Soon

July will be upon us here soon. Time for a new set of Month-o-lutions. Anyone else want to play along?

Random Thoughts

This is just going to be a bunch of stuff swirling around in my head. Right after I poke BF, hang on…

There we go. He should achieve a functioning level in an hour or two.

This month my cats are a year old. Not knowing exactly when they were born, it’s hard to celebrate a birthday, per se, but at this point we can guarantee they’ve been alive a whole year. This is the first time in my life that I’ve actually lived with animals this long. I had two cats for a short period of time when I first got married, but it was more like having annoying house guests than lovable pets. These two are still a handful for sure, but I love them both, and I’m pretty sure they like being here too. Watching BF with them is always fun.

It’s fascinating watching the world explode. Ten years ago, the rich, hoity toity kids were the only ones with big, honking cell phones, and ‘fast’ internet was 56k through your phone line. Now almost anyone can connect with almost anyone else almost anywhere almost instantly. It’s crazy. And dangerous. The list of ways your life can be turned upside-down just by clicking around the internet grows exponentially daily. Fortunately there are things you can do to prevent it.

Use an anti-virus. An up-to-date one. Scan your computer frequently. Know what you’re downloading and why. Use Firefox, and get the Flashblock and Noscript plugins. If you do any online gaming, consider turning off the autorun on your drives. See this article as to why.

Thanks a ton to a good friend who came to hang out, and stayed to help with dishes. You’re the best, really. Plus, now the mountain in my kitchen is conquerred. The ongoing saga of housecleaning continues.

Mmm…

Just got back from a jog/walk at the park. Going as the sun goes down is awesome. Watching the sun come up as you run totally sets the mood to kick ass and take names all day, but going while the world falls asleep is incredibly relaxing. There are so many thing clamoring in my head to get done, but I think I’m going to hop in the shower and head to bed real soon.

Catching Up Slowly

As I wrote before, I’ve fallen far behind on pretty much all of the goals I set for myself this month. David, the originator of the month-o-lution idea, offered me the consolation that there was only two weeks left before I could try again. At first this idea was comforting, but something was niggling around in the back of my brain. Something could be different. Then it came to me. I didn’t have two weeks to wait for my next chance! I had two weeks to keep trying!

The daily thing still isn’t happening, yet. But that’s okay. Knowing that goal is in place is what keeps me coming back here to write at all. And the comments I get on just about every post from family and friends. Thanks guys, you all mean a lot to me.

Yesterday I took another step toward getting the house clean; the bathroom is once again spotless. I’ve made some good strides in keeping it that way over the last year. I wish I had pictures to show you what it looked like when I moved in. Creation love them, I live with bachelors. In a house with a rather… hands-off landlady. I was afraid of this bathroom. Cleaning it to the point it no longer induced shudders is one of the first things I did. Both so I could use it, and because I find cleaning very calming in times of stress.

Normally, a bathroom doesn’t take a whole lot of maintenance. Clean the toilet bowl every so often so it doesn’t grow bacteria, and wipe down all the surfaces. Sink, mirror, shower walls, toilet seat and back, floor. That’s pretty much it. Unless you live with guys. Hairy guys. Hairy guys who then de-hair themselves about every two weeks. Plenty of time to grow plenty of hair to remove. Bleah. Until recently they also both used Irish Spring soap. If anyone out there is wondering why your tub sports a glorious grey-black coat within three days of its last scrubbing, there’s your culprit.

Anyway, tonight’s goal is more laundry, and then probably one of three options: Downstairs, trash, or *shudder* dishes. If I don’t give in to the growing WoW craving first.

Sleep Schedules

Today was the second time in one week that I clocked in over 24 hours of consciousness. Last time I did about 38 hours, and today it was something like 28, 30 maybe. It’s weird, I’ve gone way past tired. I was half tempted to stay up the first time as long as I could, just to see how it would go, but when stationary pictures started moving, I figured sleep was a good idea. I meant to catch up. I meant to get back to sleeping at the times I’d like to be asleep. But life gets in the way. BF is awake from roughly three in the afternoon to eight or nine ish in the morning. I could sleep. Or I could spend time with my lover. It’s not really such a hard choice to make.

Wish Me Luck

I’m giving store-bought hair dye another try. I like a vibrant, somewhat wild color, so it’s kinda hard to go overboard. This makes it much harder to screw up. However, the last time I tried doing this over the counter, as it were, I didn’t leave it on nearly long enough, and the effect was unnoticeable in the end. I love having my hair colored, as I happen to think my natural color is a little dull. Paying between $45 and $70 to get it done professionally is a little out of my range at the moment. For four bucks, I’m willing to give this a try.

In other news, not a whole lot going on. Work is seriously pissing me off, so I’ll be looking for another job here soon. More than likely, I’ll end up graduating back into the realm of full-time work. I’m not looking forward to it, but it’ll really help get us out of the hole. Hopefully whatever job I find will still work time-wise with the shows I’ve committed to managing at The Grand this season. One, it’d be fun; two, it’d be extra money; and three, cutting out is unprofessional. I don’t do much theatre these days, but I have a small but positive reputation I’d like to maintain. We’ll see how it goes.

Birthday wish: Rock Band for our 360. XBox Live points for buying extra songs for aforementioned Rock Band.

Now to rinse out my hair. Wish me luck!

I know

I know. I said I’d blog every day. I’m lame.

GIMP

I downloaded a free program called GIMP. It’s image editing software similar to Photoshop, just without the price tag. I found a nifty tutorial for doing shadows and highlighting, and I thought I’d give it a try. Here without further ado, are the results.

This is what it looked like with just the line art (which I didn’t do) and the color fills. Kinda like what you’d see in a typical coloring book.

This is the finished product. I really like the way her face turned out. Especially the shadow from her hair. I think it’s a good start. I need to learn a lot about shading, but I had a ton of fun just trying it out. The best part of the program is the ability to turn on and off certain layers.

This is the finished picture with the flat colors turned off. This is the background, the line art, and the highlights and shadows. I think it looks pretty cool.

This is the finished picture with the line art turned off. Funny what the lines hide yeah?

Random

Thought you all might get a kick out of this. It’s so true.

Get Your Sexy Name

Monday June 2

Just got back from a jog. It’s now 8:00, so I went pretty late, but at least I went today. Did some work on my cross-stitch. I’m going to go take a shower and do some laundry. Work on getting some of the house clean while BF’s up. He goes back to his night schedule this week, so he’ll be staying up late.