neither here nor there...

Does that equal nowhere? Dunno.

I have about five paintings up on Ebay right now and one tiny bid. It looks like everyone is getting some used mulch from the neighbor's yard in their stockings this year...that's all I'll be able to afford. ;-)

If you so choose, click on the Ebay link on the right sidebar --> that-a-way.

Leaving my former profession behind cold turkey has been really hard. I entered into a life of no comfort zones and no safety nets. Doing the art show on top of all that nearly sizzled my last few synapses.

My internship at the vet school has highlighted a lot of my personal weaknesses (oh, I mean learning opportunities) related to being assertive. It's a very chaotic atmosphere with constantly changing schedules and you are swimming in a sea of left-brainers. No, I mean REALLY left-brainers.

When I am fairly confident of what I know, I have a much better time being assertive, but being a brand-spanking-new social worker I find it hard to be as assertive as I need to be. I think some of that is a perfectionism problem--and I need to get over that if I am going to stay in this field. The internship is also very isolating in that you are not allowed to make friends per se. Being that everyone is a potentional client (vets, vet students and owners) you have to maintain a professional distance at all times. I don't have a problem with that, not being the social butterfly sort, but it gets isolating and lonely. I have to be careful to not let that feeling perpetuate into other areas.

And the holidays are tugging at my heart. Last year I was distracted from Daddy's absence by major surgery. This year it's just me, the holidays, and one less family member. Grief can come in waves. Right now I'm caught in the undertow.

Last Thanksgiving I put a piece of pumpkin pie on Daddy's grave. I decided to not do that this year. For some reason it's just too painful this time.

My job working with older people is going fine, but slow. The folks I am working with mostly live alone...and many of them will not have family around during the holidays. You can hear the intense loneliness in their voices when they talk to you about it. If you have an older family member, please take time to include them in some way...even if it's just a phone call to tell them you are thinking about them.

Thanks for the support!

Thanks to everyone who supported my work at Artsclamation!
Here's a slideshow of some of the work that was there if you missed it. :0)

VIEW SLIDE SHOW

One of the funnier, smaller pieces is on Ebay right now. Go check it out. I'm being brave and starting it at $10.

too much is not a good thing...

I need to clone myself. My part-time job is quickly spilling over into a more-than-part-time-experience, my internship requires time outside of internship, my classes are very time-consuming, getting ready for the art show is nerve-wracking, even though I'm painting as fast as I can, Pepper has decided to be scary-dog-aggressive to the neighbor's dog (great.), and I am, quite frankly, losing my mind I'm so overwhelmed with work of various kinds.

It's too bad I don't have any time to talk about some of the neat things going on, like seeing up close a pet raccoon, tiger, lion, feather-plucking macaw, eagle, red-tailed hawk, alpaca, llama, miniature donkey, etc., at the vet school. I missed the leopard (she was in to be spayed). There have been plenty of heartbreaking moments there, too.

But I have to get back to work. Gosh, I wish I had a giant-sized beer.

If you knit...

My sweet hubby sent me this off You Tube. Knitters will LOVE it!



I noticed that on my computer, the video doesn't play past about 2:50...so, if that happens to you, click on the You Tube logo in the lower right-hand corner and you'll be taken to the video on the You Tube site.

honestly, this gives some credence to "LOL"...

and this is cute...

your roots are showing...

What could be more fun than sitting around in the dark hoping to not have a tree land on your house? Saturday was a full day of torrential rains and that night I was working on a small painting when I heard it...crack, crack, crack, crack, whoooooooooosh, thud!--then off went the lights. A huge white oak in our neighbor's yard across the street came hurtling down, blocking the road, taking down all the powerlines on our side of the street and eventually landing in the front yard of the house to our right. Hubby is standing next to the roots of the tree in the pic.

About an hour later, we heard the same sounds again, then car alarms going off. Three houses down another larger oak fell, crushing the end of a house and the three cars parked behind the home. The fire department came and axed down the front door to find that, luckily, no one was there. I'm sure they got a big surprise when they returned!

All night...chainsaws and car alarms and flashing work truck lights. It was like trying to sleep under the "Eat at Joe's" sign. The car alarm was still going off at lunch the next day. Unbelievably, the portion of the tree blocking the road was sawed up and hauled off by the next morning, but we didn't have power until the afternoon.

Fun and games. Fun and games.

be glad (read: drink lots of beer as quickly as possible...)

Having homebase all of the place is a bit of a bitch. Twenty-five passwords, six office and file keys, four email accounts, two databases and three cellphones later, I've got a bit of an ache in my brain and a little cross in my eyes.

So many paths have been beaten...to a pulp.

Which brings me to the Almighty Cure.

Beer.

I plan to drink some. Maybe a lot. But not now because I have class/work/intership/etcetera until 12:30 pm Saturday.

Then I shall partake and pass out in an alley somewhere. Anywhere.

No, wait. I have a paper due at the beginning of next week.

Scratch that (the copious amounts of beer, that is).

I shall moderate the desire with moderation.

Tomorrow is my 10th wedding anniversary. And both of us are too tired to do anything more than plan to pick up heartworm medicine and get a deli sandwich. Make mine a beer sandwich, please.

three little mourners...

Up on Ebay until next Monday...

I painted this a few months ago when the first anniversary of my father's passing was coming up. I think I can let it go now. I don't know if anyone wants a little painting with such a sad theme, but, there you go...

Work has been less than stellar; mainly because I am left to fend for myself with absolutely no direction. I'm self-starter, but jeez... Internship, however, has been quite stellar and I'm learning a lot and have very interesting people to work with...well, except for when I was putting up my frozen entree and found a dead bird in a freezer bag. But, I guess that might be expected given the internship is at the vet school.

My brain stays a little on the tired side going to school full-time and working at a job that is, at best, nebulous. I am trying so hard to keep my mouth shut on this subject.

There are paintings all over my studio in various stages of completion. I think I'm progressing okay in volume, but there are a few pieces I'm not so happy with. What else is new?

I got to meet a Great Dane the other day that weighed more than 160 lbs. He was a beauty...and gentle as a mouse.

I was going to post on Sept. 11, but realized everything I had to say sounded trite or fatalistic, so I just remained thoughtful of the day.

meet little Emily...

Here's
Little Emily, a small 4 x 4 in. painting on Ebay. It will be up for seven days. Meow.

hey mate, the world is a little dingier without ya...

What are the chances that you'd get a stingray bard straight into the heart after wrestling hundreds of deadly gators without losing so much as a finger? He seemed to have a truly kind soul...I, and the world, will miss his endless joie de vivre.

time keeps flying...

I haven't read the news.

I don't know what's going on in the world.

I don't have time to blog.

I haven't adjusted to this new life of new job, new internship and new classes and painting in overdrive in all other waking moments.

I have lots to tell.

I'm too tired to tell.

I haven't adjusted to this new life...

Eventually. Eventually. Eventually.

nutshells in paradise, etc...

Where have I been? Hubby and I took a 10th anniversary trip to Cancun, where I spent approximately 67 percent of the time vomiting and pooping vile substances thanks to food poisoning I got BEFORE leaving the country. However, I did feel good enough to swim with the dolphins (highly recommended!!!) and take a horseback ride on the beach.

I no longer work in marketing. I am a social worker. Weird.

I started my new job with the geriatric outreach program and also my internship with the veterinary social work program. It made for a stressful week...career change, beginning classes and beginning a new internship.

The vet hospital is a maze with every hallway looking exactly the same. At least I can follow my nose to the large animal section (hay and poop!). Within all those halls, interns, residents, vet techs and veterinarians are flitting around like bees in a hive. Better watch those swinging doors...and don't look inside the necropsy (autopsies for critters) room unless you want to see a kitty in several parts like I did today before I headed out of the building...ugh.

Not quite like sitting at a desk all day. My feet hurt and I'm laden with cell phones for both jobs--not to mention my personal one. I hope I can remember to keep them all charged. Sheesh.

I rarely even have time to check email, much less blog. But, I'm guessing I'll find a way to do it...maybe as a bedtime ritual or something.

I also have a Saturday morning class, which sucks, but I can take it from home via the Internet, which is pretty cool. We'll be logging in and viewing a presentation as well as participating via microphone and speakers. It will be interesting to see how the first meeting goes this Saturday.

And that's all the nutshells I can crack for now.

The Garbage Men Cometh!

This is a 10 x 20 acrylic painting called "The Garbage Men Cometh!" I am gathering up paintings for the show in November and this one will be on display at our local paper as a preview to the show. I'm pretty excited about being in a fine arts show.

Sorry the picture is so crappy (especially washed out on the right side), but I just varnished it this morning and they're picking it up this afternoon, so I literally took the photo as I was running out the door.

On a sad-happy-confused-angst-ridden-note, I have four hours left as a marketing professional. Today is my last day. It's been a nice last week though, with many heartfelt good-byes and nice exchanges. I will miss so many people. I didn't realize how attached I was! My good blog buddy, Barry will keep everyone under control. Thanks for everything B! :-)

Blankets R Good, mmmm-K?

Part One:


Part Two:


Part Three:

sigh.

Today was my "farewell" lunch at work. I am so sad to leave my old marketing family, even if I don't want to be in marketing anymore. I got a great card, packed with sweet good luck messages and a surprise gift certificate to my favorite art supply store. :-)

I am in the process of cleaning out my office, which is a real bitch, emotionally and physically. That's the price of being a pack-rat. Wah.

I am leaving for Mexico on Sunday for a 10th anniversary trip and everything is all set--a friend to live at the house and take care of the cats, boarding for the dogs... Great!

I am coming down with a cold. Not so great.

Those last two items need to NOT happen at the same time.

But I'm afraid they are going to. Echinacea and zinc here I come.

My husband just called me and said his car broke down and it has to be towed to the garage ($$$ we don't have).

I broke a crown chewing on ice and had to have it fixed yesterday (more $$$ I don't have).

Life is never dull.

I knew I liked that ole' Carl...

"Humans - who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals - have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and 'animals' is essential if we are to bend them to our will, wear them, eat them - without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret."

--Carl Sagan & Ann Druyan

what the hell?!!!

Bizarre that I had dream last night my boss had decided to become a nurse practitioner and had to give me rabies shots... This article was brought to my attention through an animal studies list-serv. Nauseating and unnerving to say the least...

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 1, 2006
SHANGHAI, China (AP) -- A county in southwestern China has killed as many as 50,000 dogs in a government campaign ordered after three people died from rabies, official media reported Tuesday.

The five-day massacre in Yunnan province's Mouding county spared only military guard dogs and police canine units, the Shanghai Daily reported, citing local media.

Dogs being walked were taken from their owners and beaten on the spot, the newspaper said. Other killing teams entered villages at night, creating noise to get dogs barking, then honing in and beating them to death.

Owners were offered 63 cents per animal to kill their dogs before the teams were sent in, the report said.

The massacre was widely discussed on the Internet, with both legal scholars and animal rights activists criticizing it as crude and cold-blooded. The World Health Organization said more emphasis needed to be placed on prevention.

''Wiping out the dogs shows these government officials didn't do their jobs right in protecting people from rabies in the first place,'' Legal Daily, a newspaper run by the central government's Politics and Law Committee, said in an editorial in its online edition.

Dr. Francette Dusan, a WHO expert on diseases passed from animals to people, said effective rabies control required coordinated efforts between human and animal health agencies and authorities.

''This has not been pursued adequately to date in China with most control efforts consisting of purely reactive dog culls,'' Dusan said.

The Shanghai Daily said 360 of Mouding county's 200,000 residents suffered dog bites this year. The three rabies victims included a 4-year-old girl, the report said.

''With the aim to keep this horrible disease from people, we decided to kill the dogs,'' Li Haibo, a spokesman for the county government was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.

Calls to county government offices rang unanswered on Tuesday.

China has seen a major rise in the number of rabies cases in recent years,
with 2,651 reported deaths from the disease in 2004, the last year for which
data was available, according to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and
Prevention.

Experts have tied the rise in part to an increase in dog ownership,
particularly in rural areas where about 70 percent of households keep dogs.
Only about 3 percent of Chinese dogs are vaccinated against rabies, according
to the center. Access to appropriate treatment is highly limited, especially
in the countryside.

oh deer...

The times I despise most in my life are those times when I balk and get the dreaded deer-in-the-headlights syndrome.

I am a deer.

Maybe I am a tick on a deer.

I need to clean out 17 years of files before I leave this job. What do I do with them? I am such a bad filer, I should probably just throw them all away. It's all on my computer anyway. I am replete with junk as old as 1989, along with about 10 years of photos that need to be sorted.

This transition is causing me far more heartache than I expected. I nearly cried when I said goodbye to the graphic artist who does the newsletter I work on. He's a little man who works for a local printer part-time in semi-retirement and teaches calligraphy on the side. He probably doesn't weigh more than 110 pounds and lost his wife a couple of years ago. I didn't realize how much I would miss his old bony butt. I am going take him a dozen doughnuts one last time in a vain attempt to fatten him up. ;-)

The department I'm going to work in part-time while finishing out my last year of school is pretty volatile in terms of relationships. I will be going from a department that was too toned-down and uptight (but had 0% backstabbing) to one that might be way too high-strung, passive-aggressive and full of conflict. They are having a retreat partly to work out their personal differences. THAT scares me.

And it should.

I feel totally neurotic and am worried about everything. I'm not too good at worrying about the unknown. The anticipatory angst is driving me nuts.

That's the problem with working with one department or having one job for too long. You get worried you can't do anything else, or that leaving the safe place you're in is going to be a huge mistake.

In 10 working days we're going to find out.

Hopefully I won't implode from all the self-imposed pressure.

Poo-fargle and yippity-gargle...

I have been feeling really down lately, so blogging has slowed down. These are the times I wish my blog was anonymous so I could chat about less superficial things, but alas, this blog is only semi-anonymous, so I must be semi-cautious. I don't want get bitten in the ass by my own blog (unless of course it bites me in such a way as to give me a butt-lift to make me look like I did when I was 20 years old).

I miss knitting, but I don't have time to do it anymore. When I do have time after work, study, internship and puppy maintenance, I need to paint for the show in November. Someday I will be out of school and I will only have ONE job. Someday.

Which does bring me to the point that I will be selling a significant portion of my yarn stash on Ebay. There's no reason to keep it around at this point. By the time I get to use it, I won't be interested in all those previous selections.

I shall give proper notice to you knitters out there who might want to partake of such a wooly purge.

For a more interesting post, click here

plastic pants...

I have printed out calendars before, marking off the months, weeks and days before I quit my dead-end marketing job, but now that it's LESS than a month away, I am, as the children like to say, "pooing my pants."

Perhaps my first accident came when I figured out on paper that I would be taking a $29,000 pay cut. Yes, that was a big one; requiring an ongoing change of the undergarments. I would have had to put my plastic play pants on had I decided to go to the pool...

The next stinky accident came to pass because I couldn't transfer on the day I wanted, wreaking all kinds of havoc in my finally-got-this-schedule-squared-away mindset I had finally achieved. No, nothing is easy. I had to massage, finagle, and rebuild all of that--all over again. This morning it is mostly settled thankfully.

More smelly events are in the future, as when I walk out the door on Aug. 11 and effectively end my 18-year marketing career. I won't be an editor in the professional sense anymore. I won't get to play with the company's intranet, or blow ridiculous amounts of film trying to make boring events look exciting.

I won't get to be our online "Dear Abbeee" anymore (I managed an online Q&A for our company). I will really miss that. Before I started that forum I was a stern defender of the stance, "There are NO stupid questions." I was wrong. Dead wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. There ARE stupid questions. Really, really, really stupid questions. It was fun to read them and even more fun to try to answer them.

I won't get to play with my graphics program anymore to correct all the hideous photographs other marketing folks send me for the company-wide newsletter. But I won't miss that newsletter. Good riddance. I wash my hands of thee...blech. Pooey.

More on all that ongoing crap later. I suddenly ran out of blog-steam.