The Beginning of July
7/1/08 6:21 pm On the way to Mike's. Well, the computer is dead. We'll see about financing. I got my raise today. And Darla brought in my birthday gift: vodka and lemonade mix!
7/1/08 Sharon suggested Lemon Drops for me. And Lemonhead candies. Messy drg in the car!
7/2/08 We had fun at Mike's. We didn't know today is Rebecca's birthday, as well as Corey's. Rebecca made brownies. We all played Ticket to Ride Europe.
7/2/08 The train game. Mike won. I thought I did well, but even having the longest line didn't help me. Even getting about a dozen wild cards didn't help me. 8:20 pm Rain vodka good.
7/3/08 9:38 pm We got a new computer. More tomorrow.
7/4/08 7:42 pm Fourth of July. We just had a quiet and lazy day. Steve was still downloading updates for the computer. We never did find out what died, but everyone had a different theory - processor, motherboard, whatever.
7/4/08 We went to Circuit City last night. I got approval immediately - for a C.C. credit card. $5000.00! Steve showed me the tower he found the other day, but I thought it was too basic. I opted for one with more memory and a quad processor.
7/4/08 It also happened to come with the video card that Steve has been wanting. They only took an hour and a half to install everything, so we took it home last night. We had to get a new printer. The total was $1680.00.
7/4/08 I did some scanning today. I'm going to scan all our photos. All of them. I should have done that long ago. And I'm backing them up on a jump drive. We made great tacos - ground beef in corn tortillas from W.P. Bobby Flay's idea. [W.P. = Whole Paycheck = Whole Foods]
7/4/08 The other night we broke out the Rain vodka. It's good, but potent. Steve gave me a sip of his shot glass and it made me cough. He called me a pussy! I said, "It has a bite!" He said, "Yeah, but it's a good bite." I made a batch of lemonade with ReaLemon juice and Blue Agave Nectar.
7/4/08 I just subbed the nectar for sugar. It was sweet enough. But wow the vodka packs a kick. Last night I had another Lemon Drop and got buzzed right away. I watched all my TV Tapes and was up till midnight.
7/4/08 We ran out briefly today. To Corridor to get some beer, to Target for my prescriptions - just in time, they were closing the Pharmacy for lunch, but one of them checked me out. Then to Shoppers. A rude cashier argued with a customer. We really don't like it here!
7/4/08 I wanted a pork roast. I want to try making tamales. For some reason, the pork roasts were all sliced. Very odd. But I just realized that's where the odd pork chops came from. It's a slice out of a bone-in shoulder roast. [The odd pork chops from the previous week - see 6/26/08]
7/5/08 8:50 pm Lazy Saturday at home. It felt like Sunday because I was home yesterday. I made tamales today! They aren't as hard as I thought. I found a website that clearly showed how to roll them. We made them lower fat than usual. Most recipes have a lot of oil.
7/5/08 Or lard, Emeril. Guy Fieri's recipe only had 2 Tbsp butter for 2 C. masa harina. I made a batch w/4 C. masa and about 2 Tbsp olive oil. It doesn't need to be swimming in grease. We topped them with enchilada sauce. Yum.
They are quite filling - we could each only eat two.
7/5/08 The other day Steve and I were discussing our negativity problem. I said that it always used to be Steve who would tell me things would be all right. He'd say, "Are we better off now than we used to be?" He used to just shrug about things.
7/5/08 Steve hadn't realized how negative he'd become. It's this place and these nasty rude people. And not finding a job in his field yet. He said he'd try to locate the "old Steve." We've both been calmer the past two days. [Maryland is hazardous to our health.]
7/5/08 Tonight, Steve said something... - after I watched the Rothko Power of Art episode. And I said I liked it because it took him over 20 years to find his method of working. (So maybe there's still hope for me.)
7/5/08 Steve said don't measure your life by successes, but by how you get up after you fall. He said we fell hard. And maybe we're just starting to get backup. Too often I fall, and then I just curl up on the couch, lamenting.
7/5/08 Because it's hard to get up so many times. After trying, and failing. Miserably. After making so much art that is just not right. Not "it." But wallowing will get me nowhere.
7/5/08 Interesting. I did that sketch holding the pen overhanded, not like a writing instrument. It's hard to draw my right hand while I'm using it.
7/6/08 3:30 pm On the way home from Janet's. We had a nice visit. Randy made blueberry pancakes and a ham steak. After breakfast I went out back to pick blueberries. Then Steve joined me.
7/6/08 It had just finished pouring rain, and it was nice and cool out. The branches were all dripping wet. Janet gave me a metal bowl to put the berries into. It was so pleasant to be out back, in the cool air. Just picking blueberries.
7/6/08 Randy picked us some fresh herbs and sealed them up in the vacuum sealer. We hung around awhile, then had lunch: pulled pork bbq on buns w/coleslaw. Oh - five minutes after we came in from picking blueberries, the sun came out and it got HOT.
7/6/08 Steamy. Like Memphis hot & steamy. We were sent home with lots of food. We talked to Pat last week and she asked me to take some pictures at Janet's so she can see what it looks like.
On our way out to the car, I spotted a bumblebee on a flower by the mailbox. I took out the camera, turned it on, hit the button for close-ups, and snapped the picture. I wasn't even sure it came out, but it sure did. I'm rather proud of this photo! At work, they gave me a new huge monitor. Darla and I both got one. They were purchased for others who need two monitors, but they didn't like them, and wanted a smaller square one, so their pickiness is our gain. Wow is the picture sharp. I made this my background, and I can see the fuzz on the bumblebee very clearly. We like bumblebees.
7/6/08 wildflowers [I had an idea while we were driving up, a drawing of us in the car, with the colorful wildflowers they plant in the medians. I made the sketch on the way home so I wouldn't forget.]
7/6/08 No red sky behind Baltimordor this time.
7/7/08 8:37 pm Shit, I'm tired. I'm wasting my life at work.
7/8/08 8:49pm No Mike's tonight. Steve got a small migraine on the way from Greenbelt. We pulled up a road to switch drivers. So I did a long workout this evening: Whew! Wet hair. Nearly time for bed.
7/9/08 8:15 ish am black - yellow (covered w/black) - reddish brown - big leaves - 3 rows petals - thick stalk
7/9/08 7:42 pm I stopped at WP this morning, and the front flower section had huge sunflowers. I stopped to make a sketch for color notes. Then I started a second sketch which I just finished. [Still pondering a garden quilt w/sunflowers.]
7/10/08 7:16 pm I'm really tired. I don't think I slept well last night. My workouts seem to be really tiring me.
7/10/08 Sunday evening I was watching some more Art:21. I watched the segment on Elizabeth Murray. And she said something - that must not have clicked the first time I watched it - so I repeated and repeated - with close-captioning on.
7/10/08 Until I wrote it all down correctly. Here is what she said: "My fantasy was that I would get to a certain point and I would know what I wanted to say and then it was - PSHHT! - you were on this straight and narrow road and you would never swerve, you would just do your work then. And that's not the way it is at all.
7/10/08 You - like - get off the path and then get back on again for awhile and you trip along and then suddenly you stumble and you're back on again and I don't think that process ever ends." (She talks really fast, so I had to replay it like 20 times!) She's on Season 2.
7/10/08 So my fantasy of finding a way to paint, and then just painting, was never going to happen. However, it would be nice to be tripping along while exhibiting, selling work, and making a living as an artist.
7/10/08 I ran out of room, but I kind of like it: [This is an image from Memphis]
7/11/08 Stopped to sketch some kind of dark purple lily at the Dupont garden. There are some Morningstar Lilies, but they were facing the wrong way. It's cool out this morning. The humidity must be down. And I lost 2 lb.
7/11/08 12:38 pm So, I got out photos of my three MFA Women, to see about cropping the image. And I had to ask myself: Does this interest me? The honest answer is: No. It doesn't. The umbrella sketch from yesterday is far more interesting.
7/11/08 The thing about the Union image is that in the original, there was a certain quality - of me leaning on Steve, and of Steve walking straight, supporting me. In the sketches from Feb. it looks like Steve is leaning into me. I want the quality of the original. [I'm working on Memphis images for larger drawings.]