book was focused more on creative problem solving as a way to increase creativity, but despite my lack of self confidence, I'm already quite creative, and what I really need is more help with techniques.

So for most of this week I've been rather afloat without any idea as to where to go.
I know I need to work on my speed sketching, so I've taken a few tentative steps in that direction, but otherwise I haven't been doing much (although I have managed to draw something every single day so far)

Some techniques I would like to learn more of:

  • hatching and cross hatching as a means of shading and adding tone

  • speed sketching

  • drawing from nature (this one is going to have to wait until spring, it's too frigging cold to leave the house)

  • colour

    • I have a set of chalk and a set of oil pastels; I want to learn how to use them.

    • I LOOOVE the look and flexibility of watercolour, but suck at actually painting.

  • charcoal

  • pen and ink (this goes back a bit to the hatching and cross hatching, but also to getting the line right the first time, because you can't erase.)



Unfortunately I'm not quite sure how to proceed to learn these skills. Books, while inspiring, haven't been all that helpful of showing me exactly how things are done. I don't want to just jump in and learn later that I've been practicing everything the wrong way.

In the next couple of months, the Hand weaving museum is offering some drawing and painting courses, I think perhaps I will look into taking some.

As always, you can see everything I've done this week on my deviant art page or in my flickr sketching journal set

Now, onto this week's highlights: )

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMO!!

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I finished Drawing on the right side of the brain this week, and over all I'm pretty pleased with my progress. I took Drawing on the Artist within from the library and have started working my way through that.

Right now it's mostly abstract getting in touch with emotions and feelings through drawing stuff, which frankly just doesn't appeal to me, (although some of the ideas of symbolism could come in handy later)

I also took out the sierra clubs guide to sketching in nature which so far seems really neat, and that was one of my main goals. It really makes me wish the weather were warmer so that I could go hiking.

Bill let me loose in Michaels this week, and I bought myself a full set of sketching pencils, some ultra fine point sharpies, a kneedable eraser and some charcoal to play with.

The pencils make shading so much easier, but a regular old #2 has been my main go to so far, I will admit that I am in love with my kneedable eraser, it so totally rocks. I played around with the charcoal, and I like it, but I'm not very good with it, and its super messy, more practice is in order. I like the clean bold lines than pen and ink drawings have, so I also want to play with the a little bit, and I really need a lot of work on crosshatching for shading.

As always, you can see everything I've done this week on my deviant art page or in my flickr sketching journal set

this weeks highlights: )

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I took your advice and got drawing on the right side of the brain and am slowly working my way through it.

I'm finding it an amazingly helpful book, and am quite pleased with my progress so far.

A few caveats, a lot of her "right brain/left brain" talk is rather unnecessary, and actually mostly pseudoscience. One could easily have taken out the first two chapters and instead plugged in a few paragraphs on visual/special thinking vs. language. But hey, this was originally written in the 60's so what can you expect, and if you take all the pseudoscience stuff with a grain of salt, and pay attention to the lessons and visual/special reasoning, it’s a pretty damned good book to learn from.

Unless you already know a lot about drawing that is. The premise behind a lot of the exercises is to train you into looking at things differently, and as such they tend to have a lot of props and other helpers to get you going, which you practice with a lot, and then eventually drop as you get better, like training wheels on a kids bike. But if you already have a pretty good grasp of what she is trying to teach, the props and exercises can actually make it harder for you to do what already comes naturally.
I've only run into this problem twice so far, the first time was incredibly frustrating, and I was very upset, but once I realized why I was having difficulty, I was able to set aside the props and actually practice a more difficult form of what she was teaching, and further my skills.

Now, without further ado, what I have drawn this week can be found at my sketch journal flickr set or on my deviant art page

A few of this week's highlights: )

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I'm trying to teach myself to draw.

my long term goals are to be able to sketch the birds and squirrels i see out my window, to paint my adorable pets, and to make line drawings for my embroidery.
the other perks of being able to draw well are nice too.
but I'm a beginner, and learning mostly from library books and drawsketch.about.com and it's slow going.

drawing is the first art/craft I've come to that i have not been at least acceptable if not good at right away, and frankly I'm not used to it, and it's frustrating.

everything I've read says "practice, practice, practice!" and while I'm not used to have to really work at this kind of thing, I'm going to make a go at it.
as part of this I've decided to buy a sketchbook and starting on the first, draw something, anything, every single day. it's probably not going to be much at first, but we'll see. I'd ideally like to try something new at least once a month, (preferably week) and eventually work my way through pencil, charcoal, colored pencils/crayons, pen and ink, and watercolors. and i really would like my drawings to be more spontaneous, quick, and confident and less slow and labored (yet still good!)

the other part is you, deviant art and Flickr.
no matter how horrible or small my daily drawing journal entry may be, I am going to post it for the whole world to see, and hopefully offer up some encouragement and constructive criticism (and maybe a little obligational pressure to actually keep to my resolution.)

so wish me luck, and please be gentile!

(if yyou are on either deviant art or flickr, feel free to friend me or whatever.)

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yesterday my grandmother's cat, Rusty, decided that the new wok dad got for mom would make the perfect place to sit and watch the holiday festivities.
of course we had the camera ready...

rustywok
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hay [info]teal_cuttlefish, these guys should be right up your alley. (although, there don't seem to be any teal ones yet.)

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I just finished making Paneer
(it's pressing right now)

so that later tonight Bill can make Mattar Paneer for dinner.

yum, yum, yum!

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or something...

this weekend Bill and I will be attending the New York Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck NY.

we hope to leave Friday afternoon, and will be gone until Sunday night.

for more info, and some identifying accessories if you think you'll be there, check out my knitting blog

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And i Am
Abigail
Name: Abigail
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Back December 2009
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And She Was
Hey!

And she was lying in the grass
And she could hear the highway breathing
And she could see a nearby factory
She's making sure she is not dreaming
See the lights of a neighbor's house
Now she's starting to rise
Take a minute to concentrate
And she opens up her eyes

The world was moving she was right there with it and she was
The world was moving she was floating above it and she was
and she was

And she was drifting through the backyard
And she was taking off her dress
And she was moving very slowly
Rising up above the earth
Moving into the universe
And she's drifting this way and that
Not touching the ground at all
And she's up above the yard

The world was moving she was right there with it and she was
(Hey, hey)
The world was moving she was floating above it and she was

Hey, hey, hey

She was proud about it... no doubt about it
She isn't sure about what she's done
No time to think about what to tell him
No time to think about what she's done
And she was

Hey hey, hey hey, hey!

And she was looking at herself
And things were looking like a movie
She had a pleasant elevation
She's moving out in all directions
Oh, oh oh

Hey hey hey (repeated..)

The world was moving she was right there with it and she was
Hey, woo hoo
The world was moving she was floating above it and she was
Hey, hey

Joining the world of missing persons and she was
Missing enough to feel all right and she was

Ha ha
And she was
(repeated..)

-Talking Heads
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