what a doll

When your morning starts at the crack of dawn, you’re cranky from sacrificing two hours a day to freeway commuting, twitching from impending deadlines, blurry-eyed from lack of sleep, in short, when you’re as busy as a moth in a mitten, what do you do?

Why, you add yet another project to your docket.

I’ve decided to design and stitch together a stuffed animal, fashioned after the little character, hovering above. Boris, Murgatroyd, Bob, whatever his name is.

I thought I’d share my progress so far: Pattern designed… check. Everything marked, cut and pinned… check, check, check. Even got some legs and ears stitched together and finished (see below.)

Look, you can see my Wacom tablet is finally getting some use… as a surface to set things on. (I really need draw with that thing one of these days.) I also have my trusty, monster cup of tea at the ready. Heck, I even got myself a tomato pin cushion. I’m official now.

My reason for putting this project out there is in hopes that it will keep me somewhat accountable to finish it. So, I’ll keep you posted on any further progress. However, at this moment, I seem to be at a bit of an impasse. I’m trying to figure out what to use for his big, baby green eyes.

Any suggestions?

(click to enlarge, if you wish)

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sequoia ll

We arrived home tonight (sigh.)

It’s always good to get home and there’s nothing like being greeted by meowing, purring furballs winding happily and frantically about your travel-weary legs… but… but… I miss the trees (sniff.)

Well, back to reality and my regularly scheduled sketching tomorrow.

Meanwhile, allow me to share another photo or two.

Wiley

sequoia

I’m sitting in the lodge, the only place with wifi. Tom is tuckered out from our three snow hikes today, and some staff member is vacuuming under my feet. They close up shop pretty early around here. So no sketches to post but a few photos. Then I have to hike it back to our wonderful room and pass out from sheer joy and exhaustion.

Sequoia National Park rules, and here are a few reasons why.

Abstract

kitty in pumps

Tom and I put up our tree today, and I’ve been wringing my hands in anticipation of filling it up with our ornaments, collected over the past twenty years, mostly glass blown, and made in Eastern Europe. These things are like heroin to me. I get the DT’s if I don’t get my hands on some of the glittery stuff as soon as the clock strikes midnight on December 1st.

Every year we carefully pick out and purchase one or two more ornaments for our growing collection. However, in addition to these fragile, lovelies, we can never resist picking up a couple two, three goofy ornaments. They range from plaster grizzly bears to glass Yukon Cornelius and Hermey. One year I nabbed the last tiny mobile of Dr. Seuss’s “One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish” from Hallmark.

So in addition to being addicted the shiney stuff, I am also a sucker for the sillier fare. From the sublime to the ridiculous, I believe the saying goes.

Last year I spent an inordinant amount of cash on a kitty in pumps (pictured above.) So attached to this inanimate object did I become, that it now lives permenantly on my mantle.

This year, while cruising around Green Thumb, (a nursery in town that transforms into a Christmas wonderland every year,) we stumbled upon some cloth ornaments, we just had to have. A Snowman Angel and an….er….umm….aardvark, I believe. Take a look.

Anyway, that’s my round-about way of saying, “nope, didn’t draw anything today!”

gridlock raises my vamp-ire

Commute to work this morning (notice the gridlock from back window).

In keeping with the day, I wrote a little children’s rhyme about vampires. It goes a little something like this:

VAMPIRE

I was craving garlic pizza,
so I grabbed my trusty bike,
and peddled off to Lou’s Place,
where they have the kind I like.

Rushing home, my luck turned sour.
I blew out my front tire.
As I stopped to check it out
I saw my first vampire.

He snuck out from the shadows
of the jacaranda tree,
and hovered just above the ground
while making eyes at me.

He smiled at me with sneery lips,
and stared his vampire stare.
Then floated over to me.
Man he gave me such a scare!

I pretended not to notice,
that his eyes were glowing red.
But he knew that I was frightened.
You can’t fool the dang un-dead.

I figured I was done for
as he flashed his gleaming fangs.
Then I got this great idea
when I felt some hunger pangs.

Remembering I bought some
garlic pizza from Lou’s Place,
I grabbed it from my bike rack
and I shoved it in his face!

The vampire’s eyes shot open!
Oh he croaked just like a toad!
My trusty garlic pizza
caused the vampire to explode!

a good life

On the days I am wise enough to count my blessings, among the many I count are my moments spent drawing and drinking coffee. Of course, I have to count my health, a wonderful husband, three rambunctious yet lovable kitties, a family who loves me, some very close and precious friends, my home is intact and I have a good job, (just to name a few).

However, the thing I am thinking about at this moment, is the simple pleasure of sitting, sipping a damn fine cup of coffee and belting out a sketch or two. If I could, I’d spend my whole day doing just that. Drawing and sipping coffee. Maybe some day. You never know, eh?
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Daryl and Muffy, Rufus and Delilah, Stan and Roz? You decide.

silverton, oregon

It seems strange to be looking around Oregon for a new place to live when our current residence in California may be threatened by no less than three different fires, fanned by Santa Ana winds. Information we’ve been getting from friends and family, the media and the internet, seem to indicate the whole Southern California is going up in flames.

Being hundreds of miles from home and feeling completely helpless, we decided to try to make the best of it. So, joined by our friends Tim and Paul, we headed back to Silverton, the quaint little town we visited yesterday.

We wanted to make sure it wasn’t a dream and this idyllic town really did exist. Tim was at the wheel and we directed him to the neighborhood where the house, that Tom insists he will die in, could be found. It was still there in all it’s glory. So Tom got out and took a few photos, doing it quickly, hoping no one would get creeped out.

We drove by another house that caught our fancy, still trying not to be intrusive. The owner saw us and beckoned us in. He, his wife and daughter were so nice and hospitable, it took us cynical Californians a little by surprise.

Afterwards we headed down to the little downtown village area for some espresso. We were accosted by an old-timer, or “moss back” as he described himself, named Ray. He assaulted us with folksiness of the likes I’ve never experienced in California.

After freeing ourselves from Ray’s über-friendly grip, we ordered our espressos and sat out on the deck overlooking the Silver Creek. It was a sunny warm autumn day. The creek shimmered, the leaves on trees glowed orange and red and the coffee was delicious. It just doesn’t get better than this.

We finally tore ourselves away, and decided to head back home. As we walked away, to the smiles and waves of more Silverton residents we passed, we decided that this place was just too good to be true. Surely the entrance of the Black Lodge could be found somewhere in the forest nearby. This kind of serenity and euphoria couldn’t be real. It could only be masking some insidious evil, the stuff of Lynchian nightmares.

How jaded our we Californians anyway, that we can’t take all of this for face value? Maybe it isn’t just a dream, maybe we actually could find nirvana in the tiny bucolic town of Silverton.

But first, let’s hope our home in California survives this latest firestorm.

a rainy jameson friday night

Friday night, rain, a bottle of Jameson, a couple of green depression glasses, frozen pizza and thou.

macro my day

Tom got me a camera this past Christmas, a Canon Elph SD600. He did this not only because it’s a damn fine gift, but also in part, to curtail the barrage of complaints bestowed upon him about the camera I was currently using. I was, at the time, playing around with a Nikon Coolpix, one of Tom’s cast-offs after buying his latest and greatest, a Canon 5D. Now, I hate to look a gift horse or a hand-me-down horse in the mouth, but this thing was a study in frustration. Oh, it took great photos alright, no problem there. The problem was, however, that this camera had the reaction time of a snail on vallium. I often try to capture things like, for instance, Spooky snoozing on his back with his feet straight up in the air. I’ll point, focus, hit the button and then, after what seems like a full minute, the shutter will release and my once adorable subject is now in the other room taking a cat-box break. So, about that issue and the fact that this piece of sh…equipment, never quite fit in my already bloated-beyond-belief purse, I complained, nagged and whined.

Enter the Canon Elph. An elegant, palm sized specimen, with a huge screen for viewing thumbnails. The reaction time, while not lightening fast, was a great improvement. I popped it in my bag Christmas day and there it stayed, ready for action. You never know when a photo op may present itself.

There is, however, one drawback,

hummus and the shins

Tom and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary tonight. Our anniversary is not until Monday, Oct. 8th, but for obvious reasons we celebrated tonight.

Tom, (the big sweetie), surprised me with tickets to see The Shins at the Santa Barbara Bowl. We arrived in SB early so we could have dinner at a wonderful middle eastern restaurant called Zaytoon.

I would expound on this much more if it wasn’t 1:00 in the morning, and I wasn’t exhausted.

But I’ve posted some of my feeble attempts at photography in an effort to give some impressions of our wonderful evening.

Note: We had dessert twice. Once after dinner and then again after the concert. No wonder my jeans were a bit snug tonight!

Also note, that the first image of a full plate of baklava and the last image of concert are Tom’s photos.

Good night, or good morning, whatever your perspective may be at this moment.