Ode to the Toe

How do I love thee

Let me count the ways

I love thee to the depth and breadth my SOLE can reach…….

Ummmm…..okay, let’s forget about the ode for now.

I’ve been obsessed with drawing toes/feet the last few weeks. I don’t know why.

I sit in front of TV at night and sketch feet. One page after another.

It just tickles me for some reason.

I went back into my old drawings to look and see if I’ve always had this obsession.

Maybe, just a little…lol. 

So here, for your amusement, is another slideshow of my latest tootsie sketches. (I filled another, albeit smaller, sketchbook! I’m on a roll!)

Thoughts on a Thursday

Reminiscent thoughts on a Thursday.....aka 'Lies “They” Told Me Growing Up'.......

Permanent Record: They used this one on me all through high school. “This will go on your permanent record!” Until I wised up and realized, who the hell cares and who is going to see it once I’m out of this education prison?

It was used again when I was in the workplace. My reply was always, “Go ahead! Put it on my ‘permanent record”! (adding air quotes) I would say.

Which would ultimately lead to:

You HAVE to sign this.

SNORT

I don’t HAVE to sign anything.

I actually had one supervisor who locked me in a conference room saying I couldn’t get out until I signed the ‘final warning’ she had written up on me. Great! I’ll stay here all day (I hated that job anyway, so keeping me away from it was a win for me!) Kinda backfired on her, huh? Lol

Wordless Wednesday

Noah? Is That You….?

It's been raining here.....for days....
Over the weekend we had 18 1/2 inches of rain, and it's still coming down!
It's not a part of Harvey, 'just' a low parked over our heads that's refusing to move. I never knew there was so much moisture in a cloud! 

The roads have turned into rivers and lakes, dotted with cars that float by because they had the mistaken idea they could get through. 

Businesses are closed, they've closed the schools.......kids are swimming in the streets with their pool toys! 

And I swear I think I feel something growing between my toes…..

Punny Monday

In filling out an application, where it says, 'In case of emergency, notify:' I put 'DOCTOR."

(footnote:I'm running out of good puns so I've decided to switch to PARAPROSDOKIANS.

PARAPROSDOKIANS (Winston Churchill loved them) are figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently humorous.)

LOOK WHAT I FINISHED!

TAAAA DAAAAA!

The BIG BLACK SKETCHBOOK is finally done. 

Here are a few highlights.....not ALL the pages but most of them…some are just too hideous to admit to….lol.

I also made a slideshow......Forgive the length…since this whole computer debacle I’ve lost some of my old faithful programs (that I knew how to use) and I’m learning new ones that are compatible with Windows 10…… it’s a steep learning curve!!!!

This is the first video I’ve been able to complete.

Here's the link if you're interested.

Thoughts on a Thursday

I am a Petulant Child….

I don’t know if any of you noticed but I’ve been kind of ‘hit and miss’ online lately. I haven’t been answering emails as quickly as usual. I haven’t been on Facebook ‘liking’ things as much or commenting on your blog posts. In general I haven’t been connected to the ‘internets’. 

My computer was dying a slow and painful death so Husband, in his infinite wisdom, decided he needed to ‘wipe it clean’ and upgrade it to Windows 10.

I was all for it if it meant I could get back to normal and do all the things I needed/wanted to do online.

Silly me!

After having Windows 10 for a few days now I can say with complete conviction……I DO NOT LIKE IT!

I don’t mind the ‘tiles’ and looking more like an android device. I’m used to the way my phone and Tabley look and operate, so that part is okay.

My desk top is back to the way it used to look…..except the icons are a fraction of the size they used to be (not a good thing for these old eyes.) I know I can make them bigger but it’s the principle of the thing, not to mention the bigger you make the icons the more you lose resolution in pictures and other media…..

I can’t find my programs……alphabetical or not I find them grouped in an un-intuitive way…..

Husband was tired of hearing me bitch so he put my old wallpaper back on my desktop thinking that would make me feel more comfortable and make it SEEM like it was the old PC…..NOT.

I admit it’s running faster and better than it has in some time….BUT…..it’s just not RIGHT.

AND to top it off.......I had to upgrade Photoshop. To the SUBSCRIPTION/CLOUD based version!!!!

I am  diametrically opposed to 'the cloud'. I don't trust it, I am suspicious of who is doing what with all that data and it's just a matter of time until some pimply faced hacker gets into it and exposes all our stuff to the world......not to mention that in four years of monthly payments I could have bought the program outright!!!! ARGH........

All of this makes me cranky and short tempered and just plain unhappy.

In other words, I DON’T LIKE CHANGE! I guess my age is showing….once again. 

Wordless Wednesday

While I Was Pen Shopping......

I also bought two new sketchbooks. 

I have learned I don't like the larger size journals nor do I like being committed to too many pages. These were perfect. 

When I got home I decided to organize the shelves with my sketchbooks and in that organizational zeal divided them into 'completed' and 'not completed'. 

I'll let you figure out which picture is which.....lol.

I wonder if there's a name for someone who compulsively collects sketchbooks......

Punny Monday

I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

(footnote:I'm running out of good puns so I've decided to switch to PARAPROSDOKIANS.

PARAPROSDOKIANS (Winston Churchill loved them) are figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently humorous.)

If One is Good…..

Sixteen are better!

Have I said before I might have a problem????

I’m in love with a new pen I got in last month’s Art Snacks box, a Staedtler 0.1 fine liner.

I love it so much I went to the store to look for another. I couldn’t find one so of course I bought sixteen others to appease my disappointment.

Hello, my name is Robin and I’m a Penophile…….(it is SO a word, I looked it up!)

Remember that nice neat pen carrier I bought? There aren't enough loops for all of them so I removed the 'pages' and dumped the extras into the bag. I can still carry them around with me, they're just not organized. 

But neither am I so it all works out....

Thoughts on a Thursday

The trouble with cleaning……besides being backbreaking, boring and tedious, is that once I get the house tidied up, everything put away in its rightful place and cleaned to within an inch of it’s life…..I don’t want anyone to BREATHE!

I just want to sit around and enjoy the sparkling fruits of my labor!

And yet, after I’ve rested for a bit I WANT to MAKE something! But I don’t want to take out any of my supplies and mess the house up!

Sometimes it’s hard to be me, lol.

Wordless Wednesday

Courage, Camille…..

Husband is a pretty brave guy….generally. In the forty some years we’ve been together nothing much strikes fear in him.

Except raccoons.

I learned this fact quite some time ago. And after I stopped laughing (…..I’m sensitive that way….) he told me why.

To earn his Eagle Boy Scout badge he and his troop had to dismantle and pack up the scout camp for the winter. It was a multiple day endeavor and they had to ‘rough it’ camping outside. No big deal for boy scouts. When the day’s work was done they snuggled into their sleeping bags and went to sleep.

Sometime during the night a curious raccoon wandered into the campsite. For some reason the raccoon thought perhaps Husband was hiding something good to eat in his sleeping bag and climbed on top of Husband’s chest to check it out, at which point Husband woke up (he has always been a VERY sound sleeper) coming face to face with the raccoon!

He did what any self respecting boy scout would do having just woken up out of a sound sleep coming face to face with a wild beast….he screamed like a girl and scrambled out of his sleeping bag.

(At this point of the story I usually have tears streaming down my cheeks I’m laughing so hard….)

Evidently this wasn’t the reaction the raccoon was expecting and it ran off into the woods…..but Husbands screams woke the other campers. I’m sure there was much laughter and teasing which is probably the core of Husbands dislike and fear of raccoons. Not so much the cute little masked creatures themselves but the humiliation of the aftermath of the experience.

Fast forward to the first night in our newly purchased house.

We’re sitting on the couch having just gotten home from working the night shift. It’s one AM and we’re having dinner…bowls of cereal because we haven’t unpacked anything yet. We’re facing the window, which has no curtain.

Suddenly we hear a scritchy scratchy noise coming from the attic. We pause and listen…..like in a bad 80’s horror movie we look up and follow the noise as it moves across the roof……

At this point my imagination is running wild! The house has been vacant for many months and in my mind I’m thinking someone has been squatting in the house and now they are looking to get away…..

We both just sit there, like a paused video, our spoons halfway to our mouths and suddenly we see IT…..a black rump slowly shimmying down the tree inches outside the window…… I elbow Husband to do something but he just sits there, paralyzed with fear.

It really does look like a human rump…but as it continues down the trunk of the tree it becomes apparent it’s just a raccoon….and an old tired, slow moving one at that!

I relax and start to laugh but Husband is still totally incapacitated! It’s the only time I have ever seen him afraid of anything.

And that’s the first time I heard the story of the ‘Nocturnal Succubus’ of his youth. 

Punny Monday

To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

(footnote:I'm running out of good puns so I've decided to switch to PARAPROSDOKIANS.

PARAPROSDOKIANS (Winston Churchill loved them) are figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently humorous.)

You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby.....

On this day in history my beautiful mom was born. I miss her everyday but more on this day. 

Thoughts on a Thursday

Learnin’ to Love lentils...... 

The doctor recently told me I can eat as many lentils as I want.

Bowlfuls!

It won’t bother my blood sugar at all!

 …..yay…… 

Why can’t it ever be ‘You can eat as much chocolate as you want’……?

Wordless Wednesday

Look What I Made

I was fooling around with some of my 'Calder-esque' patterns and I came up with this.

I can't decide if I like it or not... 

It kind of reminds me of the old TV station's sign off signals doesn't it.....? 

(.....maybe it would make nice wrapping paper.....?)

Punny Monday

I'm supposed to respect my elders, but it's getting harder and harder for me to find one now.

(footnote:I'm running out of good puns so I've decided to switch to PARAPROSDOKIANS.

PARAPROSDOKIANS (Winston Churchill loved them) are figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently humorous.)

Wish in One Hand……

I wish…..

I could sing like Judy Collins

Paint like Monet

Sketch like Tommy Kane (or Danny Gregory, I’m not picky!)

Compose like Gershwin

Play piano like Liberace

Speak French like a Parisian

Write like Harper Lee…………

“Wish in one hand, shit in the other; see which one gets filled first,” my mother used to say.

Damn her wisdom!!!!

Thoughts on a Thusday

Florida-isms

Who knew when I moved here I would have to learn a whole new language. After all, I didn’t leave the country. I just moved south. I’ve lived in the south before but this is totally different than the genteel south of my youth where if you didn’t address your elders with ‘ma’am’ or ‘sir’ you were just ignored.

This is entirely different.

The dialect is totally unique. Not just the accent but the syntax of the language.

I understand the accent. I understand the different emphasis on the syllables. INsurance instead of insSURance….REcycle instead of reCYCLE.

But what are still completely baffling to me are the idioms.

Down here you don’t ‘call in sick’ to work you ‘call out sick’ or ‘call off work’. (Does that mean everyone in the office gets a day off because work was ‘called off’?)

When things are broken they ‘needs fixed’  (and if you are thinking, like I did, these are just phrases used by less educated locals, this particular one is used in a television commercial for a very large home improvement company!)

If you were born here you’re a ‘cracker’ everyone else is a ‘foreigner’. (and just for the record, in the 16 years we’ve been here I’ve only met 4 ‘crackers’!)

I was taught ‘cracker’ was a derogatory word not to be used but apparently down here it’s a source of pride.

‘Staff up’ for season is another one used in a local commercial. Our economy is heavily tourism based so a majority of jobs are seasonal. But ‘staff up’? Sounds a lot like ‘man up’ to me. In that sense “We need to ‘staff up’ for season' takes on a whole ‘nother connotation …..

Wordless Wednesday

À La Alexander Calder

I seem to be fixated on drawing these stylized hands. Adding shapes à la Alexander Calder's mobiles. Just mindless doodles in my sketchbook as I sit and listen to TV at night. It keeps my mind (and body) from wandering into the kitchen for a snack....and that's a good thing.