counting down the days and they are dwindling in number

I've got just over two weeks to get all my stuff into storage! Ahhh! Well, I just gotta get the big stuff out of the way in the next couple days. Books, clothes, shelving units. There's a lot of stuff that can be packed straight up. Just gotta start doing it. Gotta figure out when I'm moving my mattress. I could sleep on the couch for a few nights, no problemo. I got my bike into the storage unit today, so that is out of the way. Tomorrow I will pull out all the boxes and stuff I have laying about and start filling them up. Since the complex is open till 10pm, I could drop stuff off on the same day.

What am I going to do with my jade plant though? ARGHH! Well, at least I don't have a kid. Can't put kids into storage.

Anyway. Garth visited me in Santa Cruz. I find myself being so much more social now that I am heading out of town. It's a level of encouragement to see people and hang out. But it's better to create ties and work on friendships and whatnot, as opposed to just closing myself off.

We (Garth & I) went to Zoccoli's and they didn't have any maple candy! Gah! Why have so few people tried that maple candy? It's so good. And we hung out at Verve, and swung by Comicopolis, where I got the two new Sandman issues and Garth got a card game (Boss Monster) which we played a round of. Pretty fun game. You make dungeons and you have to kill the heroes that go through your dungeons. I didn't win, but I often don't win games. I still like to play them. We have plans to hang out next weekend, so I better get a move on with my packing and planning! But I have weekday evenings that I tend to do nothing with anyway.

Watched Game of Thrones and Silicon Valley (which lost some interest for me in the second episode) and an episode of Justified and Bob's Burgers and see what I mean about not doing anything in the evening?

Crap, need to go to sleep.

nice super hero butts

Whoooo! Saw Captain America. It really just proves that there needs to be a Black Widow movie. Had some great action scenes, and was pretty enjoyable. Worth seeing. I didn't see it in 3D.

I worked on my road trip plan a bit. Right now it starts Santa Cruz to Los Angeles through Las Vegas as fast as possible to Zion then Petrified Forest National Park then Albuquerque then Mesa Verde. From there? Hmmm. Not sure which states to visit headed East, and which ones to see going North to South and t'other way around. But yeah, got a start! What's in Oklahoma? Some places I'm just looking at the map and eyeballing the National Parks. Some I need to Google which cool museums are in which cities.

Work was pretty relaxing. Jeff & Ryan had been running the press for almost 4 hours when I arrived. They both like to start early. I come in, count shirts, do banners, tape screens, coat screens, burn screens. We run a smooth ship. I cleaned a bunch of screens at the end and got out at a reasonable hour. Hurray!

the clock has started

Saturday:

I had a pretty good rest, but not a full sleep in like I was expecting considering how tired I was on Friday. Did some laundry and had some breakfast. It was a beautiful day. I headed up north to hang out with Garth, totally neglecting the fact that I have to plan my exit from Santa Cruz. The main thing is getting a storage unit and packing stuff up.

Anyhoo. We got some beef dip sandwiches and watched this Dr. Seuss movie: The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T. It's a live action Dr. Seuss-esque movie that apparently he has disowned as part of his career? It's weird, but also brilliant. It has some great choreography sequences.

Sunday:

My housemate Justin has been ill, and right now he is in the hospital. Hopefully he will get better!

Watched a silly kung fu movie and had some doughnuts. Another beautiful day! That's how I want it: rain during the week, sun on the weekend. I wonder if I'll get a sun tan on the road trip?

A nice weekend, but dang it went by fast! I need to get on the ball, only three weeks left. Countdown is happenin'! Tick tick tick!

busy bee weekend & big announcement

Friday:

Camping! I’m in the woods. Big Basin Redwood State Forest Place Thing. Yeah. So I’m writing now and will post this when I get to wifi…later.

Today started pretty well. Woke up to my body clock and relaxed in bed for a while. Got up and had tea and cereal. I itemized my to dos for the day: get gas and add air to tires. Get stickers for sticker gift exchange. Get socks for sock gift exchange. Look at maps. So I went down town, and oh what a lovely day! My room continues to be 10 degrees colder than the rest of Santa Cruz, so I could have gotten away with shorts. I got a Discretion Brewing sticker yesterday, and I picked up two Santa Cruz logo stickers for my exchange. They said they wanted something cool for their laptop, so I got them some options. The sock gift was harder to 100% fulfill. Got them some hippo socks, and they said they liked hippos. They didn’t have any puggle socks, or pumpkin ones. But they had dogs with cones and these fictional animals being abducted, so I figured they’d like them. I got myself some seagull & fries socks. Because duh.

I swung by the Buttery on the way home and got some cupcakes to share with Ma & Pa, as well as a cheese pocket for me and a baguette. Oh ho ho. Baguette. (that is to be read in a French accent).

Mellowed at home, then heard Ma and Pa had arrived at their campsite, so I packed up and headed out. Traffic was bad getting downtown, but I found parking. I got three sandwiches from Zoccoli’s: B.E.L.T., the New Yorker, and the Avocado sammich. Graham Hill Road was familiar, 9 was winding, and 263/264/whichever it was, was very long and winding and near empty. The type of road that makes you hope you are on the right road. I went through Ben Lomond and Boulder Creek and other little cluster towns that have a lot going on for about a quarter mile and then it gives away once again to woods.

I accidentally went down a road to Little Basin, which was a part of this State Park, but not the campground that Ma and Pa were at. But I was back on track soon enough, and as the sun was setting I delivered the sandwiches to campsite 48. Dad and I split the meat sandwiches. Both were very tasty. We sat by the fire and ate cupcakes, once our appetite swung towards sweet. Now we shall pick a movie or a game and relax. It’s good to be in an old familiar place (the motorhome) in a new place (Big Basin).

Saturday:

I stayed up reading Gone Girl. It's really sucked me in! I'm almost done. I felt like I slept in, in the morning. But really I was up at a good hour. Dad made pancakes. We drank tea and planned the day. 

Parking down near the trail heads was tough, but we found some tucked in the back. I got some postcards and a patch. Ma, Pa and I took a ranger guided trail and learned about the trees and stuff. Mom knew all the trees he asked about. Madrona. Douglas Fir. Good mom!

After the tour, Nate showed up! Yay for Nate! We took a bit of a hike in the woods. It was a lovely day to go hiking. No rain, warm, but not too hot. Perfect. Only a section of the trail was hiked, as Nate had some stuff to do later on in the day. We had lunch back at the MoHo. Baguette with cheese and spread, cupcake, and Nathan opened his presents from Ma and Pa! He got a cool mug that Dad previously set on fire. And some jelly cups. And a hiking towel thingy. And Ma and Pa brought down the cool lamps Pa made for Christmas, but were unable to fly.

Nate parted ways at around 3:30. We three finished off the bread and played a couple rounds of Blokus. I won the second game. I got some practice in setting up this tent that was brought down to me. Collecting gear for the road! I got out of there at 5ish. It was a nice ride back. Got some time to relax. Eat some food. Watch some TV and catch up on what I missed by being in the woods (not much). I got to the third part of Gone Girl!

I went to bed at a reasonable hour because I was getting up bright and early to go to San Francisco!

Sunday:

Up oh so early. Even earlier because of daylight savings time. I packed up my car with screens and stuff and swung by McDonald's for lazy breakfast and I was out on the road at a bit before 8 (7am body time). I've been getting some really good traffic lately. As in, not much traffic on the road when I go on the freeway. 

Today was a helping Odd Owl print day, and it ended up that next Sunday will also be that day. I don't mind. I like getting out and hanging out. And I'll get some groovy prints when all is said and done and printed. I got my tea on, and Phil came over to help. I started by coating my screen for later use. We did the first color on the two color deluxe , then the second color & single color shirts. They've got a pretty good set up going on. Lots of inks for lots of potential colors. Phil used the heat gun to do the discharge activation on the tees. Carmen pulled prints like a champ. We listened to The National. Josh made salmon for lunch. Erin & Steven were staying for a bit till it was time for them to move to North Carolina. I'll be sure to visit them, they are neat people. Also Erin's baby is due in July! Baby! Adam & Vanessa had their son Xol. Yay babies...well yay other people's babies.

After lunch I exposed the screen and set that to drying, and we printed more shirts. Some of the shirts came out really boss looking. Just... great! We moved on to paper printing, and the first layer went well but the second will need some adjusting, so we set it aside to do next weekend. Probably won't take long. I left SF at 7:20ish (I stuck around to eat pie and help them fold shirts). 12 hours from leaving to leaving.

♠♣♥♦

SO! I'm leaving Santa Cruz in May. Don't know when in May. Early or late, but May. I'm putting my stuff into storage and I'm hitting the road. Going across the country. Big goal would be every day. Drawing, driving, seeing, eating my way to new places and hopefully old friends.

Santa Cruz has been fun, but it isn't the end all be all for me. I put in notice at work and notice with my landlord and I've told enough people that now I have to do this. Can't get an idea and then shirk from it and be okay with that because I told no one. NOPE.

up and awaaaay

Did another major step today! I'll make the big announcement soon, but yaaay I'm feeling good about things! I'm not feeling good about the popcorn I over salted though. Boo. At least popcorn is cheap.

Work was okay. I made a mistake though, which wasn't good. I don't like making mistakes.

We printed posters, which was fun! Only single color. They covered all the flat surfaces in the studio. Lots of me running about finding places to set things and checking to see if I could double stack (they dried fast, so it's all good). Did some stickers. Burned some screens. Taped some screens.

At home, I had a nice talk with Jeff about art and thesis and art making and the way that art changes from mental image to completion. It was a really nice chat.

Things are looking up!

step step taking steps

Today was a big day. I won't put it out there just yet, because there is one more party concerned that I need to talk to about things. But today was BIG. It's a step in a new direction for me! AHhhh!!

My middle 20's are winding down, so gotta go big for the latter chunk of it. Kinda rather exciting, all in all.

Today ended up being rather solo. I did a bunch of reclaiming and coating. Got a few big shirt orders coming in. ... Oh and I did catch some shirts early on! But it was mostly screen cleaning and squeegee cleaning. Talked to boss.

Got home and relaxed and watched Luther. Jeff and Jan had a little bluegrass shindig, so that was nice to listen to, though I didn't sit in the living room and join in/draw. I'm finding it hard to be social, just kinda want to be in my Hobbit Hole of a room.

Anyhoo. Now it's late. And it's Thursday! Already! Daaaang!

looking up and hey it's almost the weekend

My throat was sore all day, but the rest of my body was fine. So that is good! Boss got progressively more ill through the day, which is bad. Hard to do stuff when you are sick. I'm coming in early tomorrow to get a jump on things, so we can get it all done in good time. Jersey printing, ya know.

I weeded vinyl for most of the day, and did heat pressing. Jeff and Ryan printed lots of odds and ends and thises and thats. I also taped a few screens.

I mailed some stuff before work.

I worked on a list of things in regards to upcoming stuff. I am set on doing something every day to moving towards my big goal. I'm not quite ready to put it out there in the public. But soon. Eventually.

Home I had some more potstickers and... some candy. And I watched another episode of "The Returned" and now I'm watching "The Musketeers".

candy before dental

I just took an antihystamene, so I better blog now because I figure I have an hour till nap sleepy time. Eating some potsticker from Trader Joe's. Num num. I felt ill all day. Just like my eyes would pop out of my head and I was oozing snot. Had a bad nights sleep, so that probably tortured my body. Uhg.

Today's work music selections were Odd Owl, Kaiser Chiefs, some Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Ratatat, Stromae, Electric Six... just a mish mash.

There was so much vinyl to weed. SO MUCH. And some shorts to put heat transfers on. And shirts to count. And more vinyl. And a window applique to cut down to size. And I cleaned some screens. A nice full day.

Oh, and Boss gave me a 5.75 pound bag of assorted candy as a belated birthday gift!!! Like, holy crap! So much candy! I wish I felt better so I could eat a ton of it and feel sick! But I don't so I won't...yet.

At home I had some tea and talked to Ma. And made some potstickers. And oozed snot. And got some things sorted out. I'm planning things! Just need to keep working at it. Keep working forward and upward and excitingward!

new goals

An uhg day at work. Not so bad but I just wasn't feelin' it all day. My head felt funny. And now my body feels funny. I'm feeling a lot of anxiety right now, and it doesn't feel good.

Heat pressed some stuff. Weeded some vinyl. If only I could heat press some weed. JUST KIDDING, I DON'T LIVE IN WASHINGTON OR COLORADO.

Uhm. Yeah. I started work on my taxes, but I need some info about my Kitsap Credit Union, to see if I got any cash from the savings investment. I was hoping for a larger return than I seem to be getting right now. I worked so hard, and damn taxes! If only I could choose where they went to. Don't mind taxes for schools and health. Do mind them for war.

My goal is to every night do something to advance my progress to this certain goal I've set out to do. Today I accomplished six things relevant to my goal.