frustrations

Spent a large chunk of the day trying and failing at portraits. They just were not coming out. Eventually I got to a point where I was satisfied, all though the one of Ackles isn't quite right. The project isn't quite what I thought it would be. I'm getting better but it doesn't seem like as much better as I thought I would be. Now that I've figured out the scanner, I'll try to devote more time to making really nice looking portraits. Mm.

The portrait errors put me in a bad mood.

Scraped some paint. Had some curry. Dad went to bed early because he is going to Brazil tomorrow. Mom and I finished the first disc of Angels in America. Now I'm going to finish watching an episode of Torchwood and then go read.

Todays Portrait Is: Jensen Ackles.

neville is so awesome

Yeah, didn't quilt. Or do any portraits. Again, it is probably a bad idea to announce my intentions for the day.

No rain but not much sun.

Did my laundry. Took all the clothes out of my drawers, all the old clothes that is. So I got that done. It is good to not be living out of a suitcase and laundry basket. One more step towards settling in, for better or for worse. Now I gotta go through my closet. Lots of old clothes in there.

Read some of my old essays from gradeschool.

Read more A Dance of Dragons.

At 6ish we headed out to Poulsbo to see Harry Potter in 3D, as ma and pa haven't seen it yet. The 3D gave it a good depth of field but it wasn't needed. It was good the second time around. Afterwards we got some McDonalds and picked up a Yoda toy for Nathan's Toyota (Toy Yoda, get it?).

Got home at around 10:30. Maybe I'll do more tomorrow. Maybe.

Todays Portrait Is: Chris Pratt.

aches and pains

All that wood hauling has made me quite sore. Oof my back. And my legs. Today's chores were cancelled on account of a wasps nest near the garage (which was right near where I set my chip bag yesterday, eek). So I read and tooled around the Internet. And quilted! Didn't get much further, but I'll do some quilting tomorrow as well. And portraits. That is what Thursday will be about. Portraits and quilting, as we might be up at Pulali again this weekend.

Dinner was a lovely stir fry made by papa. Then mum and I settled in to watch So You Think You Can Dance. During the commercials we watched bits of the behind the scenes stuff for the upcoming The Hobbit film. The Dwarves look great.

It was another not rainy but not warm day. At least the next two Wild Cards books came in the mail. I'm up to my knees in reading books! Hurray!

Todays Portrait Is: Adam Scott.

stuff happened I guess

Ahhh I'm tired of blogging the same old nothing.

I helped Dad unload and stack firewood today. I was in the truck bed making piles at the tail gate, which he gathered and put in the rows in the woodshed. Then we filled up the truck bed again from the piles at the garage and unloaded that. Two hours and my back was well bent after. We moved about a cord of wood. It will be nice and dry by winter. That will be nice.

I relaxed and read after that. Good ol' book reading. I think I'll be hauling more wood tomorrow. Or painting. Either way, I'm making cash for my labor. Yay.

Need to get started on my quilt again.

Dinner was potatoes and vegetable medley and tasty burgers. Mmm. Tasty. None of the books that I ordered about two weeks ago have arrived. Come on mail system! All though I'm still not even a fourth done with my current tome. I like the comfort of books. I need to make a task list.

After dinner, we watched the first two episodes of Angels in America. So sad. So well acted. So...odd.

Todays Portrait Is: Aubrey Plaza (portrait number 200!!!)

mmm salad

Ah man, I really need to start doing something.

Had toast and tea for breakfast. Read in the hammock for a few hours. The sun and warmth finally came out! Not quite totally shorts weather but warm enough to hang outdoors in. Finally.

Helped mom make a pie. Dinner was salad and pie and I tucked, a bit early, into the chicken that was supposed to go onto the salad. Yum! The apple pie turned out really scrumptious.

So yeah, just read and relaxed. Not much going on in the 'Beck.

Todays Portrait Is: Aziz Ansari.

it all ended

Got up a bit earlier than usual and enjoyed some delicious waffles and bacon courtesy of dad. I spent the next couple hours relaxing and getting more portraits in the Portraitoday queue.

Then I packed up some cookies and hopped in my car and headed to Port Orchard to meet my friend Meghan, for we were going to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II. The last Harry Potter movie ever. Gaaah. The books and the series have been around since I was so young. Now I'm grown and it over. What else in culture lasts through so many years and changes?

Anyway, the driving was good but then it came to a stand still just outside Gorst. So I took some detours and got really side tracked. One of the on ramps was closed, but I managed to get on. Then the route the GPS was following wasn't actually taking me TO the theater, just NEAR it, so I drove in circles trying to find it. But I eventually did with about 6 minutes to spare.

The Port Orchard theater is a bit dingy, but we got good seats. The lights were not dimmed fully though, I felt. So it didn't seem as crisp and dark as it ought. Still, ahh. Harry Potter. I cried. Twice. They really ended the film at the peak. I just wish more of the films were longer. They could have made them all three hours long and everyone would have watched. It was wonderful. And well acted. And it was the end. The last link of that chain. The series means so much to so many people and now it is done. I don't want any more though.

Afterwards, Meghan and I found a little lounge and chatted for a few hours about Harry Potter and art after graduation and driving and all sorts of things. Meghan is cool, she graduated about a year and a half before I did.

It was much easier to go back, though I had to tell the GPS that home was not in San Jose.

Back home I gave mom a big "I told you so" for a movie that she, now, regretfully bought.

We bought a new antenna and now we get, like, four more channels! The only problem is that they only come through randomly. So you don't know if, when you leave a channel, if you can get back to it.

I watched Breaking Bad, which continues to be a phenomenal show. It is filmed so beautifully and the silence packs so much emotional weight. Great performances. Dark and brutal and perfect.

Now to read more! I read a couple chapters a day, all though considering I have 800 more pages yet to read, I'm going to have a lot more days ahead of me. It is good reading though. Every sentence has weight.

Todays Portrait Is: Rashida Jones.

yup, still a squeamish movie

Summer still hasn't arrived. It is the longest, soggiest spring EVER. It did clear up and get sunny but not really hot. It continued to dribble here and there. I entered in some more books for mom. Had a simple breakfast. Forget what I had for lunch. Uhhhm. It was something. Left overs? Snacking?

Later in the day, I helped ma and pa haul wood from the wood pile into the truck, then from the truck into the pile by the house, and then helped fill the truck up with wood from the piles up at the garage. There were many large snakes hanging out in the pile. Felt bad to be dismantling their home, but they can move on.

Dinner was a tasty chili that mom assembled. Yum yum! We then settled in to watch 127 Hours. It took place in Canyonlands! It does manage to capture a bit of the overall vast emptiness of the place. That movie really is best in theaters though, it is filmed so well that seeing in large really helps the beauty. Though it also amplifies the moment when he cuts off his own arm. Yeah.

We are going to try to move the reupholstered couch into where the old futon was. That was a perfectly good couch, I don't know why we gave it to Nathan. Oh well.

I read a bit. No quilting. Now I'm going to read more!

Todays Portrait Is: Nick Offerman.