Monster hat

Here is my bear, North, modeling the hat I just made for my niece. A duplicate hat will be my first Etsy product to go on sale.

Grocery Price Book

So a long time ago I read about Grocery Price Books.  The idea is to record the price of groceries over time so that you can have a better idea of what is actually a good deal. Last year I began to record the price of groceries through an Evernote notebook. I am just starting to really get into Evernote and learned you can share notebooks publicly so here I am posting it. Items are tagged roughly based on which aisle you may find them.

https://www.evernote.com/pub/dinhdance/grocerypricebook

I think it will be interesting to get a better idea on how fruits/vegetables change in price through the year.

Fire-breather

I was in the mood to sketch while at work so I randomly found this reference picture from National Geographic of a fire breather in Thailand. Here's what I have so far:

  

What I like about the photograph is the bold contrast and the lighting. I considered doing smooth shading but I was having fun with a stylized non-realistic fire. I think there would be too much of a disconnect between a realistic performer and non-realistic fire so I think I'll flatten out some of the shading and make it more like a stencil. Which of course may lead to turning it into an actual stencil and some fun screen printing or reverse dyeing with bleach. 

Todd-ah!

This little monster is named Todd because he likes to say "Tada!"  He is the first stuffed monster I've made was to be the first listed on my Etsy store. As I played around with him and discovered his arms like to flop out as if saying, "Tada!" I realized I simply couldn't part with him. I will make some other monsters soon. I have some new ideas to implement in future monsters like zippers for mouths. 

Snuggle Power!

Behold the power of snuggles!

On the left is our wonderful cat Tom and on the right is my beloved bear, North. I've had North since I was a little kid. I can't quite remember where or when I got him but he's old enough to have gone gray. Someday I'll have to see if I can get his fur white and fluffy again but in the mean time it's a mark of his veteran status among my stuffed animals.

A new phase approaches.

So I have been thinking of making stuffed toys and other little crafts. It would give me quick projects to sew up and I can also practice embroidery which I've also been getting into lately. Once I start making them I think I will be opening up an Etsy store which hopefully will return some of the money I spend making crafts.

Rock and Roll

It was my birthday on the 14th of May. Michael got me something nerdy I have wanted since I was a kid--A rock tumbler.



Frankly I was expecting something more complicated. I had imagined some strange system of brushes or grinders inside the cylinder. It's really just a tube with 14 walls on the inside so the rocks can ... well.. tumble. The polishing is done by adding in sand/grit which grinds away at the surface of the stones. Here's what it looks like before starting:



6/17/2011 edit: The entire process takes about a month. I, of course, have been slacking and keep forgetting to switch it to the next phase.  After a week tumbling in "coarse grit" the rocks were already looking kinda shiny. I took some pictures which somehow got deleted off of my phone.  

Adorable and disturbing.

I am riding the bus to work and this cute little kid is talking with a man (not her father but seems to be a father figure). Here's a snippet of what she said:

"Then I got frustrated and bit my dolly. Her head came right off and I said, 'uh oh' and sent her to the dolly hospital which is really just the trash can.... it's also the dolly graveyard! "

This was followed by the man talking about blowing up toy soldiers when he was a kid.

A Chat with Megan

We have a neighbor named Megan who walks her tiny white dog through the neighborhood. She's quite friendly and last night when I got home she stopped to chat with me. She knows a lot about roses and gave me some tips. There is a giant rose bush growing out of control she says could be cut back right now. I was afraid I would have to wait until after the bloom but apparently the roses I have are all quite hardy. I might miss some extra blooming but it would be better to cut that thing back.

Yard Work

When my parents first bought the house there was a hedge all along the western side and front of the house. They didn't like it and had plans to create a retaining wall in its place. My mother was a huge fan of concrete and my father a huge fan of cutting corners. While constructing the basement entrance my father simply dumped dirt, rocks, tiles, and random construction debris over the hedges. The basement entrance turned out fine but then my parents abandoned creating the retaining wall. What was left was half-dead bushes with a bunch of rubble poking through. Over the past 3 years I have been slowly clearing out the trash and weeding through the dead branches. It still looks terrible but it's slowly improving. Now it's less trash but the grass is growing through where I've cleared in previous years. Here is what the corner of the yard looked like as I began yard work today:

The crickets seem to love what must seem like random wild field in the midst of an urban neighborhood. My task was to pull all this up. The grass is easily a foot and a half tall. We've mowed down the flat area above it but the hill has gone wild. I had already filled half the yard-waste bin before tackling the corner. Below are the results after filling up the rest of the bin.

The before and after pictures are a little disheartening. Yes improvement is evident but the amount of work I put into it hardly seems to show. I may go out there again a little later but for now it's good to take refuge inside away from the sun and heat.

What am I thinking long term? Well here's a current picture of the western side of the yard:

I want to create a pathway of some sort along the side of the house. I was walking through the neighborhood and found a good example of what I'm thinking:

Once things are cleared out I think it won't be too difficult to pull this off. This grass pathway will be up top and the hill will have gentle tiers of plants and flowers. I'm thinking bulbs like bearded irises, daffodils, and tulips. Michael and I are also fans of wildflower mixes.

Real estate shell game.

The first roses from the garden.

The house Michael and I own used to belong to my parents. I officially became owner of the house July 25th 2007 though I didn't start living there until February of 2009 when we did a real-estate shell game. I had been living in an old house my parents owned and split up into rental units 5 minutes away. Yes, five minutes away from the parents through college and my first year and a half of professional work; was I nuts? I, seeking independence from my parents (as well as going through a crisis of faith and coming out as queer), moved out on my own and all the way across town in October of 2008. Fairly quickly my parents stopped renting out the house and moved themselves in leaving the house I actually owned vacant.  Did I dare move into the house and once again be within a short walk of my parents? At first I said no. I was sorting out my life and was still closeted to my mother and had started a relationship with Michael. I certainly didn't want my parents hovering over all that!

Then over the next few months my grandmother passed away, my car got broken into and the loaner-car from my parents got stolen (but found by the police before completely stripped), and I found myself teaching students who set stuff on fire...

I think I got 3 gray hairs from that job.

I did a lot of growing up during that winter. It was time to move in. I started moving my stuff in February, had Valentines there, and Michael followed in March. Since then it's been a giant project making it our own. Three and a half years later it still feels like we've just started!