summing up
it's has been awhile and much has happened. this will be a long post.

ken's last day of classes is this friday! 8^) and his professors have given him an extra week to work on his portfolio. i'm really happy that he's coming home. he's shown me some of this work-he's really progressed and is really prodding buttock in his classes. he's the best one there and that's not just a biased opinion 'cuz i'm dating him: he won an award for being the most technically skilled in his class and is impressing the heck out of the professors. 8^) still, he's worried about being able to find a job. i believe in him, though. i have yet to see him flop on a job interview. he's the most determined and goal-oriented person i've ever known.

thing is, the last weekend of july, his parents and his uncle bub are going down to help him move out just like they did when he moved in. i tagged along then and i'd like to tag along now, but i don't think his parents will want to pay for a hotel room for me. not that i blame them; i was a little embarrassed that they did that last time. still, i want to help. we'll see how that goes. i'm afraid that i may have invited myself along and i've seen what happens when folks do that...

i've missed him terribly and i'm glad he's finally coming home!

he's not the only one coming home! one of my best-est friends, jo, has been in stuttgart, germany for the past year studing the language and culture. she's been having fun and trying to stay single (i'm still proud of her to trying her darnest to stick to this) but it's time to come home! she'll have to go back to UK at Lawrence, but i at least want time to visit, just hang out and go over the Radiant speech with her.
come home safe, jo!

now, to mom.
she hasn't moved off or anything but for my mother, when it rains, it pours. first, she has a chemical imbalance which results in being bi-polar. only mom doesn't get too manic. she just gets normal. she mostly gets the depressive side of it. i just don't know what to do sometimes with this. first, mom usually doesn't tell folks how she feels. my grandmother instilled on her impression that she shouldn't show her emotions and pain, so they build up inside her to the breaking point.
so, if mom finally tells that she's feeling sad, sick or hurt, you know she's really sick or hurt. her tolerance for pain is that high, but she does feel and can only take so much.

a few years ago, she got off disability, went to school to become a CNA and got a full-time job at a nursing home. now, she's 30 years older than me and i'm 28 now. she's not an old fogey but her job does but stress on both body and emotional well-being (and we already know what shape poor mom's emotions are in.) but i am proud of her for trying. she felt called to help those less fortunate than she. she loves looking after the folks who live there, it's her co-workers, her fellow CNAs that she has trouble getting along with. they are younger and don't want to work. they dump all the responsibilities on mom and watch tv. >8^(
lots of times mom will get a whole hall to herself.
they won't fire anyone because they are so short-handed. and not for a moment does anyone think that mom can't cope or deal with it. mostly she can, she's the strongest person i know, but not all the time! she' been getting more and more tired/exhausted lately. and her co-workers don't understand that it's not the type of tired where after a bunch of sleep she'll be fine again.
she finally went onto part-time hours and has re-applied to disability. it's starting to get to her.
she has been denied on disability. but is appealing. if she is denied again, i don't know what to do. neither does she. she just doesn't want to lose the house in weiner or worse, her cats.
one a happier note, she has reconnected with larry, an old childhood friend. she saw him when she went to visit her sister in dallas and they have been exchanging e-mails. which is good, but unfortunately her computer gave out. so she comes to borrow "mine," (techinically it's ken's. i'm borrowing it because my modem is out.)

prayers for mom would be appreiciated and very helpful.

on the job front (warning: rant alert!)
we're not happy at douglas, no precious, not at all! i've been there a little over 3 years and i've relized how naive i've been. i'm not a designer to them, i'm a secretary with extra skills; i'm the office gopher, always sent to run errands. i didn't get a degree for this! i've learned the hard way that it's sucks working for a family-owned business unless you are a member of said family.
most of the cool projects get done out of house and i'm not even consulted. >8^(
i feel like my design skills have atrophied.

i'm trying to get hired on over at Graphix, where i did my internship. at least i'd been doing design work. 9.9
the thing is i'm worried about insurance. yeah, i know cindy can't afford to get my all the benefits i get here at douglas, but i don't want to stay someplace where i'll be miserable just to keep benefits. after all, i'm am artist as well as a designer. i don't want to just settle for the safe thing when i can take a risky chance and maybe do something that would make me much happier in life.

so, i'm doing some free-lance work at Graphix as soon as i get off for the day as douglas. that means about 1-3 hours extra work. no wonder i'm tired now!

this past couple of weeks at douglas really sucked! they had me in the back warehouse, with no a/c, peeling labels off of racks that were going to be taken down and sent to the new expanded warehouse in conway. i got a BFA for this crap! well, in the middle of that, they decided about 5pm one day that i was going to the warehouse in conway to meet with susie about a design project. yes! design work! finally.
of course, they coulda told me about going down there earlier! *grrrrr!*

there are some good things there. t and b have always been nice, but sometimes i just can't wait until the day i can pack up my office and hum "Take this job and shove it" or "hit the road, jack" under my breath.
but for this week at least, i'm designing again. i don't plan on it lasting however.
i am going to enjoy working in my office with the a/c.
ok, enough ranting about that.

in other news...
*i've developed a fasicination with bento boxes over the past month. i have 3! now i just need a rice cooker so i can start making some decent food to put in them. i just love the idea of cute little lunch boxes.

*a new comic shop, Galaxy Comics & Games, has opened! it's where Legends used to be behind the pizza inn on Caraway, so if you know Jonesboro, AR, go check it out! i even designed a flyer, pro bono, for them.they loved it. i'm so happy!
the talented stan kortan, fellow ASU alum designed the logo.

*i have finally broke down and got a livejournal. it's a sketchblog, so the real-life stuff will stay here. and that means, i'm drawing more! still just sketches, but i am working on the relaunch of blue canary! i'm excited! i just need to get my butt in gear and just draw.

*i got the latest harry potter! yes, i'm a book geek as well as an art geek. c and i went to the midnight launch at books.a.couple (as jo calls it,) and who did i bump into? hillary creech, nee keller. it was a blast catching up with her. she has photos of the HBP release party on her lj!

i had forgotten how much fun i had hanging out with her and beth and the others during the school play rehearsals.
and speaking of beth, i bumped into her a few months ago. 8^) that reminds me, i need to contact her and see if she's up for hanging out at coffee shop or something (i'm so wild, can you tell?)
and for awhile i thought i had permenantly lost touch with the gang, grown apart etc. it's good to be wrong sometimes.

however, as cool as it was to hang with hillary and her friends at the HBP launch, a total fanboy loser otaku would not leave us alone that night! he was a creepy one, though not as bad creepy and icky as the doofus who got kicked of the herald staff whose name i will not mention. yuck. sounds like hill's friend, the hygiene fairy could've been useful here. if that wouldn't make him go away, nuthing would. 6^)P LOL

*over the past year, ken has gotten me hooked on itunes and mp3s. i've gone nuts. 9.63 Gigs of music. *sigh* i just wish i had an ipod now. he's been collecting them from his classmates and sharing them with me too. plus jo, will send one or two every now and then from germany. gotta love my music.

*last but not least, c and i went to a bead show in memphis this last sunday. i got a good haul!
yup, making jewelry is a hobby of mine. i'm proud of myself for back in may, i completed my first successful 2-strand piece: a bracelet with rainbow flourite chips and assorted silver beads. Ta-Da!


i've already turned the strand multi-toned carnelian beads i got sunday into a necklace (i've had a silver pendant/bead that i've been struggling to find the right beads to go with it.) the bead has some chinese characters on it, but i can't read it and it's hard to make out in the photo. but i love how it turned out.


i also got:
2 strands of rainbow moonstone, both about 4mm round
2 strands of garnet (one is 3-4mm round, the other is little rectangles
1 silk cord
1 stone pendant and 4 stone ending beads
1 strand of ceramic maneki nekos beads for alice (she loves the good luck kitties!)
and
some random silver beads and findings including 2 silver toggle clasps and such.
i'll post the finished products as i complete them.

i've discovered over my years of fooling around with beads that i like making pieces with real semi-precious stones and silver. i can make do with glass and pewter, but don't get me near that plated stuff.
i'm not too fond of yellow gold. it's so overdone.
i like silver. it's affordable, has a nice, warm glow amoung the coolness of the color and, if need by i can kill werewolves with it. 6^)P

the bead show overall was cool and c was very helpful as the voice of reason, ("kit your budget is $$, if you get that, you'll have spent half of it.") we read HBP each other and just had fun. 8^) in fact, i had finished the book the night before and she just finished it yesterday. we exchanged much text messaging about the book.

c did find a cute cresent moon made of mother of pearl that i'll try to make into a piece for her, most likely a necklace.

bwah! ha! ha! ha!
i'm making vendor order forms for the company's annual food show.
good thing i spotted this before the final forms are done-
bad thing it saw print in the food order guide for the customers.
i wonder if the person who typed this originally was having a "crappy" day?



i'll blog more in detail on this past month later.
(jo was home! ken was home! midsouthcon was fun!
the comic shop got broken into!)

big bang!
for those you, i.e. supervillians, madmen, etc., who have always wanted to destroy the earth, then this link is for you!

can't say i'm not helpful! 6^)P

shakin'
around 8 or so this morning, i heard a pop and thud from upstairs at work. the building shook a bit.
"what are those idiots doing up there?" i thought.
then, when the shaking went on longer than it should, i wondered...was it an earthquake?

the only one i've been through i didn't even feel. back in high school, there was an mini-earthquake during our school plays. our auditorium doubled as our cafeteria. i was a member of the cast and too focused on the show. mom was in the audience and told me later that she heard silverware rattling in the back.

the radio is saying it's a 4.2 on the richter scale with an epicenter somewhere 16 miles north-northwest of Osceola.
calls into the radio station report broken windows in Monette and pictures off the wall around Hwy. 351.
all i felt here was a gentle shake.
i wonder if this is it for awhile or if it's a precursor the big one they've been predicting for this area as long as i can remember...

recovering
well, the procedure was this morning. mom came along for moral support and because i can't drive for 24 hours after. i won't talk about the purge i had to do during the weekened except to say that:
A. it ain't fun! liquid diets suck. but i didn't complain too much about that because...
B. that liquid laxative was right up there with the potassium chloride as some the nastiest tasting gunk ever. plus, it made me sick to my stomach, so i didn't miss food, liquid or solid.

the procedure went smoothly. i got there early, filled out the paperwork (even though i felt sick to my stomach and not because i was nervous.) they had to stick in another i.v. 8^P
the poor nurse had difficulty finding a vein, since mine hide and roll whenever i'm stuck with a needle. she was appolgetic about it and got another nurse who had more luck. that one got it on the first try. both the nurses were very sweet.

after a little bit, they wheeled me to the room and hooked me up with electrodes. the doctor introduced himself and then the nurses administered the knock-out juice. *thank God for that! this was the last thing i wanted to remember...*
next thing i knew, i was back in that little room with mom. i was out of it. wobbly, dizzy-it's probably the closest i've ever been to being druck. ken called while i was trying to wake up. i can't remember what i said to him, only that i talked to him. lol
perhaps it will give him something to laugh about. 8^)

the doctor's verdict? everything looks good-just eat more fiber. *whew* i'm glad it wasn't more serious!
they released me soon after and i went home and crashed.
*zzzzzzzzZZZZZzzzzz*

about noon, ken called to see how i was. by then i was more bright-eyed and could speak coherently. it was comforting to talk with him. after he had to go to class, mom went and got me some real food-yeah, a burger. lol
she also got me some of that good prepridge farm cinnamon raison bread. nummy!

i'm just going to take it easy today and rest. tomorrow, i'm back at work.
-----------------------
in other news-the modem is out on my regular computer. ken let me hook up his vaio to the internet in the meantime.
jo is swiftly working on the coding for my blog's redesign. she's doing a fabulous job on it. thanks, jo!

finds
while i've been brainstorming these past few months for blue canary, i've been finding little snippets of books that have been inspiring me. i thought i'd write a few of these down, not only for my reference, but because i want to share. 8^)P
- - - - - - - - - - -
i discovered this while looking through a book of poems. the first thing i thought of after i read it was Amelia and Ferdinand.

Hope

Hope is a thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings a tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb a me.
-Emily Dickenson

-----------------------------------
These also caught my eye while re-reading Madeleine L'Engle's "Time Quartet". The quotes are from the second book, A Wind in the Door.

"Then he rose up into the night like a great, flapping bird, flew, screaming across the sky, became a rent, an emptiness, a slash of nothingness-"
---------
" 'You say he was like a dark bird, but a bird that was nothingness, and that he tore the sky?' "

-----------------------------------

If Ferdinand to Amelia is not just happiness, but hope and light as well, then if he is protecting her, then surely there would be an opposite, something to protect her from...birds of darkness, shadow and void. 8^) brainstorming is fun!

normally, i would be in a little pocket of guilt and shame located under a rock somewhere for letting my comic go so long without a true update, but as i delve into who these characters are and brainstorm on their histories, i'm glad i stopped when i did. now, i can restart the comic and put in little hints and foreshadowing of these things as i go along. i can actually tell a story instead of just trying to continue an adventure and make it funny every week. not, that i'm going to stop the humor, but..well, you understand.
don't get me wrong, i still feel like a poser, a fake and a big flake for stopping my comic and just vanishing like i did; like i have no right to even call myself a cartoonist, but now i have a sense a purpose as to where i'm leading the characters, and they have more a say in how they go there.

i've started writing a script for the first chapter. this time when i start drawing, i will know where i'm going.

=====================================
oh, btw-thanks jo, kellie and everyone else for the prayers. i'm sorry i worried you guys, but i am feeling back to my normal self, except now i'm dreading the 7th. 9.9 oy.

not good
well, last night was very surreal to me.
i hate to admit this, but i should back up and explain somethings, the nature of which is a bit embarrassing to me.
when i was in high school i have a colonoscopy for a bit of blood with my bowel movements. it was nothing major, just a small tear and not enough fiber. every now and then, the problem would resurface. well, after it did last night, i got really sick.
flu like symptoms, i was shiverring and could not get warm. i felt light-headed. i called mom and she took me to the e.r.

i started vomitting and they discovered my blood pressure was too low.
before i knew it *bam* i was on an i.v.
this is when i got a little scared. i've never been this sick before.
they got me to stop throwing up, did some bloodwork and discovered that my potassium was too low. (i will never wish having to drink potassium chloride solution on anyone, no matter how i dislike them. that stuff is beyond nasty. there is no way to describe it.)

they checked my blood pressure again after 1 bag of sodium chloride via i.v.
still too low. i got a another bag. the stuff they gave me for the nausea made me sleepy, so i slept through most of this...

after that bag, it was still low, but higher than it had been. i was released and mom took me home. i slept a lot and took a sick day from work.
i really most have made my parent's worry, but mostly i really freaked ken out. that the only bad thing about his being back in school...he couldn't be here and i think that just made it worse for him. i know i wish he was here.

they referred me to a doctor for a follow up today. my blood pressure is back up to normal. they did some more bloodwork and scheduled me for a colonoscopy on the 7th. ug. i hate getting ready for those things. all the laxatives they make you take and the day brfore, i'll be on a clear liquid diet. yuck. but maybe we can finally get this solved and put behind me.

so, i'm sorry if i've freaked anyone out. i'm going back to sleep now.

strange morning and asian cuisine
today has been interesting to say the least.
first off, this morning, our new back warehouse receiving guy walks into my office.
he seems nervous and stammers as he speaks.
apparrently he was looking for friendship and our route supervious and warehouse manager suggested that he ask if i was dating anyone.
9.9 oy!
didn't those two get it through their thick skulls that the guy i showed up to the christmas party with was my boyfriend, meaning i.e. that i am spoken for? some people!!
i do hope, though, that i wasn't too mean to the poor receiving guy. i'm grouchy early in the morning.

jeremy, our i.t. director from our texarkana location, was at our office today to fix any computer woes.
the guy is as nerdy as me and i'm one of the few in the office who actually knows what he's talking about when he starts conversing about system updates, bandwidth and t1s or rpgs and character sheets, so we get along well.
and when he's in town we go out for asian food. call it a tradition between geeks.
we used to go to "the king and i" a thai place on highland, but last year it closed. i still don't know why.
ken and i still miss that place's spring rolls. *sigh*

anyhoo, a japanese steakhouse opened here a few months ago and i have fallen in love with the place.
i can't get food there all the time, because it's not cheap, but the lunch prices are reasonable and the food's a lot healthier than the fast food norm. that and they make superb philly rolls and udon!

so, we got a couple of bento boxes and some shumai dumplings and proceeded to pig out.
jerms, i discovered, is very fond of pickled ginger and wasabi, even though the heat induces pain and convulsions.
he made faces, pumped his fists and jumped in the air.
"they're not convulsions," he says to me, "it's cheering."
"coulda fooled me," i reply.
"ok, it's convulsive cheering, but..."

lol 8^) he is so weird sometimes.
i just had to share that.

i'm also wondering how ken's day is going so far. all of jerms' goofiness made me miss ken's goofiness even more. 8^(

eating leftovers
apparently, the world had decided that i was too hungry and the good Lord has blessed me with a plethora of leftovers.
leftover ma po tofu ken made last week for dinner last night (*yummy!*), leftover taco soup dad made this weekend for lunch and leftover chinese from last night for tonight's supper. (beef and broccoli, for the curiously minded. though i did pick out the broccoli. can't stand the stuff.)
and to top it all off, i still have loads of that taco soup in the fridge. no, kit-chan will not be going hungry anytime soon, though i may grow bored of what i'm eating. 8^)P

chinese.. hey, that reminds me...

once again, it's a
fortune cookie moment
GONG!

"You are going to have some new clothes.
Daily Numbers: 2, 4, 1"

is it me, or did the writer of this fortune stop trying? it's the most boring one i've read yet, though strangley odd if read with the "in bed" rule.
i mean, even "you will meet a tall, hansome stranger," cliched though it be, is a far better fortune than the one i recieved last night.
ah, well.

in other news, ken left for oklahoma yesterday. he called around midnight or 1a.m. (can't remember which,) to let me know he had arrived safely. i miss him. 8^( but in 8 more weeks he'll be home for spring break.
his first class today was for macromedia flash. he has so been looking forward to this class. i hope he has fun.

work went ok today. just the mundane stuff. my apartment has been looking like a dump recently, so i've been working on cleaning it. laundry, straightening and putting away stuff...tonight i'll get to work on sweeping, mopping and vaccuming.

also, i'm catching up on my reading and watching of dvd/tapes of fan stuff. mike at the comic shop let me borrow "firefly" and i still haven't gotten around to watching it. heath taped the earthsea miniseries off sci-fi for me and i've started that. it's good so far, but the mood is a little different from what i pictured in the books. i wonder if earthsea creator, Ursula K. LeGuin had a hand in the the show at all...guess i'll do a web search and see.
and i hope to finally finish The Cleric Quintet books!
i also borrowing a book from caroline on the emotional lives of cats. looks to be pretty interesting. not to mention all the books i bought on ancient Alexendria for reference to a storyline for my comic.

hmmm, guess i'd better hop offline and hop to it, huh? 8^)

been a while
sometimes i just give up on keeping up with something and come back to it later. this is true for my blogs. lots has happened.

ken has come home for the holidays, but he's fixing to go back to start his second semester. he graducated july 23rd. i'm counting down the days. it's been so wonderful having him around. i knew i missed him a lot, but i appreicate him more then ever, since he's been gone.

mom surprised me a few days ago by calling me at work just to ask what a "blog" was. something about hotdog the e-cat or something...o.0
i have no idea what that is, but i did explain the term and sent her to my book blog and my wishlist blog.

there has been a lot of stress and anxiety for me at work recently. it reached it's height during the christmas snow. i couldn't get my car to budge from the parking lot due to snow and ice. i called work to ask for a ride. first one person offered to pick me up, then he called and said someone else would. then she had car trouble. when i called again for a ride, my boss seemed to imply in her words to me that i was simply trying to squirm my way out of coming to work. one thing i truly hate is when someone simply assumes something about my character. when i'm scheduled to work, i show up even if i don't want to.
that hit my frustration point. my brother carter kicks trash cans and stabs cardboard boxes with box cutter when upset; i cry uncontrolably. and that's just what i did when i hung up. i even called dad to get a ride, that tells you right there how desperate i was. dad couldn't get his truck started and hearing how upset i was, told me to quit if they were going to force their employees out on the roads in hazardous conditions...i also tried ken, who i knew was going to be snowed in at his parent's house.
i tried calling back after ken calmed my down and got tracy, (not fossie, this is another tracy,) who couldn't give me a ride earlier due to car trouble. her husband drove her to work. they weren't going to be able to send the trucks out that day anyway, so they were just calling customers and letting them know. she said i could take a vacation day if i had one (which i did,) and that it wouldn't affect my holiday pay. yay, tracy!

i decided to stick it out here and for now, it has gotten better. but i remember that this job is only for now. it's temporary. where ever ken goes when he graduates, i'm following.
* edited...i must have forgotten what my thought was here...i just left it as a sentence fragment, so i'm deleteing it-k *

my apartment is a mess! i haen't been able to clean much since the holidays...guess what i'll be working on when ken goes back to tonkawa.
i got a new bookcase, so i'll finally be able to unpack some boxes from the move and get them out of my studio room!

and i'm still working on blue canary storys. more on that later.

i had lunch with jo on tuesday. it was great to see her again. and guess what? she dumped montgomery. she's decided to be single for awhile.