Two of a Kind

These dogs belong my sister Jessica and her husband Matt.  Blue is the Australian Shepherd and PeeWee is the Pomeranian.  I only post this because they refuse to let anyone post pictures of their 7 month old daughter, my little niece Ella anywhere on the net.  These two are quite the pair of pooches.  If you could see only in black and white, PeeWee looks like a miniature of Blue.  And as if that weren't enough, they're both pretty old and therefore Blue is mostly blind and PeeWee recently became toothless.  Like I said, quite the pair.

Baha'i Temple

In the Summer 2005, I was living with some family friends in the southwest suburbs of Chicago (between my 2nd and 3rd semesters at SAIC).  One random day, Jim took Mere and me on a day trip around the Chicago area.  I've long since forgotten where exactly we went for most of the day since I was still a relatively new resident of the Windy City.  We stopped for Italian Ice in Little Italy and at a church and a little shop in the Ukrainian Village (where I purchased a CD of the Ukrainian Divine Liturgy, which I still have and still love).   The one place I'm sure we visited was the Baha'i Temple in Chicago.  Now I won't claim to know much of anything about the Baha'i religion, but I find its peaceful and accepting nature comforting in an extremely judgmental society.  We were able to go inside the temple though the pics didn't turn out.  The exterior ones did though...and here they are:

If anyone (of my hundreds of readers, hah), wants more info about the temple or the religion, check out this site...http://www.bahaichicago.org/

Buttons

I probably should have been posting stuff like this as I acquired it but since I am ever the procrastinator here goes the first of many random posts about stuff.   Haha, I have to laugh about how I just phrased that but that's exactly what it is...random stuff.

I took these pics of Holly's button collection last November when we were still living together.  I forget why I decided I wanted to even see them...I think it was that I was looking for buttons for headwraps for my HatsonLamps Etsy shop (www.hatsonlamps.etsy.com).  She allowed me to look at her buttons and I was able to keep a few of the ones I liked.  I love the way they look on the back of my 'grandma quilt'.

I really love the giant buttons, but of course those were the ones I was allowed to look at but not keep.  I do love a good button collection.  I went out for lunch with (Zidane) Mom, Jess (and Ella), and Jen last Friday and Jen said she's got trillions of buttons.  That's right, Trillions.  Therefore she and I are going to have a sit-down sometime soon where we just goss and look at buttons, maybe watch a movie.  I will have to blog about it when it happens.   :-P

The Chronicalling Continues...

So did anyone else start blogging more after watching the movie Julie and Julia?  Hah, nobody's really reading anyways...but maybe someday if I'm more diligent about it or someone takes an interest...

Well, I watched that today.  I was going to try to start my post during the movie, but it's a Z day today.  My nephew Zidane is a totally awesome little guy but at nearly 7 months he's demanding more of my attention on the days I watch him.  I like that he's not crawling yet, or, bad as it sounds, rolling really.  It's not that he can't roll, it's just that he's not interested.  That makes him immobile yet, which is great.  However, he's finally started sleeping through the night which means his day naps are fewer and farther between.  I'm betting this post will take ages to finish simply because he's been refusing to go down for a nap for hours.  No matter...

In the late Spring 2009 I acquired a few fish for my 55 gallon tank.  Two of them were small bottom feeders called plecostomous.  I guess one of them was a special kind that wasn't as hearty as the other but neither of them lasted long.  At that time I had 4 goldfish and a koi in the tank and was looking for a little help with cleaning but these two suckers randomly disappeared both within a week of me getting them.  I therefore do not have any pictures of either.  I did name them though, both after the same character from Metalocalypse:  Milminiman Lanylin Swimwamley.  And I will be getting tats of them as well.  (Just little ones as part of a larger whole.)

The other two fish I came to own at that time were a pair of butterfly koi.  I named them also after Metalocalypse characters only these were after Dethklok band members Pickles and Skwisgaar Skwigelf.  The pictures I have of these two are from October 2009.  They were only about 3 inches long when I got them, but by the time these were taken they'd grown at least another inch.

Skwisgaar is the yellow koi.

 

Pickles is the orange koi.

The other fish will be formally introduced in a later post but are named as follows:

Scott Tenorman- chocolate oranda goldfish

Kyle- red ryukin goldfish (white in these pics)

Damien- black moor telescope-eye goldfish

Bradley- calico ryukin goldfish (upside-down in the corner)

Nathan Explosion- standard koi (white/black spots)

Here's a few more shots of the crew from that time.

 

Here's some of the old video footage of the scaly buggers swimming along to a tune from one of of my top 5 favorite movies of all time Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain.  It's called "La Valse d'Amélie".  It's funny because all these fish are either named after Metalocalypse and Southpark characters.

My Little Pony Fish

A backwards Chronology of my pet fish starts now:


These three handsome male bettas are my most recent single dwelling fish.  I got them here in Soo Foo earlier this Spring.  My three and a half year old niece Chloe helped me name them after things from a My Little Pony videotape that she loves just as much as I did when I was her age.  It actually came out the year I was born.

Floom:

Smooze:

Ogg:

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 Picture Number 155 and the last picture of TomFoolery.



The remainder of my produce pics were compressed improperly on my ipod and the originals didn't survive a reformatting last year.

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And they've been toppled!

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Pic Number 150!

Sauce bottles...not produce, I know, but same time and local.

Mmmm, gummies!

Here's another bit of writing from the old college vault:

2/14/2005

Stream of Consciousness Writing...

Prompt: Jar of Gummy Candies

1. I used to eat these kind of gummy candies at Grandma and Grandpa Wingert's when there were no other grandkids around.  The orange ones were always my favorite...

2.  Orange is Megan's favorite color...

3.  Megan never answers her phone or returns my calls...

4. Lizz's mom, on the other hand, has called me twice during this class already...

5.  Lizz is becoming a a vegetarian, starting today...

6.  I couldn't ever be a vegetarian; I love poultry too much...

7.  Like the chicken Chris made the other night [for dinner]...

8.  That night, I talked to my parents on the phone for almost two hours...

9.  I miss being home and dream of it often...

10.  My dreams are pretty crazy---like ferrets and chess.

Narrow topics to 3, then 1.  Just write a story, a narrative, a shitty first draft.

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The last good quality produce pic...but it's not the last altogether.

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This reminds me of...

While I was unpacking some of my belongings the other night, I came across and old notebook from a writing class I took the second semester of my freshman year at SAIC.  I decided I'm going to post some of my old writings based on prompts from that class starting with one that I find highly amusing.

Prompt: 

Write about the memory triggered by the feel of what is in the bag.

8. This object reminds me of all the weddings we had to go to in Parker.  There must have been like ten of them throughout my childhood.

7. This reminds me of the gum I used to chew to stay awake in my boring high school classes.

6. This reminds me of those stupid mood bead bracelets that everyone had in eighth grade.  I wanted them so badly, but for no good reason.

5. This kind of reminds me of a Fourth of July firework which makes me think of when I was five and my cousin Joel started the ditch on fire with one.

4. This reminds me of the first real watch I ever owned; it was a Tigger face without numbers.  I got it because I was going to be a crossing guard in the fifth grade.

3. This reminds me of nights when we had muffins for dinner.  They were always a treat.

2. This reminds me of Mere when I babysat her last semester and she and Alicia fought over who had collected more rocks.

February 28, 2005

We never actually knew what was in the bags (or if we did, I certainly don't remember).

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I'm BAAAAACK!

So, a few things of note happened in the last 7 months; the first major thing being the one that made me stop posting...but things are changing now and I want to get back to my old internet habits.  So, I will try to briefly sum up my life since January.

Less than a week after my last post in January, I had a miscarriage.  It was awful; enough said.

Shortly after that, I started working three jobs:  my main part-time job in the custom frame shop at Michaels Arts and Crafts, a more sporatic part-time position as a birthday party host and occasional art teacher at the Washington Pavilion of Arts and Sciences, and one night (Friday) per week at BK.

My dad helped me get a car in late February, early March for easier commuting...a blue 95' Chevy Corsica that I call Dimples cuz of the hail damaged hood.

My sister Jessica and her husband Matt had their baby girl Ella Marie on April 7th, one week late...I was actually able to be at the hospital when she was born; the first family member other than her parents to hold her, even see her.

My brother Aaron and his wife Terri had their son Zidane Thomas on April 13th, three weeks early.  A brand new nephew and niece within 6 days made for a super proud Auntie Ashley...

I've made a few good friends since moving back to Sioux Falls.  My fellow framer from Michaels, Angela and her boyfriend Matt, a sales associate.  Both are artists and kindred spirits.  We have periodical art nights at their apartment and frequent local bars to see local bands.

Though new friends are great, old friends are awesome too.  I flew out to Los Angeles in mid-June to visit my hetero-lifemate and best good friend Holly.  Also there was her boyfriend and good college friend of mine Kelly and his old roommate Dacklin.  Our friend Chris from Long Island flew out to visit too making it basically a freshman year reunion.  We all had a blast and it went way too quickly.

My baby brother Jonathan (Jon) tied the knot with his sweetheart Marcella (Marcy) on July 30th...It was a beautiful wedding despite the heat, humidity, and bugs at the park and the karaoke dance party at the reception, though small was totally awesome.

A few weeks ago, the amount of rain that we'd gotten throughout the summer finally became too much for the foundation in my folks' place to handle and we got serious leakage in the basement.  It wasn't sewage like some folks in town, but all the same it was gross and a whole lot of work to clean up.  I was still living down there until last weekend.  Aaron and Terri closed on their first home and have allowed me to move in.

Now, I'm settling in.  I've started watching Zidane on Monday, Tuesday and Friday each week (the days they both work) in exchange for rent.  In the next few months, I plan on getting my 2 Etsy shops back in good working order, resetting up my website (which has been idle since March), and potentially posting some recent work including a detailed and intricate nursery mural I painted for Ella and portraits I painted of Zidane and Jon and Marcy on Craigslist in an effort to bring in commissions.  I had my last day at BK last Friday and I'm still working at Michaels and the Wash Pav.

In short, I'm in a very different place right now than I expected to be the last time I posted.  However, for the most part, life has been good and fair and now it's time to reconnect to the art world online.

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And now to finally finish my produce picture series...

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Here's hoping it won't creep up on me today like it did yesterday.

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I think Saturdays are my favorite now.

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And so it begins...

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DAY OF BIG NEWS.

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Bundle o'nerves...

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I feel like I'm back to square one in this job hunt.

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Another blizzard (as if it weren't cold enough already).  Mom even got a snow day, but I'm in charge of catsitting for Aaron and Terri so unfortunately I must venture out.

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Ashley and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.  That's today.

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Oh my, those Long Island iced teas...