| A Few Things... |
[Jul. 14th, 2009|03:04 am] |
...since I haven't blogged in a while: The 4th of July was good - we just headed over to Jenny's folks' place and relaxed and had lots of barbeque. Jenny also went to a beading exhibit at the fairgrounds with her mom, and picked up a bunch of cool stuff she can use in her jewelry making. We didn't stick around for the fireworks spectacular, since we got stuck in the traffic trying to get out of CdA last year and didn't want a repeat experience. Instead we got out early and still heard plenty of illegal fireworks going off around here. It's cooled off a bit over the past few days, and even rained some. We were over in CdA on Sunday and got to see an awesome lightning storm, but all we got here was a tiny bit of thunder off in the distance. There's still some cold/flu type bug going around, and we think Jenny brought it home from work and gave it to me. I'm sure it's nothing major, but it's still annoying. The heat saps enough energy from me as it is, and this certainly doesn't help. Jenny's taking the day off from work this Wednesday, as it's our 2 year wedding anniversary. We don't have anything big planned, although we're thinking of walking around downtown and going to Riverfront Park. The new Harry Potter film also comes out that day, so we'll be seeing that if nothing else. :) I've been attempting to write more than draw lately, as I want to get to work on these 2 different comic ideas I've got and figure it'd help to actually have a story to draw before I dive in. For the past couple of weeks I have been doing daily sketches of The Avengers and posting them on my deviantArt page. I started with Ant-Man and am working my way through the alphabet, drawing one character per letter. Here's the first 9, and the rest can be seen here: http://piotrov.deviantart.com  |
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| Christmas Sketch Cards, etc. |
[Jan. 3rd, 2009|01:26 am] |
I always enjoy Christmas more when I'm actually able to give people presents.This year, due to my serious lack of cash and desire to still give something to my friends, I decided to include original sketch cards with my Christmas cards. Unfortunately I waited too long to get started, and didn't get near as many done as I'd like, but was still able to get a fair amount out (relatively) on time.
Most of these should have reached their recipients by now, so it should be safe to post them. One card needs to get re-sent due to an address error, and one didn't get sent out till after Christmas. Hopefully I'll be a little more organized next year and get more done, and out in the mail earlier.
This was my first time doing more than a couple of sketch cards at a time, and I think it was a good learning experience for me. Some cards definitely came out better than others, but overall I'm pretty happy with them. I also got an opportunity to draw some subjects I probably wouldn't normally draw, and that's always good.
Each card is 2.5" x 3.5", and all art was done with markers, colored pencils and water color.
( Cards are behind the cut )
The apartment is now in it's Christmas Clutter stage - decorations need to come down and be re-boxed and the whole place needs a serious cleaning. So I guess that'll have to be done in the next few days (because if I don't do it now, who knows how long I'll wait...).
We went over to CdA today (Friday) to visit Jenny's folks. Finally watched Wall-E, which was hilarious (of course) and Wanted, which was kinda just "OK" story-wise but had some amazing effects. Will probably watch both of them again, though. |
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| New Year's Day |
[Jan. 2nd, 2009|12:29 am] |
Well, technically it's January 2nd, but my brain is telling me it's still Thursday since I'm still awake, so that's good enough for me.
Hope everybody had a safe and happy New Years. Ours was low-key but fun - Lincoln and Tigger came over after she got off work and hung out for a while. Nothing too exciting, just a bit of drinking and good conversation while watching the festivities on TV. Jenny and I got to bed extra late (not sure when they left), and woke up equivilently late this morning - today was mostly just lounging around, watching movies together and playing Scrabble.
We've got all sorts of plans, goals and ideas for 2009. We're still working out the specifics, so no point in boring everybody with a giant list now - I'd rather do that at the end of the year with a (hopefully) big list of accomplishments.... :)
Oh, and we did get our web-cam/mic set up, and are signed up on Skype now. Anyone who might already be on there, let us know and we'll add you. Or just search for either mine or Jenny's name - it's pretty easy to find us. |
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| Happy Post-Christmas |
[Dec. 28th, 2008|03:42 pm] |
Christmas was fun and relaxing, just like it should be. We went over to Jenny's parents' place around noon or so, opened presents, and then sat down for Christmas dinner - her mom cooked a pot roast. After dinner we watched The Dark Knight on her parents' big screen TV, and later we also watched Hellboy 2, which neither of us had actually got around to seeing before. Aunt Joan works at the hospital, so she was working in the morning, but she came over after dinner and opened her presents and hung out for a while.
We got a lot of really cool stuff - books and movies, puzzles and games, clothes, art and craft supplies and some gift cards and cash. Jenny even got some potting soil and new pots from our friend Tigger, which she was excited about (some of her plants really need to be re-potted, and she's been in desperate need of dirt to do so). And easily my coolest present was an actual toy that Jenny gave me - a battery powered, fully automatic, Nerf machine gun:
Tigger got Lincoln and his son each one as well, so when the snow melts and we have room to run around, we'll probably be shooting each other a lot... And after doing some looking on-line for extra parts for it, I've been introduced to the wide world of Nerf gun modification. Now I'm trying to figure out how I can customize my Nerf gun to look more like a heavy bolter from the Warhammer 40,000 miniatures game, so something like this:
We also got a web cam/mic from Jenny's dad, so we're going to go ahead and sign up for Skype in the next couple of days after we get around to getting the webcam set up. So if anyone else is on Skype and uses it, let me know so I can add you to our contacts. |
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| Happy Christmas Eve! |
[Dec. 24th, 2008|03:32 pm] |
Well, it's still snowing.... I'm beginning to see a pattern here. :)
Maintenance has begun clearing the snow off all the car ports in our apartment complex, which is definately good news. They've also finally started plowing today, although I don't think they've quite figured out where to put all the snow, so it's still a mess, what with all the plowing, shoveling and snowblowing going on. So really they're just spreading the snow around...
We signed our lease this morning, so we'll be here for another 9 months, for better or worse.
We also finally got our Christmas cards in the mail today. We probably could have got them out, oh, say a month ago if we'd gotten on the ball. That was the intention at least. But at the last minute I decided I was going to try my hand at adding some "creative personalization" to all the cards. But since I waited till the last minute to start, and really didn't know what I was doing, I got what I wanted done on less than half the cards we sent out (a lot of friends, and unfortunately no family). If I'd known how many I could get finished, I would have just sent the "standard" cards out first, but I was making this up as I went along. Our apologies for the lateness - just think of them as New Years Cards. :)
And I figure I'd wait to say what the "personalizations" were until I can be pretty sure most people have got them (y'know, just to stretch the wait out even longer). But I'd like to keep doing this, make it a tradition of sorts, and next year will be more organized (well, couldn't be much less....) and hopefully better implemented. I'll explain more later....
Jenny and I will be heading over to her parent's place tomorrow morning, and plan to spend most of the day there. Our thanks to everyone we've already recieved cards and packages from. I hope everybody has a Merry Christmas and a great time spending the holidays with family and loved ones! |
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| Sunday Sketches + Spokane Artists |
[Dec. 15th, 2008|02:13 am] |
Well, technically it's Monday morning, but I'm still awake and have just gotten around to scanning and posting this.... 
Not a lot in the ol' sketchbook this week. But I actually have been drawing other stuff - just nothing I can post right now (ooh, sneaky!). Relatively soon, though. Otherwise, when I wasn't drawing, I've been (still) jobhunting, helping my friend Tigger with her heavy lifting project, and running around attempting to Christmas shop with virtually no money. Fun. After the 24 Hour Comic Book Day event, the owner of the hosting site (Merlyns) wanted to help local artists get together on a more regular basis. So, today we had the second meeting of the new, un-named, Spokane artists group. It's mostly just a way for like-minded individuals to get together and talk about art and creating comics, although we've also got some ideas for some semi-organized things to do as a group. More will probably get done after the first of the year, when the holidays are over and the associated craziness has died down. For anyone in the area who might be interested, monthly meetings are on Sundays from 3-6 and the next scheduled meeting is January 18. For more info you can also contact Rachel through the Merlyns website or Levi Skeen. |
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| Winter Wonderland |
[Nov. 28th, 2008|03:35 pm] |
We just went for a walk around the block in the first snow-fall of the year. It's still coming down pretty hard - big fluffy flakes - and is sticking pretty good. It may still warm up and melt away quickly, but I wouldn't bet on it. I think our first snow last year was also a day or two after Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving day was nice. Nothing too exciting, just stuffed ourselves to the gills, and sat around for the rest of the day chatting and (unfortunately, but not surprisingly) watching the Seahawks lose....
Still sniffly and sneezy. We need to make a run to the store later for more cold medicines, but otherwise it will mostly be a day for resting and recuperating. |
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| Giving Thanks |
[Nov. 26th, 2008|11:09 pm] |
I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving and is able to spend the holiday with their family and loved ones. Jenny and I will be heading over to her parents' place tomorrow morning and spend most of the day there. Aunt Joan should be there, as well as her Uncle David, who's driving up from Kennewick. Should be fun, and relaxing, and filled with pie.
Even though sometimes it doesn't seem like we have much, we really do have a lot to be thankful for, especially in the current economic climate. I'm still looking for work (like a large portion of the population), but Jenny does have two very reliable jobs, one of which even provides us with benefits. We don't really have any disposable income right now, and Christmas presents may be in short supply, but atleast we can afford to pay our rent and put food on the table (and even still buy comics once in a while). And we've still got the internet and the library for free entertainment. So, we're doing OK, I guess.
I've been getting sick over the last couple of days. I think it's just your run-of-the-mill cold/flu thing (whatever's currently making the rounds), but it's still knocked me out pretty hard. Hopefully I'll shake it off relatively soon. Funny enough, I had some horrible illness last Thanksgiving as well - I remember spending most of the day passed out in a recliner at her folks' place. Must just be the season.... |
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| Post-Halloween |
[Nov. 1st, 2008|02:25 am] |
Halloween was, not surprisingly, very low-key. Tigger took Christopher and one of his friends out trick-or-treating, and when they got back we (her, Lincoln, Jenny & I) watched Dracula, since Jenny hadn't seen it yet. Ate some pizza; got some early Christmas presents (thanks, guys!); were home around mid-night. I've got plenty on my plate for November that I want to get done - some projects to get back on schedule and finish, some projects I need to get started. My NaNoWriMo novel is in there, of course - and Jenny is going to be continuing work on her NaNo novel from last year. Also need to find a job (or, y'know, rob a bank - whichever is easier). The library branch Jenny used to work for is hiring for a page again, so I'm going to try for that. It'd be part-time, and I actually know my way around that branch somewhat, from hanging out there. Plus I'd get to work with her ex-coworkers, who were all pretty cool, and maybe even work with her once in a while if she had to fill in over there. :) |
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| Happy Labor Day! |
[Sep. 2nd, 2008|01:41 am] |
I hope everybody had a great (possibly 3 day) weekend. Jenny did have the day off from work, so we headed over to her folks' place to hang out all day and catch up on all the cable TV shows they tape for us. Not terribly exciting, but we're both still kinda sick, so we just wanted to take it easy.
Speaking of TV, new shows are starting this week, with the season premieres of House tonight and Bones on Wednesday. We hadn't really been watching House this last season, but we caught the last couple of episodes and some in re-run, and I think it's back on our list for now. The premiere of Prisonbreak was on last night and I went ahead and taped it, even though we missed most of it's last season as well. I'm sure there'll be a "what you missed" style re-cap first thing, so we might as well see if we still like it...
My parents were in town last week, and we were able to go out to dinner and hang out with them for a while and get caught up. They were up in Alaska for my nephew Kevin's wedding and are now making their way back home to North Carolina, seeing family along the way.
My Aunt and Uncle should be in town this week, if their planned schedule holds up, and we'll hopefully be seeing them this Thursday. I actually haven't heard from them for a while, so I'm not entirely certain that's still correct, but I guess we'll see what happens... :) |
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| Fiesta & Fireworks |
[Jul. 10th, 2008|12:32 am] |
I hope everybody had a fun and safe 4th of July weekend! We went over to Jenny's folk's place and watched everyone in their neighborhood shoot off fireworks around their house. Fireworks are illegal in Spokane county, and while we probably would have seen some around our apartment anyway, it was far more convenient to watch them across the border. Jenny actually had the 4th off from both jobs, so that was really nice. Pretty sure she gets holiday pay at the lawfirm as well!
Saturday our friends Lucky and Erin were in town to visit, and Erin had set up a surprise Mexican themed "fiesta" birthday party for Lucky, who had turned 30 a few days previous. He kinda figured she was planning something, but he hadn't realized how many people were in on it until they all showed up. So we were back over to CdA Saturday evening for the party, which was, of course, a blast.
Tigger just got a new Prius, thanks to her parents, so she could actually afford to drive over to Seattle for the 4th to watch the fireworks and see family. And while she, Lincoln and his kids headed over there on Friday, we were checking in on her house and looking after the animals. Getting all the way up to her house on Friday night was especially annoying, as we left CdA just before midnight - apparently at the exact same time as everyone else... it was just a mess getting on the highway, and bumper to bumper pretty much into Post Falls. Luckily, Saturday night was back to normal.Sunday was spent relaxing, sleeping in and generally recovering from the rest of the weekend. Then I spent the last two days cleaning the apartment from top to bottom (and it needed it). The FJ-Cruiser went into the Toyota place for it's 15,000 mile tune-up yesterday. It was actually over 19,000 miles by the time it went in, but oh well.... Also, very happy belated birthday wishes to my nephew Kevin (Tuesday) and Akiane (Wednesday)! |
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| Happy (nearly) New Years! |
[Dec. 30th, 2007|04:01 pm] |
It's kinda hard to believe that 2007 is almost over, but here we are again, just about to start a new year. I'm not a big fan of resolutions (mainly since most end up being far too unreachable, and then you're just setting yourself up for disappointment), but I think we do have atleast one achievable goal for 2008:
Get out of this apartment and into an actual house! Our neighbors finally moved out a little while back, and now we have new neighbors who seem to be nice enough, but are just as loud. Seriously, why does everyone in this complex have to slam their door everytime they leave? Why? Our old neighbor had his parties and booming rap music - and after talking to him a few times he slowly learned to keep it under control (I think he realized he should be nicer to us after helping him get his stolen car back, but I can't be certain). The new neighbors apparently have an X-Box or something similar, and love their wargames, since right now it sounds like the building is getting shelled by mortar fire.
We're still not sure where exactly we want to live, but we want to have atleast a little bit of room around the house (like a good size yard, with some trees), and it obviously has to be larger than the apartment we're in now. We'd like to have another bedroom (to be a permanent gaming room for all of our miniature stuff), a bigger kitchen with more pantry/cupboard space and newer appliances, and more storage space in general. Oh, and definately a garage, preferably bigger than the one we have now.
Our lease is up in June, but we need to start looking soon, atleast to figure out what area we want to move to. And whatever job Jenny gets will have an impact on the location as well.
Otherwise, I'm sick again, this time something I picked up from hanging out with Tigger so much before Christmas. Her and Lincoln have both been sick, and it's obvious I've got the same thing. The house is in post-holidays shambles - Jenny started taking down the Christmas decorations today, mainly because the tree is in the way of her studio stuff and her plants (since there really wasn't anywhere else to put it). So now we've got Christmas stuff (presents, decorations, wrapping paper, etc) scattered throughout the house in disarray.
And we got some more wedding pictures from Shane, as well some from Tigger, that we haven't uploaded yet. It'll all get done, eventually, I'm sure...
Thanks to everyone for all the Christmas cards and presents - here's wishing you a Happy and safe New Years! :) |
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| Merry Christmas! |
[Dec. 24th, 2007|10:36 pm] |
Well, Christmas Eve is finally upon us, and hopefully everyone is having a happy holiday season. We finally got all of our Christmas cards out in the mail on Friday - so much for getting them sent out early (although it might still be earlier than last year)... Christmas shopping was finished over the weekend, and almost everything is wrapped. We'll be taking everything over to Jenny's folks' place tomorrow, where we'll be having Christmas dinner. It'll just be the immediate family this year - us, Jenny's parents and sister, and possibly Aunt Joan (she may have to work) - so it should be pretty low key and relaxing.
I'd be doing a lot better if I hadn't woken up on Friday with some sort of pinched nerve in my neck that hasn't really gone away. I took off of work and spent a good portion of the day laying on the floor of the studio. It's gotten a little better, but still feels like there's a giant knot in my back. It'll work out eventually, I'm sure - I'm just glad I had the long weekend to take it easy.
The roads have been horrible lately, and Tigger and I ended up in an accident on Saturday while we were out shopping. She was taking back roads (to avoid the traffic and hopefully be safer), but of course those were the iciest and she wasn't able to stop - we ended up sliding into the station wagon in front of us. Thanks to the sturdiness of her Bronco, both of us are fine and the Bronco only had a dent to show for it. Their station wagon, however, lost it's back window and the whole back end was crumpled.
Luckily the couple in the other car were really nice and understanding - they realized it really wasn't her fault, and we ended up driving them the rest of the way to their house, since their car was basically undrivable at that point. We eventually (slowly) made it back to the apartment, and Tigger ended up staying at our place for the night, just to be safe. Too bad the impact didn't knock my neck back to normal... :)
All things considered, I suppose we've had a pretty good year - We got married and got to to see a whole bunch of our friends and family in one place and then took a (much needed) vacation and saw a lot of friends who weren't able to make it down to our wedding. Jenny got to quit her job at Michael's and ended up with an awesome (if shortlived) experience working for the Kramarik family. We've met some great new friends this year, started saving money and are making plans for next year and the future.
So.... We'd like to wish everyone the best for the coming year and hope everybody's having a Merry Christmas! |
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| Happy Holidaze |
[Dec. 9th, 2007|10:50 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | holiday | ] |
| [ | music |
| | WOXY Holiday Mixer - www.woxy.com | ] |
We finally got our Christmas tree and decorations up this weekend. I actually wanted to get all that done last weekend but, oh well....
Also (finally) started our Christmas shopping. Jenny did some running around on her own and I went out with Tigger yesterday. We've kinda made it tradition now to go out shopping together, so I can look for Jenny's gifts and and she can shop for Lincoln. We didn't make much headway, mostly just getting ideas, but we'll head back out next Saturday to try again.
Next year I really want to do our shopping through the rest of the year, so we won't be going into December with no idea what we're doing. I'd like to have some sort of list to keep track of gift ideas for everyone. We also picked up one of those huge planner calendars at Office Depot, so we can go into next year with everyone's birthdays, anniversaries, etc. all on one list. I don't know if it will really help, but we'll give it a shot. Best laid plans, and all that. :)
I also did a little cleaning around the house today while Jenny was in CdA - laundry and dishes as well. Otherwise, not a whole lot going on around here... Jenny's back on the search for a new job, but I don't know if she'll have much luck, since we're right in the middle of the holidays, other than temporary/seasonal work. Hopefully that'll change once the first of the year rolls around. |
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| Turkeys, Tattoos and T.V. |
[Nov. 23rd, 2007|05:33 pm] |
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We went over to Jenny's folks' place for dinner, her Uncle David came up from the Tri-Cities to be with us and Aunt Joan came over later, after dinner (she works at Walmart and had to work during the day). The dinner was great, although I've been sick most of the week and was pretty much knocked out all day. I spent the post-dinner part of the day curled up in a blanket, doped up on cold medicine, drifting in and out of sleep. I felt about the same this morning, so I called in sick, just trying to take it easy all day.
Jenny's tattoos came out really cool. I would have pictures to put up, but the digi-cam decided to just stop working all of a sudden for some reason. Lucky got started late and Jenny's piece took longer than planned, so he didn't have time to work on mine. But he got me pencilled in for tomorrow, so hopefully soon I won't have this half finished superhero on my leg anymore. :)
Jamie came over today to watch movies and Most Haunted, since Jenny had the day off from work. Tigger should be coming over soon to watch our normal silly Friday night TV (Ghost Whisperer, Moonlight, Numb3rs). Oh, and tonight's Numb3rs takes place at a comic convention, so that should be entertaining.
Nothing too terribly exciting going on, otherwise. Hope everyone has a great weekend! |
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| 'Tis the Season |
[Nov. 14th, 2006|10:07 pm] |
Well, Sunday was our first day at Borders. I pretty much fell right back into step there, remembering how everything was done. Jenny picked up everything pretty quickly as well, although she hasn't got a chance to run thru register training yet. But we spent an hour on the floor as the only booksellers in the store, and everything went smoothly - it ain't rocket science though. :)
I'm still sick. In fact, I got more sick over the weekend, and I've been burning thru kleenex and Dayquil pretty fast. I called in sick today and yesterday. I'm going to attempt to go into work tomorrow, but they may send me home when I start sniffling and sneezing. We'll see, I suppose....
We did get the Christmas tree up today, along with most of the decorations. We haven't trimmed the tree yet (there's only the angel on top, and a solitary ornament so far), but it'll be soon. We also picked up a couple more Christmas albums and have those on rotation in the CD player. I ordered the Kingston Trio CD on Sunday (it should be in within the week), but apparently there is no Limeliters' Christmas album. I could have sworn I remembered listening to one as a kid, but apparently I was just remembering them performing the song "Go Where I Send Thee" (a Christmas song on one of their albums). Maybe I can find it on iTunes or something.
Oh, and Sunday was also 40% off day, so we picked up a few things: a couple of reference books for Jenny for her novel, a couple of CDs, and some other assorted books, including the Maya 8 Foundations book I've been wanting. It includes a free copy of Sketchbook Pro v. 1.1.1, plus I can download a complete "learning" edition of Maya 8 from the Autodesk website to teach myself how to use it. So many things to learn, and so few hours in the day.... |
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| Movin' On Up, and various other Goings On.... |
[Nov. 10th, 2006|03:44 pm] |
Jenny's been offered (and took) a pseudo-promotion at work, and so she'll be staying with Michaels and actually moving up to (barely) full time. She doesn't want to get over-worked and over-stressed, so she made it clear to her boss that she would take the job, but only work minimal full time hours.
But she will be getting a slight pay raise + benefits, which (apparently) I'll be able to share. This is incredibly good news for the two of us, and the main reason she said yes to the job. That, and the fact that when the person she's replacing leaves, and she moves up to "Head Certified Framer" (something like that), she'll be able to stay in the back of the frame shop doing production most of the time, with new girl up front helping customers. The whole retail/customer service thing is the main part of her job she dislikes, so this is the other main reason she's taking it.
The hope is that with her getting more hours, more pay and benfits for both of us, this will finally give me the option of realistically bailing from my current job - sooner as opposed to later.
( Look behind The Cut for all the other current minutiae )
Gah, that post was long. I'm really going to try to update more frequently so that doesn't happen again. Really. Honest. |
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