I'm not good at letting other people in. I'm more of a hold-people-at-arm's-length kind of person. Contributing to conversations and being friendly, sure, I'm ok at that. Some of my friends recall having to wait around a year for me to return their phone calls or to come to an event that they asked me to come to, or even telling them about myself for at least the first 6 months. Goofy stuff, I'm sure I told them, but personal stuff? Not at all. It's not like I didn't want to go or call to be an ass, it's just that I kind of need a warming-up period. I'm a turtle and I'm not sure if you're crazy yet so I'm testing the waters. I've had too many incidents where I've had people go crazy over not calling them back on the same day....when I had just met them a week prior.
I say this because I have had this blog for about a year and a half (me thinks) and it seems rather unsuccessful. I look at blog's from other people and I see that they have like 1,000 friends and people contributing to their blog's etc.etc. and I've wondered "What the hell is wrong with mine?" I figured the infrequency of my writing was playing a part but when I read other people's blogs I realized that they get into SUPER DETAIL. Like, crazy, embarrassing shit. Not only do they talk about every miniscule moment of their day but they also recap their whole life story. Thinking about what I'm going through on almost a daily basis for everyone else to read makes me cringe a little. It's as if my body is rejecting the notion that other people, who are total strangers, get to read about the mess that was my divorce, the baby momma drama that I deal with from my boyfriend's bat-shit-crazy ex-wife, my doomed Etsy page (that actually made me laugh a little), and my love for running. I'm just not that trusting!
Yup, I get it. I signed up to do this. But I'm so horribly, horribly private. I swear you'd like me if you met me! I feel like constantly blogging about myself is narcissistic. Like "Hey, guys! I'm awesome and my life is wonderful and here's a whole list of reasons why you should adore me!" One thing I detest about habitual bloggers is the inevitable negative rut they can get in so they share it with everyone and their last 7 posts are about how horrible things are so they pull on the empathy of everyone and that's how they keep their blog going.
Is all this really what it takes to have a "good" blog?
How
about this for starters: I'll tell you some things about myself. It
will be a random assortment but at least it's something.
Here are my "babies". Mia is my curious 3 year-old Husky, Bailey is my rowdy 1 year-old Pitt mix, and Reese...ah, Reese, he's my spunky 7 year-old lop-eared bunny.
I'm turning 29 in December and, no, I don't actually have any kids. My ex-husband was a bit unstable and kids weren't a good idea. I wanted to have at least one kid by the age of 27 but it wasn't in the cards and by then I was legally separated. So my herd of furry animals will have to do for now.
My boyfriend, Andrew, and I met through a friend because he needed a date for a military ball.
Being 5'11" makes it hard to meet guys who are taller than me sometimes, so you are correct in noticing that I'm taller than him :-) We have been together almost 2 years now and we're about to do the long-distance thing with me leaving for the Army and having to spend a year in California for language school.
Besides art, I love to run. Last Saturday there was a funeral for an 8 year-old girl who I taught. She was killed in a car crash because some guy wasn't paying attention and didn't slow his truck down and rear-ended the car that she was in the back seat of. It was tragic. She was a sweet little girl. I went running to clear my head, and what initially was supposed to be a simple 4-miler turned into a half-marathon. It was very Forrest Gump. In light of the tragedy I realized how fleeting life is and on my 4th mile I kept thinking how good it was to be alive. I kept running and on mile 6 decided to do the full 13.1. I finished it, my legs practically gave out walking up to the house but it was rejuvenating emotionally.
I'm horrible at decorating. My house with my ex-husband looked like a bachelor pad. The house I live in now looks like a bachelor pad. I love painting walls with bright colors but when it comes to furniture, hanging stuff on the walls, general "making a house look like a home" stuff I'm terrible. I'm very minimalist that way. I love the IDEA of decorating and then I think about spending money on inanimate objects that have no purpose and that it's one more item I have to pick up and move when it comes to cleaning. It frustrates me. I'm a creative person but not with that. My creativity was severely stunted when it comes to home decor and landscaping.
I'm dorky and like to use big words like "superfluous," "cogent," and "ostentatious," and other words that my friends have to ask what they mean and then accuse me of looking up a word in a dictionary to use each day.
As for reporting on things that I did today, Andrew and I went and sold some rings we had for extra cash. It feels good to get rid of them and not have them around anymore (I haven't gotten around to selling my wedding ring yet, I just got it appraised) and the extra cash is nice too. We wanted hoagies for lunch so we went to Jimmy John's and I got my fav #5 Vito Italian hoagie. Dee-lish. More importantly, I took a nap today. I was up at 6:30 am for no good reason so I needed to compensate. I'm also looking forward to grabbing drinks with a girl I used to work with at school who, like most people I meet, didn't get to know me very well in the 3 years that I worked there but I finally decided to open up and spend some time with her recently...ironically after I quit and just before I'm about to leave. Fail.
I'm just God-awful.
Ok, so remember my blog post about my car "Jenny" and how I was super proud to have paid her off and legally owned a car for once in my life? Yup, selling her. I figure I'm leaving and I don't want to pay full price for car insurance and I don't want Andrew burdened by another car if the Army tells him he has to move while I'm gone, so, selling her. It's one of those things where Jenny always could have used a little more cleaning and time paid towards maintenance (like new tires) but I never got around to it. Well now I have to do it all at once.
One thing that's needed taking care of is the back seat. This car was originally my ex-husband's and he used to throw all his junk and dirty bags for work in the back seat, therefore the seat and vinyl seat belts got filthy. FILTHY. The straps were a dark brown color when they should have been silver, and well as the seat (which was originally light gray so you could see all the nastiness). He told me he'd get the car professionally cleaned before the car swap we had but when I had gone to pick up my car at the dealership and he had already taken mine I realized that I had been had. I tried cleaning it myself but to no avail so I kind of let it go for awhile.
Fast forward to yesterday.
I went to the dealership to get a regularly scheduled maintenance as well as have them get their guy who details car's to come in as well as the paint guy who tried (and failed) to spot paint an area of my car that got hit by a shopping cart. The maintenance itself is like $330. With everything else he estimated it to be a total of $700. $700??? Nope. Nope. Nope. I'm trying to get rid of this thing, NOT invest in it some more. I Googled all morning how to get those stains out of the seat belts and what to do to clean the seats. $14 later my seat belts are relatively clean, my seats are freaking sparkling AND to avoid paying a paint guy who literally cannot match paint colors to save his life (I have an alabaster white car and he used a beige color to cover up the spot so it looks terrible) I found a company online who sells paint pens for any type of car so that I can just do it myself. Take that stupid Mercedes dealership.
I also re-opened my Etsy shop with some new items. When I did the Sketchbook Project I had never worked with color-pencils and I really wanted to give that a try so that was the medium I chose to explore and with that I incorporated animals. Before I sent the book out I scanned the images and I re-worked them a little in Photoshop as well as drew new ones in my spare time. I thought these were cute little drawings.
Bonnie and Clyde
Larry
Ricardo and Maria
Woodpecker
Tree Frog
The last 2 don't have names because I just couldn't think of anything that seemed appropriate. They are really cute (to me, hah) and I hope they sell alright on Etsy. Lord knows I haven't had much luck there.
I'm so sleepy so I'm going to relax and snuggle my dogs :)
I thought I would start this entry off with some cuteness. You can't deny those faces. I just realized that I need to post a picture of my 5 year old bunny, Reese. My parents brought him down from PA where he's been for the past year due to me moving so much. Speaking of my parents here's a sneak peek of my Thanksgiving shindig
These are literally the only 2 photos I have from Thanksgiving dinner because I became too preoccupied with cooking and then once dinner was served I came to realize that my camera battery was dead :-( It really wasn't that bad considering that I was only cooking for 4 people, we didn't need that much food and the mess was easy to clean at the end. Ants invaded the apple pie while it was sitting on the counter overnight, so apparently that particular clan got to participate in Thanksgiving as well....
The day after Thanksgiving after my parents had left and we were back from a rather easy Black Friday trip we put up our tree!!!
I bought all of this 2 years ago when I was with my ex-husband and it was at his house last year in storage so I finally got to take all of this out again and be festive! It's really nice to be with someone who enjoys spending holidays with me. Andrew decorated it with me and hung ornaments and lights up and just about every night we have been putting the lights on and enjoying the view from our couches. Ahhhh, don't you just love the holidays?!?!
Here's some more internet whoring. I just put these up in my shop
Why does 9:30pm feel like I've been up til midnight? Tomorrow's my birthday and I'm going to be 28....I'm just getting too old.
From my Facebook page:
To all the men and women, past and present, serving in our armed forces: Thank you for the hard work and sacrifices that you have bestowed upon yourselves to serve our country. To the families of these individuals: You have the hardest jobs of all. Thank you for standing behind our servicemen/women and being the foundation for all that they do. Lastly, to the notoriously under-appreciated Vietnam Vets: I thank you for your service and the dedication you had to serving our country despite the scorn of unpatriotic hippies.
Happy Veterans Day and to those overseas, come home safely.
I was a military wife for 3 years with my ex-husband and am dating a military soldier who is also a veteran so I feel special pride in knowing that I have helped to serve my men to serve their country. I am glad that our country takes a day to remember our heroes.
Being in a military town, naturally schools have off for Veterans Day so the kids can go home and hang out with their parents. This is what Mia and Bailey are doing to celebrate my being home:
Bailey is getting so big. Look at his cute, chubby wrinkles. I love the way Mia curls up into that little ball. My kids :)
Well it's chilly out and it's been rainy and I don't have much to do today but here are so pictures of my new work that I just put in my shop!
The Dusk Jump
The Dawn Jump
I did a lino cut of military jumpers falling in their little cluster with the plane circling around to go pick up more. Anyone that's ever lived near a military base can tell you that we see this all the time. It's like watching Wishies (or at least that's my name for the weed that you blow on to make wishes) flying through the air. I'm painting different skies for them to print on with ink. I have different pictures of the jumpers, including regular skydivers, that I'm going to do the same thing for. I think this subject is fun and something a lot of other people will like and can relate to :)
Now, to take some time to clean all the muddy paw prints off the wood floors!
AH-dorable. These 2 just melt my heart. Mia adores him but she's showing signs of being overly needy of my and Andrew. Like she's not sure we love her anymore or something and she pulls her ears back when we give her affection like she's afraid she did something bad and isn't deserving of it. It's been only 2 weeks so I'm sure she'll get over it. She's never really had to share me before.
Currently I'm chugging away at new work so display originals in my opened-yet-lack-of-artwork Etsy shop. It's close to El Dia de los Muertos and that has my inspiration at the moment. This is a little more involved than what I have been doing but it's a nice change of pace. I'm still doing rub cement resist for the shape of the skull, nose, eyes, and teeth but everything else is left alone. Here are some badly photographed pictures:
I have 3 more in the works that I'm sketching up to then paint. I'm being a little more intense with these paintings than my others. I have had some stuff on my mind recently and I think I unintentionally led myself to work that would cause me to focus solely on it rather than my personal issues. Like I said when I first started blogging, this gives me a kind of therapy that has been useful.
When I was married I felt empty for a really long time. I would draw and paint before my ex and I were married back when I still lived in PA. When I moved to be with him and got married I became consumed with him and his issues and trying to take care of all of it. I stopped being concerned with myself and what kind of emotional state I was in. All creativity stopped. Now that I have been painting continuously for over a year I wonder if it would have helped me keep sane during my marriage. Probably not, but I still wonder. Those years of feeling inadequate were stifling and my return to artwork was almost immediate after we became separated. Funny how that works. I'm a lot better off and doing well but there are those occasional times where I become confused about the situation.
Anyway, that's where I am right now. Just going to keep moving along :)
