Hemisphere Wars

My creative beastie is sick and tired of table scraps and wants something substantial to masticate, and is fed up with all of my measly little sewing projects of late. So, my left brain has had to toughen up and put the smack down on its cranial counterpart. My right brain protests vehemently that it is being unfairly stifled, and that structure is so boring! (in that awful high pitched whiny voice that kids are so proficient at). And my poor corpus callosum is stuck in between as the bedraggled referee.
The fact remains however that unless I schedule and organize my sorry tush, I don't get nearly enough (or any, lately) illustration done. So with my dominant hemisphere kicking and screaming, I dutifully cleaned my cluttered house, paid the depressing bills and cracked open my dusty planner and set me some schedule to illustrate more. Nice stiflingly specific goals with deadlines and all. (ok, ok, loose deadlines... right brain put up quite the fight and threatened to strike if things got too stringent)
Soo-o, I'm going to finish (yes, really) the Ted the Hamster book my sister Meg so cleverly wrote and gave to me to illustrate all those eons ago. Its been disgustingly close to completion for way too long. The plan is to print it out myself and hand bind it. It will have both hardback and paperback versions. And I'll be selling them through my decrepit etsy shop. And if my kids have any say in it, a Ted the Hamster plushie may show up there in the future (they really want one, I'm not horribly keen on it, so we'll see). Meanwhile I'll also keep plodding along with my "Cora's Perfect Pet" dummy book in preparation for its sacrificial offering to a endless ocean of potential publishers and multiple rejection letters. Hopefully little and consistent bits at a time will keep both beasties at bay.

On organization

I'm crap at it. But seeing as it is a recognized (though not celebrated) weakness of mine, I'm always trying to come up with (or find) ideas that just might help me be not-so crap at it. Occasionally out of sheer volume of trial and error, I come across some things that have miraculously worked for me. I will share them with you on the off chance that perhaps they might help you too. Or you could alternately point and laugh because A- you are already an organization pro, or B- of course my silly ideas wouldn't work for you, or C- you are rich enough to pay someone to do your dirty work for you, or D- you have no children to negate your organizational prowess. At which point you have at least been amused by my misfortunes, so my rantings haven't been in vain after all.

Idea Uno.

I especially suck at cleaning my house. I just don't LIKE it, and it gets messed up again so fast, why bother cleaning it ALL of the time. So I used to let it slide until I went absolutely mad with disgust and annoyance at which point I'd go through and angrily clean the whole thing up, only to have it last roughly .00318 milliseconds before the next tornado hit. Seriously, what was the point.

Or else I was forever picking things up, but it never stayed as such long enough to vacuum or sweep before other toys, coats, backpacks or shoes would drift in of their own natural volition, thus preventing any actual cleaning of the cluttered surface. * So, even I who have a moderately high tolerance for clutter, was seriously annoyed. Next, I tried a chore chart, which didn't really last. Then I tried having everybody help clean up every Saturday. It wasted the day, and made everybody cranky. Everything I tried never really lasted longer than a couple of weeks. And took lots of effort.

* (Sir Isaac Newton, had he any progeny would have certainly discovered this fourth undeniable law of thermodynamics which is as follows "areas in clutter must remain in clutter unless acted upon by the STRONG force, which exists only in the nucleus of atoms, so good luck with getting that to work for you", but fortunately for high school students everywhere he didn't manage to fit procreation into his rather busy schedule and there is, for now, one less law to memorize.)

So... I came up with only cleaning one room a day. Every day, except weekends. That's it. Ignore the rest of the house (except the dishes.. yeah, that can't be ignored, and laundry I suppose..) and only focus on one room. Then the next day pick a different room. It actually has a chance to get all of the way clean, not just picked up, but thoroughly scrubbed (and half of the time organized) because I'm setting a realistic, small goal. And because it is realistic, easy and small, I do it again, and it actually lasts beyond a few weeks. The surprising thing is it helps me to be more productive, because once my one room is done, I don't have to do any wasting-time-avoid-cleaning-syndrome things, I get to move onto whatever project I am currently working on sans guilt. Then not only do I have a great feeling of accomplishment, but it actually stays a lot cleaner for some reason. (this part I don't get, except that as a whole, each room gets completely cleaned about once a week, which is probably more than ever did before in my house) And if happen to be feeling lazier on a certain day, I pick a room that isn't so bad. (if I have something too structured, I feel stifled, so I don't have set days for each room) Even when I miss a day, or days, I don't catch up and clean more than one a day, I just start again. I turn on music, and make my kids help me, and its not so bad. I really like it, and even if it doesn't work for you, I'm really, really relieved that something works for me. Sure it means all of your entire house isn't spotless at the same time, but when did that ever last anyway. Its scientifically proven. Nature truly does abhor a vacuum. Lucky for us, 21st century narcissistic Americans abhor Nature. So, it all evens out.

Point deux.

I am rotten at making real dinners consistently. Five o'clock rolls around, and I spend an hour thinking of things I don't feel like making, and then having to force it upon my unwilling subjects. By six, I am in somewhat of a panic... oh crap, now I have to do something ELSE and quick, because we should be eating now, or thereabouts. Pancakes, oatmeal, cold cereal, grilled tuna or cheese sandwiches, hot dogs, or mac and cheese are now the options. Gross. Well, except for the pancakes, which we have quite a lot of, but aren't really that great for long term hunger fulfillment. ANYWAY... as aforementioned and is now glaringly obvious at this point, I'm not organized enough to know what I'm making beforehand, which would solve all but the forcing-to-consume part of my problem. I also am a booger and can't be bothered with sticking to a fixed schedule for meals. How am I going to know on Monday what I'll feel like eating (or making) on Friday? Sometimes I think of a few I want to make, and I write them down before hand, but only occasionally, but it really helps. So I should be able to write out a list of seven meals that I might wish to make through the week in no particular order, and in varying degrees of time allotment required to prepare. I make sure I have ingredients on hand, or go get them all at once... So, I thought if I had a cool specific place to write all of it, then maybe I'd be consistent at planning ahead. So instead of dinner, I made a blank menu idea list I could print more of whenever I needed to. And then I thought of a cool way to put them on my fridge... So, I thought I'd share how to make it, and perhaps it can benefit you too, so that my kids having oatmeal for dinner yet again won't be in vain. I'll even give you the finished printing layout because I'm that kind of person.

print THIS out.



I didn't put borders on it, because my laser printer doesn't DO borderless printing, so make sure when you print it out it is with a border. And its not perfect (hey, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, I made it for you, quit whining) they're all not going to line up exactly and the edge borders are going to be bigger than the middle ones, but get over it, and just cut it off.

..and then if you went through all that bother, you might as well make the holder. (its really easy) And you can use a random ugly or boring magnet you don't care for to hold it up.

Cut a clear vinyl strip. 3 1/4" x 10 1/2"

Fold the strip of clear vinyl once backwards, and once forwards. Adjust to fit.



Sew the edges with cool colored thread. (I sew each seam twice so its thicker, and stays better, and you don't have to backstitch at the beginning and end because that looks silly on vinyl)

Slide the magnet under one flap.



..and the blank lists into the other.

Fill with ideas. Place on fridge. Feel sufficiently motivated and inspired to make dinner before bedtime.

Figuring out how to get your picky kids to eat the dinner, without giving them therapist fodder? No clue.

(and hey, make it all you want for you and friends or family, but don't rip off my idea as your own and try to sell them or anything K, that's just rude!)


Solution drei.

ha, ha, just kidding! I don't have another one. yet. I just wanted to use another random language number, so it looked like it was on purpose. (Kinda like I'd be cool like Bono and do my own version of weird counting, and not just totally copy his 1, 2, 3, 14 in spanish.) I know I'm lame, just checking to see if anybody is still actually reading by now. You can officially stop though. I'll let you.

I promise.

all the stuff I've been doing BESIDES blogging

yeah, I know I've been rotten at blogging lately. Really rotten. I did explicitly state it would be sporadic, so no apologies for you, too bad. Oh, well. I do think about and even take pictures for it, but to no avail. And then the longer I wait, the more daunting catching up on all the pictures and topics I've thought of the more heinous of a task it is. Its a vicious circle. So, I'll attempt now to break the cycle of blog neglect and perhaps a call to blog welfare services will not be warranted.

What I HAVE been up to:

1- Realized I was quite deficient in the earring department, so I went on an earring kick, and made a bunch of really cute earrings (and NO, I don't want to and shouldn't make more and sell them in my etsy shop, which is currently very much on the hate spectrum of our love/hate relationship, and even if it weren't, earrings are so not my focus). But it was fun, and much needed.


2- Went on a sewing kick, and made a crapload of baby diaper holders, baby headbands (and even documented both projects to possibly make into a tutorial, if you are interested, and ask me very sweetly I may even get around to posting it/them here someday) as well as diaper bags, and very recently Halloween costumes (despite my resolve not to go crazy this year). ...and I'll post costume pictures later.



3- I've been trying to be a grown up about keeping my house consistently cleaner, instead of just giving up on it in between cleanings. I've also started making my kids to chores now (I'm a mean, mean mommy!) so they are partly responsible and when its messy 30 seconds after vacuuming, its THEIR job to clean it up. As well as cleaning, I'm trying to be more organized too. In that vein I re-arranged my living room to accommodate part of my studio up stairs where I can work much, much easier (and not bogart the kitchen table). Which leads me to my last point...


4- I've been trying to really focus on illustrating my book. And realizing it is a massively overwhelming and daunting task. I still want to do it, but it scares the snot out of me and frequently makes me feel completely inadequate to the task. (then I wonder why didn't I go for my BFA and specialize in illustration, instead of just a general BA in visual art? oh, wait, a year or more of classes, plus another application to get into that program, a BFA show AND I couldn't decide at the time to focus on illustration or drawing/painting... right, NOW I remember. I wanted to GRADUATE) However I still can't decide between using ink and watercolor, or switching to prismacolored pencils. Both have plenty of advantages, and disadvantages. But I've resolved not to do another finished spread until I decide once and for all what medium I'll use. When I've done more little practice pictures in both, I'll do another blog entry, because I desperately need feedback. I wonder constantly if I'm totally crazy for trying to do this.