Monday, November 24, 2008

The Oil Painting - Part 1

Anna painted with oil for the first time last Monday. Yeah, I know, she's too young to work with oil paint. But she's a mature 2 1/3 year old. I thought she could handle it. And it's a gift we're giving her little brother once he's born. It will hang in his room. So ... that's a good excuse.

She did great for a long time until she got some on her clothes and my clothes and then we had to stop the madness. She had a ton of fun. I let her pick out the colors and basically do what she wanted to do. I suggested she fill in blank spots (teaching her early about composition and balance). She made some nice long strokes and chose a nice variety of colors.

Here are some photos.




I did the blue area to demonstrate one way to use the big brush and paint a lot at once.


After she went to bed, I continued to paint and make it into something more.



So now it's drying and once it's dry enough we're going to try again. And Mrs. Piggy will get in on it too. It's a family effort.

I'm thinking we'll let Anna paint some nice bright colors over all this with a couple different small brushes and then we'll take if from there. I'll post more photos once we paint more.

What do you think? Is there a color (or colors) you think would look good over this mess?

Friday, November 21, 2008

7 Things You Probably Didn't Want To Know

Things have been busy here and dammit if I just forget to blog for weeks at a time. Luckily, Liz at Food Snobbery Is My Hobbery has tagged me yet again. Thanks Liz!

Rules:
Link the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.
Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links.
Let each person know that they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. Ever since I was in high school I started thinking that I would die in a car crash before I was 30. This was probably because I didn't feel comfortable driving in any town that had a stop light. Since then, I've become a pretty good driver. At any rate, the odds of this actually happening are, of course, decreasing with every passing day. And this January the odds will drop all the way down to zero. That's right. I'm turning 30 in January. I suppose that could have been a point in itself, but the car crash thing was more interesting.

2. I cannot go to sleep in an unmade bed. Ask my wife. She used to laugh at me when I'd make the bed right before we got in it. That laughter eventually turned into a groan and now it's more of a silent spite. Especially when she goes to bed first and is asleep or nearly asleep when I come to bed. Yeah ... I'm sort of an ass. I've also slept in the same pair of shorts for about three years now and refuse to wear anything more, no matter how cold it gets. Before my current pair of pajama shorts, I had worn a previous pair for roughly 7 years before the elastic essentially disintegrated.

Am I actually admitting to these things?

3. I bite my fingernails. I have ever since this one day at a football game. I think I was in sixth grade and this kid and his brother (one and two years younger than me) asked me if I bit my fingernails. I said no. They said it was fun to do and then showed me how to do it. So I started doing it. And here I sit, eighteen years later, biding my time for just the right moment to exact my revenge on them.

4. I've never lived in an apartment. I moved from home to a dorm to the main level of a house that I rented with friends during the post-dorm college years, then to a basement in Saint Paul and then we moved into our house. I wonder sometimes what it's like to live in an apartment. I sometimes wish I had that experience under my belt. But for the most part I'm thankful for the way things turned out.

5. I drank a lot of Mountain Dew in high school and college. On average, probably two or three 20 oz. bottles a day. I was addicted. Then one day, after my wife and I had dated for a few months, she was talking about preparing for her friend's wedding. She was a bridesmaid. She said she might go tanning just a little bit so she wasn't so pasty. I said that that shit gives you cancer and no amount of it is healthy. She said, "Well neither is drinking Mountain Dew." I agreed and proposed a deal, she'll never tan if I give up Mountain Dew. She agreed. She later felt bad for me and told me I could have one now and then. But still, I've only had two bottles since then. That was over 6 years ago.

6. I'm enjoying writing this, but I also can't wait until I'm done so I can turn on the Wii and play Super Mario Bros. 3 which we just downloaded last week. I have never played a Mario game that I didn't instantly adore. And I'll kick your ass in Mario Kart 64 if you ever want to play.

7. I shop at 5 different grocery stores because I'm frugal and each place has something that none of the other places has. Target has 2 packs of Silk Soy milk for under $5.25. Cub has the only kind of frozen diced potatoes that I like. Whole Foods has cheap meat and cheese analogs. Mississippi Market Co-Op has great produce, bulk and deli. And Shuang Hur Supermarket has cheap, cheap tofu. Of the four, the only one I actually enjoy going to is Mississippi Market. Well, I like going to Target too, but that has less to do with the food and more to do with the toy aisles ... and the video games. What can I say, I'm a big kid.

I'm tagging:
My good friend Kris at I Believe In Everything.
Bex at How to Feed a Vegan.
Neta at Vegan Fun.
Vegan Noodle at Walking the Vegan Line.
Whichever sister wants to do it over at The Sister's Vegan.
Isil at Veggie Way.
Cristy at In A Garden ... Somewhere.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Size Matters Not

Anna was Yoda again this year for Halloween.

Some photos:






You can't see it, so you'll have to take my word for it, but she's levitating our Subaru in this photo.


Yoda kisses trees, right?


And finally, enjoying her spoils. Anna now knows what candy is. Thank you very much, Halloween.