Happenings

I did a little "out of debt" celebratory shopping yesterday with my bonus money. I ended up buying two dresses. They're both print dresses. Usually I wear solids, preferably neutrals paired with more neutrals, so they're a bit out of my comfort zone, but supremely awesome. And they were on sale so it was only $50 for both. I also shopped for a bathing suit, a process that usually destroys any body confidence I might have scraped together in the last year. However, I found one I liked, and together with the weight loss I've achieved so far I felt that I could go out in public in it without shame. The ultimate test for a swimsuit.

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Saturday I went to a graduation party for my step-cousin (my aunt's step-son). Instead of the usual grad party hotdogs & hamburgers my aunt had a taco bar, rice & beans, and nachos. Best grad party food ever. Also, I got to do some pre-Father's day bonding with my dad, drinking beer, blowing stuff up. Well, actually my brother and dad did most of the firework lighting, but it's the thought that counts.

Then one of my family members finally broke the bubble and asked me the "when are you going to get a man and married?" question. I almost made it to 27 without someone asking it. And it wasn't anyone you would expect. Not my mom, or my grandma, or a catty aunt. It was my Uncle K. Which made it even weirder. I could've understood if it was his wife, she's definitely catty. "It's been a long time since we've had a wedding," he said. My family is so weird.

What have you done this week?

Amongst other things, I made these.

What are they? They're self-watering containers for my plants. Obviously I still have to add the dirt and the plants.

It would have cost at least 40 bucks to buy one of these. I made 'em for about $7 a piece by using instructions from the interwebs and recycling some materials.

They will be way more impressive when I'm showing you the pumpkins and watermelons that I will, hopefully, have in a couple months.

I'm pretty much like Martha Stuart meets MacGyver.

This is just a series of things that are pissing me off - 1.

Look, I'm not trying to sound ungrateful towards the advice givers of the world, but there is a certain brand of unsolicited advice that I find irritating. I'm talking about the unsolicited soliloquy dumped in the middle of a light conversation, in this case one being held at work. It's great that you know things, lots of things apparently, but if you're going to give a lecture maybe you should have given me a heads up first so I could have grabbed a pen & paper to take notes. There is no way I'm going to remember all this crap in five minutes. And by the way, you're monopolizing the conversation. Conversation is like badminton, if the shuttlecock, or birdie, isn't going back and forth once in a while then we're not playing fucking badminton are we? We're just standing in the yard wondering when lunch will be.

For example, if I say, "I'm thinking about getting a pet zombie." There are numerous standard responses that we can all agree on to be appropriate:

"That's cool."
"We had a pet zombie when I was a kid. It was awesome."
"I know a guy who raises zombies. Let me give you his card."
"Not me, I've had zombiphobia since I was a kid, and watched that one movie with the town that had the rabid zombie population. For me they're worse than clowns."
"I don't recommend it. Zombies smell/they only eat brains and have you seen the price of brains lately?/the gnaw on everything/I think it's inhumane to keep them locked up/whatever reason."

All of these allow us to continue down the merry path of the convo. Here's what is not an okay response:

"Zombies? My third cousin, Rachel, did her master's thesis on the impact of zombie farming with regard to imports and exports in the near Far East during the pre-classical post-revival Gobbledeegook period. She and her husband made a small but crucial contribution to Martin J. Belowme's History of the American Zombie: A Guide to Breeds and a History of Breeders in the Classical Period. I think it's out of print, but you should talk to my husband he knows this one site where you can get books that are out of print, and make money from home. That's what he does, makes money from home, and it's not a scam like some of those scams out there that say you can make money from home, but you can't they just take your money and then you're out all that money, and you can never track them down, and the Better Business Bureau will just say, "tough luck, we can't do anything" which is what happened to my aunt Sally that one time. Anyway, my third cousin, or is she third once removed? Dunno. Anyway, she submitted several articles to Zomb Weekly over the last four and three-quarters years. You can read them, along with others, at her website http://rachelsmith.zombies.wtf/12345/gobbledeegook-blargledeeblarg/nearwesternfareast/6789/pre-classical/articles/\-_++#$5&*!/stfu/zombie-lovin-farmers-of-america/omfgareyouwritingthisdown?=shutup!shutup!shutup!.html. You really should check it out."

Okay, if you can't tell by my mildly poleaxed expression at this point, I am no longer listening to what you're saying. I'm looking for an escape route.

Busy, busy, busy

I feel that I have been somewhat productive lately. I've reapplied myself to bringing my comic to life. I made a (rather feeble/lazy) attempt at bringing it to the web a while back, but over time it got shuffled to the back burner. Well, I've been thinking a lot about it lately. I've been making some tough decisions about which of my hobbies/interests I am going to continue to pursue and which ones I simply don't have time for. I've put the comic at the top of the list because, well, A. I enjoy it B. I've put a lot of work/thought into it C. It's the thing I've done the most with. I've got a lot of ideas for it, so many in fact that I write them in a notebook, which I then listed in a spreadsheet. However, they're in no order, and the strips I've already drawn are also in no particular order. I would just draw them as I thought of them, jumping to new story lines, not introducing characters, no chronology, etc. I decided I needed to organize all my ideas, fill in the holes and make it all flow properly. I needed to create a storyboard.

Each of the 833 index cards on my coffee table represents at least one strip.

Some of the cards just have an idea/notes that could lead to a whole series of strips, and that's not counting the stuff I have in my head or the filler for the holes. As I was sitting there filling out the cards I was struck by how many there were. Somehow, seeing it all laid out made me realize it in a way I couldn't before. It made me feel prolific, in a small, modest way.

It's not a storyboard yet, but they're all written down and sorted by relevant character or plot line. I'm probably going have to take over the entire floor to get them all laid out in order.

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Speaking of floor space, I've slowly been rearranging my apartment since my roommate migrated to Cleveland last month.
Here are a couple pictures of my rearranged living room. So much space! It feels so luxurious to have all this space to myself. And a bedroom that is just a bedroom instead of a bedroom/office/studio/whatever. Also, I've come to realize that I am quite lazy about hanging paintings and pictures.

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Another project I've been busy with is my garden. I use the word loosely as I don't actually have anything planted in the ground. I'm trying my hand at growing a container garden on my patio. I have tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers planted in pots and doing nicely so far *fingers crossed*. I also have a crapload of marigolds and geraniums along with a few oregano, peppermint and lavender plants. All of the plants are from seed I started indoors. Not all of them have migrated to the patio, some will probably stay inside. I'm also taking a crack at growing pumpkins. Crazy you say? It can and has been done. I did the research, thanks google. I've got a big enough container 18 gal, and I'm going to rig up a self watering system. Then as it grows the vines will have to be trained to wrap around the container so it doesn't take over. What I should end up with is something that looks like a shrub. Anyway, I figured why not? Go big or go home. I'm not expecting monster, prize winning pumpkins, but I'm hopeful for some decent jack-o-lanterns. I will post pictures as the garden progresses.

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I have to watch my spending for the next week and a half until I get paid again as my bank account is a bit on the low side. The upside of this is that it is only low because I made a big payment on my credit card and I am now officially, completely 100% out of debt. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) I took out a personal loan last year to consolidate my credit card debt, but because of my credit they wouldn't give me enough to cover everything (seriously another thousand was going to be too much?). I'm not some crazy shopaholic, I just went through some bad financial times and relied too heavily on plastic. However, it's all gone now. It still hasn't sunk in.

Now I'm looking to save up for a down payment on a new car. Seriously, my car is great if you are ambivalent about reaching your destination. Also, I'd like to save up for a epic vacation. I have a week of vacation coming up in August, but that's going to be a laid back affair. Maybe some camping and/or a trip to the lake (still waiting to hear back on that), general relaxing, and I'd like to get a tattoo for my birthday. Still trying to decide what to get for the last one.

I've also thought back about cutting back on my hours at work now that I'm debt free. Going from 50 hrs a week to 40 is very tempting, even though it means a pay cut, but with higher rent (living by myself), and big things to save up for I'm not sure I want to take the pay cut. However, extra time not spent at work that could be spent, oh say, on the comic strip would be super awesome.

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Well, long post, but now you know what I've been up to. Catch ya on the flip side.