Archive for the ‘art’ Category

Halloween went okay.

Saturday, November 1st, 2008

Max freaked out when he got home from school because he wanted to go trick or treating RIGHT THEN.  Instead though we had to wait for Cliff to get home.  This is a father and son thing for these two.  They both love Halloween so much. I took a bunch of pictures but they’re all pretty blurry.

I took a lot of them but none of them turned out at all, darn it.

He was very good and even signed “thank you” at a few houses.

We only got two trick or treaters here.  And Ian went to a party at the teen center instead of trick or treating with a bunch of his best friends.  He dressed as Arthur Dent!

I made the Hitchhikers Guide for him out of an old empty AOL disk box.  (See?  I did find a use for it!)  He’s got it all right down to the slippers and the towel!

Today we were supposed to get up early and clean up the house for Max’s PA to come visit and take us to Max’s OT, but I had a few really bad panic attacks this morning and had an extremely difficult time getting going.  I always get those darned things after everything is over and the thing I’m worried about has already passed.  I know I was very concerned about the doctor’s appointment on Thursday but I didn’t realize how worried I was about taking Max out on Halloween until we were sitting there waiting impatiently for Cliff to get home and take us.  So I slept horribly, with attack after attack waking me up in a sweat and then after I finally forced myself out of bed this morning and got going (too late to shower, darn it) I had another fierce attack in the kitchen while doing the dishes.  I actually had to go sit down in the living room and try to remember where I was and what was going on.  They don’t last long, but during that time I literally feel like I am in two places at once, as if I am me but I am also someone else in another house and my first thought is always “where is the front door?”    If it’s a mild attack I know right where it is, but if it’s bad one like the one this morning I have to make myself think about it as I try and get a handle on the adrenaline and the lightheadedness.  That’s when I knew I had to sit down.  I had to make myself turn around and look for something to sit on.  I ended up in the living room sitting on the big couch.  I end up so exhausted after these things it made me even slower getting everything ready and frankly the house still looked pretty damned horrible after we ran out of time, even with all the cleaning.

It is amazing how much destruction that child can wreak in one evening.  :P

I only had the one attack in the waking hours though.  I never had another today.  We’ll see how the night goes.  I expect to have a couple as I sleep tonight.  They’re like earthquakes.  There’s always a few aftershocks.  In my case they love to come at night when I am defenseless.  :P

Anyway though, even though the house was a wreck and Max didn’t want to get up and go today, after a little bit of talking to from me and his new PA we managed to get him up and out and on our way to his OT on time.  In fact we got there a few minutes early, even with the delay.  Unfortunately his OT was late getting there this morning (only the third time I can remember) so we still had a bit of a wait.  Max handled it okay though.  Then we came back to the island and rode by a few yard sales.  We went to the park and got to see the teen center and she even gave us a new computer chair for Max and gave him a cute little Halloween treat bag with a bat covered drinking cup and a bottle of bubble stuff and such inside, and Max has been using the cup all evening!  Yay!  I sat next to Max in the her van this time and she thought to bring a string of his beads and he did great until right at the end, only a few streets from home.  He was ready to get out and be home.

I did bring up my artwork and left some business cards at the OT place today.  My heart just really wasn’t in it though.  I showed Max’s PA my drawings when we got back, but I just don’t have the desire to do the drawings anymore.  Frankly I don’t have the desire to do much of anything besides write on here and play video games.  (Speaking of which, I got Peggle Nights from Real Arcade today.  I loved Peggle Deluxe!  It was so addicting…  Peggle Nights is just as addicting!  I am really enjoying it.)  Anyway, back to the drawings, I just don’t feel particularly enthusiastic right now.  Maybe it will pass.  I am supposed to do two drawings for one of the ladies in Dr. Kahai’s office, but I’ll wait and see if that job manifests for certain before I get excited.  It could mean a little extra Christmas money….  But basically, I am feeling rather mediocre artistically.  I am a boring artist.  Right now I am just a boring person in general.   :P

Tomorrow Max’s PA comes around noon and will only be here a short time.  Marjorie doesn’t work until 1 or 2pm though so she’s going to help me and Ian get the house clean in time.  I’m tired just talking about it.  :P

Nathan hasn’t come to get his b-day gift yet, but he’s a very busy guy at the moment (wink-wink, nudge-nudge, say no more!) so we’ll just wait.  Cliff tells me the car won’t make it to Leland to take it to him while he’s working at the library Monday, darn it.  Oh well.  Hopefully he’ll be able to get it soon.  Maybe Marjorie and Alex can take it to him.  :)

*yawn*  Wow.  I’m actually boring myself.  :P

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Posted in Max's Autism, art, general complaining, holiday, just stuff, life stuff, the kids |

What do you think?

Sunday, October 19th, 2008

That’s one of the photos I took the other morning when I walked with Marjorie.

See the fancy scrolly bit there?  Well, what it means is, well, I spent my birthday money.  Ha.  Well, the bit that was in the bank anyway.  I bought some software I wanted back at tax refund time…  Photoimpact x3. I’ve been working with Photoimpact 5 for years and years and i am only now, on Vista, starting to have a few small problems.  All the graphics I have done over the years were done on that software, so I knew getting the latest version was a good idea and they had a sale price up so I took it.  I saved about $20 if you include the shipping cost.  (I got the download version because I don’t really need the manuals.)   :)

It’s really good software because I’m already used to it.  Contrary to what all the Photoshop people say I can do pretty much anything they can do in Photoimpact.  And I also have Photoshop so I do know the difference.  In fact, I bought Photoshop a while back because I kept hearing how great it was.  I’m sure for some it’s great, but for me it was like starting completely over again and I just didn’t want to deal with the hassle.  I know Photoimpact like the back of my hand.  No problems at all.  And wow, it’s got some great features now!

In other news, Max’s new Personal Assistant came for a few hours and we talked and talked and she got to see Max in his natural habitat and seemed quite comfortable.  She has worked with many disabled people at all levels of capacity, and she’s planning on focusing heavily on sign language and watching Max’s signals.  In fact, she caught the “potty” signal before I did once today.  So, I think we’re going to get along great.  She’s going to work with Max here at home and I’m tickled about that.  She wants to go to the school and see where he stands on learning sign language there.  Heck, she even taught me some words today that I’ve been using with Max all evening.  (“Good Job”, “potty”, and “eat”.)  Plus she talked at great length about other cases she’s dealt with, including some older autistics and down syndrome cases.  It was a very interesting experience.  She even loaned us a “Signing Time” DVD to play for Max all this week.

Well, sorry to cut this short, but I want to get back to playing with my new software.  :)

Watch for more graphic changes to the site.  I am having a blast with this software.

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Posted in Max's Autism, art, computer stuff, just stuff, life stuff, photos, website maintenance |

A whole mess of cats!

Saturday, September 27th, 2008

I have this collection.  It isn’t worth any money.  A lot of it came from dollar stores, thrift stores and yard sales, while the rest of it was hand made or given to me as gifts over the years.  It’s cats.  Exactly 41 of them right now, and hopefully 41 or 141 or 1041 more of them in the future.  :lol:

Growing up we always had lots of cats.  When I got married the first time and lived in the bitty house in BSL we had way too many cats.  So many we couldn’t take care of them.  Here we have only one real cat, so I make up for the lack of numerous live cats by taking in as many figurines and stufties as I can find.   Some are as tiny as an inch and others as tall as twenty inches!

Today I taped some blank printer paper to the side of the big brass lamp in the living room and put each one in front of the camera.  And here they are…  I did my best, but some of them are still a little blurry.  Plus as the cats got bigger it became apparent the paper was too small!  (Click on each one to see the full photo.)

(These are all thumbnails.  Click on each one to see the full photo.)

And of course, the corner they all sit in:

And finally, the only REAL feline in the house, Miss Cookie.

One thing about it, these are alot easier to feed.  ;)

*******UPDATED: October 10th, 2008*******

Two new cat figurines!

As I get more I’ll keeping adding them to this entry!

******UPDATE******

I just got the ones I ordered on eBay!!!!

******UPDATE: OCTOBER 28, 2008*******

Cliff went to his Dad’s to go to a football game and brought me a pretty stuffed cat that was his mom Darlene’s!  :)   It’s so sweet, isn’t it?  And big too.  I just love it.

*

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Posted in art, home decorating, junk I found, just stuff, life stuff, photos, pure weirdness |

When I was a kid this poster hung on my wall….

Sunday, September 14th, 2008

I also had a ghost or phantom ship, a king cobra, and a psychedelic spirally thing too.  But the one I remember the most was this one.  It’s also the one I’d love to have again.   Oh well.  For now it can be my Vista wallpaper.  :lol:

(I found it via Google on Flicker by the way….  Apparently others would really like to have it again too.)

*****UPDATE*****

By the way, remember last night I said I was looking at sculpture on eBay all evening?  Well there’s one I really liked that I keep thinking about:

It’s very cool to me.  Probably because it’s mid-century and kind of abstract and looks like movement frozen in time.  Is it butterflies or birds (which is what the eBay ad says) or just tall twiggy weeds with leaves?  I don’t know, but it’s neat anyway.

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Posted in art, history of me, just stuff, life stuff, pure weirdness |

Brass, gears and wood.

Sunday, August 3rd, 2008

I am about to admit a fascinating new interest I have that’s been brewing a while.  It’s known as Steampunk, and while I am not so familiar with the fictional works of the modern writers of the genre, I am very intrigued with the creations of the fans of the genre.  There are working Steampunk computers that will just blow your mind, like this one:

Check out more photos of this pc here: www.steampunklab.com

And, if you can read the language, you can go here to learn how it was built: www.mod-planet.com

Anyway, there’s quite a few Steampunk computers and components out there, here’s the links to a few I’ve found over time.

Steampunk Flat-Panel LCD Mod

Steampunk Keyboard Mod

Steampunk Lab (This place looks fascinating.  I may be here a while, Max permitting.)

Brass Goggles (Another site I may be stuck on for a while.)

This site has amazing Steampunk watches and things made by Haruo Suekichi. You have to click on each of the three panels to view them as shown in this screenshot:

Datamancer’s Steampunk Laptop

The Opti-Transcripticon (Some Uru fans might really like this thing!)

Tick Tock: A Steampunk Clock (I am crazy for clocks, all ways have been and this one is so cool I wold love to have one just like it!)

Well, darn.  I’ve got to get up and get to work doing chores.  Ugh.  Maybe I’ll be able to post more links to cool stuff later.  If I can keep Max busy with something else, that is.

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Posted in art, computer stuff, fun links, junk I found, just stuff, pure weirdness |

It figures.

Saturday, July 19th, 2008

So a few minutes ago as I sat here waiting for the wide awake and laughing in the bed child to finally fall asleep, I noticed the sounds of occasional strong winds outside. This isn’t an unusual occurrence. In fact it happens often. The wind comes from the ocean and most of the time that same wind is what drives the thunderstorms to the north of us on the mainland. Especially since this is a south facing beach. So, anyway, I’m sitting here trying to learn the best way to light and rearrange my office area to keep my eyes from being so strained and tired and I happened to think to check my email. I usually check my email all the time. At least several times a day. Right now I’m checking it often because I sent an email to Max’s case manager asking a question but I haven’t received a reply yet. (This is pretty unusual, but she may be away from her office this week or something.) Anyway, most of my mail is junk, newletters from various things I signed up for over the years. I read it, then I delete it and until I get the chance to check it out and see if I want to read it I have my Thunderbird set up to put all of it in a folder to keep it separate from the “good” emails, from family, Uru people, Weather.com, and the cable company and such. Usually this system adds up to anywhere from 2 to 10 emails each time I open the software. But this time, I got just one single email, from Weather.com. The title read: “Tropical Storm Warning for Oak Island, NC”. “Oh great,” I’m thinking. So I go check out the tropical update and read the news on Weather.com and look carefully at the radar. And, there it is. No name yet, but they are expecting it to strengthen into a Tropical storm in the next 24 hours or so. It’s south of us, next to Georgia, but the brunt of it is to the east and if it makes landfall anywhere south of us that would put the brunt of the worst of it directly facing us. At least it’s just a little one and won’t have time to turn into anything too fierce. It’s too close to gather too much strength, right? Ugh. This is one of the things I hate about living here. :P

The kids are going gold panning with Mom and Chris tomorrow morning at a place somewhere around Raleigh. I am to go feed their cat tomorrow afternoon. If it’s raining due to this storm though I think I’ll convince Cliff to drive me over there. I hope it is raining too. I hate sitting outside with Max in front yard by myself. :P If it’s raining when he gets home we won’t have to do that. (Yay!)

We have new neighbors. I can’t tell much about them yet. They are fairly young it seems. At least the folks we’ve spoken to. So far we’ve seen a youngish lady the most. Next a maybe late twenties, early thirty-something guy, and finally a large lady like myself and two little three or four year old girls. I only saw the larger lady twice. And the girls only once. The guy has been coming pretty regularly bringing furniture and stuff in the back of his pickup truck, and the young lady is actually staying there tonight. If I get up in the morning and the red truck is there then I think it’ll be safe to assume that he is her boyfriend or husband, but this evening just as we finally closed the blinds he wasn’t there so who knows yet. They aren’t coming from too far away. They leave with an empty truck and twenty minutes later are back with a full truck, so that doesn’t leave much driving time. Maybe they lived somewhere on the island. I’m wondering if they bought the place or if they are just renting. I kind of hope they’ve bought it. When I was younger and I used to hear adults complaining about rental homes in their neighborhood I didn’t understand why they were so down on them, but now that I’ve lived in an area where so many of the homes are both long term and summer weekly vacation rentals I see what they mean. People come and go, and sometimes they leave angry and leave a mess behind. Sometimes they are nice and you like them but they can’t pay their bills and they kicked out and pushed on, sometimes it sits vacant and you worry about leaving your house empty even just long enough to go to the store and back. Thank goodness the folks across from us have been there so long. (They moved in July of 2003. We moved in July of 1999. July seems to be a good month to move in around here. :D In fact, as of July 9, we’ve been in this house nine years. Amazing.) Anyway, it’s all to early to tell. I just hope I can keep Max away from their cars. :shock:

Wow, it’s really late. I need to get to bed. Gotta get up at 6:45am tomorrow to get Max ready to go with Ms. Jackson. *yawn* G’night world.

Oh wait! One more thing! I began beating my head on my desk with Blender so I threw it out and went back to Moray and after some fierce fighting with it I finally got it running again and thanks to the magnificent dual processor and the 3gb of ram on this bad boy Dell I can render so fast if you blink you’ll miss it! Look for some new 3d art soon. I’m working on a fun project just for me.

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Posted in Max's Autism, art, general complaining, just stuff, storms, the kids |

It took a long while, but the photos are up.

Monday, June 30th, 2008

Just thought I would mention that.  Check ‘em out here:

The Frequent Pedestrian

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Posted in art, just stuff, life stuff, photos |

Well, darn.

Friday, May 23rd, 2008

Yesterday Cliff and Marjorie and I had a great fun day and I want to talk about it, but this morning I have to deal with Max.  I got him all ready for school and the bus driver called and asked if he was going since he kept coughing really badly yesterday evening.  I said he was going because he hadn’t coughed all night (yay!) and hadn’t coughed at all since I got him up.  So we hung up the phone, I continued to get him ready for school and get the kids up and wave goodbye to Cliff who was heading off to work and getting ready to go on my walk which I was planning to do the minute everyone left.  Then, Max got up, all ready for school, went to help me wave to Marjorie and Ian as they walked to the bus stop, and all of the sudden he started coughing and just couldn’t stop.  It’s a deep cough too.  And his nose started running like crazy.  I didn’t know what to do.  He stopped coughing and kind of plopped into my computer chair.  I wrote on a piece of paper “go to school” with a drawing of a bus and “stay home” with a drawing of our house and I asked him if he wanted to go to school or stay home.  The first time I asked he said “go to school”, but after another coughing fit he chose “stay home” and chose “stay home” over and over after that.  Now, I’ve got cold and cough meds I’ve been giving him but they don’t seem to do anything, so I pulled out the allergy meds we just got and after a short fight with Max (man, he hates meds – he hit my hand with the first batch and I ended up wearing it!) I got him to take a little over half the proper dose.  So far he’s still coughing, but he’s happier and in a good mood.  He has a doctor’s appointment for next Friday, but if this doesn’t get much better soon I’m going to have to call and see if they can fit him in any earlier.  His doctor is now in great demand here since she is so good.  We’ve been bringing the kids to her for like eight years though so she tends to treat us really well.  I’m sure if I called her and asked she could fit us in on Monday sometime. (If they’re open – I keep forgetting it’s a holiday.)  At least by Tuesday, anyway.  I’ll see how the allergy meds do, because that’s exactly what she’d have us try first anyway, since he has been known to go through pollen allergies at this time of year in the past.

Anyway though, I got a cool pedometer at the dollar store yesterday and I was really excited about trying it out today and walking down to the beach, but now I’m stuck at home.  It’ll have to wait until next week.  *sigh*

Really quickly since he’s having a blast in the living room playing with beads and watching Playhouse Disney I’ll just say we took Marjorie to get her “proof of car insurance” yesterday and to go talk to the owner of the Beach Pantry about her possibly working there stocking the shelves this summer.  Then we went to the Salvation Army store, the thrift store in downtown Southport (I can never remember the names of these places), Groovy Movies for Cliff, a vitamin store for Cliff, the Dollar Store because I needed some cleaning supplies for the bathroom, the other thrift store which I think is called “Sheltered Treasures” and from there next door to the Dollar General to get the few things I couldn’t find at the Dollar Store.  This was one of the extremely rare times we had Marjorie with us without the boys and it was fun helping her pick things out.  She found all kinds of great clothes that she just loves at the thrift stores.  I think we spent about $20 on her alone at the various thrift stores and she got so many beautiful things!  She’s wearing one of them today!  Plus we bought Hawaiian shirts we found at one store for Ian and Max.  There were five of them and we bought all five.  They are mens’ rather than boys’, but they ran small to medium so they fit them both just fine.  And Max loves his!  He wore his favorite of the ones he got all last night before bed (he took it off to sleep) and he’s wearing a different one today.  Cliff got three pairs of pants, including one pair he can wear at work!  I bought two frames for artwork at one thrift store and discovered they sell some great new wooden frames at Dollar General for $6 a piece in 10×13″ size.  (I didn’t buy those, but I was glad to know they were there.)  The frames are all pretty small, but I think I can do something to fit in them.  And we got Ian one of his top hats that he loves for the Fourth of July!  (Max just started coughing again. It’s starting to sound a little different.  Maybe the allergy meds are helping.  It’s looser.)

Oh, he just went to use the potty!  Yay! He’s wearing his new underwear right now.  We’ve been trying to find standard boys’ briefs in size 18-20 and have had no luck, so finally I looked yesterday at the back of the packages of boys and mens briefs and discovered that size 18-20 measure 28-30″ and mens’ small measure 30-32″.  I figured why not try the mens’ small since the boys size 18 is so hard to find here and damned if they don’t fit Max excellently!  I was planing to just save them if they were too big.  Amazing.  Max is gonna be one very big man one day.

Well, I need to call Cliff, call Max’s OT Josh, and get out of my walking clothes and shoes and get comfortable I guess.   I’ve got chores to do too.  Dishes and bathroom cleaning, etc.  I don’t think I’m going to mention Max’s cough to Josh.  I kinda would like for him to go to OT tomorrow.  And he’s suposed to go with Ms. Jackson for Hab-tech tonight and I think that’s good idea too.  He actually sounds better right now.  His nose isn’t running as badly.  Yay!

Oh, one more thing before I go, I told Cliff I want to try painting with acrylics since I’ve never done that before and he said I could try using his set.  Yay!!!!  Marjorie gave me a small canvas board too!  I’ll probably do that on Tuesday when everyone is back at school and I won’t have to worry about Max knocking something over or something.

And now, chores and phone calls and breakfast, oh my.

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Posted in Max's Autism, art, general complaining, just stuff, life stuff, the kids |

Laughing out loud again….

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

Max is home today because he slept erratically yesterday and coughed all night, but he’s a thousand times better today so I’m going to send him with Ms. Jackson tonight and to school tomorrow so all will be back to normal soon. (I’ll be glad when whatever this is going around quits coming back around. :P ) So, since I’m very limited on what I can do when Max is home with me I’ve been eating my lunch sitting here looking at billboards on Bored.com. Some are strange, some are clever, some are too political and some are just dumb, but this one is so creepy and weird I just had to post it here! I laughed out loud when I saw it and made the cat jump!

creepy doll billboard

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Posted in art, fun links, junk I found, just stuff, pure weirdness |

Oddly, art.

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

As most folks know, I am an artist. I mostly do pencil and pen and ink, but lately I’ve experimented a little with water color. I’ve also been known to do some photoshop-style collages in the past. (Click here for some examples: The Habitat 1999, The Habitat 2001, Stone Man, Night of the Abandoned Car, Black and White Temple, and Untitled 1.) And 3d renderings too. (The Bots, The Oracle of Gum, Lost Ball, Glass Door Knob with Knocker, Dance of the Mushrooms, and A Test of Theory) What I’ve never done but always wanted to try is sculpture. While searching for something else this afternoon I stumbled on the work of Kristen Morgin. At first I thought these must be found objects, but if you read the materials, these are actually made of clay! Cool stuff! My favorite is actually the Lion, a better photo of which can be seen if you click here. It’s pieces like this that make me a little wary of trying sculpture myself. Anything I create in physical three dimensions would probably end up being mostly made from found objects.

And, speaking of art, check out this painting that sold for a whopping $33 million dollars.  Being a lady of ample proportions myself, I’m rather pleased at that.  You know Rubenesque women are making a comeback in popularity right now.  YAY!!!!  :D

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Posted in art, junk I found, just stuff, life stuff |
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