Cookie and Chocolate Milk Diet

Yeap, this is basically what I was living on for the last few days. Occasional sandwiches and fruits are thrown in, but for the most part it's huge, home made chocolate chip cookies and tons of chocolate milk. I would like to thank Vincent for it since he is the one making these cookies for me. Would you like to know how? I think you would, because they are actually healthy. What he uses is organic chocolate chips (sometimes carob chips), sprouted wheat flour, poppy seeds, brown sugar (sometimes maple sugar), aluminum free baking powder and lots of love. He bakes them at 300F. When he made the first batch I thought they weren't cooked all the way through because they were really soft, but that's actually normal. The taste and texture is actually like something between a cookie and a cupcake. Chocolate milk he's been getting for me is organic Wegman's brand chocolate soy milk. And yes, it's his way to celebrate our anniversary that is coming up on July 4th. That's basically what I've been up to these days, eating cookies, drinking chocolate milk, getting scratched by Monkey boy and fixing up all those letters to get them print ready.
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Apocalypse Update: it's a cool summer, I'm rather liking it. This end of the world thing is rather pleasant. I remember last year I was ready to fall over and die from heat. Oh, yes and we officially have 5 month till the end of the world ends.

Namesake Set

Have I mentioned I started selling sets of prints of letters? They are sets of 5 letters. I figured it would be a good gift, so there you go. If only I had enough space on my walls, I would hang my own name there. As of right now though it's covered with artwork of countless artists.

When I first decided to do these sets, I had a little problem. I realized that the background color on some of the letters was a little different from others. Lets be honest, it's impossible to mix exactly the same color. In sets it would've looked bad to have mismatched colored prints, so I had to fix the problem. What I did, was a little GIMP magic. I basically painted a blank bage with a color on the background I wanted and then replaced backgrounds of all the letters with this one. This way all the prints now look like they belong together. It took me a lot of time to do it for each and every letter, but it was worht it.

One of the mane reasons I love GIMP so darn much...
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Apocalypse Update:
It cooled down again... figures, weekends are approaching... It looks like there wouldn't be and beach time for me this week, although... you can never trust forecast. So nothing new really.

Crazy Video Day and Nothing to Post

Today was supposed to be my youtube day. I was supposed to work on my first video, get it ready, post it and enjoy. Well... first I found out my microphone isn't doing too good, so I had to run around the mall in search of a new one. Found it. Works just a little bit better, but I figured it's good enough.
Sat down trying to figure out what I have to say. Wrote it all down, practiced. Spent a few hours trying to record, rerecord, rererecord a 5 minute video. And I thought I'd have some time left over to read blogs. It's almost 3 in the morning now and I just finished with the recording part. Will have to edit it and post probably tomorrow. If that's the case, my giveaway for the Joy painting will be posted tomorrow as well.

For those who are wondering, there was a spider on that tree, that's why I have this funny face. Spiders love my, I don't love them back... They love biting me way too much...

Oh and I had something super good happen today. I did a feature on this awesome artist, Jessica Lopez a few days ago on my other blog. Well, she sent me one of her prints and it's beautiful. It looks really good up close, you can really appreciate all the inking she did on it. You can't really see it on the photo on line, but when you see the print itself, the inking is beautiful. She also gave me a coupon to use and to share. It's good for 2 purchases, so if anyone wants it, it's AVBLOG. I was going all out promoting her on every networked I knew today. I think I tweeted about it 3 times. Jessica is so talented, and her work is so good. Oh, I'm too exited, I have to wrap this up before I go too far with this.

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Apocalypse Update: Nothing new, same hot weather all day, same rain at night. Oh and Monkey tried to commit suicide yet again. I went into the other room for a few minutes and all I heard was some woman saying "don't jump, don't jump kitty." He actually wasn't going to jump, he is just living on the edge and loves walking on it too. Crazy little Monkey. If he would've fallen though and I couldn't find him (I don't think he'd die after falling from the second floor) it just might've been a mini end of the world for me.

Life of a Workaholic

I am somewhat of a workaholic. Not that I enjoy working all that much, but it's the stubbornness in me speaking I think. I have this drive to succeed no matter the obstacles, no matter how much time and effort it will take. Because of it I end up working for 12 hours a day every day. My husband is blaming it on my nursing school habits when I had to stay up all night to finish yet another process record (we had to do one every week), to study for yet another test, to pass yet another skill. I don't know, he might be right, but I think I'm just really stubborn. I have been told too many times that I can't have my art as a full time job, that all artists are starving, that I have to get a 9-5, that I will not make it as self employed. Every time I hear that I end up getting more and more stubborn and working harder and harder to prove them all wrong. So far it's been working. It's a slow process, but it's worth every minute I invested in it.

It's hard to remember to stop and enjoy the moment with my kind of stubbornness, but this is what I have my husband for. He "forgets" to wake me up when I ask him to, he arranges pizza and movies from the 60s nights (we have a couple of those a week) and he reminds me that every now and again I should do something like laundry.

My cats remind me to stop every now and again and feed them, hug then, play with them. If I don't get the message, I get the claws.

I believe this drive of mine is a key to success and the reminders to stop and smell the litter box are there to keep my sanity.

What do you think? Is being a workaholic needed to success in small business? Is it a way to loose one's mind? Is that litter box ever going to learn how to clean itself?
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Apocalypse update: It's been a week since this most recent end of the world began. Nothing special today, sunny day with a little bit of rain, I was even able to take some good pictures of my paintings while it was sunny. Doesn't really look like anything changed since the 21st. Monkey is still hunting my feet, Cuteness is still sleeping next to me when I'm on the computer and I'm still writing on this blog. Even my dangerously unsteady balcony hasn't fallen yet.

How to Decorate a Frame with Magazine Pages

Today I was doing everything BUT what I was supposed to do. Today is the day I'm supposed to read blogs, haven't even started yet. What I did do though is talk to other bloggers and arranging a giveaway for one of my paintings. It should be up and running in a week or so. I also got offered to be a guest blogger and do a tutorial. Now I can't even find a link because my mind is slowly melting. I'll post it as soon as I will find it though. Oh yes, and I'm also a regular guest blogger for The Art Inquirer, I'll be writing for it once a week or so. Anyway, with doing all that, 8 hours went by and I have only read one blog so far. On a brighter side, I now have a step by step tutorial for my frames. So, here it is:

Take a frame that has flat front (or top if it's laying on the table).

Take some magazines, cut pages of magazines into strips that would fit well on the frame.

Roll strips of paper into little rolls

Glue rolls onto the frame (I used Mod Podge for it, cover them with Mod Podge to make sure they are glued togather and have shiny look as well as protected from some of that damage.

Frame whatever you wish in them.

This is a simplified version of the tutorial. I'll post a link to the full tutorial as soon as it'll be posted and as soon as I'll find the address of that blog again. I'm too disorganized today...

Oh, almost forgot, the end of the world update... It was nice and sunny all day, then it suddenly got dark and started raining (well it looked more like someone was hosing the windows, less then a minute after it started pouring rain, it also started hailing, large chunks of frozen slush. It didn't damage any of my plants though, so I'm happy. This is not that uncommon here in Erie, I mean, it is Erie after all. It's not even that uncommon in the rest of the world. When I lived in Kyrgyzstan for example, we had hail every spring, not long after all the fruit trees would bloom. Trees got used to this and ended up blooming twice every spring. Nonetheless,  I'll go ahead and say that pastafarians are doing a great job and managed to counteract this Yahveh sent disaster in less then 30 minutes. In less than half an hour the sun came back out and everything looked beautiful again. It's been raining on and off though, but that's to be expected from such epic battle between Yahveh and Flying Spaghetti Monster's chosen people.
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Update: I did it!!! I found the blog where my tutorial will be posted... it's My Hobby Shop. The frame decorating tutorial is up and running

Good vs Evil, Abstract Drawing

 Good vs Evil, or whatever I'm going to name this abstract drawing when it will be done is underway. It's work in progress. I'm actually just penciling it in so far. It's a really large project, actually made of 8 pieces. It's made of 5 11x7 and 3 8.5x11 pieces. The whole thing will be inked. It's will take me forever, so don't expect the end result any time soon. This is the first time I'm doing something this large and inking it to boot. What was I thinking when I started it? Oh yes, I remember, I was thinking how cool it would look.

I was inspired to do this by a few Jehovah  Witnesses I talked to, who seem to think you can have good without evil. I disagree with them on this. On this drawing I will have red and black part (represents evil) and gold (good) fusing into one another. Because in life, this is exactly how it is. Good feeds the evil and evil feeds the good. Something I see as good might be seen as evil by others. Hunter sees hunting as a way to find food, which is good. Hunted sees it as it's own doom, evil. Evil in this world forces people to do good. Deforestation (evil) is being fought against and forests are being protected and replanted (good). Animal being abused (evil) ends up being rescued (good) and so on.

I can't think of any good that can exist without it's evil counterpart. Birth without death would lead to overpopulation and further deforestation in order to provide more houses for all the people for example.

Is there anything you can think of where good can exist without the evil?

Oh, and a quick update, pastafarians are acting up, I guess it's hard to regulate weather properly when you have Yahweh against you. It was really hot all day today, humid and all. At night it rained. I wonder who will win, Jahweh or pastafarians in this epic battle for earth survival. I place my bet on pastafarians, I think they can stop the end of the world. They were rather successful these first 4 days.

Ornate Letter Frenzy

I have been posting the rest of the letters on etsy yesterday and today, there is a lot more to go, but I figured I'd mention it here. I'm planning to sponsor a giveaway on a different site, and the gift will be one of these letters.

A strange thing, I slept for only 4 or 5 hours and don't even feel it. I have to stop staying up till sunrise.

Now on the brighter side, it hailed last night, those darn pastafarians must've overdone it... However it's nice and sunny today. It's OK though, we have the whole 6 month before the end of the world ends.  What kind of sicko said that the end of the world, the total destruction of everything we worked so hard to achieve is a good news anyway? Now that's the kind of people you don't want to have an atomic bomb.

We are all Going to Die, WOOHOO

Oh, what an awesome news, the end of the world has begun. Yeah, that's right, it begun yesterday. I must say it looks awfully good outside for the end of the world. The weather here was nasty for more then a week, rains, wind, cold. Yesterday it was nice and sunny, so is today. Must be the end of the world that caused such great weather. I mean, God did say he we will all live in paradise after the judgement day. Granted bible also predicts horrible destruction before the paradise, but who knows maybe good old Yahwah just softened up a little. Btw, I read a good chunk of the bible and haven't seen anything about the exact date, on the contrary, I seem to remember it being rather vague about the timing, saying no one will really know, so we always have to be on our best behavior. 

Perhaps this is why this pamphlet didn't give the exact quote. How many times has the end of the world been prophesied? How many times has it come true? If I remember correctly, 2000 was supposed to be the end of the world, how well did that go?

I know, it's all because of those Pastafarians, they screwed up this perfectly good apocalypses by dressing up like pirates... Perhaps Jahwah wanted it to be scorching hot to fry us all this way and all those darn pirates cooled down the earth.

Dear Pastafarians, if you are out there reading this, thank you. You saved us all from doom.