These are my entries for this Christmas e-card competition. If you like my drawings please, please vote for me. Thank you!
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The holidays are in full effect, so tell us: What's your favorite holiday song? Bonus points if you share it with us!
OH there are SO MANY! I LOVE Christmas music.
I'm partial to old versions of classics like "White Christmas," "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," and the traditional hymns.
BUT:
Every time I hear the original orchestral arrangement of Leroy Anderson's "Sleigh Ride," I feel a tingle of winter giddiness bubbling up inside.
All I really want for Christmas is a way to lose 30 pounds without having to lift a finger. A Christmas miracle! Hallelujah!
I'm makin' a list of things I wouldn't mind getting for Christmas. This list started out as TWO items, and then my friend told me about making wish lists on Amazon.com, and it started getting really out of hand. Usually I have no ideas, and it drives my family crazy trying to figure out what to get me. Recieving is hard for me. I love to give, and I love this season for the joy and compassion and togetherness, and hate the commercial crap. And I always have felt guilty about people buying or giving me things. Yeah, I'm over that. Finally. I've realized that my family is gonna buy me presents anyway, so I might as well help them out, right? So I made a list for fun. Of course, I wouldn't expect or feel entitled to getting anything at all.
My list ranges from Absolutely-Absurd-Would-Never-Ever-Expect-Someone-to-Buy-It-For-Me to Not-Too-Terrible. You'll be able to tell which ones go in which category:
DONA certified doula workshop fee: $400
A KitchenAid Mixer in Candy Apple Red: $334.99
An apartment-sized desk, project table, or writing table: $100-???
The DONA certification packet and application: $60.00 or
The DONA certification packet without application: $45.00
This cheap set of 10 frames from Target: $24.99
An adult fitness hula-hoop: $21.95-$25.00
A cozy, crackling WoodWick candle: $9.99-$21.99
A Classic Pen Set: $12.99 on Amazon.com
"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" DVD: $9.99
Gold-colored ball earrings: $9.99
1-3 guitar wall-mounts: $9.99
"Stranger Than Fiction" on DVD: $1.02-$8.49
A special thanks to Meg for bringing enlightenment to my world and showing me the wonders of the Amazon.com Wishlist feature, because although I knew Amazon was amazing, I didn't realize the extent to which that amazing-ness reaches.
Happy December, y'all.
This weekend I put up the Christmas tree! Last year we had no money, but my bosses gave us a gift of enough money to get a tree because they wanted us to have that memory on our first married Christmas. This year we once again walked across the street to the Savemart and bought another $20 Douglas Fir. He took one end, I took the other, and we ran across the street and through the apartment complex with our Christmas tree like two ghetto fools.
It's pretty much becoming the best moment of my year. I'll be sad when we move and have to actually put the Christmas tree in the Jeep to get it home.
I took out the box of Christmas decorations we brought from the dollar store last year and got to decorating the apartment for the season. Last year we used all but a few cents of that $60, and it got us everything we really need to decorate a tree, plus two stockings and a couple of additional things (the 99-cent Store really is a lifesaver!) This year we added a nice tree skirt from WalMart to try and keep the cat out of the tree water. It's nice having the tree stand and decorations already- we only spent money on the tree itself, plus that tree skirt. I love Christmas decor. Growing up, my mother never went overboard on Chrismas decorations, but always just enough so that everywhere you looked there was a little holiday touch. I remember candle-lit nights and the Advent calendar, snowmen and reindeer peeking out from the bookshelves.
I strung the lights and tinsel on, then placed our cheap balls all over it with the two nice ornaments we have in clear view on the front. I'd like to start slowly building a collection of keepsake ornaments, one year at a time. I put the glittery start on top, and lit it up! I hung the stockings on the shelves over the couch, using two candles as weights, put some hand-me-down fake holly along the TV chest, replaced the figurines on the shelves with snowmen and nut-crackers, put the reindeer my mom painted for me when I was little up on the chest. I lit the candles in the room, heated a mug of cocoa and BAM: Christmas!
The best part is coming home in the evening to see my little living room glowing with joy, the pretty little tree ravaged around the bottom with loose tinsel hanging and ornaments strewn across the mussed-up tree skirt. The tree is our Christmas gift to the kitty.
My last project at uni was to create book covers for Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll) and Perfume (Patrick Suskind) for the 2009 Penguin Design Award. Two book covers in two weeks is a lot of work but I got it done, albeit with some blood (got to watch those craft knives) and tears.
Here's my final cover for Alice, which my second and third year tutor selected as one of their two favourites out of the year (who knows why).
Here's a discarded idea for Alice that had quite liked.
Last night I dreamed that an old friend from my college band sorority and I were driving on a narrow, crumbling highway. It was dangerous and falling into pieces, so we veered off the side into the wilderness. After driving through forest and desert we came upon some covered wagons and extremely rustic housing. We had discovered a lost Californian civilization called Valley de Salsa.
In Valley de Salsa, the folks were completely unaware of modern times and though they welcomed my friend and I, they were confused by our speech patterns and clothing. They fed us unleavened bread and buffalo meat, and we decided to stay with them. We pushed our beat up car into the forest to hide it from these ancient people. My friend had to continuously remind herself not to curse in front of them.
Funny thing, though: this was a lost civilization, but they did have a street sign in the village that annouced "Welcome to Valley de Salsa." Shifty, no?
Leave it to Californians...
have attended eleven weddings in two years as of this month. One includes my own. I was in two others as well.
Thirteen- maybe more- weddings if you go back another year or so.
This is too many weddings.
I truly am happy for these couples. A wedding is a [mostly] joyous occasion and a lot of fun. (Sadly, for about two of the weddings I attended I wasn't so confident that the couple will make it, but it's not my place to make that kind of judgement. Aloud, anyway.) I've come to think of weddings as a nice date. Usually you get an evening of playing dress-up, with a nice dinner and dancing to boot. Not too shabby.
Every wedding we went to I compared to my own because- and try not to take my bias so strongly here- our wedding was pretty rockin'. Really, it was just that cool in every way, and was a great party. Everyone talked about it later on for being intimate and fun. Now, I'm not a wedding snob and I do realize that not every couple wants that whole white-dress-church-cake-DJ-reception thing; In fact, I had wanted a backyard bonfire on the river with BBQ and beer, a whole white trash setup, but Chris and my parents vetoed it for a multitude of reasons. It woulda been more me but I certainly do not regret the wonderful wedding we had. Most weddings I go to fall far short of it's sheer awesomeness. Some come close, but are lacking in the fun department, or the food department, or the venue department, or the music department. And the amazing department. But they're mostly nice. Others just make you want to stab yourself in the eye with the salad fork (or in one wedding instance last year, with the plastic spork from El Pollo Loco,) so that you can get out faster.
But, as I said, I am almost always happy to go to the weddings because they're typically people I love and support and am truly happy that they're making this committment. And, because I am female and mostly irrational, I always cry during the ceremony and at the key moments of the reception. It just always strikes me that two people found someone they love enough to want to be with, procreate with, share every aching moment with. It's a big deal. It still blows my mind sometimes when I think about how I made this decision with someone, too, and I'm still happy about it. Then I start getting all mushy on Chris and he looks at me like I'm nuts and then I'm back in reality.
So on Saturday my husband and I went to his buddy's wedding. Rather, I attended as a guest and Chris was a groomsman. This was a BIG Catholic wedding. I've only been to two Catholic weddings, and both times I was equally weirded out by the ceremony (or mass or whatever it's called.) This couple is great, however, and remind me a lot of Chris and me. They had their six-month-old baby girl baptized during the mass as well because so many of their family members were here from all over the world. She's probably the best baby I've ever known, and all day didn't fuss a bit but was happily curious.
The reception was probably the best one I've ever been to. It was equal to ours on the fun and food scale, and finally someone had a DJ that lived up to ours, but far superior in extravagance. Every detail- from linens to menus- was covered, and it really took the whole thing up a notch. The hosted bar reached the max the family had paid for in one hour. ONE HOUR! But the father of the groom instructed them to keep it open all night and he'd pick up the tab. Wowee.
We had so. much. fun. They really spared no expense on the affair. Dinner was fantastic, and there was not only a mariachi band to start of the night, but a small combo during dinner, then the DJ for the party. The decor was beautiful, and there was even a candy table. Chris is a party animal whether he wants to admit it or not, and we danced like crazy. My legs and butt still hurt from dancing. The couple was so happy, and I just know they'll be a solid life-long couple.
It was a good last wedding in a long, steady run of weddings. Unless it is a really important person to me, I hope I can avoid weddings for a year or so!
My brain took a vacation day and didn't tell me.
All day it's been one stupid thing after another. I bought a brand new shirt at Goodwill last week and went to take the tag off this morning and it ripped a hole in the back. I tried to stitch it up and now it looks stupid but I am so low on work clothes that I wore it anyway.
The plastic container that I brought my leftover stuffed bell-pepper in for lunch today popped open in the car and spilled all over the seat right after I had parked at work. I had to sit there and scoop crap up. I did manage to save enough for lunch.
I had scheduled an out-of-office meeting for one of our advisors and didn't even think to remind him, and he drove all the way to Fresno just to be reminded that he needed to turn back around and head back out to where his client lives- out close to where he lives. Not really my fault as he should have been aware of his schedule and he approved this appointment- I don't need to babysit these guys- but I still feel really bad and usually I'm more on top of it.
The office manager let me know that a gal was going to come in an get an application for employment to fill out and she'd make sure I had one available. Then she forgot and left for lunch. The lady comes in during the lunch hour (thanks, btw) and I realize I don't have it and I'm the only one in the office. After looking around where I thought it was, I called the manager who swears she has them in her desk. She doesn't. I call the processor who knows everything and had to be at home with her sick child today. She is leading me through the server to where I might find it to print it. We can't find it. It was an ordeal and totally embarassing. Finally she said she had some errands to do and would come back. I felt so lame. We found it on the server like a minute after she left.
Later on, about a dozen people all showed up in our teeny tiny office at once. I was trying to accomodate everyone (we have room to seat 5,) and get them all water or forms or whatever they need so I set the box of paper I had been carrying down on my desk. Several minutes later I sit back down and my hand lands in a puddle on my desk. Oh, dear God. I had knocked over my bottle of water and the entire thing had spilled out onto my desk. Several messages, some loose forms, a government document, and a couple of client files are soaked through. I looked around frantically and it didn't seem that anyone had noticed, so I casually brought a wad of a dozen or so paper towels in and discreetly started sopping. I swallowd my panic and the urge to hysterically laugh out loud and just smiled sweetly and even carried out casual conversation whilst working frantically to get it together. Then I disassembled the soaked client files (which were- thankfully- not old clients and therefor very thin files of basic forms and easy to replace,) and calmly made copies of the wet forms and placed the new copies in new files, quickly re-labeled them, and set out the messages and wet papers flat on my desk to dry. I got it done just in time to hand the advisor a nice clean file, so he'll never know what a dumb-ass I am. I'm grateful that the reception desk has one of those high counter-tops that allows some privacy on my desk space!
Funny thing- the gal was back again for her application! I hope she didn't notice otherwise she'll never want to work here with this circus clown!
In general I've just been very loopy today. I haven't made any huge mistakes, but I feel like no matter how hard I try to focus, I keep doing silly things.
I blame it on the reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity I've been subjecting myself to lately. It's decreasing my brain power.
I realised that if there was ever a time for me to update the shop, just before Christmas would be it.
I have new prints in a range of sizes and prices. Soon I will have Christmas cards and copies of Meow Magazine for sale as well. Watch this space. :)
Can you tell I'm a Londoner?
These are for the new issue of the zine the students on my course produce (Meow Magazine). This month's theme is I Love London so this was what I did. I'm also on the editing team this year and we have big plans for it.
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