Eye Candy

     I'm about to go on Vacay so I wanted to give you a few things to look at while I'm gone.

This is Peaches part 2. But It is still not done. However, I'm having a hard time finding a direction.

Here is one of the headbands I made and one of the flowers I made pinned to it. The other headband is the same material as the flower.

Here is a little watercolor I painted. It is entitle "Fuzzy Dreams of Mama's Kitchen."

THis is a really old painting entitle "Sidd in Green" Sidd is my dog. Normally he isn't green, though.

You know you want to win preserves

     I canned like a madwoman this week. Just take a look.

These are the regular peach preserves. I also made some with crystallized ginger. I don't know if it is possible to keep the fruit from rising to the top.

Look at this craziness. And I have already given away four! 

So, remember the painting that I told you about last week? Well, I didn't do anything to them (yet) But here they are. Don't be too harsh on them.

 

The contest: come on people.I KNOW that you have made something excellent. It does not have to be really recent. My friends are more creative than this. You can send them in here, facebook, or if you know my e-mail, I will e-mail it. You can even make something now. How about a haiku about your summer? I would love that!

      This week is more about doing than learning. I have gotten out of the habit of writing in my journal and it is something I'd like to do again. So this week my goal is to write in it at least 20 min a day. You may or may not know that I was a history minor. Would've been a history major except I was hoping to earn money to fund my book habit.  As a result I always write with an eye to the future. I know, nerdy and overly hopeful. I think that might be my new motto "Nerdy and Hopeful"

Soon they blog police will come for me

     I have been neglectful of my dear blog. I will tell you why not for an excuse, but so you see what a week and a half it has been and maybe forgive me some. First of all, I spent 3 days of last week in bed with some kind of flu. I slept for nearly three days straight. No sooner was I better that Ben and I hopped in the car for an 8 hour drive to NC where we spent the weekend. We get back and there is a ton and a half of work to catch up on because we both missed quite a bit of work. Then my sweet pup hurt his tail. Still waiting to see exactly what is wrong, but I'm afraid it is broken or strained (can that happen to a tail?).
     That being said, here is the book list that I promised you two weeks ago.

Ella Minnow Pea

The Help (Although I’m usually skeptical of popular books)

The Immortal Life of Henriette Lacks (Non-fiction)

In My Time (By Dick Cheney)

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Emperor of Maladies (Non-fiction)

Like Water for Chocolate

Like Water for Chocolate

The Gurnsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The Particular Sadness of Lemon cake (thanks Casey)

Edges

Packing for Mars

     I still owe you pictures of the paintings I did last week. While I did have a lot going on -see above-they are still truly disappointing. I mean, seriously. I did the electric tangerines (that were supposed to be peaches) and a night beach scene for my bathroom that looks just awful. I have to keep working on that or maybe burn it. I haven't decided.

     This week has been Victorian Week. How will this help me in the future? Not quite sure. Don't quite care.

     Besides the usual reading and research, it has so far meant observing tea, but not high tea. I'm too lazy and don't have proper tea clothes. I have also rented a book on manners and learned how to properly act and react in all situations. Apparently spitting isn't an appropriate end to an argument. Who knew?

     I tried observing the Victorian sense of modesty, but it has been over 100 degrees here and I'm not looking for a heat stroke. I don't know how they wore long skirts and sleeves and high necks plus petticoats. I wore long sleeves one day and thought I would fall out right in the parking lot. I have been observing the Victorian custom of not wearing makeup. Only whores rouge their cheeks. I'll tell you, though. It's hard to walk into work without a stitch of makeup. Especially since I feel my eyes disappear without liner or mascara.

     Tonight I am going to try a Victorian hairstyle that involves powder and lots of back combing. I hope I don't regret it for the rest of my life.

Peaches, cruddy peaches.

     So this last week was write a play week. I decided to write a play that is representative of life in the generation that got lucky enough to graduate in tanking economy and cruddy political field. So here is the introduction section.

(It starts with a back lit stage. You can see the silhouette of mortarboards and a student standing at a lectern)

Valedictorian: As you move into the future, never forget the things you stand for, the beliefs you stand on or the friend that stand behind you.

(Applause and people throw their hats. The stage gets completely dark but you can hear a a group of girls talking.)

Bethany: I’m so glad I’m getting out of this place and into a city. If I hear one more person talk about getting married or the kids they are going to have I’m going to puke.

Veera: I know.  Just thinking of living here all my life and working at Kroger’s makes me want to kill myself.

Lorna: No worries. We’re going to good colleges and so we will get good jobs and be able to live a real life. Then we can laugh while we twirl our diamonds.

Bethany: Or better yet never come back.

      I hope that you can read the unrealistic optimism in that. I hope it sounds like  the high hopes you had when leaving high school. It is kind of hard to post more because the next pieces are longer or really short. So, if you are interested in any more, in seeing the decay of modern optimism, please let me know.

      This week has been paint your summer week. I have had these ideas of painting I want to create. However, I have spent the last three days sick and in a NyQuil induced haze. So all I have is one painting of peaches. Cruddy peaches that look like electric tangerines. So onward I go.

    If you painted summer, what would you paint? If I ran a competition, what would you want to win?

Paintings for you

I never posted the pics of the last contest winner's paintings. Actually, JC still hasn't got hers. Oops. So,*Spoiler Alert* for JC.

This is Kayla's painting and it's called "Electric Giraffe"

This is JC's painting and is called "Modern Wild Flowers"

Yay vegan week!

     So, this week was the hardest one that I have done and yet the most rewarding. Being vegan cuts out a lot of things that most people don't even think about. One big stumbling block was sugar. Any sugar processed and bleached is made with bone meal. The crushed bones of animals? Ooh, sounds delish... Anyway, more than you'd think has hidden sugar in it. Ketchup, granola, peanut butter and more. Sugar was the only thing that I had strong cravings for. I wanted it sooo bad by day three.
     I have to admit that I slipped a few times. A muffin, a bite of ranch dressing on a fry (the fry was vegan), and on the last night I ate creme brulee. Oops. I loved it. I will admit that I did have more energy. But I ate like seven times a day. I stayed hungry. Perhaps if I had planned starches better that would not have happened.
     I'm sure you are all waiting on tenterhooks to see who won the contest. Well, I only had two real entries. Thank you Kayla Park (gravy) and JC Fulton (chocolate chip cookies) for two real, excellent recipes. Both of you get a prize- an original Hannah acrylic painting. As soon as I finish painting them I will send them off and post a pic.  Natalie- what were you trying to do to me? Guacamole on an endive did not work out for me. And of course, a (dis)honorable mention to Dana Hunter who quite obviously cheated. I really got the giggles, but I appreciated the fact that you took the time to google it.

This week: poetry week. Want to participate? Send your favorite poem. Let's act like we learned at college!

Mid week update

     I know that I have been really bad about updating. The new job has been taking a lot of time away, but there has also been a family emergency. Right now family is more important than anything. To tide you over here are the few paintings that I did finish last week.

     This week started out as Bombshell week with Marilyn as my inspiration. However, I have been too emotional to really get into it. I have been faithful to getting up everyday and putting on full makeup and an actual outfit and not just black pants and some top. I am considering doing these weeks over again later. What do you think?

Recipe week....BORING

     So, maybe the bar was set too high. I expected it to be like being on Top Chef or something. Really it just ended in a lot of dishes to wash. Most disappointing of all was that I did not LOVE any dishes. The best was lemony asparagus pasta. Except for the asparagus. I think if I subtituted broccoli for it, the whole dish might be better. Warm winter salad with chicken and fennel? Bitter. So went the week.
      But this week is painting week! I love it although I am not painting as much as I'd like. I started a second job which is nice, but my sleep routine is still not used to me getting up at 8:30 when I haven't in months. I still can't fall asleep until late late. So at the end of the day I am tired. I tried napping but it got out of hand. My first nap was 3 hours long.
     By Sunday I should have lots of fun pics for you to look at.

Van Gogh week a hit.

    Van Gogh week was better that hoped. I read a ton about him, tried to sketch wherever I went and painted. I kind of wish I would have gone step further, though. Painted outside more. Maybe got into character AS Van Gogh. But I didn't... so maybe another time.
     The biggest challenge I took was to make a self portrait in his style. I titled it "A Portrait of the Artist in Summer." I worked in acrylic instead of oil because I wanted a faster drying time than the weeks it took Van Gogh's to dry. That created the problem of it drying too fast. So the resemblance is not the best. Actually it looks more like me at 16. Plus the paint kept drying a little darker than I wanted, hence the "in the summer" part. As a side note: I was a terrible model. I kept moving my head and changing the light source. Will opt for someone better next time.
     This painting took me approx four hours. I wanted to keep it quick and not linger because Van Gogh was a speed demon. Over his ten year career in painting he completed over 900 paintings.  During one of his "crises periods" (his mental breakdowns were characterized by hallucinations, anxiety and extreme lethargy) he was institutionalized for 70 days. He was not allowed to paint the first two weeks. He still finished 70 paintings and many more drawings. Wow. So I worked hard and fast. Here is the result-

    Next week I am giving myself a break from the intellectual and my goal is to complete a video game. It will hopefully be Super Mario Brothers on Nintendo DS.

Note: I still had a whole red snapper left from my initial start to the week of learning to prepare fish. Ben (bf) and I stuffed it with artichokes and crab, covered it in herbs and baked it. It turned out delicious, but of course the bones were a problem while eating.