home on halloween weekend.

I have had plans the last few nights. I have plans for the next two. Tonight was my ME night of staying in. I did 2 loads of laundry and made some awesome stew/soup stuff. When I was taking laundry out of my apartment My neighbor and his friends were leaving. I was in my staying in clothes... blue hoodie, jeans, weird slippers, hair in a messy bun on top of my head. They were all in very well planned out time spent awesome costumes. One of them said "Hey, it's hallowen" I replied 'I know, I am staying home and doing laundry".

TONIGHTS SOUP.

1. red kuri squahs. cubed. keep skin on (if not waxed. do people still sell waxed squash?)
2. one regular size onion or 2 itty bity ones
3. half a bulb or garlic or a generous squeeze from a tube of garlic paste (not in a jar!)
4. berbere seasoning (I know you can get it in bulk at the wedge and the seward co-ops)
5. half a head of cauliflower
6. better than bullion, vegetable base
7. water
8. can of coconut milk
9. peanut butter (about 6 ounces)
10. raw blanched peanuts
11. sriracha
12. parmesan cheese (12.B - plain yogurt, 12.C - nutritional yeast, 12.D - silken tofu)

A. good knife
B. masher
C. stirring spoon
D. pot with a snug lid
E. stove top (and oven if you want to roast the seeds)
F. sink
G. eatin bowl
H. eatin spoon

• cut squash in half, clean out guts (I find that a grapefruit knife works perfectly), cube
• place squash cubes in a pot with about 1 and a half inches of water
• heat
• add berbere seasoning stir, cover, wait about 15 minutes
• mash squash with masher
• add cut up cauliflower
• mash
• add cut up onions
• add bullion paste stuff
  
• cover and cook about 10 minutes
• add can of coconut milk and garlic paste, stir stir stir
• add peanut butter, stir stir stir stir stir stir
• add raw peanuts, cover, turn off heat let sit over 10 minutes
• add extra(s). cilantro, scallions, diakon radish sprouts, (un)salted roasted peanuts, shredded cabbage, shredded lettuce, whatever sounds good...
  

This is part of a drawing I made. It has the whole alphabet in cursive rows across the page. One letter at a time. It took way longer than I anticipated. The finished drawing has a hat, sweater, mittens and socks. So many tiny lines...

This is Elna. She is my new to me sewing machine. The flat base makes her quiet. This machine is cute. The spots to oil are marked with red paint. This machine is very smooth. I no longer worry about sewing after 10 pm. That is the sears machine behind her. I am always skeptical and so the sears stayed on the table for the first week, just in case. The sears has the "straight stretch" stitch. For that reason alone, I do not want to part with it. If you know of a cam that allows the elna to make that magic, let me know.

My crocheted jersey knit sheet rug. DONE, for now. It is about 5 feet 9 inches in diameter!

Backgammon is a fun game to play. It also is a really really cute game, in my opinion. The board looks like it has bunting along the edges. I was pretending that the goal was to get all my friends to my party and then jump into the ocean to go swimming. Nobody can go swimming until everyone is at the party. The problem is that friends stray and get caught and have to sit on a wall until the dice say it's ok to come back. On one of the white checkers, I drew a happy face. That made the game that much sweeter.




for more information on the game and rules, go here... http://www.bkgm.com/rules.html

thursssssssssssday

::: found on the floor/sidewalk :::
I found this on the floor in secondary receiving at work. What is it for? It looks nice. Why don't things look nice like this anymore?
A co-worker found this on the sidewalk while getting carts today. I wonder if it belongs to a little girl I was chatting with who said she painted leaves at school (she had green paint on her forehead so I asked if she had been painting). She is going to be a pirate for halloween and said 'arrrgh' in her pirate voice. Too cute.

::: found ages ago :::

A long time ago I found this piece of paper in a tree when an old house was getting gutted. I always saved it for the cute ladies with giant spoons, but it has a recipe on the back that was clearly why the paper was cut out and kept. Maybe I will try it someday.

laundry fun

I did some laundry tonight. I am pretty careless with how I do laundry. I mix colors and I wash everything on hot. I have been drying my tights in the bathroom instead of the dryer lately. Tonight I washed 4 pairs of tights. When I was carrying them up to my apartment I realized it was like an octopus! I shook them so that it was like a wriggling octopus!
I drew a picture about it. I usually draw pictures about daily happenings/ideas. Now that I have a scanner they can be documented before being in a pile and then in the filing cabinets/trash.

first football game of my life!

This evening I went to my first football game. It was junior high teams.
Some of the boys were teensy tiny, some were giant man size boys. The big ones would just move the small ones. Like pick them up! When they piled up, you would just hear helmets clicking against each other. It was pretty great.
...after the game I found a paper throwing star.
I cut out a construction paper heart to go behind it.


I have been re-reading the Chris Ware sketch books. It is making me want to draw more everyday things, as they are. I love Chris Ware. If you don't know about him or Jimmy Corrigan, look it up! I love how simple and perfect the lines are in his comics. Then, getting to see the sketch book images... so much detail and so many lines and varying shades in the colors. It makes sense though. You need to really be able to understand what you are looking at to draw it so simply. After spending the last few days pouring over both of the Acme Novelty Datebooks and now picking up Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, the drawings seem to be so much more complex. There are so many of them. I can only begin to imagine all the non-photocopy blue pencil sketches used to make it. Bwaaaahhhhh. It kind of blows my mind. Imagining making something like that. Someday I hope to have that kind of dedication and execution. For now, I will try and spend at least an hour a day drawing things in front of me. I want to try to make them with more cross hatching and precision than I normally do. This is the first drawing I did after deciding that.
I got sick of trying to draw the texture in the curtains. I also went a little nuts drawing lines on the walls to show that they are not white (they are YELLOW!) and I didn't finish the rug. Oh well. Practice, practice, practice.

I usually only draw single objects with this amount of detail. Like this image for a fingerless mitten pattern I invented 7 years ago. I found it in an old sketchbook.
Making whole scenes is different and a fun challenge. I feel more confident after making a skyline for IATP's Bike and Bite this last summer. That is the view from a friends apartment on 1st avenue. My foot fell asleep drawing it. I have tried to draw the skyline before, but had never had it turn out alright. Hoo-rah.


I am usually bad with spacial relations when drawing large objects or spaces because I get hung up on weird details.

Emily and I had coffee earlier. There was a crane lifting pallets on to the roof of the lofts-on-arts-avenue.
There was a very casual construction worker man on the roof. The pulley/hook mechanism on the crane is as large as an adult torso. WOAH.

ALSO!!! In the last week 2 different people have given me amazing gingham skirts! How awesome is that?!! One has rickrack on it and I think the other one will be getting some soon! My new sweatshirt also needs some rickrack on the edges of the hood and maybe a pompom on the point of the hood. I might also add a snap or two on the pockets and maybe a secret inside pocket... with a zipper! I kind of want to give the sleevies different cuffs. I have different cuff material and I haven't used it. The sleeves on the new sweatshirt are a little long... Maybe I will save the cuffs and put then on a sweater. Like my new mailman style sweater (I would sew them inside, like secret cuffs! for non-itchy wrists & draft free sweater arms when biking!)

Found

These are some drawings found on the street/sidewalk/alleyways of our wonderful city.


My friend Chaz found this while walking to the store for lunch. Who lost their artwork in uptown? Was it you?

"I Love You. Kiss. Kiss. open." For someone named Brandon.
This was found years ago, it has been hanging in my kitchen. The inside seems to just be marker squiggles.

This is one cool guy. See his car? See his fancy necklace? F-A-N-C-Y!!!

allergens everywhere

I guess booger season is every season. This hot cold warm chilly weather with the wind and pulling out warm clothes that have been tucked away all summer really causes my allergies to go nuts-o. Itchy face, itchy eyes, sinuses trying to implode, and so many sneezes. Acccchhhhhh. I made this little drawing ages ago and found it in a book. It was my first scan on my new-to-me scanner.

In case you missed these

I did the boards with the prices. I was pretty happy with them. Here they are.



here is the only non-blury closer one I have.



Need a sign made? Let me know.

cutest shopping list

I found this gem in the parking lot at work last week.
what do they need to buy? top one (with the cutest R ever) I'm pretty sure is blueberries. The second one maybe cuties, like Toffutti Cuties? Not sure about the 3rd one. The Last item I am quite sure is bananas.