City Crushing Monster Party '09

Welcome to my world

Boxburg

Here's another odd weekend that I got to witness. City Crushing Monster Party. This is the second year of it. I think Dreya is the instigator. It's pretty self explanatory but hard to believe so I will tell you a bit about it. For about a month Dreya and friends collected boxes, for about a month they turned them into buildings. Lots of buildings. It reminded me of elementary school. Then we had a gathering of monsters.

Gathering of monsters

Boxburg was set up in Shores' car port. Of the attending we had, Gothzilla - special move: the crushing darkness of angst and despair. Dogzilla, Jewzilla, Passive Aggressive Bear "Oh, I just came to hang out," Insectasoraus, The Tyranical Trench coated Ten Tenticalled Terror, Ger, Stay Puff Marshmallow, Freddy Mack and Fanny Mae, and Robo Zeus. Just for a few.

Unsuspecting Boxberg

Boxberg had everything a town would have, modern architecture, the ticky tacky suburb, school, several churches, seedy hotel, industrial district, train, water towers, gas station, and of course lots of sky scrapers.

Attack

And then the mayhem

Ryan

complete destruction

I think the city was destroyed in less then 10 minutes, and then the monsters used the skyscrapers to beat each other. There was even a little bat practice. All in all it was highly entertaining, done under black lights as the sun went down.

Any party Tony attends ends with fire twirling

What do you do on a Sunday afternoon?

Well, it finally worked out. One day I stopped in at the butcher shop, bought some pigs feet, told Carol about it, she got some suturing material, and we made a date to do some sewing of a different kind. Months ago Carol had heard about one of my long time goals to learn to give stitches. It hadn't actually occurred to me to ask Carol to teach me how to give stitches but what better teacher than a surgeon? The invitation for the stitches lesson had been offered over dinner. Joe and Dreya wanted to get in on the learning experience. Dreya wasn't able to make it but Joe showed up and Carol sat down with us and finally satisfied my desire to learn how to give stitches. She went through knot tying, various suturing thread and when to use them, tools, everything. It was a very in depth and thorough lesson, totally fascinating. We tied knots, sliced little piggy feet and did all sorts of Frankenstein-ish things. It was fantastic. Thank you so much Dr. Shores. Another goal checked off my list even though knowing what it involves I don't actually want to need to give stitches. If the opportunity ever arises I'll be calling Carol. She's one of those people that drops everything to help someone, and she has the qualifications to back it up. It was so amazing of her to acquire our supplies and really put together a coherent lesson. She says they have a suturing workshop for the residents every year.

Joe and handiwork

Big news. Two weeks ago we got two whole inches of snow. It was fantastic. The way Southerners react to even the word snow is incredible. People were canceling their doctor's appointments when they heard the forecast. Only 20 people showed up for the clinic that day, we closed the clinic down 2 hours early and opened it 2 hrs late the next day. I walked the two miles to work to fully appreciate oncoming snow and it was a beautiful sunny day when I got out of work at 2:00. Jason picked me up from work and we helped his friend move, then his friends went and lost their keys in the snow. The snow! Of all the days to unknowingly drop your keys you do it with snow on the ground. I was just happy to have it feel like winter finally, and it stayed around long enough for me to get pictures.

I finally took some pictures of my place, so all those that can't stop by for a visit can get an idea. First up is the art area. All crafts and projects go here. The hall to the left passes the washer, fridge, and goes into the kitchen. The hall on the right passes the door that opens to the dryer on the right, the closet under the stairs, the bathroom on the left, the stairs to the right, kitchen to the left and finally the front door. I'm standing at our sliding door to take this picture. The desk on the left we picked up along side the road.

Our living room, see our white free book shelf we found along side the road? Dreya has 30 some plants. I don't know if you can see it but Dreya hung up antique glass ornaments that I got at a junk sale.

Tiny kitchen!

My boss gave me the wok that's hanging up. For those that are familiar with my religious practices, the snow covered sticks one of the earlier photos is the remains of the booth I built this fall. It was cozy when it had all the leaves.

I'm now officially full time employed at the hospital. My free health benefits start February. I got new hand-me-downs from Dreya's sister. Dreya was gone for a week to her sister's wedding in PA. Dreya had to put her cat down when she got back. It was a sad surprise. I didn't find out till I got home from work. All in all, I think that's about it. I went cantra dancing finally. I'll keep you posted.

Goals reviewed and refreshed

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm a

Self-Improving Traveling Tree Hugger

Ok, So Dreya tells me that I'm a sucker for hype. I like the way she puts it. It looks like I've found my perfect book, all about lists and goals. I don't think I'll be buying this any time soon since this is what I do on a regular basis but the advertising has inspired me to get back to goal setting. I have lots of goals, I just haven't kept them up-to-date or worked on my progress. I really like that the book recommends that you publish your goals and progress.

Here's what I can think of off the top of my head for now. I'll work on more later.

-keep house clean and ready for company
My house is actually clean at the moment, I have a game plan, a schedule, and criteria and I just ordered "How clean is your house?" Off Amazon. I flipped through the book at Barnes and Noble one time and have been inspired ever since. It's very colorful, and short bit's of info. A quick reference to get you moving and feel like it's not so daunting.
-write and publish my travel book
I just started a writing workshop and InDesign class last week. I'll have people inspiring me to write and critiquing what I have so far while I learn how to do my book lay out. SO EXCITED!
-learn to belly dance
-learn akido
-have a garden
does buying another garden book count? I bought one last year and was around when Bethany and Dreya had their gardens
-do art
I'm not going to be too specific but I have a list of projects to do for people that I need to get going on
-trim hair once a month
-get EMT certified
-get trained in phlebotomy (learn to draw blood)
-write and mail a letter every day
-work on scrapbook
-learn Spanish
-sail with Dad
-get married
-swim the English Channel
-get a log cabin
-fix my bug
-make my quilts
I have a crazy quilt, a round-the-world quilt, and a T-shirt and Jeans quilt to make. Round-the-world is first. From the scraps of that I make the crazy quilt. I have the scraps. I'd get a long ways if I could just cut the pieces.
-learn fiddle
-see The White Stripe in concert
-read the Bible regularily
I'm trying to start with a chapter a day. It's at least an improvement. I really want to read and study and grow spiritually but I really don't know how to go about it. I see lot's of books on spiritual growth, and I really like books but it's still someone else's interpretation and list of do's and don'ts.
-collaborate with Rachael on bowl designs
Yes, I have found another artist with the exact same name as me. I would like the opportunity to put my art on functional pieces and get out in another area
-have an art show
I'm a chicken. I'm afraid it would be expensive, and I haven't even looked at how to go about getting galleries to take me seriously. I'm afraid I have to invest the money to get my stuff framed first which will be expensive, take up space, and have the potential to get damaged.
-get a credit card
Maybe that will help with new expenses. Really, I just want to be more financially independent and build credit. I'm responsible, I should just have some back-up.
-do New Zealand's biggest bungee jump


Goals I've accomplished

*elbow length hair
*fish in Alaska
*road trip the US
*see all 7 continents in 5 yr
I made it in 6 years but that's all right by me
*hike the Appalachian Trail
*meet Weird Al
* see Everclear, Eve 6, Modest Mouse in Concert
*learn to give stitches
My most recently achieved goal. This is where it shows that people are out there to help you accomplish your dreams. I've been saying just about forever that it is my goal to learn to give stitches. I happened to mention this in the company of "The Doctor" Jason's mom, and she was like, "Well, bring over some pigs' feet and I'll bring the suture supplies, and I'll give you a lesson". So Sunday after a wonderful brunch of eggs, oatmeal, and kale we rubber-banded the pigs feet to some boards and she gave Joe and I a complete lesson. Joe, had heard about my wish and wanted in as well. It was absolutely fantastic. She went through needle and thread guages, holding, surgeons' knots, square knots, all sorts. We sliced up the pigs feet and then sewed them back up. It was absolutely awesome and also a good dose of reality. Now that I have an idea of how to do it, I don't want to ever need to. I'll post pictures later.
*make pie crust from scratch
Another goal that came about because someone else willingly provided me the resources. Ben is an excellant and patient teacher, he showed the simplicity of it so well that I feel confident that I could make it again. I should really make another pie to make sure. Maybe that should be on my list today.
*sky dive
*bungee jump
*learn to knit and knit wrist cuffs

updated picutres for Becky

Well, it's been awhile. I quit painting after the first week of January and I consider myself basically done until I have input from Becky that says different, otherwise there's just too many ways I could go and the goal is to go in the direction that she's interested. So, let me walk you through my studio.

I layed out the the pictures that were similar. I think they could really go together and make a powerful wall piece. I see them all framed in minimal black frames that stick out like they're stretched canvases, maybe even overlapping some of the frames to make one of those sort of collage pieces.
Here's another angle just to get you thinking. Once the two paintings that are on one sheet are seperated there a lots of possiblities.

I really added some subtle changes to the scenery one. I was trying to incorporate the red and greens again. I added red to the trees and the shadows, and yellow in betwee. Full sheet.


This is that bathtub stain painting. I started to try to make it a real murky/misty forest scene with horses but I'm still stuck on it. I still don't really like it. I should really find a good photo referance. I'd like it to stay abstract with horses. Something has to change because this painting seems really dreary. I don't know how to brighten it or where, the same problem I had with the other landscape. this is a crop, it's probably about 11x17, I would like to repaint a larger painting like this with all the crisscross angles. I was breaking down the blur and movement of horses and jockeys. I could detail it some to give that idea of racing action or I could break it down more into angles and colors. I just like block-y .


I like how much the painting changes depending on how I crop it. Here I think it looks a little more like horses racing, in an abstract way. I would like to take this and make it a larger painting. Right now it's too small to for much impact. approx. 15x17

Becky had mentioned that she wanted horses and racing so I wanted to try doing a sort of abstract color block horse head. I made all the little mock-ups to see what combination I liked better and then tried to make them like minature pictures, maybe a long row in window boxes. I'd like to see them rearranged and displayed with the bigger one. In the end I couldn't commit to just two colors on the large picture and now I have something that reminds me more of some early 90s poster. Total is one watercolor paper.
This is the narrow fence one finally done. I don't think it's a very strong painting on it's own. I think it should have a very large wide black frame. Or be grouped with other paintings which I have also tried. I could repaint the horse head perhaps. It was just a mock up of what I was thinking. approx. 32x10

Here is an idea of putting two together, or maybe they could turn horizontal.
Remember the green blurs of colors, I put in a horse eye, That's all I could see doing but the left side doesn't seem finished. I think I need to finish some of the streaks and then reshape the big red and green blob to be more like a horizon line. I like how the feathered white space looks like a blaze on the horse. full sheet


Here I just cropped it to show how I think the picture could look more dynamic. I would still need to fix the drooping red in the background. Maybe I could soften the blue lines that frame the eyes, they kind of box it in.Could this just be a minimalis painting? I did some streaks trying to make a larger version of that angled painting and then I stopped and didn't want to go any more. I think I did them wrong.
And then I had a huge break through. I found a new technique that could take me in a whole different direction. I've got texture, tons of color and all sorts of possibilities to just make a mess of blended colors. I painted this without really manipulating my materials, just to see how they would work out. I don't care for this painting a whole lot but I like it for the reason that I was in a bad mood and by basically finger painting with such bright happy colors totally made me happy. I just feel happy and relieved when I look at this painting. I don't think the colors work with what Becky is looking for.

See how you can change the painting just by rotating it? This is the way that I actually painted it but I think I prefer it vertical 16x20
THIS is what I got trying to make something geared more for Becky, I kept the thought of racing horses in my head and I like the movement this has. I see a dusty silhouette of horses backlit by a sunset. If Becky likes this I would definately like to continue with more of these. Both of these pictures are rather small though, not a full sheet of watercolor paper. I worry that a large sheet might end up looking more like a finger painted mess. 32x10 approx.

I started painting a multi colored background to do that new textured technique over it but then I just had fun watching colors blend and ended up with this. I don't know if it's done and it could go a lot of different ways. Something else I am still waiting on feed back for.

Or should it be horizontal?

All right, that was my show, any ideas or suggestions. Please let me know. Particularily BECKY. Send me an e-mail Becca. This is what I'm thinking, if from these you have your "two" paintings that you want then I'm done, if you still don't see anything that really jumps out at you tell me what you want, send me some ideas, or tell me what things you want differently. I could change the black streaks to brown and make less contrasting pieces, I could use fewer colors, more muted colors. I have seen some really really all red paintings which I really like and could try but I don't know if you want that and I might have to get more paint for an all red canvas.

updated blog

www.roadsparrow.blogspot.com  Check it out.  Finally some pictures.  Some boat news, some art, some stories. 

Love,
Rachael

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Catch up on photos, and short boat update

Jason at paintball, shot by his good friend Phil. He didn't even know there was someone still left on the other team. It looked bad for quite a while, blood and everything.

The booties I knitted, cute little pointy elf toes. Can you see that they really have a heel?

The Renaissance outfits that Carol got for her and Russ.

My Ren outfit, not the best picture of the cape, but we're showing off Jason's new hat and vest.

POINTY HOOD!

And since I'm at it I can try to get you caught up on this past week. Basically it was none stop. I was schedule to work 9 hrs a day. Saturday, Nov 29 was Jason's Birthday, it was also his mom's best friend's 50th birthday so we went out for dinner and dancing. Sunday night was B.B. King for the grand opening of the Durham Performing Arts Center. We were pretty high up but it was neat to be in the presence of a blues legend. Wednesday we were back at the Center for Lewis Black, an angry comedian yelling about politics, we laughed hysterically. That night I did find out that there were extra tickets to the hockey game Hurricanes vs. Penguins. So Jason and I went to that with a bunch more people. Someone has season tickets, nice seats. I thought it was a bit ironic, my second hockey game and I've never been to one in Minnesota.

I got my bike all tuned up and with saddle bags. The guy at Back Alley Bikes sold me used water proof saddle bags for $40. I don't know if that was each, or together, either way he said they are usually over $100. I don't know, I LOVE them. I can haul everything with me, my bike looks all cool, I have a functional mode of transportation. My busy week caught up with me on Friday when I forgot to turn my alarm on so I missed the bus and the bike was in the shop. Dreya let me take her bike which made me only 10 min. late instead of the half hour I would have had waiting for my bus.

Yesterday I finally got to go to the really really free market. It's the first Saturday of every month. Everyone brings whatever stuff they want to get rid of and everyone is free to pick through everything else. There is no strings attached. It's awesome. I got all sorts of goodies then decided to bring the things that my boss had given me that I didn't want. I ended up bringing two loads of stuff home. I got a wine rack that holds nearly all our wine - did you know that Dreya and I had bought two cases? I got a sweatshirt, tank top, wrap around shirt, a cool curtain rod with blown glass balls at the ends, and a navy blue polo shirt. Which, for those of you don't get the joke, that was Jason's and my kitche uniform down in Antarctica. I wore it when I came over to Jason's this morning, complete with my old bandana head scarf. Perfect. I am really glad to have that shirt. It totally puts me in the mood for cleaning. My boss has given me a stoneware lasagna pan, a nice 5 or 6 candle holder, one of those that would sit on a mantle. Dreya has brought home big glass jars from work so I've been able to do some rearranging in the cupboards.

I didn't feel like I accomplished much this week, it was really just a flurry of activities and lots and lots of fun. This coming week I have a normal 40 hr week so I plan to get more done. I signed up for another class - writing. It's at the community center. I've also signed up for InDesign which is the computer program that will help me layout my book the way I want. I don't think I'll sign up for any more classes though. Once I finally did the math I realized that the Community Ed classes are $20 a lesson, not that great of a deal.

On Friday I met our new nurse at the Neurology clinic, Bethany (my old room mate's name), and then at the Art Center the girl that works there and who also waits on us at Carrborito introduced herself and her name is Mandy (the name of a super good friend that I worked with in Antarctica). The owner of the bike shop is Jason and his mechanic helper is Ben (one of my brother's), how ironic is all that? I met them all pretty much this weekend.

Saturday night was Yo Mamma's Big Fat Booty Band. They are a really dancing sort of band, big hats, funky costumes, and they didn't close down till 1 am. It was greay. I danced the whole night in an outfit made from the free market, a reversable house dress from the 60s with a red and white floral pattern. I certainly felt funky. Dreya dressed up like a James Bond villianess. She had the big jewelry, leaopard print, and cleavage. It was an awesome night.

For those of you that aren't my family I'll tell you what my family sent me. So, for Thanksgiving I wrote everyone a letter using some old packing paper that looked like paper bag material so eveyone sent me an envelope of letters and drawings and they all used various scraps of paper. I have notes written on plastic bags, a napkin, a kleenex, a magazine page, paper bags. . .a pile of recyclables. It was funny and sweet and cute.

Next Friday is another band, then another on Saturday. I have to go to coffee night on Tuesday, but other than that, so far it's a pretty mild week, it's just that December is counting down and I need to get focused. I have a bunch of paintings to look at and try to fix. I'll show you those as well.

Boat Update:

I got to talk to Dad yesterday, (for the rest of this update I'll refer to him as Randy since that how most everyone else knows him). It turns out that the guy that sent him to the Bahamas was trying to get him to work on a very large boat. Randy had one money boat in the garage that he was working on restoring this past year but there is a whole new project that only fits in the barn. Randy said that the only place he could work on it was in the barn and the only way he would do that is if the barn was heated, and not out of his own pocket. Well, the guy agreed to the deal and now Randy has an insulated heated barn with folding doors and a huge furnace. His very own shop. How cool is that??? Well, this means that Randy has agreed to restore this giant boat, about a two year project. Which means that he can't go sailing yet. That means that he'll be finishing up his boat in the new heated space, finishing the boat that was in the garage, and starting the new restoration project this winter. Randy also has a new assistant, my brother Ben. Ben tells me that the car dealership that he was working at closed down so now he's working for Randy. So, once again Ben is thinking of sailing with Randy! YAY! It's too bad that Randy doesn't get to go off sailing around the world next summer but he will be sailing next summer around Lake Superior and saving up money for the big voyage in summer 2010.

What this means to me is that I have a place to be for at least another year. I can try to get hired on at the hospital, I can continue to nestle in at Dreya's, I can continue to get involved in my community and I don't have to wonder about plans for a long time. I can work from project to project, and they are lining up. I have the paintings to make for Becky, bowls to design and paint with Rachael - the Rachael that I met at the Carrboro Art Crawl, and I have scrapbooking to work on in a major way. It's so exciting. Next summer I hope to sail with Dad a little and see how things have changed.

Paintings for Becky - very first peek

I don't know if you know the story but Becky bought me 100 sheets of watercolor paper. In return I told her I would paint her 10 paintings from which she could choose two. This is what I have so far. Please note that these are all in progress or are not what I will present her with as final 10. I will take you on a little tour
"cheery blossom" That's the idea I was going for, the black slash got way too curly and is unhelpful in the painting, the pink is too busy, and too much like a blob. I like it better cropped down like in the first photo and I think that is how I will end up presenting the painting later. I would like to try this concept again but with more angled lines and more wet looking color.I was trying to do Kentucky inspired landscape with abstract. This is still a work in progress. It's a little loose, too much the same green but I'm not quite sure where to tone down or if I should brighten stuff, should I add more colors and where? I tried adding the red in the background but it doesn't quite go together right. I like the idea. I'd like to work on it some more. I like the composition, I just want to have a better plan for the colors. I would like to do one in yellows and blues that mix together to make greens. Maybe that would be the simplicity and complex coming together. I would also like to try one with the fences white. The fences should fade out in the background.I'm just not sure if this is the sort of picture that Becky was going for. I first tried pouring on colors which I would then slash big streaks of black through but when I was supposed to add the black I couldn't decide where to put it. Now I think I might try turning this into an abstract horses head, very close up. You can see the eye in the upper right corner. Hopefully with the loose lines I could make it look like it was in motion and racing. I think that this painting is too bright for Becky's office. I like that there is lots of white. My priority is to make something for her law office.
This was one of the mix colors. I painted the black on first which was a lot easier to work with but I still feel like I didn't have a plan for the colors. I liked that I was muting the colors down more instead of always the bright primaries. Becky had talked about earth tones, sea foam green, a burnt red, and I want to narrow it down and focus more on those colors

I painted the black as Kentucky inspired fence lines, still trying to keep it very abstract but I think the fence line theme is still pretty obvious, then I tried to use more warm colors and with the greens and all. It's. . .ok. Nothing very dynamic. It looks like a pattern instead of an abstract painting.This is a true Chinese character. I think it mean success and completion or something. I plan on this being two paintings, so these are two images as a pair. When it's cut apart I want to try flipping the designs around and seeing what I get. Still pretty blah. For the time I put into it it's not all that interesting.


This is hard to distinguish. This painting is still on the board and it's a long narrow painting. The yellow above is not part of it. I was just curious what Becky thought of the very square rough pattern. I have plans for this, something more scrap book-y, more colors, more contrasts. I want the squares to be more like frames and colors on paper cutouts that don't stay in the frames. This seems to be deviating away from plans for Becky but I had the intention of making it Kentucky inspired again. I was trying to represent a fence line. I want to have images of horses and racing inspired images in the frame work. You might be able to make out the little horse head I quickly painted. This would be more detailed but it's not all bold and strong.

Then I tried putting some of my paintings together as one. Now we have something. On their own they don't make sense but together they have the black slashing through and being broken up by the borders. I might try some more of this style but it's harsh. I think Becky wanted more calming. I have two more phases I want to try, one is bright flat colors with racing themes. I have some photos of horses heads, jockeys, race tracks. I think I'll calm down the colors a little bit but they will be more blocky.

After that, if Becky liked the landscape I want to work on those. So, any suggestions? I'm not taking any criticism comments, only from Becky, she's the boss, I am finding plenty on my own. I just want inspiring ideas on how to improve, things to try. What sort of images say "Rebecca, fabulously successful lawyer and awesome person, she will take good care of you and everything will be all right"? That's the message I'm trying to give. I started by breaking down the message but like I said, I think the black and the slashes is to harsh. Maybe in big numbers and more color, more spaced apart, the black and colors will change and have a calming affect since they don't make any sense. Security in numbers. Let me know, I am looking forward to all suggestions.

Happy Thanksgiving!

What a perfect Thanksgiving. Well, there were a couple hitches but it started off absolutely perfect. On Wednesday night Kat and Ben came over to Shores and brought absolutely delicious chili with rice. It was SO good and I am not a chili fan at all. After the chili Ben and I hunkered down and he set out to teach me how to make perfect pie crusts. It was amazing, it really worked. They rolled out super thin without sticking the to cutting board, they easily went into the pie dishes without tearing. Hopefully this means that I can make pie crust on my own now. It was so homey. The Shores' kitchen is well designed and can really accommodate a lot of cooks. Carol, Kat, and Jason went shopping for some last minute ingredients and then they were back. Carol worked on apple pie filling and Kat worked on the pumpkin. I had found the recipe for pumpkin pie from scratch online. On Tuesday I had gotten off work early and Jason drove me to the farmer's market where they were having a special Thanksgiving market. There were lots of pies and baked goods on sale. We bought a few things but there were no pumpkins, luckily I found some at Weaver Street Market.

Anyways, The kitchen was warm and busy with the smell of cinnamon to tie it all together. Laura and Paul came over and watched the hockey game with Russel. Russel just got out of the hospital on Monday, he had knee replacement surgery on Wednesday and is already walking around but so far it hurts worse than it did before. Carol bought him a leather Lay-Z-Boy. Super comfy. It was pretty handy to be working at the hospital and to go visit him afterwards.

I started Thanksgiving with a late morning watching cartoons, just like at Grandma's. There was a Tom and Jerry marathon going on. I worked on my knitting, I've been trying to knit myself a pair of wrist cuffs, you know, like sweater sleeves with a thumb hole. I even worked on them last weekend when Jason had paintball practice. I also got to take lots of pictures again at paintball practice because one of the paintball wives had a zoom lens and the same camera as Jason. It's lots of fun to be out on the field to take pictures and try to avoid getting shot.

I was hanging out at Shores, Carol got the smoker going and commenced to smoking 3 ducks, she also roasted a turkey. Then Jason's bathtub and toiled filled with brown water and they had to call the plumber. Whatever stopped up the drain worked itself out but Jason still had to take apart the toilet and the plumber man still stopped by and charged an arm load. Russell slept or shuffled around, he can almost get by without crutches.

I made wild rice stuffing but it turned out really bad, the rice was hardly cooked and the bread crumbs were soggy, nothing stuck together. Some people actually had seconds on it so maybe it wasn't all bad but I wasn't happy about it. I had made refrigerator pickles as well, Mom sent some lefse which I taught people how to properly eat it and a tub of pickled herring completed my attempt at making Thanksgiving feel like home. That first bite of pickled herring instantly took me to Grandma's and I was suddenly home sick. I've been away for Thanksgiving before but I was traveling, now I was actually at Thanksgiving away from my family. It's sad to be so far away but this was the perfect way to do it. There were about 15 people at dinner and I knew most of them, some really well. Carol made cranberry sauce, and guess what, succotash, as in "Suffering succotash," like Sylvester says, is an actual food. From what I saw it's a combination of different beans and some mashed potatoes. I really don't know what it is but it sure tasted good. It's probably made with bacon fat since it's a southern dish but I really didn't want to know. "Recieve all food set before you with thanksgiving", right? And I did. There is, of course, tons of left overs. One thing they had that I've never had at Thanksgiving was wine. Carol made mulled wine too. There were green beans, mashed potatoes and kale, pumpkin bread, sweet potato cobbler,. . .I can't even remember everything else. It was a great time though. The best part is that I keep forgetting that I have a 4 day weekend, I keep thinking that I have to go back to work tomorrow and I don't! YAY.

All right, well, today is Jason's birthday. I am very happy since for a little while we are a little closer in age. Kat is also 50 today and has been having a continuous birthday party all day long. We are going tonight for dinner and a concert. Should be fun. Hopefully I'll be painting more tomorrow. I've been working at it but still not getting anything I like. I was all productive yesterday, I rearranged the kitchen, utilizied some bottles, and now we have a spice drawer with well marked bottles of spices. I also finally washed up a set of plastic drawers that I got off the curb and we have newly organized paint supplies and more shelf space for books. Hey, so it's not exciting, I call it nesting. Time for dinner and dancing.