Yay! My First Download!

I had my first download at istock! I made a dollar! Woo! I have a slight suspicion that it was a mercy download from someone I know...

My self-confidence is staggering, isn't it?

Ha. In other news, I very nearly collided with a turkey on my way to work. I must say, I whipped out some pretty fancy steering to avoid it. Is it wrong that I was more concerned about the damage the turkey might have done to my car than the damage my car might have done to the turkey?

Finally (and this is by far the worst), the other day I got a letter in the mail, inviting me to join AARP. Apparently, I'm 50 or older on some database somewhere. These kinds of things only happen to me.

Garage Sale Season is Coming!

Yep. There's another illustration on istock: http://istockphoto.com/file_closeup/people_specific_attributes/body_parts/faces/3244426_red_female_face.php?id=3244426

And it's of me! Wee! (Ok, so it's a highly glamorized version of me. It's my picture. I can make myself as pretty as I want.)

I updated my website a little. Not much. Not much at all... but I updated it! :)

Someday, I really will get around to making a halfway decent site.

Ooh, on the way home from work, I noticed a lot of garage sale signs! I'm pretty excited- I love to dig through other people's old crap! (For those of you who are unaware, I'm a little crazy about antiques.) The used book sales are coming too! Woo!

Mosaic Dancer

I know, I know. This is going to get old, but I have another illustration on istock: http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=3212709

You'll just have to bear with me until the initial excitement wears off. Or until I run out of illustrations and ideas.

On a totally separate note, I just want to quickly tell all the people out there making meth that I HATE their stinkin' guts and wish lots of nasty curses upon them and their great-great grandchildren, etc, etc.

On a similar note, I want to quickly tell all the people out there who make pseudoephedrine that I love them and wish a thousand blessings to shower down upon them.

Ha. I miss the good old days when buying sinus medicine didn't require a full background check.

Pink Girl's Face

My second illustration is up:
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup.php?id=3225878

Yay!

And I FINALLY got my tires fixed.

Yay!

Moonlit Trees!

I did promise to post my first istock-approved submission, so here it is: http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/when/nighttime/3197402_moonlit_forest.php?id=3197402

So far, it seems to be a hit. I have all great reviews. (Never mind that no one has downloaded it yet...) Ha. Give it a few weeks. :)

Well, anyway, I have more illustrations uploaded and awaiting approval, so I'll keep y'all posted as they become available.

Between work (YES... WORK!!!) and illustrating, I haven't had much time to do anything. To everyone I'm seemingly ignoring, I apologize. I'm still trying to figure all this new stuff out and "get into the groove".

Jessica, Jamie- I swear to God I haven't forgotten you. We will make your video. We will go to G's. I will call you. We will make glorious posters.

Music and Art

I rarely like itunes' "free single of the week" artists. I love to discover new musicians... and I love free music, but itunes generally is not the place to find either. Every week I give the new single a try- it is free after all, and then promptly delete it. Jon McLaughlin, and his free single "Beautiful Disaster" are terribly, terribly likable. This boy is going to be a star. Give him a listen: listen'>http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=6082022.

Say hello to istock's newest illustrator! (Ok, that's sort of a lie... I'm sure they've added like, 100 more illustrators since last week, so technically, I'm not the "newest" per se...)

Say hello to istock's 101st most recent illustrator!

I'm pretty psyched about the whole thing. Granted, I probably won't be making much money, but it's still cool to know that my work could potentially appear in designs all over the world. And hey, I'm drawing this stuff anyway. I might as well make some cash off my hobby.

Each piece has to go through a pretty long approval process, so I may not have anything on the site for a few weeks. As soon as something appears, I will post a link!

Day Trip!

We made it to the butterfly museum yesterday (and Chuck E Cheese's)... I didn't get any good pictures of butterflies, though. My camera's batteries were seriously dying, and butterflies tend to move a lot, so it didn't work out well. I couldn't keep my camera on for long periods, and the stupid insects wouldn't sit still. I did get some cute pictures of the kids, though.


(He's looking at a butterfly that didn't make it into the shot.)


And people wonder why I let her get away with murder...

Christian Bale is British? What?

It's Easter, and there's over two feet of fresh snow on the ground. Kids were hunting for eggs in their snowsuits. I'm not even going to say it. I've never seen an Easter with fresh snow... especially not in April. Not gonna say it. :)

I went "ghetto shopping" yesterday. I found an American Eagle bikini for $6, which is cool... but I also heard a call for "security to the shoe department" while I was standing in the shoe department. I know, I'm a snob. Blah, blah, blah. I don't enjoy shopping in buildings that should be condemned. I don't enjoy eating at restaurants that are teeming with health-code violations. Maybe some people get a kick out of that stuff, but not me. Give me shiny floors, dressing rooms that lock, and clean plates. Ugh. I've never found a mid-western city that I don't hate.

Ha... I just finished watching "The Prestige" (good movie, by the way) and couldn't remember Christian Bale's name to save my life. Had to imdb him... I had no idea that he's actually British! All this time, I thought he was American. You learn something new every day.

Ugh. I'm exhausted. I had a really, really disturbing dream last night about Nazis and a guy getting quartered in the street and I think Heath Ledger was there and he told me that he was Jewish so I took him to a carnival? I need to stop reading before bed.

Aleisha: Unleashed

Hmmm... so last night's Lost was kind of a let-down. We've had about four GREAT episodes in a row, so I should have known that it wouldn't last forever. Not much happened. Did anything happen last night, beyond a cat-fight and some mud wrestling?

Kick-ass-Jack of Season 1 & 3 has once again been replaced by whimpering-stupid-Jack of Season 2. Grrr. HATE that. And Juliet is Ana Lucia all over again. Did we really need another unsympathetic outcast on craphole island? Am I supposed to hate her? I think I'm supposed to feel sorry for her... Let's hope she gets "written out" in the season finale.

Forget last weeks' Lost theory. At this point, I'd really, really prefer to be completely wrong. Sayid may be the only character I don't hate at the moment. Oh, and Desmond, of course. He's just so darn cute, pensive and Scottish.

Hmm...I would LOVE for zombified Christian Shephard to come rampaging through camp, eating brains.

Why exactly do zombies eat brains, anyway? Who came up with that?

Hmmm... this little blizzard is making me cranky. I was planning on taking the kids to the butterfly exhibit at Frederick Meijer Gardens today. Didn't happen. Maybe next week? Ugh. I really hate Michigan sometimes.

What's Left Of Me

For some strange reason, at my lowest points, I always find comfort in power-pop-ballads. If it isn't the Backstreet Boys, it's Kelly Clarkson... or in this case, Nick Lachey. Though I have not had the pleasure of divorcing a press-obsessed blonde bimbo, this song is pretty much "it". I'm broken, I'm faded, I'm half of what I thought I would be... and whoever wants to, can have what's left of me.

More is disappearing every day.

Watched my life pass me by in the rearview mirror
Pictures frozen in time are becoming clearer
I don't wanna waste another day stuck in the shadow of my mistakes

Cause I want you and I feel you crawling underneath my skin
Like a hunger, like a burnin to find a place I've never been
Now I'm broken, and I'm faded I'm half the man I thought I would be
But you can have what's left of me.

I've been dying inside little by little
Nowhere to go but goin' outta my mind
In endless circles runnin from myself until
You gave me a reason for standing still

And I want you and I feel you crawling underneath my skin
Like a hunger, like a burnin to find the place I've never been
Now I'm broken, and I'm faded I'm half the man I thought I would be
But you can have what's left of me.

Fallin' faster barely breathing
Give me somethin to believe in
Tell me it's not all in my head
Take what's left of this man
Make me whole once again

Cause I want you and I feel you crawling underneath my skin
Like a hunger, like a burnin to find the place I've never been
Now I'm broken, and I'm faded I'm half the man I thought I would be
You can have, all that's left, what's left of me

I've been dying inside you see
I'm goin outta my mind (outta my mind)
I'm just runnin' in circles all the time
Will you take what's left? -- of me
I'm just runnin' in circles in my mind
Will you take what's left?
Take what's left of me

Next Thing You Know, I'll Be Listening to Delilah

Jade came over yesterday, and we watched "Flushed Away" together... it's actually pretty funny for a kid's movie. It feels a little strange to hear Hugh Jackman and Ian McKellen fighting each other as a rat and a toad (respectively) instead of as mutants, but I'll get over it. LOVED the French frogs!

Le Frog: To action!
Henchfrogs: We surrender!
Le Frog: Not that action, you idiots! The kung-fu thing!

Toad: You find my pain amusing?
Le Frog: I find everyone's pain amusing, except my own... I'm French!

Le Frog: We leave immediately! [strides off screen]
Henchfrog #1: What about supper?
Le Frog: [strides back on screen] We leave in... five hours!

When not busy enjoying children's movies more than I should, I have been anxiously awaiting Josh Groban's appearance on "Dancing With the Stars". I am such a loser.

Tomorrow, I'm going to do something moderately cool, if it kills me.

Maybe I should get something pierced?

Maniac with a Scanner

Ha... my mom is really into genealogy, and I've been scanning pictures and documents for her for hours... I got a little bored and starting throwing random things sitting around me on the scanner bed. Some of them turned out kind of cool!

I'll Never Doubt Her Again

2:20, today
Me: Hey Mom, let's go for a walk!
Mom: Nope, it's "snake-weather".
Me: What? No, it isn't snake weather.
Mom: Yes it is. I went out on the porch a few minutes ago, and I felt it in the air. Snake weather. Go see for yourself.

2:25
Me: I went outside, and I'm quite sure it is not snake weather. It's too windy!
Mom: I don't think they care if it's windy.
Me: Sure they do. I only see snakes when it's very still and warm. Too windy. We won't see any!
Mom: .....
Me: Well, ok, I'm going for a walk either way. It's up to you.

2:30, about thirty feet from the door
Me: See? It isn't snake weather!
Mom: I'm going to kill you if we see one.
Me: Oh, we're not going to OH MY GOD! AHHHHH!!!

2:35, back inside the house
Me: I'm so sorry, don't kill me, please!
Mom: You should never doubt my intuition when it comes to snakes.

Yep, I'm Obsessed

I love Google. In case you missed it, check out this year's April Fool's spoof: http://www.google.com/tisp/install.html

It's pretty good. Almost as funny as last year's lunar base joke.

Random Lost thought: We've all noticed that the characters' names seem to have some significance- Jack Shephard in seat 23... John Locke/John Locke, Desmond David Hume/David Hume, and Danielle Rousseau/Jean-Jaques Rousseau (the historical philosophers were all British Empiricists, plus there's the whole tabula rasa thing)... I got to thinking about some of the less obvious names- like James "Sawyer" Ford. He's such a "Han Solo" character, do you suppose his last name is a wink and a nod to Harrison Ford? (Not to mention the fact that he has now called Hurley "Jabba", Jin "Chewie", and referred to the "wookiee prisoner gag".)

Second random Lost thought: I'm pretty psyched that this week is a "Kate" episode. I hope we finally get to see the rest of that breakfast conversation between her and Ben. I know that all reason is against me, but I suspect that she actually "picked" Jack, not Sawyer. When we see her after the breakfast, she is a shell of her former self- people on the message boards have been suggesting that it seemed like she had just been raped. Also, when she tells Sawyer that she doesn't love him- call me crazy, but I believed her. She was pissed. Then, in the next episode, she breaks the lock off of his cage to have sex with him instead of, oh, I don't know- escaping??? Finally, last week, we see Ben say to Juliet that he will get Jack to do the surgery by using his emotions against him. This is sick, but I'm thinking that Ben put Kate up to it-told her that if she didn't do what he wanted, he'd kill Sawyer. We'll see!

Of course, that's probably all wishful thinking on my part. Despite the fact that he can be a real jackass, I find myself quietly rooting for Jack... (Don't hurt me, Jamie!)