Let Sleeping Puppies Lie

I had to take Isis to puppy kindergarten by myself this afternoon, since Nathan was stuck working.  She did fairly well, in large part because the instructor took pity on us and brought her high-energy puppy to class so that Isis would have someone "on her level" to play with.  I was so grateful- I feel bad when Isis overwhelms the other puppies, but for Pete's sake, one of the main points of puppy kindergarten is to socialize, so I feel like I shouldn't constantly have to pull her away from playing.

Anyway it wore her little butt out, and she fell asleep on the drive home.

A tired dog is a good dog.

I Go, We Go, HuGo

I watched Hugo tonight,and enjoyed it.  Beautiful, stylistically speaking.  I preferred the book, but still... a nice little film.  And it led to this doodle:

Yes, I do wish I could rock that haircut.

Good Things From the French

Here we have a page from my sketch book, in which I begin to explore ways to illustrate a French proverb:

The proverb (if you can't read my chicken scratch) is "praise the god of all, drink the wine, and let the world be the world".  Nathan clued me in to it, and we both like it a lot, so I said I'd make it into a sign for our house (you know, like "home sweet home", only more along the lines of "tend your own affairs").  I'm still deciding if I want to draw/paint it or embroider it...

Progression With Puppy

Isis had a pretty big day today.

This morning I took her for an extra-long (for her) walk, and then this afternoon Nathan and I took her down to the waterfront.  I was a bit ... not anxious, exactly, but definitely steeled for a Less Than Agreeable Experience.  Turned out I steeled myself in vain, however, because Isis did quite well.

Not perfect, mind you.  She definitely lost her damn fool mind a few times near the beginning when she saw dogs she wanted to go be friends with- but after a while she settled down to a reasonable level of Excitement.  The best part was that she got to interact with more people, including some well-behaved children (with parents who understood about puppies).  I must say that I'm very grateful that people who Know Dogs take one look at her and know she's a puppy: it makes her behavior less embarrassing (pulling on the leash, etc).  Although it was funny when one woman said, "Oh how cute!  What is she, about eight months?"

"No ma'am- she hasn't hit four months yet."

"Oh my!"

Yeah, we know.  But she did get lots and lots of comments on how beautiful she is, so at least our toddling terror is attractive...

Speaking of attractive, I made two birthday cards today.  One of them is so specific to the person that I'm going to hold off posting it until the birthday in question (but I will post it because I like it quite a bit), but the other one doesn't give any clues as to who is was drawn for, and thus I feel safe posting it today:

Is this birthday card FOR YOU?!  Who knows!  (Well, you will, in a week or two...)

Yeah, that's right- another angel.  After I got started I wished I had a larger card to work with, so that I could extend the wings out.  Ah well- perhaps next time.

A Gimpy-Knee Safe Workout

My knee has been extremely painful for the past few days (for the first time since changing my diet) and I wasn't totally sure I'd be up for Crossfit this morning.  But then I decided that the whole point of having a personal trainer for every session is so that they can tailor it to your abilities and needs, and that includes the much-reduced abilities of my right knee.

I got to the box and explained to Aubrey what the situation was, and sure enough- she modified the WOD to take out everything that involved a bended knee.  As such, my personalized WOD looked like this:

2 min @each station

Back Extensions (although after watching that video I now realize I've been doing Hip Extensions)
Monkey Bars (40 sec mark)
Good Mornings
Sit-Ups
One-Legged Jump Rope (only I did it left-legged the whole time)

("Basically," said Aubrey, "Your back column is going to be thrashed.")

(You can go to Crossfit Epiphany's website to see the unmodified WOD)

I will admit- I was a wee bit afraid of the monkey bars.  The last time I tried them it did not end well, which I chalked up to having a greater mass than an eight-year-old.

Imagine my delighted shock when I was not only able to "do" the monkey bars, but actually managed to traverse the entire thing three whole times in my two minute window.  I chalk that up to the past two months of rock-climbing (yay grip getting stronger!).

All this, and MORE!

We had about a minute left on our last stations when Aubrey announced (in an entirely too-cheerful voice) "Okay guys- I want you to go back to your first station!"  And so we went through the entire thing twice.  I was pleased that my numbers didn't fall too substantially (except on that damn jump rope), and after I spent half an hour recovering (sometimes cardio just jacks me up, it really does) I felt pretty good.

Now, however, I have started to feel the "thrashed" that Aubrey promised me.  My hamstrings and back are like, "Why?  Why?!"  I'm trying not to think about what that's going to translate to over the next two days.

Anyway, today was the last day of my free month (thanks again, baby bro!) so now I have to start paying for my pain.  And I'll do so, gladly.  Can't afford a true monthly membership at this point, but fortunately my box offers a punch-card, which I can certainly work into my budget.

Not By the Threads of Our Chinny-Chin-Chins

Here's another page straight out of my sketch book, with a collection of unrelated images.  The only interesting story here has to do with the sketch at the top:

That is a sketch of the Three Little Pigs as the Three Fates.  I'm currently letting that little story seed germinate.  We'll see if it turns into anything worth sharing...

Doodle With a Dying Pen

It's funny how tax-time simultaneously makes me feel both incredibly dumb and incredibly smart.  Dumb while I'm doing them, smart once they're done.  Also, it never ceases to irritate me how complex taxes are.  Isn't it a basic rule of business that you should never make it difficult for people to give you money?  Then again, I think a lot of people end up giving more away in taxes than they need to because they just give up trying to learn all the deductions and such.  I know I've definitely done that in the past.  But this year I made an effort to save receipts, and thus I emerge from the Great Tax Battle victorious- by a whole $8 (after paying to file).  Woo!

Dying pens are the WORST.

By the way, Janelle is not the name of this sketch; Janelle is the name of the Turbo Tax employee who helped me figure out why the heck my employer had sent me two W-2s.  But then again, I suppose there's no reason it couldn't also be the name of the lady in my doodle, which was inspired by the music of Citizen Cope.