Vacation...All I ever Wanted! Vacation...Got to get away!

Wheeeeeeee! I have next week off of work. Its a bit pathetic how excited I am about it. I've had that silly Go-gos song stuck in my head for days. Even worse...I only know the chorus of that song. Someone here looked up the lyrics for me, but I don't even know how the melody of it goes, so that was no help.

Anyway...I'll be having exciting times...of a sort. I'm going with my mom and dad to cabin on a lake, on the border between Wisconsin and Upper Michigan. It'll be nice and relaxing. I'm bringing an absurd amount of entertainment stuff with me, but we'll be riding up there in their truck, so there's plenty of room. Even better, its a free vacation for me, mom and dad already had the cabin booked, and don't want any money for me coming with. Yay! Its been several years since I took a vacation longer than a long weekend. I've had to use up my vacation days as sick days...but I managed to remain healthy enough this last winter.

My plan is to fish a little, and play games, attempt to start my excuse of a scrapbook (its really not going to be fancy...just pictures on top of pretty paper...no big designs or anything), and learn how to crochet socks. I really know how to live it up! Yay!

Art or Something like it...

In an attempt to be brave, I'm going to scan some of the pictures I've made and share them. Doing this makes my stomach hurt a bit. I'm not all that confident in my skills. One of the things I would love to learn to do is use color and shading better. One of my friends (hi Alisha!) is absolutely brilliant with that. She can make round things look round. Her water drops and globes are amazing. Her drawings have such depth. I can do ok, if I keep things very cartoony looking. Flat and solid colors, with no interesting lighting. Anyway, here is some of the stuff I've done and haven't burned. Ha!

Here we have a colored pencil. I wish I could lay claim to the design, but I did copy it out of a book of dragon designs. Though I didn't trace it, I still didn't create the idea of it. I have a few of these that I've been playing with...trying to work on actually using colors. I ended up really loving the background on this. Its great how mistakes can make something end up better. I had smeared some of the red from resting my hand on the picture, so I couldn't leave the background white like I had planned. Brown hid the red quite nicely.

This is a watercolor...I really wanted to add a little touch of colored pencil to the leaf shape, but I'm afraid I'll ruin the painting. So far I haven't had any sucess in reproducing something similar yet...apparently I ran into some luck when I did this one. (It was originally supposed to be some flowers...they made me angry, so I smeared them all together, and set all sorts of stuff on top of the resulting mess.) The end result made me happy. Who knew that fall window stickies and Halloween fake spider webs could make something so nice. =)

Those two are the finished ones that are actually hanging on my wall. Later today, I'll make a post about a work in progress...and try to scan it in as it changes...just for my own amusement. (Also will be helpful if I try to do to much to it and ruin it in the process-I'll have saved bits that I can use from eariler.)

Added: The work in progress didn't get posted because it was sketched too lightly for the scanner to pick up.

I dreamed a dream last night....

Even so often I dream something and remember it. Well, last night was one of those. It involved crashing a summer camp. Then camp was boring and I wanted to leave. Ruh roh! No cell phone signal, so I decided to just steal the camp bus...it was raining and I didn't want to walk. I would have gotten caught if I drove on the rode, so I went through the woods. Scattered throughout the woods, were hibernating grizzly bears and it was tricky to avoid hitting them...they were everywhere. As I drove deeper into the woods, sleeping people were among the sleeping bears. The people were very large and looked a bit like they were made out of play-do. I couldn't avoid both the bears and the people, so I ran over the people. The people squeaked when the wheels went over them, waking up the bears...and the bears would eat the people. The poor bears looked hungry, so I tried to run over as many people as I could, so they could have a snack.

It should have been a dream that scared me or disturbed me...but I found it quite relaxing. Rather like a video game. Run over the people, feed the bears. Maybe because the people didn't scream or bleed when they were being eaten...they just kept sleeping. I only remember it because my alarm woke me up.

Alas poor socks, I knew you well!

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away there was a sock. Not just any ordinary sock (after all ordinary socks don't get written about), but a glorious sock full of wonderful dreams and octopi. Even better, it had a twin. A perfect pair. Two wonderfully orange socks, skipping through life, sharing their happy rainbow of smiling cephalopods with world. Life was a fantastic journey for the loving friends, but like so many things truely beautiful, they weren't meant to live long in this world. They were trodden down with many stampings of feet and holes erupted in their heels. Their downfall was so sudden and unexpected. I thought they'd be with me forever. But no, they're off to join their blue monkey companions in the giant dryer in the sky.

I'll miss you socks.

When I was very little....

Cartoons used to be so much better when I was younger. You know, when I had to walk two miles uphill to school, during a blizzard...wearing newspapers on my feet because I didn't have shoes. But I've made a recent discovery. I can actually get in a PBS station on my rabbit ears! Yay! And there's a rather lovely cartoon on it...all about Curious George. Last night I learned all about making apple cider. The squeals and monkey noises he spouts out really make me happy. Though, I must admit...I wonder about the Man in the Yellow Hat. Why does he like yellow so much? Why did he wear an old fashioned yellow bathing suit when they went to the beach? Why does he have a pet monkey?

Its no Fraggle Rock, but its really one of the best cartoons I've seen in a very long time (of course, Fraggles weren't cartoons-for the most part-there was that short-runned cartoon version). I really miss the Fraggles, I'm so glad almost all of them are on DVD now. I've been watching them again, and I'm amazed at how different the show is now that I'm watching it as an adult (or as adult as I'll ever be). I didn't realize it when saw it as a child, but there are so many lessons to learn in the show...but they're subtle lessons. No after-school-special "what did we learn from this" sort of talks at the end. The brillance of the show is completely amazing. I can see where it helped shape me into the person I am today. I think that's part of the problem with so many cartoons, the creators of them don't realize the power they have. Jim Henson was a genius and I'm so glad I was the perfect age for the Fraggles when they were on tv.

Meep meep!

This last weekend was rather exciting. I went to a pro baseball game (Tigers vs. Twins in Minneapolis...I list Tigers first though, because that's why we-me and my mommy and daddy-bought the tickets). It was the first one I've been to. It was quite entertaining, much more than seeing it on tv. Though, on tv I get to see the players up close...and Minnesota does have some lovely eye candy playing for them. We've decided to make it an annual trip. We parked further away and rode the light rail to the Metrodome (I'm so glad I remember that the light rail had a stop there). I felt rather like Harry Potter leading Hagrid through the ticket booths and such for the Underground in the first book. Only I hadn't ridden on it either (except for the bit between the airport terminals).

We also spent time looking at a gardening book. (That I just picked up from a library book sale.) Also looking out the window at the birds on the feeders. I really know how to show people a good time! They are the best kind of visitors, my apartment was cleaner when they left than it was when they came. Mom has a liking of washing and folding clothes. Yay Mom!

I've also learned that steel-cut Irish Oatmeal is one of the best things ever. I had boughten a can of months ago, but just haven't made any-it takes over 1/2 hour to cook. I must say, its well worth the time. If you've never tried it, go look for some. Its fantastic, nutty and chewy. I'll have to buy some more.