Scribble Nation

Back to Business

Ahh... now that things are started to go back to normal here at the new Casa de McBobleo I have actually been getting some crafting done. The Tea Towel Swap on Craftster has reached its final round - I sent out my last towel yesterday and also received mine! This has been a great swap. Every person in our group was an excellent craftsman, and the creativity of everyone was really astounding. I am so happy that I joined in this swap. If there is another after the holiday season I may go for another. If you have a moment you should really check out the gallery. Here's a neat tip for power viewing - click the "show images only" tab to skip all of our chatter and make the browsing go a little faster.

Fenifer's completed towel.

My addition.

My finished towel! Hoorah! Remeber when it was a mere blank canvas?

And here is a close up of what BlueSparkie did. What a great bouquet!

While I was getting needle happy I whipped up this little onesie for my little buddy Gia. It is actually more of a bribe to get her mom to bring her over for dinner sometime soon. Siberia is lonely!

Originally that purple circle was going to be a moon in a Halloween scene. But Michelle, my voice of reason, pointed out that getting this to Gia by Halloween was quite unlikely. Plus, if it didn't fit her it would just go to waste. So the moon became a flower.

I love appliqué.

I have also been trying my hand at painting again. I really want to start doing series of works (what's the plural for series?) instead of random paintings here and there. I'm hoping it will prod my creativity as well as give me an opportunity to create at least one really great piece in every series. That's another thing I'm starting to realize in my old age - not every piece is going to be a masterpiece. Even masters have piles of work that never make it off of the cutting floor. The key is to just keep making it anyway. It's worth making 99 mediocre works of art if even one turns out to be something special. Just remind me that when I'm ready to stab my brush through a canvas.

Anyway I've been waiting around for something to inspire a series of paintings. Waiting, waiting, waiting, when all of the sudden it struck me while watching The Next Great American Band. (hack btw. Although an addictive hack. I think it's between Franklin Bridge and Sixwire, not that I CARE or anything. hack. ahem.) A fellow from The Old Number 7, a bluegrass group, was wearing a tee shirt with a sacred flaming heart. I fell in love and immediately began sketching out ideas. I have about 6-10 paintings planned and two already started. Here are the two that have already been started in progress:

This one is kind of a neopolitan. I originally envisioned a swirled candy heart with layers of frosting flaming from the top - but I don't know if I can do that. LOL. We'll see. It may happen yet, if I can master the fluffiness of frosting or the glossiness of chocolate swirls... For now this neopolitan heart has gone tattoo.

I was really pleased with the skyscape in this piece, but the success of this will depend on my ability to create the shockingly vivid flames that need to spout from the top. I have a plan - wish me luck.

Charter Has One Hour to Get Here

before I cancel our service forever.

Please excuse this venting rant on the evils of independent cable install contractors.

Man!! We had cable and internet scheduled for install, the never show. Reschedule for the following week. Cable goes in, half the channels don't work... Phone is scheduled following week. Noone shows up. Rescheduled for NEXT week. Cable repair man scheduled for fixing the cable today... between 1 and 5... It is 4:00 and I swear to the big G I'll do it. Bobleo and I have lived happily TV free before. I won't mind going back one bit. Just need to find the cheapest phone and internet alternative...

P.S. Bastards!!!

My Dog Sleeps Around

Here she is this morning in bed with the Bobleo.

Gracie you hussy! That is a married man! (Well, bank account married anyway, that's pretty serious! And it's all I've got, so...)

And here she is later, in bed with this little orange fellow, Mr. Klaus. Note the guilty looks in each shot. She knows she has been caught in the act!

Scandalous.

News From Siberia

My bff, Melissa, has renamed Woodbury on account of how far it is from her house. LOL.

So I tried to have a tag sale to get rid if all the leftover crap from our house on Sunday. Turns out people don't care much for Sunday tag sales, so by 4:00 it turned into a Sunday Free Stuff in the Yard Extraveganza! That took care of most of it. The rest went into the el dumpsterino and viola! We are rid of the old crappy Newtown house forever!!

Oh wait...  they still have to give us our security deposit. They are trying to mess with us, I think. Has anyone ever heard of anything like this? They said they have to talk to their lawyer and find out whether they can write the check out to me SINCE the deposit check was written by our old room mate who moved out (moved out three or four years ago, that is). I was on the original lease, and every lease drawn up since the original. I smell something fishy hear. We are trying to get our lawyer to look into it. (Of course, our lawyer is a friend who naturally takes his time since we aren't paying him.) At least we can ask him to write a letter on lawyer letterhead asking for them to return the deposit.

That's the last time I rent a house from anyone over one hundred years old who drives a school bus covered in American flags and owns a garbage company! Not to name names or anything...

Eye yi yi.

In other news we have sold one car, bought another and are working on doing that exact dance once more to switch the gas guzzling monster truck for a cute Honda... If all goes well I will soon be the proud owner of a car that was built in THIS DECADE!! Wooo woo!!

Also, the decoration of the new digs is moving along nicely. We'll be hitting up Ikea sometime soon for a new bed, new coffee and side tables and maybe even some charming accessories. Will post pics as soon as it is all in order. :)

Gee Oh Gia!!

My BFF Melissa, came by to pick up our old dryer the other day. I couldn't resist snapping a few pics of my favorite cabbage patch kid, Gia! As with most babies, these pictures don't really do her justice. She is SO cute when she smiles and she is very expressive. We're all crossing our fingers that she'll keep those beautiful blue eyes. Gia's uncle (who recently passed away) is the only person  in the family with blue eyes.

Here is little Gia sleeping in her car seat. I was going sans flash so its a little blurry.

Now she is awake!! She is so tiny!!

She seriously looks like she belongs in a cabbage patch, don't you think? I love!!

Honey Says Me Granola

OK, I lied. I couldn't keep away from this blog for a whole week! I didn't even make it a whole day! I have another post to make after this one. I need to show off my sweet little buddy, Gia! After that though... ZIP. Nada. Zilch. No more talky talky. (We'll see) ANYWAY

My favorite breakfast lately has been strawberry yogurt topped with granola. Delicious! The only problem is that packaged granola is very expensive. To make matters worse, there is a certain man in the household who can plow through a box of granola in record time, making this very expensive grocery item disappear fast! Lucky for my pocketbook that I can be a very industrious woman when it comes to saving some dime. I found some simple granola recipes and after a few batches I perfected this all-around delicious blend of oats, honey and sesame. Dried fruit would be a great addition to this recipe. Just toss in 1/4 cup of your favorite dried fruit along with the oats and seeds. It is so easy to prepare that I cannot imagine ever going back to buying pre-made. The only problem now is that Mr. S. Bobleo seems to think he has his own personal granola factory. He likes this granola more than the store bought!

Honey Says Me Granola

Ingredients
4 cups Rolled Oats or Plain Oatmeal
1/2 cup Sunflower Seeds
1/4 cup Sesame Seeds
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1/8 cup Olive Oil
1/8 cup Vegetable Oil
1 tablespoon Sesame Oil (the stinky Chinese kind)
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
3/8 cup Honey
1/4 cup Maple Syrup

Instructions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, stir together dry ingredients. In a second, smaller bowl, stir together wet ingredients. Mix them well, then pour the mixture over the dry ingredients. Mix the granola very well so that all the oats are coated. Spread the mixture evenly over a baking sheet. Bake for ten minutes. Remove from oven and flip the granola over using a spatula. Bake for another ten minutes or until golden brown. Let the granola cool completely before bagging it up. It will get crunchier, the cooler it becomes.

PS - Our friend, Mr. Sharp was making fun of me (while stuffing his mouth with delicious homemade granola) that I've gone past hippie status. "Even hippies buy granola", he said. Apparently I've gone past granola by making granola? Does that make me like... Wheatgerm?

Mooooooooving

We're on our way! Just letting you know there is a reason for the recent silence. We are in the midst of moving to a new place, one pickup truckload at a time. We spent half the day today digging through piles of mildewed crap that has been in the basement for the past five years (shudder). Room mates come and go but garbage is forever.
Our landlord got a but snippy after we dumped the fifth truckload of crap into the dumpster. Woops, was that too much? Well he should just be happy we're not leaving it all in the basement. I think the money he saved on not repairing the house for the past five years should buy us some extra room in his dumpsters, don't ya think?
So anyway, we should be settled in by Monday next week, in which time all will return to normal. I shouldn't be offline for more than a day, but I won't have time to blog.  Just think, the next time you hear from me it will be from a new, hopefully garbage and lead paint free location. Woot! Woot! Sweet freedom!

Monster Squad

We recently got a hold of this movie - apparently it was never available on DVD until a short while ago. This was a matter of much dismay among S.Bobleo's family. He's been going on about Monster Squad for years, talking about how it was the greatest movie ever made, etc etc. Well he was right. I finally watched it and it is friggin' awesome.

Speaking of monsters. I've been working on a line of pictures that are pretty monstrous.

Witness Strangula!! Happy boa and unhappy death hug victim. Spooooooky.

Check this little chickadee - half chick, have lizard, all business.

And here is my squid/fish/monster thing. I like him best :)

The last two aren't finished yet, they'll need some color and some touch ups, but so far pretty scary, ay? Boogity boogity boogity.

U is for Unconditional Love

Last night:

Scott: My feet are really thick, don't you think?
Mary: Yup. You got that right.
Scott: Do you think they're too thick? Like they're freakishly thick?
Mary: Yeah, it's like someone took a normal sized foot and then squished it down.
Scott: Wha?!!
Mary: Condensed foot.
Scott: Mah! Fah! Gah! I can't believe you! Are you serious?
Mary: Yeah, it's like what they used to do to ancient Chinese women.
Scott: ...grumble grumble ...
Mary: Foot binding!
Scott: I hate you.
Mary: HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH MWA!!A! AHHAHAHAHAHH

Being in love means being brutally honest, right? Or at least exaggerating your partners short comings for laughs.

Tea Towels Continue!

This week I was stitching IamSusie's towel. It is coming up on her 40th birthday so I added this little guy holding a present and dreaming of a party! I hope she likes it!

Here he is next to the duck Susie stitched. Now they can have a party!