Things to do when you're bored....

I added google desktop to my computer recently and added a bunch of widgets. One of them was from offtype.net . It's just a little paint tool. Something I already have in my accessories folder but this one is small and unthreatening and right in the google sidebar. So I drew this...



I like it. I always seem to draw a little freer when it is with a computer. I think there is less of the pressure of the blank page.I would love do have a drawing tablet someday.

Check out some fun stuff...

My daughter spent a lot of late nights this past week or two helping her friend Taylor launch a site to sell his cartoon products. They are really cute and funny for the twitchy/nervous type.

Max Mead Cartoons

You can buy badges, magnets, mugs, mousepads, and t-shirts. I particularly like these....





I hope Taylor doesn't mind me posting his images here. They link to the product page, so hopefully he wont. Anyway, they are all copywrite protected so don't even think about stealing.

I believe my daughter did a lot of the web design work, something she is very good at. I hope he has a lot of success with it. He's a great guy.

It's May and I should feel good...

...but I don't because one of my babies feels bad. April was a rough month for her. One of our pet rats died (her favorite and mine) and a friend from far away decided he couldn't handle a long-distance friendship anymore. We were looking forward to reciprocating the hosting responsibilities by having him visit Rhode Island this summer for a few weeks, maybe a month. His grown-up cousin and her husband very generously showed Ivy her hospitality for 10 days in February. She has been very supportive of Ivy since her young cousin made his decision to cut ties.

Of course, I am trying too hard to distract Ivy because I never want her to be unhappy, even for a few minutes. I went to see Modest Mouse with my husband last night and we left a little early. Not because of Ivy but because it was hard to enjoy due to an obnoxious girl behind me. Also, Stu's back was hurting. I was starting to get bored, truth be told. I don't have a long attention span for big shows where you can't really get close to the band. We stopped by Big Nazo to chat with Meg and Erminio and I called Ivy from there and she sounded so sad. Plus her stomach hurt. We still had to eat dinner and run an errand but my heart just wanted to speed home and be with her. In the end, we ate dinner fairly quick and Stu dropped me off and ran the errand himself.

I am particularly sad tonight because I noticed that our estranged friend has deleted me as a myspace friend and it looks like he has done the same to Ivy. Not that I even spend much time on myspace...it is more of a symbolic kind of ouch.

Blah. I'm sitting here watching a new episode of Ugly Betty but not really paying attention. It isn't as much fun to watch alone.

Stu should be home soon. I don't know why he isn't yet. Ivy is at dress rehearsal for Saturday's show. I hope it is going well.

Sunday Morning Timewaster

You can waste some time too by going to the Marvel Comics hero machine to create your own superhero or heroine. I couldn't think of names for mine.

I am a lousy blogger...

I wish I could develop a habit for journaling of some sort. It drives me crazy that I let so many days go by without recording at least one or two of thoughts that fleet past me on any given day.
Yesterday was my baby's 17th birthday. It turned out to be an extra-special day because her big sister received her first college acceptance letter and it was for her first choice school, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. First she hollered in excitement and then she showed me the letter and burst into tears. It was a very stressful process for her as last year she was feeling very ambivilent about attending college this year so she only applied to one school, RISD.
In the process of applying she got rather excited about the prospect of attending but then she got put on the waiting list. Very few prospects on the waiting list got in and she was in the last group. It turned out to be a good thing because Chicago has been her first choice since her junior year of high school and meantime she got a lot done with Big Nazo this year. She has yet to hear from Mass College of Art or Parsons. Her friend Michael is currently attending his first year at Parsons but he isn't happy there and is planning to transfer. He is considering Chicago. Personally, my husband and I would have liked if she was more interested in MassArt. Primarily, because it is so close, and secondarily, because she as a regional student she would have a reduced tuition rate. Check out her portfolio for the Parson's application on flickr. Her Chicago portfolio was pretty much the same with the addition of a few more personal pieces.

Ivy was very pleased the acceptance letter came on her birthday. She is generous in that way. She didn't mind sharing her special day with Meg. For the most part, Ivy had a very nice birthday. Her friend Zoe baked her a vegan cake which her other friend Katrina helped decorate. It was surprisingly tasty. I baked vegan cookies using a recipe from a pacakge of Bob's Red Mill Egg Replacer. They were very tasty.

Today was incredibly mild and sunny. Later on in the afternoon it got a bit gloomy but as the sun sets the skies have cleared a bit. Ivy was in a mood when she woke up. I had hoped dance class would help but it didn't. It had to do with her feeling like she was nagged into agreeing to attend an event tonight that she had no interest in. She dreaded having to call and tell her friend she really didn't want to go. Eventually, her friend called, they had some words, but it seemed to work out reasonably amicably. She is curled up on the couch next to me, enjoying a doze. It is a dozy sort of day. I spent the afternoon reading in the front office of Providence Ballet. I forgot that rehearsals for the Youth company started today so I was subject to an hour-and-a-half of listening to mostly pre-teen girls gossip and giggle while I waited for my daughter's class to be over. It was strange because I have been seeing these young girls since they were 5 and 6 years old. It is strange to hear them discussing boys, MTV, and entering high school next year. They are all older than Ivy was when she started at Providence Ballet. It was very difficult to concentrate on my book. I'm re-reading Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner series. They are like comfort food for me.

Last night we goofed off fooling around with this web toy. I laughed harder than I've laughed since hearing that guy on the Science Channel try to say "the Universities of McGill and Michican". It's very addictive. The picture above is me in the style of Alfonse Mucha.

I managed to get a pit of cleaning done yesterday, although not near as much as is needed. I would have liked to have done more today. It was the perfect day for it but I felt tired out by the afternoon spent at Providence Ballet.

For lunch I made what is fast becoming a favorite of my kids', lentils and rice. It sounds boring but I make it very savory. Here's the recipe as best as I can describe it since it is something I concocted. It varies so I'll just describe how I made it today.

Sauteed in olive oil:
3 shallots, roughly chopped
2-3 large garlic cloves chopped
2 stalks celery diced (I like to include the leaves if there are any)
2 large carrots peeled and diced
salt and pepper to taste
a teaspoon of dry rubbed sage (I have also used rosemary and thyme but I had neither on hand today).

Meanwhile, I cook 1 cup of dry lentils in about 3 cups of water with a bay leaf. Cook just until tender.

When the vegetables are becoming golden and tender, I add about a tbs more olive oil and 1 cup dry long grain white rice, and cook just enough to toast the rice a bit. I also added a small handful of sundried tomatoes cut into thin slivers, and the few pine nuts I had left in my pantry.

By now, the lentils are done and I drain them over the rice so as to use the cooking water to cook the rice. I leave the lentils in their cooking pot for the time being.

I allow the rice to simmer gently, checking occasionally to see if more liquid is needed (generally, it is). Today, when I saw that the liquid had evaporated to quickly, I covered the pan (I use a large cast iron skillet) with foil. The cooking time is about the same as it is for steamed rice, more or less. When the rice is done I add the lentils and give it a quick stir and taste for seasoning.

Yesterday when I made this I added it to cooked bow-tie pasta. My daughter expressed a desire to have it next time without the pasta so I omitted it today. She ate hers with tortilla chips from the natural foods section of Stop & Shop.

Whew!

This was a rather busy week. I spent Wednesday helping my oldest daughter with her application for Parson's. I had to photograph her portfolio plus her three challenge pieces. There was also some driving around for materials, etc. I spent Thursday making mix CD's for my younger daughter to give as host/birthday presents in L.A. I was up until 3:30 a.m. organizing and burning five CD's but I didn't have time to make art work for them. Disappointing, as I like to design elaborate covers. Friday morning, before driving Ivy to the airport, I was in a frenzy printing out CD envelope templates from Mirkwood Designs (see my links) and printing out the playlists. My husband cut out the templates while I glued them together. I copied the playlists onto the envelopes while we killed time* in one of the airport restaurants and the kids drew on them. I hope they are enjoyed. We saw Ivy off safely and she is now having a great time in L.A., I'm sure. We talked yesterday but she hasn't called today. It is only 2:40 pm there. I wonder what she is doing now?

Meg and I spent a lazy day of knitting and frying our brain cells watching a marathon of 101 Favorite Stars Way Back When on E!. Headache-inducing. We also ordered a medium pizza with hot peppers and artichokes from Ronzio's. Now a Beavis and Butthead marathon is on MTV2 but neither of us is paying much attention. Beavis has a nosebleed that won't stop and Butthead is trying to phone 911 but he keeps messing up the number. My headache is persistant and now I have indigestion. Blah...

I have to go grocery shopping. I meant to go yesterday but I had one of those 24 hour things where you feel all achey and tired. I woke up feeling fine this morning. I procrastinated too long today so now I'm waiting for Stu to get home so he can go with me.

Here is one of the photos for Meg's portfolio. She silkscreened the shirt with an original design and Ivy modeled it for her. She made it in time for Ivy to bring to L.A. so she could represent. This was Meg's first attempt at silkscreening. Now that someone has finally broken in the kit Ivy got for her birthday last year, the process looks pretty easy and I'm ready to give it a go. This isn't the photo she used for her portfolio. It's one I spiffed up a bit in Photoshop and I thought it turned out pretty good. The design is great! Everybody wants one now.



I'm proud of how good Meg's portfolio looks. This year, applicants were allowed the option of either uploading photos to the Parson's site or providing a link to a URL. Meg opted to use Flickr as it enabled her to organize her portfolio and include descriptions of the work quite easily.

It was a rather stressful week and I'm glad it's over. I was really nervous about Ivy flying for the first time. She had a layover of nearly two-hours in Philadelphia and she was worried about making the connecting flight. She called me from Philadelphia to say she found the gate no problem and that she loved flying. Whew!

She is going to have such a good time with Jessica.

*While arriving 2 hours early may be a general rule for the bigger cities it was unneccessary for us in Rhode Island. The whole checking in process took about 10 minutes and that was only because we didn't know what we were doing. We don't fly much in the Powers' household.

Danielson Famile

As I write this I'm watching (or listening) to clips from the Danielson Famile's film site. Sufjan Stevens is featured in the film. I was a tad surprised at how effeminate he sounds. I don't know why since his music is certainly on the wispy side.

I'm loading songs into my iTunes library in preparation of some marathon mix making. My husband is out laying down a drum track for a cover of a Jellyfish song that is going to be featured on a tribute album. He is nervous because his friend is laying out 95$/hour for studio time after hearing some of the other tracks that will be on the album. His friend and he had originally recorded in his home studio in his basement but his friend decided it wouldn't stand comparison to the other tracks which were obviously recorded in a pro studio. So, Stu who has done plenty of recording in a studio for various projects is nervous because it is on his friend's dime and he doesn't want to be the cause of the recording going into overtime. He is worrying for nothing since he is a terrific drummer which is why he has been asked to lay tracks for various projects. It is just because Wayne is one of his oldest friends. I say, Wayne can afford it and if he wants to lay out the cash, let him.

Well, back to work.