Magical Creatures

There be fairies and dragons in these parts.

Fuzzy Zzz's

Canyon's pink little nose in macro. He was snoozing in my arms and I snagged my camera. Little boy is such a limp little ragdoll when he sleeps.

Aching Pencils

Okay, I'll admit it. I draw. Sometimes. I even get get out the occasional thing that isn't that hard on the eyes too. Hence the dA account and all that. However, I haven't worked on anything for quite some time, and the time before those scribblings, quite a spans had passed again. Sad really, as I love drawing, but it seems I have been in an artistic and creative funk for some time now. Years.

It feels as if I have lost an important and sweet dream that flitted off on the wisps of dawn. I'll remember snippets, a blurry frame of phantasm, and those spur me to some sort of industry, such as a single drawing, or a new medium and project such as silk flower fairies or bead decorated keys. It never stays long though, just enough for me to taste the sweet nectar of muse and inspiration before snatching back the cup and fading again into obscurity.

I'm in the midst of another such sweet sip.

Films by Studio Ghibli never fail to urge inspiration within me. Baby Water Dragon has most of the released collection, and we both avidly watch these moving canvases of chimerical fantasy beautifully back dropped by charming melodies. Being the escapist that I am, I tend to wrap myself in the silken threads woven by these inspired storytellers, transporting myself to realms beyond realms. They fill me with such imagery, feelings, desires, and inspirations, at times I feel as if I will simply burst if I am unable to express it in some manner.

However, at this, I usually fail. I usually fail to do anything other than dream, and when I do attempt something, my artistic and writing skills are so atrophied that I utterly fail.

I do not, this time, intend on allowing myself the bitterness of self disappointment. I want to press forward, become more than I am, take a step towards what I see. I look at such artists as the one below and yearn for a fraction of that talent. I know I have it, I just need to tend to it and allow it to blossom. I will never be great, but I know that perhaps I can create something I can be proud of.

This picture has many flaws, but they have a depth of talent I currently lack, something I desperately hope to fix. One step at a time, each one forward.
I have a few different ideas on what I can do to help force myself out of this extremely deep rut. Best one I have is to just put on some music and force something onto the paper until it starts to come smoothly again. It might take a while, and a lot of wasted paper or time, but I never do anything well unless I just jump right into the deep end of the pool.

Old Skool

I make it to Boulder every now and that for various reasons. This time, I just happened to have my camera with me. I found something truly picture worthy outside a cluster of buildings at CSU, just across the way from their law building.

I hope you can see why this picture is just so awesome. *This* might help you know why it's so awesome.

I Want Mai Cheezburgr Nao

Over the weekend, various things tend to happen. Fark will have it's various amusing postings, like the Friday Mugshot Roundup, posted from The Smoking Gun, and then at least one article and thread dedicated to Caturday. Also, my cherished webcomics take the weekend off and I am left edgy for my next one panel giggle or sitting on the edge of my seat in anticipation of what X is going to say to Y and how Z is going to take it.

Yes yes, I know I have no life.

Well, this Saturday, I once again decided to throw my hat, and kitties, into the Caturday thread on Fark. I'm not very good with captions, especially humorous ones, so I decided to let the general Fark freaks have at.


One of our little ones decided that it was cool to play in the collection of grocery bags. We collect them because we reuse them. As you can see, he and his sister are already scattering them. I dunno why cats like to play in plastic bags. Maybe they have some weird asphyxiation fetish.
Anywho, that is the photo I offered up to the masses and this is what they did with it.

I think I got a pretty decent result. It made me giggle and my hubby laugh. It made me decide to try my own hand at it.

Not the best giggle inducer out there, but not bad for my second shot at it. Hopefully I'll be able to pull off some better giggles as I practice more.

Shutterbug In Blue

I'm a regular visitor to Fark. In fact, I waste an awful lot of time on that site. For the uninitiated, it's a non-news site. News of the weird, asinine, and actual info gets posted there, as do photoshop contests, caption contests, and photo contests. Lots of various contests. Not the norm, mind you, but lots of stuff there for everyone.

And definitely not for those of weak constitution.

I decided to throw my hat into the ring on the latest photography contest. The theme was Blue, the difficulty in it being no sky. I immediately thought of some of the pictures I had taken when a gaggle of us had gone to see Blaqk Audio when they graced Denver with their musical genius. No, I cannot say enough good about Davey Havok and Jade Puget's little side project.

This is Davey and Jade as Blaqk Audio. No, I did not take this one. They had a professional do this. Sadly blogger likes to shrink pictures. Both of them are deliciously pretty.

This picture is one of the ones I submitted for the photography contest. Davey singing against a back light of blue. However, the lens glare and all that created a pretty cool effect. He was awesome.

This was the other photo I submitted to the contest. I was right up against the stage. I took this while we listened to the opening act, some hack techno wannabe, and we were all trying to kill some time. This was a tape line on the stage. I thought it would take a cool picture.

I'll make a post about the concert sometime later, and include some more pictures. What got me so excited about this contest is that people actually voted for my entries. No, I came no where close to winning. It's just cool that someone else liked my snappings.

It gives me warm fuzzies that croon Davey's lyrics at me.

Down Came The Rain

The hurricane that has graced Texas and Mexico has brought is some wonderful rain showers. It has cooled things significantly this afternoon, and it's luscious. I've had the door and windows open to take advantage of the electricity-free cooling.

While peeking outside, baby water dragon and I saw this little guy struggling desperately to create his own little home on the railing.

As you can see, his web is a bit rain and wind damaged. Quite determined for a little guy, he's no bigger than the top of a pencil including his legs, he kept trying to repair the threads as more kept breaking.
Spiders, as much as I despise them in my house, are quite amazing creatures.

The Big Bad Manager

So, I have had this utterly ridiculous idea of trying to post a blog every week day. It’s sort of like watching a canoe go out into a lake with a couple small holes in the bottom of the hull; you want to see how for it gets before it sinks entirely.

I thought I’d try talking about whatever comes to mind, and if nothing else, log the day before. I’m certain this will make good bedtime reading at some point with it’s snore inducing excitement, but it’s worth a try.

My husband’s work has been depriving me of his company for an extra hour and a half nearly every day. He works for a web security company (they make anti-viral/anti-spy ware) and unfortunately they have been gathering large corporate minded people into management. It’s not a massive company yet, and they are losing sight of the individual workers there, turning his job into mindless drone work. They also refuse to hire more people to cover all the support calls that come in. Hence he regularly works late (I’ve called him and heard some of conversations in the background, some of the people he has to help aren’t so bright).

It’s quite frustrating. I do actually like my husband, even when he frustrates me to no end, and I do like his company. We occasionally even do things together in the evening, but this is squelched at times because of his exhaustion when he finally crawls home. It will be nice when this is no longer the norm. Evil corporate money grubbers.

I hope their lawns die off and they get ingrown toenails.

Frustration And Annoyance

I very nearly had a post finished. I had two more things to add and a couple lines to write, and then fin!

Alas, a mis-click, and it was all wiped out, water over a sidewalk chalk sketch.

Please excuse me whilst I go curse before attempting the post again.

Three rights, then your first left, and the third padded room on the right

*EDIT* HUZZA to the Blogger.com for having autosave! Huzza to the code monkeys who the webmasters enslave! Aka. As per previous post, I thought this was long gone and I was going to have to start from scratch.

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I was thinking that perhaps a blog would assist me in my creative writing malaise. I have been having a horrendous time of trying to get some of the creative spiders out of my brain and into type of some form. Tricksy things, those spiders.

Unicorns don't poop rainbows. They poop rainbow colored creative spiders.

And this all says nothing of the drought my artsy leanings have suffered. I can't recall the last time I drew or sculpted something. Really I should just start doing something, no matter how aesthetically offensive the outcome, until something marvellous happens. Well, mayhap not marvellous. I'll settle for mildly interesting. We shall have to see what happens.

Moving onwards with the speed of molasses in January.

The household has aquired, as of a month and a half ago, two more cats. They have been dubbed Mittens by the resident patriarch. I think he aquired the idea of the story of naughty kittens and their lost mittens. Individually, they are Canyon, a slightly dusty, long-haired ginger tabby, and his sibling, a slightly patchy, long-haired tortie.

We had requested the two most aggressive/dominate kittens of the litters, and these are the two that were recomended. We reasoned that perhaps they would need to be able to stand up for themselves against the two younger tomcats in the house (dubbed The Boys, individually Copper and Voodoo). Little did we know that our fears of pained baby mews and flying fur were utterly unfounded.

Here we see Voodoo chillin' with the Mittens.

The hideous white thing is an upended sofa that we have not had the gumption to pack downstairs to the dumpster. It is serving as a temporary kitty tree.

We have further immasculated Copper by adding Mamma to the beginning of his name. He has earned this by his near motherly care of the mittens, insisting on cleaning them and snuggling with them when he deems fit, which is rather often.

Apparently it was Canyons turn.

Naturally our two oldest cats, Hydra and Castle, do what we always expect them to, hold undying disdain for any newcomers to the household. It will be picture time for them later at some point.

Well, that shall be it for the moment. I need to light a fire underneath my chair so I may have motivation to lurk my writing haunts. Really, there is some good stuff there that is begging for attention.