in the woods

Friday:

Another relaxed day at work. And I have a three day weekend! Which is very much needed as I haven't been sleeping well. My nights have just been very restless. Anyhoo. I touched up the gilding, I cut some stuff, I cleaned screens, I put away stuff. I finished The Amber Spyglass and oh what a heart punch of an ending! I tidied up the studio a bit too. Oh! And taped screens for a job. But all in all, it was a short day. Sometimes there are lulls in the printing, and that is not so bad. Well. Not so bad now that I'm making more money!

I planned to see The World's End with Steve in the evening, but he had a ways to come down (from San Francisco) so I had time to clean house, and vacuum, and relax. I will have hard wood floors at my new place, so now I'll have to get felt for my furniture. I've picked up some sliders, which I'll put under the bed, as that will probably have to be moved a bit as I settle my room.

So The World's End was pretty funny! I want to watch it again. Spaced, Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead. All the same cast members reoccurring. That humor. The friendship. Very much its particular thing. I'm sure it'll do well on a repeated viewing.

Saturday:

Steve and I drove to Jeffrey's for brunch to try them out. It was standard diner fair, nothing really to write home about. Though I am writing right now and people at home will read about it. From there we got on Highway 1 and then went to the Nisene Marks State Park to do a little loop hike. The road was annoying to drive on. Narrow. Tons of cyclists and pot holes. But the park was very nice. Redwoods and small loops and not a lot of people. The weather was perfect for it too. Hot, but not sweltering. And we had the forethought to bring a water bottle. Always a bonus. The trails were very up and down though. Not a lot of flat paths. Though that was only in the section we were in.

Due to having a man date with Adam and Kyle, Steve departed after that. I forgot to call you back Mom! I'll call you tomorrow! Anyway. I ran an errand. Washed the dishes. Worked on my map. Watched The Bridge, which is an American adaptation of a Danish/Swedish show Bron/Broen, which is a border crossing crime drama. The adaptation is very good.

I'm very happy to have this three day weekend. Just knowing that Monday is open as well. Ah. It's good.

I also spent some time thinking about how I'm going to layout my new room. It'll be tricky, but I'll make it work somehow.

gold!!

Today at work, after I broke down the press and cleaned squeegees and floodbars, I was assigned the task of gold leafing these two signs! Waah! How fun! First I had to paint on the gilding size stuff. Basically a specific glue for the task. So I put that on it. Then once it had sat for 45 minutes to an hour I delicately placed gold leaf from sheets onto it using a brush and my finger to press it down and on. Damn it looked good. Slow and steady! So good. And Boss was very pleased with my work. Positive reinforcement is awesome. And playing with gold is just so cool. One sign was gold gold, the other was white gold. I think there will be more leafing tomorrow as well. So fun.

I took a nap when I got home. Feeling so tired lately.

Then I crossed another thing off my "to do" list. And added another thing to it as well...so it still stands as three things to do. But I should get another thing done tomorrow. It's all good.

naps are nice

Felt funky all day. Like there was a sort of pressure behind my eyeballs. Not enough sleep? Too much vinyl weeding? Not enough veggies? Probably the last thing. I should get some salad.

Work? Well work was catching a couple small jobs. Whipped up some discharge ink. Burned some stuff. It's all come into a nice rhythm. Oh and weeded a bunch of vinyl and cut some large laminated images.

At home I took a nap. Then grilled my left over lunch PB & J for dinner.

Started Amber Spyglass! Whoo!

fantasy map

pencil and watercolor

9" x 12"

now to start naming places!

awwwWOOOOOOOO at the moon

Whooo! I bought this cool wolf shirt that my pals Dom and Morgaine made! And Morgaine included a little hand charm in the package too. They are just too awesome by half! I've been cutting the sleeves and collars out of my shirts. Makes them sooo much more comfy to wear. Not ALL my shirts, but some of them.

I spent my night refining this imaginary planet with its continents and islands and stuff. Fun fun!

Work. Counted in some odd shirts and caught them. Weeded vinyl. Burned some screens. Weeded more vinyl.

I think I'll be learning how to work the embroidery soon. Hopefully it is easier than it looks.

Etsy makes it so easy to support my pals. Etsy and Kickstarter.

measure twice, protect against scuffs once

It ended up being a short day at work. A job was ran. I coated screens. I activated a new thing of emulsion. Tomorrow there shall be more shirts, so that should be cool.

Nice to have a shorter day though. Had a weird restless night sleep.

I met Jeff (housemate Jeff) to go through a housing agreement contract. I met Chris, who is moving out, which sucks because he was really easy to talk to and was really nice and seemed like he would be a good roomie, but alas he is moving out. So the house will be Jeff, Tara, a forth person yet unknown, and myself. The contract is pretty straightforward "no candles, this is how it goes" type stuff. After I signed it (I start moving in on the 15th, which is awesome because I only pay half a months rent instead of the full kebab) I went to my room and took measurements so that I can measure my existing stuff and figure out how it'll all fit.

I'll need to but some felt for under my bed, and maybe a little rug thing for under my desk/chair as I have wood floors and I don't want to scratch/gouge them (as that will cost me if/when I move out).

So that was thing 1 crossed off my 4 thing to do soon list.

so hot during the week but pretty mild this weekend

Saturday:

Ran my work clothes through the wash. Cleaned some stuff using cleaning advice I googled and it worked! Yay! Later in the day I drove up to Mountain View for a board game night with Nate, Helen, Carmen, and Josh! I was the first to arrive (N and H were already there). We had some tea and we chatted and caught up. J and C arrived with soup and Helen made gluten free bread and we all ate food and then set about figuring out how to play Small World, a table top game. It was pretty fun once we figured out what was going on. There are a lot of options for different types of scenarios, so game play doesn't get repetitive. Like Risk except more fair. I came in squarely in the middle, with Nate total winner and Helen a close second. Nate is good at these sort of strategy type games. I'm better at Khet.

I got a bit turned around (took an exit too early) on the way back but didn't get too detoured.

Sunday:

Another wonderful sleeping in day. I like not having to worry about finding a place to live. I was expecting that process to be really prolonged.

I did my groceries and did a CVS run for soap and stuff. I sat on the porch and worked on this story I've been working on and did some drawings to accompany my notes. It's a color coded notecard system right now. It's fun to get back into world building.

A nice relaxing weekend. Not too much hub-bub.

pow! take that stickers!

Work was very long. Punching stickers out and waiting for stickers to be cut so that you can punch them...takes a while. But it isn't terribly strenuous. I also reclaimed 24 screens in total, but because on how I staggered when I reclaimed them, 10 were able to be coated today! And I caught and boxed a job.

And I melted from the heat.

Don't worry! I kept hydrated!

Still. Whew!

And when I got home it's like all the energy has gone from my body. So tired. I guess I'll climb into bed soon. Unless I get a "up till 2am" second wind. Haha.

Don't know what I'm doing this weekend. I THINK I had an obligation but I just don't know...

Errr. Yeah.

Oh! Finished Golden Compass and now I'm onto Subtle Knife.

bleeting good time

Got another round of art process done and sent off. Yay!

Work was horribly hot. So...very hot. Just sweat everywhere and uhg. Lots of water was consumed. I got all the screens cleaned, so I should, if the timing is good, be able to reclaim some tomorrow (don't want them to sit and collect dust while waiting to be coated).

Oh and we ran sweatpants and shirts and patches.

It was nice to return home and change into not horrible sweaty clothes.

Boss got two goats. Yay more animal noises!

mostly lazy

Got cramps something fierce at work, but making a heat pad out of shirts sent down the dryer helped. Ended up leaving early because I was not feeling up to snuff. Now I'm going to bed at...what is technically a reasonable hour.

Ran shirts. Ran more shirts. Cleaned things. Found no dead half rats. Stopped by Chase Bank and deposited my deposit for the new place. Next up: first months rent.

Did my laundry. Watched Archer.

Damn. Neglected to do thing I needed to do. I've gotten lazy.

still posting even though my days are in a pattern

Whoo! Another day! Ran some sweaters. Burned some stuff. My Golden Compass files were ordered weird so I couldn't listen to it today, so that was a bummer. I felt really out of it. Probably due to staying up so late.

At home I doodled and watched stuff. I have some Odd Owl stuff to attend to, so that is something productive to do...tomorrow.

I dunno. It's nice having a mental holiday. July was a heckuva month.

I'll miss Janet

Week started on a pretty good note. Burned screens. Caught a quick two color job and a single color job. Taped screens. Then we ran a slightly more complicated piece but that looked good. Almost done with The Name of the Wind! Fellowship of the Ring has such a DAMN LONG START! I've forgotten. Kinda slow going when we only listen to it for bits at a time. Harry Potter is MUCH faster paced.

After work I got the 100% thumbs up from Jeff, so now I just have to put in my deposit and first months rent and I'm good to go.And he is only asking for deposit right now, which is nice. Both together won't tap me out. Actually this whole move isn't leaving me as broke as I expected, and rent will be cheaper so I should get back on my feet pretty quick again.

At home I watched telly and read a bit.

Janet left some comics on my bed for me to have. She is so kind and wonderful!

well, that went fast

So on Saturday I slept in, and woke up to find an email... or did I return that email in the evening? Anyway, there was an email from someone who saw my post- no it was in the morning- there was an email from someone, Jeff (a different Jeff), saying they had a room and they linked me to their post. And it sounded really neat and up my alley, so I responded, and after my shower and stuff I got a call and we talked about housing basics and stuff and then we set up a time for me to see the place and that was that! So the rest of the day I relaxed and tidied. Then I went to the Live Oak area to see the house. It is in the middle of a neighborhood with lots of other houses and streets upon streets of houses. Very residential. Jeff works with schools and biking things. Tara works as a nurse in Monterey. Wasabi is an oldish cat who lives in the house. The other roommate is moving to Portland as it turns out, so I didn't meet them. The house has a nice back yard, not lawn back yard. More trees and some sculptures and a big bottlebrush tree. And a pear tree. It's nice. The room is smaller than my current room, but the closet is nice. I could make it work. I plan to make it work as Jeff called me today (Sunday) telling me that they talked about it and would like me to live with them! Yay! Anyway to go back to the meeting. We talked and there are house meetings, so that is neat. And it seems close to a different sort of stuff. Not downtown stuff but stuff...stuff. Maybe I'll be biking more! I'll have to do a "Trillian has moved!" card to send to all my correspondents. So the meeting was good (obviously) and I returned home feeling good. Didn't get up to much for the rest of the day. Just took some much needed head space relaxing time. Then I went to bed and stayed in it for a good long while. Sunday came around and I needed food, so I bought food. And bought some naan. Ate an early dinner and got a call from Jeff! Hurray! I have the room! I threw on some fun makeup and drove up to Felton for the Odd Owl show! They were playing at a newish open air venue that is an outdoor stage in someones sorta backyard. Anyway, it was nice. And even though I was running late, I got there with plenty of time. I had a beer at the start and that was that. Had some pizza and sausage later on. Dina was there, and I met a buncha people. I keep forgetting business cards! But they were awesome and played the old hits and some new stuff and they just jammed for a while, which was great to hear. Just a lot of fun and mingling. Dina lent me her jacket. I went around collecting tips. Chatted for a bit but didn't stay too late as I have work in the morning and BREAKING BAD TO WATCH! Wow, what a start to the season! So good.

I've almost got three weeks left in this month, and I aim to relax. I'll start sorting eventually, but I don't even move in till September. It's nice to have that out of the way. And the rent & utilities are almost a full Benjamin cheaper all together. Sweeet.

and thus my quest advances

Thursday:

Oops. Went to bed totally neglecting to blog. But it was a fairly standard day. Jeff returned and I coated screens while he set up. I counted in shirts for plenty o' jobs. We ran a couple jobs. Not a bad day.

Back at home I relaxed for a bit, then went to the 10pm showing of Elysium. It was good. Not great phenomenal OH MY GOD. You know how I get about movies when they really excite me. It had some really cool special effects and scenes, but it needed more character development all around. Just a few minutes more for each character, and for the inhabitants of Elysium. Not MUST SEE in theaters cool, but still cool.

Monuments Men looks awesome.

Friday:

Annnd another week is done! We ran a job in the morn then did shop stuff while waiting for stuff to come in. We reorganized the tester shirt bin. Vacuumed. Listened to Fellowship of the Ring. It's a long ass book though. I seem to remember it being shorter. An hour of listening and Frodo is STILL in the Shire!

I looked at a room after work. It was in a house with two other ladies around my own age. The room was smaller, the house in general was smaller, but it was a quiet neighborhood...but I'd also have to sign a lease...but the move in time works for me and there is parking and I can paint the walls and the closet space is HUGE... ahhhg. I just really like MY house. And MY place. I like where I am NOW. Boo.

I went to a movie night down at the station. Ryan, Marina, James. The usual suspects, as well as Alex, Jill, and....I forget her name but we met before and she is really nice. Snacks, beer, food, and Mystery Men and Severance double feature, aw yeah.

A nice night. Don't know what I'll do tomorrow exactly, but first I shall sleep in!

Well, I'll probably apply to more houses and places. Just gotta keep applying.

The Hound

The Hound

3" x 4"

pencil and ink

"wonderfully" is one word for it

Jeff wasn't at work due to not feeling all that well. Boo!

But it gave me the day to get the stuff done that needed doing. Like coating the 15 screens from yesterday and reclaiming 24 screens to coat tomorrow. And counting in shirts. And burning a buncha screens, and taping those screens. That took the day. That and listening to The Name of the Wind, which is a nifty book. Took a while to get used to the narrator, but he is really good at different accents.

Now we are ready to take on the world! The world of printing.

At home I sat on the back porch and kept Janet company while she sorted through stuff. This old 1967 sex ed book was uncovered. Illustrated and designed for 4-6 graders. Oh it is hilarious and REALLY inaccurate and just....wrong. A lot of "this is as God wants it" and "sometimes Mom and Dad hug and kiss....then BABIES" type stuff. I'm going to scan some of the illustrations, because they are retro and lovely.

* * * * *

For the Game of Thrones gift exchange, I volunteered to be a "regifter" which means that for people who get nothing because their original gifter was a poop, they get a chance for someone to gift them something, if someone is willing to do that...that someone being a "regifter". So I did a little portrait of The Hound and I'll mail that off to them tomorrow before work. Yay gifts!

A pretty good day. And now it is Thursday!

goose island ipa fan club

Met up with Ryan and Marina at 99 Bottles, and it was raffle night! But even with 9 tickets between us, none of us came up winners. Still, it was fun. I had the beer sausage with sauerkraut and waffle fries. And I got them to sign off the beer (which wasn't a numbered beer) as #16, so now I don't have to order Bud Light to complete my card! HA! Beating the system!

Long after the last beer was drunk (well about an hour and a half), I drove Ryan home because the last bus was at 10 and sometimes it is easier to wait around and give a friend a ride then to loose a friend earlyish in the night, ya know? I only got a LITTLE bit side tracked on the way back. Though getting lost in Santa Cruz is like, a five minute detour. It's not a big place.

I heard back from an apartment inquiry! Hurray! My first one! I'm checking them out on Friday. So that is heartening.

We ran a quick job. Just some sweaters. Then I reclaimed and cleaned and cleaned some more and coated what I reclaimed yesterday. Now I have a good stack to coat tomorrow, and a good stack to reclaim. I'm getting that catch up like I asked for! Hurray!

I'm awesome, let me live with you

Up to five emails about housing now, no responses yet. There are all these "shared rooms". I can't live in a grown up dorm! I'm an adult! And too much of a homebody.

Lets see. Work. We printed bags and these shirts. I burned some screens. I reclaimed what was reclaimable and got to cleaning what really needs to be cleaned. I need a day where I'm not catching so that I can catch up on the screens in the back! But we'll have 10 to coat tomorrow, around around 15 to reclaim. It's a process.

My fingernails are long again. They grow so fast!

Didn't go food shopping. It's only Monday.

ice cream, steak, sucky tidings

Friday:

Showed up early again to work, though just so we can get an early start on two big job setups that needed to be done by the end of the day. I cleaned squeegees. The job got set up. We ran the back. Jeff set up the new coffee maker. Boss put some excess gold foil on a tooth to make it look capped like the goober that he is. I cleaned the squeegees again and we did the back. Did we do more after that? Err. I don't think so. I removed the tape from all the screens, so there will be a lot of cleaning of screens to be done next week as we've come up short on them again. So much turn over!

After work I took it easy and cleaned my room. I swung by Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing and filled up the growler with their seasonal "Casinos" IPA. The people in the pub looked at my possession of the growler with much admiration and respect. I was there on serious business and they knew it! Steve came down and we picked up steaks and had those with the beer and we watched Happy Gilmore on Netflix.

Saturday:

After breakfast, Steve and I walked downtown and we wandered into Bookshop Santa Cruz where I picked up a "get well" card for a friend. Then we went to the Penny Ice Creamery and got fancy ice cream cones and ate them while wandering around a little street fair of sorts. He took off to meet Adam, Kyle, & co. for dinner and I opted to stay down in Santa Cruz to work on things.

Janet came back from her vacation and there was a letter that was confirmed to be our 60 day notice. So tht was a bummer of big magnitude. Time to find a place to live. Been here just a year. Uhg.

Watched Prisoner of Azkaban.

Sunday:

Had a good solid sleep in. I posted my first advert on Craigslist about looking for a place to live, and called one person and emailed two others. Haven't heard back, but it is still early. Just gotta keep extending myself and hopefully someone will want me to move in.

I sat out on the porch and read and soaked up a bit of sun. That was nice. Had some of my Canada noodles for dinner. They were very interesting. Worked on correspondence. Oh, I should do a "I've moved!" card for when I move. Something to send to everyone.

All in all, a fairly relaxing day. Didn't do my grocery shopping but I suppose I can do that tomorrow.

treasures in my teefers

For some reason I agreed to go to work early on Friday as well! What is wrong with me? We've got a lot of printing to do, and someone has to do it so it might as well be us. And starting early gets us out earlier, which is nice. My whole evening isn't eaten up. Not that I did much with tonight. Watched TV. Ate dinner. Erm. Yeah.

We ran a job that took a lot of set ups for different shirts. Very annoying. They could make it easier but they don't. Oh well.

Boss bought a coffee pot for the studio and a mirror. Not fond of seeing how frazzled and haggard I get by the end of the day, but hey at least I can tell how much stuff is in my teeth!