The School Updatage

Alright, I am back from my honey moon, have a new layout, and ready to blog!

Today I would like to talk about my job as an elementary art teacher.

I finished all the grading and cleaning out of my classroom with plenty of time to spare. I worked on everything on and off all the last week of school and by Friday (the day after the kid's last day) I was able to come in the morning and completely check out for the school year. I had a meeting at 9 am with my arts boss and the rest of the arts peoples so after I was done at school I hopped off to my meeting.

Not a good meeting.

I'll spare you the details but essentially here is what is happening to me next year, because they screwed up. (I'm being nice when I say it that way, btw.) I will be working four days a week teaching elementary art for 50 minute class periods (oy, kindergarten...I'm still trying to figure that one out) and then on the fifth day I will be subbing.

SUBSTITUTE TEACHING.

I think I'll let everyone draw their own conclusions on how I feel about this, because I do like my job and would like to keep teaching.

I dragged most of my own belongings out of the classroom and brought them home so I could sort and organize throughout the summer. It's a bunch of stuff and I really just threw it in boxes, I need to go through it more. I did try to sort as I packed but by the end I was just throwing things into boxes.

I will say on the bright side I do get to stay at the school I've been at, so yay for that. My principal is still my principal and my good friend Amanda is still there as well. (she teaches choir, goooo arts!)

So the only things left is too sort some stuff, call about adding the hubby to my insurance to see how much that costs (he is currently freelancing, employed freelancing tho...it's not code for unemployed), and then change my name over once I put all the official paperwork in.

So hooray for a new post, yes?

The Alchemist; an Illustration

The Alchemist by ~SyntheticPlatypus on deviantART

Next in my grab bag series. This was "Create an Illustration" which led me to discover the difference between illustrations and regular old drawings. Yes, I never knew this even with going to art college. It was never a vocab term!

Illustrations tell a story for those of you who don't know.

So, I just read The Alchemist last month and was very inspired by the story. So I was thinking of how I could illustrate it to show different bits of the story line ad kept thinking how epic it got near the end and decided it felt like Indiana Jones.

So basically I took the poster from "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" and tweaked it to fit my illustration.

Now my usual kinds of drawing (before synthetic platypus) was to draw one person (usually a girl) and that was it. Drawing an almost movie poster with multiple people, animals and a background? Nearly impossible. It took just about the whole month this time working on it.

You might say though, wait this is not taking you out of your comfort zone at all except for layout. t is actually. I tweaked with my brush settings a bunch and I inked it differently. The next time I work on something on the computer I am going to be doing a different kind of shading. It's a one step at time kind of thing.

I am very pleased with how this turned out on the whole and am glad I got it done within the month. On to the next!

Lack of Postage

Not the Mail Kind Either.

Sorry for the lull in posting. I have a few posts planned out (salads, grossness at school, some new art is almost finished as well, plus the update for my employment next year) but the end of the school year is catching up with me and there is packing up the classroom and grading 850 children.

11 classes down. Too many still to go.

Had and have some dental appointments, one normal cleaning and the start of getting this stuff put on my back teeth (sealant, I believe) in order to prevent cavities. Which is good because my work is cutting my dental insurance.

Plus the in-law family came over as well.

Then I got sick, which I am still suffering some after affects of that. Blech.

Real post soon, I promise. Posts everywhere really, I'm falling behind on my dA account and facebook stuff, plus I've been canceling my Geek Girl Stuff (oh and a post of my hike with them!) so busy. I can't wait for vacation to come. 2 months of nothing!

Dad Ramblings

I know it was Mother's Day yesterday but I texted my dad and it was too hilarious to not share.

So yesterday, I made a clothes line hanging under my back porch roof. Now you ask, "Why on earth would you do that?" Well, because I live in Arizona and it's 97 outside and I am inside using a clothes dryer that doesn't work very well. I was sick of it.

So I made the clothes lines, and took a picture and sent it to my dad. I do these things because I like them to know what is up in my life.

Now mind you my dad is originally from Kentucky, and here is his reply:

"Congrats you are an honorary hillbilly"

to which I say:

"Oh hush. I'm 'green' for the environment."

Dad says:

"Yeah, hillbillies were ahead of their time."

...

LOVE IT.

Weight Loss and Exercise

So I don't believe I've made it a secret that I've been on the quest to build myself a better body. I'm still doing that, it's been about a year since I started and I spent most of this school year maintaining what I lost over the summer.

Maintaining is just as hard as losing if not harder. I'm not even down all the way yet! I can't imagine what it will be like when I do lose everything.

So I've decided to step it up a notch this month, the last month of school, and try to kick-start the weight loss again. I lost about 2 lbs last month and I figured if I can lose even just 3 more I'll be rocking it out.

It's not even the weight I'm concerned about with anymore, but when lbs melt they show off the smexy muscles I've been building.

And they are there, oh yes, they are. I was putting on the pjs last night when I caught a glance at my stomach. My eyes bulged out of my head. I HAVE HIPBONES. There is not any padding whatsoever between my hip bones and skin except the normal things. From what I've read this is a precurser to ABS. I never even dreamed.

It's with good cause I never dreamed. I was on my way to sever obesity. Especially when I moved down to AZ. I was in a not good living situation having a very rough first teaching year. My solace was coldstone creamery and cheese. Plus whatever else I could scrounge up at school and there was always something.

I ballooned. I got a wii fit for christmas (not a hint, I wanted one) and I nearly choked when I got on it the first time. I worked with it and lost 10 lbs but I was still way over weight. Then I moved which actually caused me to lose more weight accidentally because I was carrying heavy boxes up 4 flights of stairs for a week making six or seven trips up and down them each day.

Then I met Evan and I make his allergies no secret that my new diet sped up my weight loss. That and he was a gym rat and part of our courtship involved going to the gym after work.

So fast forward to now. I did some math the other day because I have weight and measurments I have kept track of for years. From my heaviest I'm 28.6 lbs lighter. Then from when I lost my 10 lbs (I wouldn't even measure myself at my heaviest waaaay too depressing) If you take all my measurements (bust, waist, hips, glutes, thighs, arms) I have lost 21 inches off of my body. I am quite literally a smaller person. I take up 21 inches less of space!

But my quest is far from over. Slowly my weight is changing and my measurements are slightly moving around. In good ways. Things are reapportioning themselves around my body and I got about 10 more lbs to go until I hit my goal or 15 if I want to hit my uber goal. But I'm not too concerned with the uber goal because if I feel as happy as now in 10 lbs I think I'll just stay there.

Weight wise now though I am back to being a junior in high school. In 10 more lbs I'll be a freshman again. Which that's fun to think about in that way too.

I feel like I'm rambling now. I'm just way excited and I am going to lose my weight and I will be the best that I can be.

Are you proud of your cart?

I must admit something.

I am a bit of a voyeur. Not the pervy kind but the kind that likes to people watch in public. The kind that likes to look at what you eat and what you buy and how your clothing looks.

It's how I learn. How I have always learned really. Do what the seemingly successful people are doing and don't do what the rest are doing.

Well, I am sad to admit that I have become a bit of a Walmart shopper on a regular basis. It's out of budgeting and necessity! I swear. I didn't use to shop there because they didn't have anything Evan could eat but as the world becomes more health conscious the more food Evan can actually eat.

So we shop very carefully and buy things we actually have on the list. Lots of fresh fruits and veggies (I'm amazed at Walmart's veggies, honestly, super cheap super fresh and it's not all pre-packaged you can buy it by the pound) and non-processed foods. We like to cook and shopping helps that...we don't shop to not cook.

By the end of our shopping experience we have a cart full of veggies, fruits, 100% juices, water, and a bevy of other ingredients that are healthful. I love our cart. Evan and I always look at are cart and say what a good job we did and how awesome our cart is (we truly do this and congratulate each other on such a nice cart...I never said I wasn't an absolute dork). Then if we found something we wanted that we couldn't get at Walmart we head to Whole Foods.

So now we get to the other carts in the store. Now I know Walmart on the whole is not the best example of where you can buy the best food. But I swear to you looking at the other carts out there. These people have NO CLUE. Frozen pizzas, two liters of pop, gallons of ice cream, and boxes upon boxes of macaroni and cheese.

It's enough to make one a bit sick, really.

So it makes me ask these couple questions.

Are you proud of your cart?

and...

Would you show your mother your cart?

The Girls with Glasses

Never have I felt a silly song speak to me so much. I will so watch this when they start doing this show.

All the girls say it with me now..."I AM a GIRL and I WILL CAPTURE the WORLD!"

I Am A Girl - The Girls With Glasses Theme Song from The Girls With Glasses on Vimeo.

Design a Building

House by ~SyntheticPlatypus on deviantART

Design a Building.

Dear god do I hate 2-pt perspective. I never really realized it until I had to do this card for my "Creative Grab Bag" series. But oh. my. goodness. I will never be an architect.

It all started innocent enough. I had a hard time coming up with an idea at first. But then I came up with this:

What happens if I took a traditional (and old) Arizonan house updated it to modern times and stuck it in the mid-west using materials commonly found there instead of AZ?

So yay, I had my idea. Then I say, "now why don't I do this traditionally? No computer for me! I don't want to do everything computer or traditional, I want to experiment with both!"

I am not a smart person sometimes.

So, I get the big bristol board paper out, the 11" x 17" and my ruler. I pencil it all in and ink it. Took days. Then I decide to watercolor it. That is when I messed up.

That's right folks, messed it up BEYOND REPAIR. Traditional work. No ctrl-z or apple-z to undo.

In my white hot rage I recall ripping it in half. After the dearest hubby calms me down a bit I settle and begin again. Same way, changing up the design a bit, and correcting mistakes I noticed on the first one.

Penciled it. Inked it. Decided to do graphic markers in all grey-scale.

This has turned out much better.

Evan had suggested I just call this one a failed creative experience and get a new card. But I said no, because I am determined to have a whole series of artworks from this. I got back on my horse after my hissy fit and began again.

I have a feeling this may happen again.

Variety

Well I have several things to blog about so I thought I would just hit them all at once.

Went outside today to the backyard and went to check on my plants. My peppers are doing awesome, I have about 4 growing and on of them turned red! My tomato plant is iffy. Some of its leaves were crisp (I watered it) but there was a good size tomato (still green) growing. We'll see. The lemon tree is good. I believe the little nubbins I am seeing are actually tiny itty bitty lemons. Yay! The kumquat tree is all green with nothing else but it seems okay. The orange tree...WAS doing good. My dearest puppy Gala thought that the lower four branches were apparently a SNACK. Hopefully it will recover.

Speaking of the pup, she has had some MAJOR shedding issues. So the brushing and the washing have not been working. She isn't allowed on the couch anymore it's so bad. So, I've been keeping an eye on Girlpirate's LiveJournal because her kitty has had some bad shedding too. People suggested to her the FURminator and she went and used it and posted pics of the outcome. That was good enough for me. I went out and bought one and gave her a bath and began brushing her. 0_o I had enough extra fur for a whole other Gala. I've been brushing her off and on throughout the evening as well and got another baseball sized tuft off her. This thing is my new best friend.

So, I ended up canceling all of my plans today. I woke up with a massive headache and sneezing fits so I wanted to relax today.

Yeah right.

So Evan said that this would probably be the last halfway decent weekend to do anything in our attic for the insulation. Let me tell you all, we got SCREWED on the inspection of our home. 100% so if any of you are buying a home get a friend who knows what they are doing for another inspection. The guy said we had 8 inches of insulation in our attic and we had about 3 inches in some places and none in others. Oy. So we went to Home Depot and got 20 bags of insulation (recycled! it's actually awesome) and rented the blower machine. Once we figured out how to work the damn thing we went through the bags quite quickly and Evan was up in the attic and put it all over the place. We are going to get about 17 more bags tomorrow morning and finish up before 1:30 to return the machine. We figure we'll do this once a year until we gt the recommended R-60 with all of this we are probably going to be at about R-19. Which is way better than the NOTHING we had.

All this week as preparation for our talent show at school. Last week we had the auditions and then this past Thursday was the dress rehearsal and Friday was the show. We were running around all ragged trying to get everything done last minute (next time, 2 weeks in between tryouts and show!) The show went great. We had one kid choke on his song (but we had sheet music so he had words to look at, at least!) and all the kids showed up. At the end of the show a parent came up to me and said that this was the most talented show she had seen and the most organized. I laughed when she said that and replied "I'm glad it SEEMED organized." Because wowza, we were literally getting stuff ready at the last minute. It went great though and I'm proud of the kids.

Started the picture for my next Creative Grab Bag project, it's almost done with the drawing bit, but then I'm going to ink it. I showed it to Evan and he said I should paint it to color it in. Uuuugh. I hate to admit it, but a water color wash would look fantastic. I'll probably finish all the drawing bits tomorrow. I need to check out to make sure I have water proof pens, I may need to hit the store.

I think this is it for tonight. Just lots of little things today!

Nerd Out

So I had a bit of fun today.

I out nerded a dude that works in a comic book store.

:D BWAAAAA

Yeah so I was perusing in the store and I found two new Neil Gaiman books (children's ones, not even a comic) and one was on a really tall shelf so I had this guy get it down for me. He ended up checking me out at the counter. (not checking me out per se...even though he could have been)

So he told me he was always meaning to read the Sandman series the Gaiman wrote years back and he asked where would be a good place to start with the Gaiman world. I told him that you can't go wrong with Sandman as these themes throughout a lot of his books.

He then asked me if I knew that he had just written a Batman book and I said yes, I know "Whatever happened to the Caped Crusader?" which I own and was fantastic. H told me cool and he asked if I knew about the artist who did the covers to the Sandman series, and I said sure, Dave McKean. Did I know about Arkham Asylum that he did? Oh yes, I say, and I own that as well.

I then told him I owned all of the Sandman, several novels, a few movies based on those, his children's books, an autobiography, and the biography about Douglas Adams he wrote.

The guy behind the counter seemed pretty put out that he couldn't turn me on into any new Gaiman material.

I thought it was hilarious.