Who Are You Again?

Hi!  Welcome back!  To me, mostly.  I've been deep in the throes of starting my new career over these past two months, to the point where I actually took about a month off from the 365 project just to stay functional.  But today is the day I get back to it, and to celebrate that, I wanted to share what I did from 04/22/18-05/19/18 (which is when I accepted things would need to be put on hiatus).  I took pictures of pages rather than individual pieces, in an attempt to actually get this whole thing done today, so commentary will be shorter than usual (although, obviously, the entirety of the post will be somewhat longer).

Greenbreathing.

I spent several days trying to capture the way that being in the woods brings me peace.  There's a poem in the left image, and here's how it goes:

Steps slow and burdened/Searching for the way I’ve lost/I pace the leaf floor

Following the path/Dark and light and dark again/Deep into the wild

The weight of sorrow/Pressing on my lungs: exhaled/Gathered up by Them

The Ancient Ones, still/Breathing with me in silence/Lifting my burden

From poison to life/In the space between heartbeats/They transmute my pain

Out and in and out/The one becomes the other/The other the one

My balance restored/Light and dark and light again/I find my way home

Sweet Things

I'm super into The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.  You should be, too.  And then I found a pretty pittie who had wandered away from her home, and she was so sweet I called her Dulcinea.  Happy ending: she was reunited with her family after I took her to the Humane Society.  Also Happy Ending: I painted her without drawing first.  Progress!

Unfinished Business

I love what I've got going here, with my maenad and her satyrs, but I spent several days on it and it refused to progress.  I'll probably come back to it, someday.

Blue

I finished the first sketchbook on the last day of April.  I'd been reading a book that dealt with whales (Deep Wizardry) and it inspired my doodling that day (and I quoted it up there in the upper right corner).  (The lyrics in the lower left corner are from a song by Young Summer called "Waves That Rolled You Under", and I highly recommend you go listen to it right now.)

X Factor

Just a little green study of Madame X, because I was still working on painting without drawing first.

Jackalope Got Me Down will be the name of my first album.

More paintings without drawing, with limited success.  The Jackalope thing is because for some reason TLG took it into his head that anytime he fell down it was appropriate to say, "Jackalope got me down!" We have no idea where he picked that up from, but obviously we find the idea of blaming things on random jackalope attacks hilarious.

Damn good appetizer

Not much to say about these, except that I put a million layers into that cherry tomato and I think it looks awesome.  Also, the quote "He's my Wade and I'm keeping him!" is from the last time I played DnD (waaaay too long ago, now), and my character Severan sort of accidentally picked up an NPC squire and basically he's the Podrick to her Brienne now.  I'll hear no arguments.

Rainspheres (as opposed to bows) over the Grand Canyon, and also some Geese.

Red lips and purple ties.

Feet silhouetted in the pool at night, Super Professional Face.

These are all from my trip to Tempe at the beginning of May, where I had maybe five minutes each night to sketch something out before I dropped into bed, exhausted.

Love Undying

This last one, you'll notice, has a whole lot of dates next to it, and no color whatsoever.  That's because after nearly a week of making incremental progress, and feeling super stressed out about it, I realized that I needed to give myself a break.  So I did.  Which brings us to today, and this blog entry.  And once I finish this blog entry,  I'll start laying in some colors.  So stay tuned, Gentle Readers, and thanks for sticking with me for this long.

Eve of Eve's Eve

Pigbulls don't want Merry and Bright.  They want Warm and Cozy.  And Bacon.

Stew, Deconstructed

I, like many other new mothers of my generation, put probably entirely too much thought into what my firstborn's first solid food would be.  Back in our parents' day it was easy- you gave 'em rice cereal because that's just what you did.  But these days what's CCC is that pretty much anything you can dream up (except for honey and obvious choking hazards) is 100% acceptable as a First Solid.  Heck, these days you even get to choose if you're going to start with purees or literal (soft) solids.  After much deliberation (actually none at all) I decided to more or less skip purees, because I didn't much see the point: he doesn't need the nutrition, per se- that's what the breast milk is for- so it doesn't really matter how much he swallows: it's more about the taste/texture/experience.  And it seemed to me like my experience would be a lot better if I wasn't constantly having to puree things.  Hence I decided that Neeps would eat whatever we eat.  Just maybe cooked a little longer.

That decided, I turned my thoughts to, "Yes but what?"  At first I was thinking avocado, because avocados are awesome and buying one for Neeps meant that I would get to eat about 90% of an avocado, and that just seems like good planning on my part.  But then I started considering other foods- maybe some broccoli?  Sweet potato?  Something seasonal picked fresh from the local Farmer's Market like a good little hipster?

In the end there was nothing appropriate at the Farmer's Market (asparagus, while delicious, has side-effects I just didn't want to deal with), and so we didn't start solids over the weekend as I'd intended.  And I felt myself beginning to flounder.  Ah but then!  Then Nathan made us the most delicious Irish Stew, and I realized that stewed meats and veggies were the perfect texture for baby's-first-nomming.

Thus did I give my son a variety to choose from:

Mmm, paleo.

The white-fleshed sweet potato was immediately knocked to the floor (much to Isis's ecstatic delight), and then the hunk of beef was enthusiastically grabbed for an intensive gnawing session.  He also waved it about a bit without dropping it, much to Isis's agonized despair (it was an evening of extremes for Pig).  Once Neep tired of that exciting new experience (which we got video but no photos of) he moved on to the mushroom, which created a nice sort of handle for a baby-sized fist to grip.

Hmm, interesting texture here.

That resulted in much sucking and slurping and gumming, until he got tired of it and moved on to the carrot.  I was a little surprised when he took an actual bite of it, chewed it up, and then swallowed.  I wasn't expecting any swallowing for this first adventure!  I was ludicrously proud of that little accomplishment, and the fact that he later spat it back up onto his father's pants did not diminish my pride in the slightest.

Pig is Ever Hopeful.

Needless to say, Isis is 100% on-board with our decision to feed Neeps this way, and has made it clear that she will make the sacrifice and act as our cleanup crew.  Noble Pig.

A Pig and Her Boy

Neeps can sit up on his own, these days, but who among us could pass up the chance to lounge upon a pigbull haunch?

Not me, that's for damn sure.

Starring Dog

Life is difficult, and does not have nearly enough couches.

Isis and the Very Quick Walks

Nathan is out of town this week (he comes home tomorrow- hooray!) which means that Isis, rather than being snuggled up next to him all day, is having to spend the days alone.  Which means that there is no one to let her out whenever she feels like it, and so in an attempt to prevent Unfortunate Accidents, I've been taking her for walks in the mornings and evenings, as well as dashing home on my lunch break to let her outside for a Pee Break.

I can probably guess what you're thinking- shouldn't we be taking our dog for walks every day, anyway?  Well,  yeah, if we were better human beings, we would 100% be taking her for walks three times a day, but as it is we have a back yard and can lazy.

And as it turns out, that's all for the best since, as evidenced by this past week, my little Princess Pig isn't all that interested in even twice-daily walks when it's cold outside.  Which it is: not freezing (or even close to it) but cold enough that she doesn't particularly want to get off the porch in the first place, and after the 1.5 blocks it takes to get her bowels moving (and voided) she is immediately All About Turning For Home.  Which, ironically, means that I'm not getting anywhere near the Health Benefits out of these walks that I thought I was.

Ah well- she's back on the couch now, curled up and satisfied with life.  As for me, I'm about to hop into the shower, since I went ahead and got my Health Benefits on the climbing wall this afternoon.  My shoulder is at about 99% now, and I'm pretty excited about that.  Satisfaction all around!

Hers

toes like fat pink cushions

The Virgin

We bought Isis a new blanket today.

It's blue, and she loves it.

Three

Today is the pig's birthday.

Unlike the other animals in our household, we know this for a fact.

I like tell people that my dog has done a great deal to prepare me for eventually having a kid, in that I love her and am glad I have her and wouldn't trade her for anything- but holy crap she is inconvenient and probably I'd never do it again.  Unless I was drunk.  I might totally bring home a french bulldog/second child if I were drunk.  They're just so little and cute!

Dawn on Her Wings

Nathan and I took Isis for a walk down on the waterfront today, and afterwards we decided to extend it enough to finally check out the land bridge that we'd heard about (and driven beneath dozens of times) but had never actually explored.

it was pretty cool

The Triumphant Return

Today the pig got to go to the dog park for the first time in over six months.

it was pretty great

Reading the Bones

Happy Best Day of the Year!

Since today is my High Holy Day, I took a half-day from work so I could come home and finish up all those little last-minute things before our Party tonight, including turning the pouch for Nathana's "finger bones" into something he could wear around his neck:

now with realistic rattling action!

If you're confused as to what the heck costume requires wearing bones around your neck, it's this one:

The Onion Knight

And if you're still confused (and I don't blame you), I shall point you towards this for Nathan's costume (and this for mine, because they come from the same universe).

Now, check us out!

Official Portrait

Other Official Portrait

And here we are, supporting our Chosen Monarch, IStanis Barathepig:

The First and Most Confused of Her Name

Eventually I'm going to photoshop an antler-crown on her head.  It'll happen- you'll see.

Oh, and if you're wondering about that hint of green on Nathan's gloves:

...that's what post-production is for.

Slice of the Road

Ah, our first full day in Wallowa!

After chatting with some friendly strangers yesterday evening, we decided to head on up to Hell's Canyon Overlook.  Our original plan (you know, the one we had before car troubles and road closures) had us exploring Hell's Canyon, so being able to view it via the overlooke had a certain appeal.

The drive up there was beautiful in and of itself, and consisted of many pulling-over-to-the-side-of-the-road-to-take-photos-moments:

(actually part of a failed panorama)

Oh look!  A rare photo of the two of us that does not involve Nathan scowling at his camera in the background, or the expanse of my arm reaching out to the lens...

recreate-ing SO HARD right now

There wasn't much actual hiking involved with any of this, so after we got back down out of the higher altitudes, I demanded that we go do a little hike near the campground that someone had mentioned the night before.  It was about 2.5 miles round-trip, and involved a waterfall, so it sounded pretty much perfect to me.

As it turned out, it went beyond the reasonable-expectation-of-perfect right into actually perfect, because we were the only ones on the trail.  And because we were the only ones on the trail, and knew that no one would be starting the hike so close to sunset, we let Isis be off-leash for the return trip.

my loves  (some of them)

She did quiet well, as it turned out: she alternated between walking between us and ranging ahead, but would wait when I gave her the command (which I only gave if she was getting out of sight).  It gives me great hope that someday, someday, she might actually be 100% reliable off-leash.  But not just yet... I feel strongly that a large part of her cooperation was due to being tired from the first half of the hike.  Knowing your dog's (or child's) limits is a large part of raising them properly, I suppose.

We came back into Joseph for dinner, and decided to try out a different brewery.  Mutiny was swankier for sure (in the way where I count local carving and photography as marks of swank), but delivered the same delicious food and friendly service.  I'm beginning to wonder if it's even possible to have a bad food experience in this town.

Happy As...

Isis got to run off-leash at the beach today, through sand and surf and back again.  I ran with her, and it was good.

very good

It was the first time she's really been able to run in over four months.  I think she regained some of her intrinsic self as a result.  I think I did, too.

Stranger Danger

Nathan's parents got into town tonight, but they did not elect to join us on Isis's nightly PT walk.

it was a bit late

Also the Night Guard

We have recently started allowing Isis back on the stairs again, which means she came come up and see us at bedtime.

please note the adorably flipped ear

Bribery

When you work in certain industries, vendors bring you swag:

If the vendor remembers your office manager has a dog, and brings her poop bags, chances are he's going to make it back on the schedule...

Prismatic

a pig in the dark

Valley

in the abstract

Market Fresh

Big day in the O'Richey-O Household: we took Isis to the Farmer's Market for the first time since the surgery (which was over ten weeks ago, for those not obsessively counting the days), and she did absolutely splendid.  Granted, she decided to go through the Market at a breakneck speed for the first pass- I think because she didn't want to give the Smells a chance to escape.  But then she chilled out a bit and patiently allowed many strangers (both big and little) to pet her, which is pretty much par for the course when we take her out to public places.  Our dog is a pretty little bitch.

There were a lot of yummy things at the Market (again, par for the course), including huge bunches of fresh basil for only two bucks!  The spicy-mint allure of eau de basil was not to be denied, so we bought some and then planned our dinner around it on-the-fly, purchasing as we went...

basalmic joy