The Evil Dead Cabin

For the better part of the past few months, I've been workin' on this little ditty for this little contest.
You buy the shell and dress it up how ever you want.
Most of the furniture is bought except the couch.  I made that, the curtains, the reel-to-reel, and the Book of the Dead.

So, without further ado, may I proudly present to you, "Ash's Cabin: In The Off Season"....uh, in one inch scale....

Yes, I realize it's missing a porch. I'll get back to that.

I have most of what I need to build the porch but had to sacrifice a porch swing chain for the cellar door and I felt the interior was a bit more important before the deadline.
So, we'll see what happens a little later and...y'never know, maybe Ash will even show up.

What I've Learned From The Summer of Karen

So I've been unemployed since July.
Most popular question I've been asked is "How's the Summer of Karen going?" followed up by "What are you doing with all of your time?"
Answers range from "Great" to "Anything I fuckin' want!!"
I think most recently, when Clint asked how it was going, my response was a giant all-teeth grin with a thumbs up.

Here are the top 10 things I've learned since being unemployed:

1. It's so easy to forget what day it is. You know how they have those day of the week floor mats in the elevators on cruise ships that change from day to day like the day of the week underpants? We need those. Or underpants. Thanks, Willie, for usually hitting me up on Hoops Day to remind me of where we are in the week.

2. I thought I'd be able to keep up with the cleaning more. It works when Matthew's on work trips. Not so much when he's home. But the fact remains; it's still my least favorite thing to do.

3. Resume writing and going through career services is an 8hr gig in and of itself.  And it usually makes me cranky. Selling myself & talking me up is weird. But I've learned that I'm professionally & soberly introverted but socially & drunkenly extroverted. Maybe I just need to write my resume while intoxicated with friends. It would be easier that way and would give me a good starting point to go back and clean up while sober.

4. Schedules and deadlines.  One of the first things I did was give myself a chore chart (I think that's ultimately my mother's fault. We knew it was summer when the mega weekly chore charts came out). I stick to it most weeks. I need to do up a schedule and deadlines for my Creative Department & Career Services areas. Not so good at those aspects. Plus, video games sneak in there unscheduled. Then there's the random pop-ups playing taxi, lunch dates, webinars, happy hours, etc that I just can't help. Those random pop-ups have always made sticking to a schedule difficult for me.
If I could turn what I want to accomplish in a day/week/month/year into an infographic....I bet that would help me focus on schedules and deadlines. I like charts and graphs.
I feel an experiment coming on.

5. Sleeping in is impossible. I feel obligated to wake up with Matthew and help with breakfast & coffee. Plus, the lawn maintenance dudes get going early every Thursday, and the trash guys every Tuesday and Friday, and Snoop's usually paw-patting my face or lickin' my nose because he's hungry. I can count on one hand how many late nights during the week I've had, so it really doesn't matter about sleeping in. That's what afternoon naps are for and those are heavenly.

6. If you have a Summer list of outside things to do - put that shit off 'til the weather gets cooler. I'd intended to clean up porches & decks and all kinds of outside projects, but between the heat and the flooding rains....fuck that noise.

7. Everyone thinks you're doing nothing with your time, so when they ask, ramble off all the things you are doing in one big long run-on sentence that makes them feel tired by the time you've hit the end of the list and are taking a breath.

8. There is almost nothing to bitch about anymore.  I think the only things I complain about are how many times in a week I have to vacuum or clean out the cats' shit box.  So, I go to Facebook just to see what you guys are bitching about. And to make sure I'm not missing any important Miley Cyrus***/gun control/national debt news.

9. My dream job would be to be paid to travel around the world and document adventures between my favorite video game releases while watching youtube videos or creating them based on whatever random thing I'm building at the moment. And they'd reimburse my banjo lesson...no banjo CAMP tuition.  But now, thanks to Obama-care.....

10. The other night, I had a dream that I was in some big ol' Hogwarts lookin' school and was walking down a library corridor. It was dark with the smell* of musty books and we (there are always other people with me) were looking for ghosts. Suddenly, appearing in front of me was a porcelain doll faced girl, with her hair up & spiked out, all geisha-esque.....but she had the body of some fucked up caterpillar.** I reached out a hand toward her and was all "she ain't real..." and then that bitch bit the side of my hand with jagged little scary teeth. I jerked my hand away real quick....
Meanwhile, in real-life, while sleeping in our comfy bed, when I jerked my hand away from the caterpillar geisha ghost in my dream, I ended up accidentally swattin' Matthew in the balls.
This isn't really something I've learned....I just like giving treats to you at the end.
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*I'm lyin' here. I can't smell things in dreams.
**From playing so much Saints Row 4 near the rifts, I'm positive.
***Have we established yet that she's only got the one photo pose??

Advice To Young Bloggers

My friend's daughter, Nae, has recently been makin' some noise about blogging and was looking for recommendations for sites to start her own.
It got me thinkin' about what I'd pass along, or maybe, what I wish I'd heard those several years* ago when I first started putting my stupid voice out there.

Here are some helpful-ish tips:

1. Don't write for other people. They won't read your shit anyway. And I do mean that in the nicest way possible. They just won't. Until one day when you think no one reads it and then someone mentions to you at a party that they've been reading it. And that when they do, it's usually during a morning constitutional. But hey, they're reading it, right? Score!!
There have been a few other times people have owned up to reading my shit -looking forward to it even- and it's a funny feeling. I love you, you fucking creepers. ;)

2. Write for yourself. If you have something heavy on your mind - get that shit OUT!! Right then - write it down on something to type up later, get the mobile app....whatever...just write it down. Get those brilliant thoughts outta your head. It's actually better for your noggin health. Plus, you don't wanna let a brilliant strike slip away only to have a creative block later. I've found that while traveling or in places where I don't have a good connection, actual writing with pen & paper is best. *GASP* I knoooooow!! Who'da thunk?
The other awesome reason to write for yourself, and the reason I write for myself, is so when you're older than you ever thought was possible and your mind has left town, you have some entertaining shit to read or have read to you. Little time capsules & slivers of yourself to look back on or pass through the family. Same reason applies as to why I make the dumb videos I make.

3. Don't censor yourself or be afraid to offend people. Because fuck them.  See #2. (heh...#2)

4. Proofread a shit ton of times before you publish it.  Most of the time you'll come off sounding like an idiot anyway (especially if you're like me and write in a conscious thought stream that includes slang) - typos and easy grammatical errors will only compound that & cancel out any cool points you may have earned in topic.
Plus, simple errors just get on my nerves (ask Matthew) and I'd like it if more people took the time to proofread their shit.

5. Hemmingway said, "Write drunk; Edit sober."

6. If you're stumped and don't know what to write about, reviews and How-To's are always easy go-tos. Music, movies, books, events, travel, cooking, etc. (obviously, I've had no idea what to write about over the past few years.) Even old diary/journal entries are good references in times of blockage.

7. Never ever think anything is going to go viral. I stress this one here, but this goes for anything being shared via social media. "Viral" doesn't work that way. You can't set out one day thinking you're going to make a Viral Something. If you do, you'll only be disappointed and I'll point and laugh and say, "I told you so." If you end up making something that happens to go viral (see the difference there?), it will be a joyous occasion and we'll all be reading/watching it on loop and will help you celebrate.

8. As a follow-up to #3....Don't feel like you have a license to be an asshole to people. Don't make it sound like you're directing your commentary towards any one person. That's just mean. If there is anyone reading your shit, they'll probably think whatever you're saying is about them anyway, so just keep things in general terms. It's classier that way & you won't come off as just another trash talker.

9. Include pictures if you're wordy. How many times have you clicked a link and were assaulted by a giant screen of unbroken paragraphs and more words than you were able to scroll through? Did you read it all? No, you were too busy scrolling, looking for the end. Be nice to eyeballs and break it up into bite size chunks with pictures, lists (like this one), embedded vids, or just simply throw in some good paragraph breaks.

10. There's no number 10. I just wanted to see if you'd make it this far on the list. Here's a small reward if you've only scrolled to the ending because you let the amount of words intimidate you:

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*Yes, I actually have been blogging for "several years". I kept up with one on multiply.com for a couple years starting in 2004. multiply.com isn't around anymore as of May 2013. Go ahead, check. Then I did the myspace thing for a few years until I started spewing all over Blogger in 2008 with this slice of brilliance. And that's only the internet stuff. I've kept journals all my life, too!!

The Coke Whore Gold Chain

One weekend, about 5 years ago, me and the girls (Pannacakes & Krackwhore) went to NYC for a May birthdays trip.

We went to see Fischerspooner at a club in Tribeca (which was killer) and afterwards found a bar to grab a seat and get loud and rowdy.
Or in Pannacake's case, angry & sleepy.

At one point, it was time for me to visit the ladies room and I went downstairs to see another girl waiting outside the bathroom door.
She rolled her eyes and said she'd been waiting a while - we knocked.
There came a raspy voiced, "Hold on a fucking minute!" from inside.
A few minutes later a drunk chick in a tight black dress and heels staggers out and starts talkin' shit to us, obviously upset we'd ruined her bathroom party.
I say obviously because once she staggered out, a gentleman, of about 65 or 70 with white anchorman hair and a pimp 'stache follows her.
He's wearing a black suit with a black mock turtleneck.
He also has white powder on his lapel.

Rockstar gramps, fo'sho.
In my head, I'm high-five-ing him & laughing my ass off.  In real life, I have a full bladder and hope this drunk hooker don't start a fight I gotta finish.
The girl that was waiting goes & comes out, we laugh about what we just saw, I go, bladder happy once again.

I return to my beer and my friends and tell them what transpired.
Pannacakes makes a monster noise, takes an angry swing at someone for waking her up, then puts her head back down.

Moments later, the drunk hooker staggers towards our table.  She holds out her hand and from it drops a gold neck chain.  She says, "Yo, I'm sorry for talkin' shit at you downstairs when you was just tryin'a take a piss.  As a sign of my apology, I would like you to have this.  Its a really nice necklace."
She drops it in my hand and wanders off to return to her gentleman booger sugar friend.

This is the necklace she gave me:

Not as OG as gramps.

I still have it - but probably not for long, which is why I'm telling its story and snappin' a photo of it.

Thinkin' about putting it towards some creative jewelry ideas.

Details on that some other time.

TT - Bedspread Jesus

Every year, when we go to Green Bay, WI for my mother-in-law's birthday Packer game, we stay at this place.
I think almost every room has a different bedspread in it.
This year, we noticed our motel room bedspread had these little Jesus faces all over it.

Happy December 1st!

A Very Special Thanksgiving Special

We weren't feelin' up for more traveling (by plane, train, or automobile) this Thanksgiving, a bit under the weather with coughing and sneezings and ugh & whooped from being on the go non-stop for the past month.

So, today we stayed home and ate in waves.

First wave: Breffass Casserole (later deemed "breffass brownies" by Matthew)

Consisted of a rolled out pillsbury crescent roll in the bottom of a sprayed baking dish, cooked and crumbled jimmy dean reduced fat sausage on top of the crescent roll, cooked and crumbled thick cut low sodium bacon mixed into the sausage, 5 eggs scrambled with 1/3 cup of milk poured over the meat and bread, 2 slices of smoked provo & 2 slices of sharp cheddar broken into pieces and dropped into that shit in the baking dish.
Bake it forever on 350 until it looks like you wanna eat it (about 40mins).

Waves 2 & 2.5:  Cream Cheese with Cranberry Salsa and cinnamon/gingerbread pita chips, followed by ghetto baked brie on top of a slab of boar's head turkey, served with crackers & cranberry salsa.

Cranberry salsa is 1 bag of cranberries, 1 jalapeno, 1 bunch of green onions, 1 bunch of cilantro, 2 limes juiced, and 3/4 cup of sugar.  Throw all that shit into a culinary robot & viola, you got yerself some kickass cransalsa.
Ghetto baked brie is a wheel of brie sitting on top of a slab of turkey sitting on top of another pillsbury crescent roll with the edges of the bread all folded up and around the cheese and stuff.  Baked at 350 for a little while.

Wave 3: Sweet Potato Soup, Craisin/Walnut/Goat Cheese salad, boar's head turkey sammiches on home made italian herb bread (with baconnaise)

Sweet Potato soup recipe is here.
You're smart enough to figure out the salad and sammich yourself.

I'm thankful for my husband & my home.
And the cats.
And pork.
And cheese.
And rollercoasters.
And bouncehouses.


Matthew & Snoop are thankful for naps.

TT - Airport Pals

Remember when we were coming back from Boston and had delays and met these fine folks at the airport bar?

Oh, sorry - you might not remember cuz I only posted their pic on the book of face.
Anyway - here they are* as mentioned at the end of that post from September.

While we chatted at that airport bar, we found out that he (left), Tom, was a home brewer.  We discussed how fruit brews were complicated because the pectin turns the mash into sort of a jelly when temperatures rise.  We told him about the different pumpkin ales we've tried and which ones we liked best, etc.
As we were talking, you could see his wheels turning.
When it was time for us to part ways, we quickly traded contact info so they could let us know if he took a turn down the pumpkin path and how it went.

A couple weeks ago, Matthew received an email from she (right), Tracie, saying that Tom made a pretty good pumpkin ale because of us and they wanted to send us some samples.
The shipment came in while we were in the Keys.
We haven't tried the 3 flavors they sent us yet & probably won't be able to until next week but will post the taste test.
AIRPORT PALS, FTW!

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*Thank you, Willie for the pic tweak.

Y U No Post?!

Because I've been friggin' busy.

I'll get caught up soon, don't you worry your pretty little faces about that.

I've also been creatively paralyzed because there are too many ideas, no organization, and I have an attention deficit.
My mind is cluttered & needs to be cleared out.

I hope to have the following for you over the weekend:
New Orleans highlights
"May" update.
The rest of that stupid horror movie list you don't care about.
Big Phat Elephant Project confession.
Maybe a Paranormal Activity 3 review thrown in.
And maybe a sprinkling of Halloween photos.

So there.

Also, I did watch AHS last night and still love it.
And Bobby only cried once towards the end.
I contemplated doing a thought stream but couldn't be bothered to sit up straight to watch it.
I know atleast one of you isn't caught up, so I won't go into details/theories just yet.
Halloween Parts 1 & 2 were pretty damn cool & may need to be watched again.

TT - This Would Be About American Horror Story But...

My Halloween contacts came in yesterday, so I wore them last night to break 'em in.  They look like this.

We went to Enzian for the Nightmare On Elm St. "pitcher" show.
Chad, Chrystal, & Willie (n00b) were there and we had pitcherS & made a big mess with popcorn (sorry, enzian.  the critters will eat it).
Freddy was there, too, and watched himself.

It was super fun and we got home late and crashed.
Then this a.m., I was trying to remember when American Horror Story was on and thought it was tonight, but then Matt said it was on last night and we looked on the DVR but there was NO AMERICAN HORROR STORY!!
boooooooooooooooooooooo
So now I gotta wait til it shows up on the FX ondemand channel.
This morning it wasn't there yet.  If it shows up later, we'll talk again then.

TT - American Horror Story

We dvr'd it and are just sittin' down to watch it.

I like how many times they say "shit".
And strong opening.
BEST opening credits since True Blood.



Apparently, the "mongoloid" tends to spit in the cooking.

Evil is always in the attic.

Bobby's a douchebag psychiatrist who got busted "pile driving" one of his students.
So the family moves into some big old house with a past & weird wall paintings.
Y'know....as a "new start" or "2nd chance".

6ft Under mom is a creepy maid.

Bobby sees her as a hot young poa.

Bobby's client is a skull faced kid who imagines he's some great serial killer who puts the moves on Bobby's high school daughter who cuts herself so she can feel.

Bobby also gets naked.
I ain't mad at that.
He also hatebates in the window.
HAHA...he's cryin' again.*

I LOVE THIS SHOW!!

The piano string noises are effective, the Weasley twins are creepy, Jessica Lange is awesome & bitchy, Adelaide is adorable....

Bobby's wife gets banged by some rubberdude while Bobby is playin' with the stove.
Bobby's kid client and daughter scheme to bring justice to the school bitch bully....that was some fun crazy shit.  Lots of screaming, flashes of bloody teeth, and the bitch bully gets scratched up in her FACE.
Now there's some burn dude and the make up is amazing and he's tellin' his arson story.

Holy crap that was fun.
I'm in it for the season, fo'sho.
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*Matt used to watch The Practice and McDermott's character, Bobby, cried in almost every episode.  I didn't like that show.

TT - Confession

It ain't Sunday, but I need to out myself.

I skipped the last acrylics class.  There are 2 major reasons why:

1. Dayjob.
2. Hella storm.

So I don't have any class photos or stories to tell you to close this out.

Sucks right?

Oh well.

In other news, here's a still from the movie for the pinup I'm working on.  It shows Adam's hand that I've been attempting:

Watch the movie, dammit.  This is such a great scene.

Here's a photo of something that caught my eye while I was working on it:

I guess that's all for now.

TT - 5th Class Review

Got there late again this week.

Once I got there, cupiedoll lady was back* and telling everyone that she'd been at the Emmy's.
I grabbed a spot as far away from her as possible.  Next to Donald, who had some rockin' shoes on and has also dyed his hair blonde.  I think he's taking advantage of being the only man in the class.

Cupiedoll lady started talking about what she wore to the events and that she didn't shave her legs and had worn a shorter zebra print dress.  Sally, the teacher, asked her if she wore her spanx.  Cupiedoll lady said, "No, I don't wear those.  I worry about how to pee when I gotta go." which spun us off onto a pee hole/crotchless type discussion that Donald plugged his ears for.
That's what happens when you have a room full of women.
Cupiedoll lady also kept saying that everything was "interesting" and started getting on my nerves with some of her questions, during which I looked at the girl next to me and said, "man, I really missed her."

We got on with things and started playing with gel mediums for "Cornfield With Cypresses" to add to the lines we put up last week.

Here's what my "Garbage Field With Green Turds" looks like now:

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*don't think I mentioned last week that she wasn't in attendance.

TT - 3rd Class Review

Last night, teacher Sally's husband, Tom Sadler, came in and gave us an oil demo for underpainting (similar to what I'd posted last week, so you and I are already up on things.  you're welcome).  He spent the first hour going through that and also did an acrylics demo.

Show off.

You can see Cupiedoll lady over there on the left.  She only got on Tom's nerves once.  And I must say her painting looks pretty damn good.  She's SUPER impatient & likes to skip ahead.

Here's what my "October Barf" painting looks like after class #3.  I'm happy with how the sky turned out.  I added back some of my darker tones and fixed my greens.

In class, we added sky and went back over the greens and played with the mucky water and stuff.  Sally sounded pretty unhappy with how we left things after last week's class.  Everyone's wipeouts were a mess and she's just as frustrated with this demo painting as we are and a lot of us are ready to move on.  We'll spend another 30mins on this one to wrap shit up next week and then get started on a VanGogh.  I might finish this one off at home before class.

In other news, after last week's class, I started an underpainting for Snoop face.  Based on this photo:

It looks like this so far:

so sinister

I think I made his nose too long.  Eh, I can fix it in post.

Also, there was a LOT of cussing during this process.

A.  LOT.

In other OTHER news, we leave tomorrow for Boston, so I'm takin' the next few days off and will catch up with you turds on Sunday night or Monday.

Or whenever I feel like it.

HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND AND SHIT!!!

TT- 2nd Class Review

Here's our current project:

"October"

George Inness

1886

oil on canvas

Did my first wipeout underpainting*, which sucked.  Acrylics dry really fast, did I tell you that?

You know what happens when it dries?  It doesn't wipe off.

So then you're staring at a dark brown streaky rectangular turd, trying to remember what you just got done drawing underneath.

(Noted: I think I need glazing fluid instead of this gel medium. wonder how that would make a difference)

After staring at the rectangular turd for a few minutes, I started to make out some shapes and wiped out what I could and did some shading.

Then we started on some midtones.  Oranges, yellows, greens.

She said mine looked "innocent".......?.........and that I was painting light, would probably need another coat, and showed me the difference between a heavy body paint and the shit I'm currently using.

(Noted: heavy body = more opaque = better coverage)

Cupiedoll lady wasn't as annoying this week after the first hour but did mention her store was having a big labor day weekend sale.  Gotta give her props for hustlin' during class.

I contributed a bottle of chard.  Another girl brought in a red and a white.

I had 2 glasses even though I poured 3.

One of them had to be thrown out because I tried to clean off my brush in it instead of the water jar right next to it.

Next week (week 3 of 6) we finish up this one and start a new one.

Here's what my version of "October" currently looks like:

"October Barf"

Karen

2011

acrylic on canvas

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*this post gives a really nice rundown of what a wipeout underpainting is, but its done in oil.

with oils, you get 3hrs to mess with it.

with acrylics, you get maybe 10mins.

Themeless Thursday - Book Review

Oh, man....It took me, what, like....7 weeks to get through this one?

That's HORRIBLE.

I suck at reading.

No, that makes me sound illiterate. Let me rephrase.

I suck at focusing on reading a book through to completion.

There are probably at least 2 or 3 books I can think of off hand that I read half of and never finished. This didn't happen much when I was a kid. Where the hell did I pick this habit up??

GAWH.

Anyway, just finished this one. You guys know I've been chipping away at it. Not that it was a shitty book or anything....it was good. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I just get distracted easily.

The book's narrated by a dude, an art journalist, who is fascinated by a beautiful & ambitious friend who gets sucked into the art world in pre-9/11 NYC. The book is basically his confession. He has to get this story of this girl off his chest and goes into telling about how she first worked at Sotheby's, networks, goes to work for a gallery, networks, sleeps with men, buys some art, gets tangled in questionable activities, sells some art, and decides, just before the towers fall, to open up her own art gallery. Its not so much that the story itself is enthralling, its the way Martin tells it, and how the story gets weaved and it leads to great imagery in your head while you're reading it.

There are even PICTURES!!

Full color of some of the works being talked about in the story.

How he only picked those 20+ to include....a sweet smattering, instead of an art overload.....I would've like to have seen his process for that.

This one gets 3 out of 5 Warhol Flowers.