Deer!

My ultimate goal is to get them to sit at the foot of my lounge chair in the summer. Like cats.

Flowers

Christmas break was so long for me that I was able to create 2 art projects. The first was inspired from a photo I had seen of a what looked like a gallery display. Terry was nice enough to go with me to Michael's to buy everything (I have never painted with acrylics before so had no supplies) and we hit up the Black Friday 50% off sales. I guessed at what colors and paint brushes I needed. Go with your instinct!

From start to finish, it has about 5 different layers of paint and took 15 hours to complete. Did I wing it?  Absolutely. I looked at what I wanted to make and just started painting.

The background took the most amount of effort. It kept being almost right and I ended up painting it twice before I stopped second guessing myself (did I jump into something that was too hard?) and started to like how it was turning out.

After letting it dry overnight, I made a stencil of the next steps. I ALWAYS do these for a few reasons.

1. I hate free hand drawing on canvas - have you ever tried to erase??
2. A stencil lets you mark out squares and areas that you have to work with so my pictures don't turn out all wonky or unexpectedly travel off the end of the canvas because I didn't "measure with my eyes" correctly.
3. I re-use the stencils. If anyone asks me to paint them something (and they have) I don't have to completely start over. I already have a shape that I like working with.

At this point I only owned a pair of regular scissors, so, cutting it out was fun...

Next was filling in the big branches, adding smaller ones, and shading the tree. Shading the tree was also a "figure it out as you go" affair. Terry had just gotten back from work and I believe I said something along the lines of "No talking - shading and I don't know how".

Finally, the last step was adding the flowers. Since they are dots it was uncomplicated and great. I used the backs of my brush handles and dipped them in the pink paint.

This is the photo I found on the internet:

I got the idea for the second art project when I was getting my hair cut a few months ago. The salon that I go to has pictures of flowers on black canvas and I wanted to make something similar that went with our house. On the same Michael's trip with Terry I found black canvases (awesome) and picked one up.

Remember earlier when I said I only had one pair of regular scissors? I knew that was not going to work for this project because it had way too many details and I would completely mangle the stencil. I picked up a craft exacto knife and a much smaller brush so that I could paint with clean straight lines.

This is the stencil for the flower. I wanted to marry that exacto knife.

I had to paint the flower twice to prevent the black color of the canvas from showing. The whole thing took about 10 hours. It looks way less complicated that the cherry tree, but I had to paint so slow. I was terrified of shaky hands, sneezes, earthquakes...anything that would cause that irreparable smudge. I should title this painting "Tedious".

The camera doesn't pick up the actual color of the paint very well. The flower is a light lilac color.

Sweet Shadow

Sweet Shadow
We loved you as a kitten

















We love that you clean up after yourself

















We love that you love bubble baths





















We love that you continued to love bubble baths





















We love that we had to take catnip away from you because you would mush your head into it so much your upper lips would swell

















We love that at Christmas time we would nickname you "Shredder"





















We love that you were always dirty

















We love that you were a climber

















We love that you were tolerant





















We love that you knew what you wanted

















We love that we could mess around with you

















We love that you were a lover

















We love that you didn't like the snow

We love that you were a water sniper





















We love that you took inappropriate baths all the time





















We love that you would lay on us at inopportune times

We love that you like to help us sleep

We love that you snuggle in





















We love that you use pillows like humans

We love that you tried to keep Eric from moving to college

We love that you were a biter





















We love you





















P.S. Happy Birthday today girl, you made it to 12 :)
We are going to miss you - the cat that would get wet cat food at every birthday, sit in a chair and eat it like a human, and cry with happiness (yes, she cried once).

The Lung Burn

I did a post a while back about the Have a Heart Run in May of 2011 where it was my first race back after a long injury battle. My mom and I registered for the Have a Heart Run again this year in the 5k race (better for my ankles than the 10k) and my goal was to win - yeah right haha.

When we got the the park to sign in I saw some really really intense runners. My mom and I joked that the pregnant woman warming up would probably beat us both so I didn't hold on to my initial goal very hard. Competition can be intimidating and I was getting nervous.

The race started and a flurry of people sped past me - if you run races you know that this happens every time at the start line. Adrenaline kicks in and a good majority of people will start too fast. I slowly began to pass people on the course and at the turn around I had a feeling I was near the front of the line. While this was exciting, my lungs were burning, I wanted to stop, and I really didn't know where I stood in the pack of runners.

It can be so difficult to push past the lung burn.

The course was a winding trail along the river and at the turn around point you doubled back along the course to the finish. When I saw my mom after I turned, she held out a number one sign (to indicate that I was the first girl she saw) and I still had about 1.5 miles left to run. THE LUNG BURN.

I was pretty excited to cross the finish in fourth place overall and first place for girls. Goal met! I waited for my mom in the water tent and she finished with her best personal time in that distance.

I ate so many animal crackers after that.

At the award ceremony, the organizers handed out certificates for best times per age group (men and women combined) and trophies for the overall winners (one for men and one for women).  We got a surprise when they announced my mom as having the second best time in her age group. She got a certificate and a cookie! And I received my first ever running award. The next day, I sounded like I had a horrible cough (the lung burn!) and I had some trouble moving around, but it was so worth it.

Art Class

After finishing my epic crayon art palooza I had a lot of left over materials.  I also found an additional picture of me in the midst of the shark creation. Check out that concentration - and the sweet craft sweatshirt. "Craft Sweatshirt" also functions as "Painting Sweatshirt", "Cat Sweatshirt", and "Nap Sweatshirt". It has holes and paint splatters and I love it.

You can faintly see the outline of the shark here:

And the final:

My mom and I found ourselves responsible for this little girl one day after school (Shannon) and I wish I had her cool-factor when I was her age.

She wanted to make a crayon painting for her and her sister so we got to work with all of the extra materials. Again, the worst part was peeling those stupid wrappers off of the crayons. Shannon was quick to pick up the process and was way faster at decision making than I will ever be.  I took over Eric's old job as the hot glue gun master and helped Shannon place her crayons while successfully burning the tips from my fingers.

After a brief lesson with the heat gun she got to work on the melting process. It's always nice to watch other people create things because it can give you some good ideas and perspective. I would have never thought to use the color combinations Shannon did, but I really really liked the way they turned out.

Whales!

Once again, it's been a while, but I've started a new job since my last post! I'm training to be a naturalist with Island Adventures Whale Watching in Anacortes and it is one of the best jobs I've ever had. I spend a lot of time in the office taking reservations, but I have gotten a few good days in on the boat in Everett. We've even been featured on King 5 news a few times!

I'm on this page: http://www.island-adventures.com/whale-watching-tours/crew.php

I work with some great people and I have been currently learning the ins and outs of the galley. They finally let me run it myself (questionable decisions, it was my third time) and I didn't mess anything up! That same day I had to help with the lines as the boat was coming into the dock. While I tied all of the lines correctly, I did catch one on a door AND I fell down the stairs in front of everyone. Classic. My only excuse was that it was raining...

After being there for a month and a half, I've mastered the arts of the office - which leads me to one of my life mottos "people are stupid". I'd like to just leave it at that, but I have a few gems to share:

Phone: "You know when the whales jump and splash?"

Me: "Yeah?"

Phone: "Can we make a reservation for the day when they do that?"

Me: "Well, whales are wild animals..." blah blah animal behavior explanation.

Phone: "Ok, I've made a reservation for a hotel on San Juan Island"

Me: "Ok...do you want to take the tour before or after you take a ferry to the hotel?"

Phone: "Before"

Me: "We have one on that day at 11 am"

Phone: "Then you'll drop me off, right?"

Me: (so confused) "Uh, our tour is out of Everett, it lasts for 3 hours, and then you will have to catch a ferry to San Juan Island to get to your hotel"

Phone: "I work in Everett. You'll drop me off and then pick me up again?"

Me: "No. Our tour is out of the Everett marina. We just observe whales in the area and then we come back. No stopping"

Phone: "Then how am I going to get to my hotel?"

Me: "A ferry..."

In the office (In Anacortes): "I'm here to check in for the whale watching tour"

Me: "Did you make a reservation yourself online?"

Office: "Yes, yesterday"

Me: "Did you read the email with the directions to the boat? The boat leaves out of the Everett marina"

Office: "Oh, yeah I read the email and it said Everett but I didn't think anything of it. I made a reservation in Anacortes for a hotel so that we could be right here"

Me: "Where are you normally staying?"

Office: "Seattle"

THE IRONY!

Gray whale season so far (credit for photos to Bart Rulon, Michael Colahan, and Brooke McKinley):

Video tour of the boat: