I have been working my ass off. For the last 2 months I think I averaged more than 60 hours of studio time per week. Now I’m sick and I was so wrapped up in my work that I didn’t notice it coming on. And I can’t help but think, that if I had been paying attention, I could have kept myself from getting this bad. I could have drunk preemptive cups of tea or something..I feel awful. My eyes burn and it hurts to swallow. At least I don’t have a headache…yet.
Feeling this crappy has reminded me of the need for balance, though. Obviously, I can’t work ten hours everyday and expect to be healthy. Physically or mentally. I could spend every minute of everyday for the rest of my life making art and never satisfy half of my creative urges. That makes it hard to remember that other aspects of life are important too. I haven’t been giving myself the chance to recharge or enjoy other things. Like cooking, knitting, playing with the kitties or even having sex. How twisted is that! Getting myself out of the studio is like pulling teeth, let alone making myself leave the house. But for now I’m not going anywhere, except into the kitchen to make another cup of tea.
On Monday, Melissa and I dragged ourselves out of our respective studios and went downtown, ostensibly to visit the new Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago. What actually happened…we followed in the footsteps of many twentieth century artists before us and sat around drinking all day. To be fair, we did leave the bar after about 3 hours, ran across the street to see the galleries, which closed about 45 minutes after we got there and took a pic at “The Bean” 
But after we got that out of the way we sat back down at the Park Grill for 3 more pints for which I am still suffering. Really, one shouldn’t mix so many prescription drugs with so much alcohol. This was sort of our good bye outing because Melissa is moving to Switzerland in a couple of weeks. Melissa, I’m really going to miss you, damn it. Who is going to tease me about being a dirty hippie now?
frineds dont let frineds blog drukn
Whew, that last post was exhausting! But despite being all riled up, I have been able to get some work done that I am very excited about…I spent God knows how many hours last weekend redesigning my doll’s feet. I finished adding the trimmings last night (for one of the feet at least!) Here are the before and after pics.
The larger one is the new foot. I have been struggling with adding the details the shoes need. Since the level of detail throughout the rest of the doll has increased the shoes have needed improvement badly. They were starting to look as though I forgot to finish them. You will remember the sneakers and the cowboy boots, which I feel were a step in the right direction. I finally came to the conclusion that the biggest problem was the shape of the foot itself. There just wasn’t enough length from the toe to the ankle to add much detail. So I redid the foot to be much longer and the ankle much thinner. Really, I have known this for a while. It just took me a long time to suck it up and take the time to design a new foot. And it did take loads of time to redo. The problem with crocheting a spiral is, well, the spiral. This is fine most if the time, but went you want a piece to be square, like the toe of the foot, you have to offset the spiral by changing the placement of the increases and decreases. That was the hard part. I don’t know how many times I frogged the foot. I think I forgot on purpose so I wouldn’t feel ridiculous 
I want to be able to repeat the details of the sneakers and cowboy boots. I don’t think this is going to be too much trouble. I will just have to change the proportions a bit.
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Lots and lots of tea. I have gotten into the tea drinking habit. It is much easier to make than coffee and since it is just me in the mornings, I don’t want to bother with making a pot of coffee. Plus, it is really hard to find a good decaf. There is one that I like, but it costs about $16 a pound and because I am the only one who drinks it, it goes stale before it is all used up. So I drink tea. My favorite is Luck Irish Breakfast from the Republic of Tea. It’s pretty reasonably priced and you can mail order huge bags of it. First I decaffeinate it by soaking the bags in boiling water for 45 seconds (caffeine is water soluble) and then dump out that water and pour fresh water over the bag to make my cup. I do it this way instead of buying decaf tea for a couple reasons. First, regular tea is a bit cheaper and the leaves are generally higher quality. I brew my tea with 2 bags for 6 minutes. Very Strong! Then I put in cream and sugar. It is delish! And I have a fantastic mug that I always make the tea in. Check it out!
I had one of these before and it broke 
But my brother got me a new one for Christmas. It is from Lollipop Pottery. Their work has such a quirky sense humor. I love it!
The lion waited a couple of days for his photo-shoot. So this afternoon I cleared off my desk, rearranged the lighting and took a few dozen pics.
Here he is looking contemplative:
Looking, I dunno, bored, I guess:
Thinking, “Man, I shouldn’t have said that!”:
You can see a bunch more photos here in his flickr set. He turned out very moody looking. If I EVER get around to painting portraits of my amigurumis I think he will make a good subject.
And I am sick of:
Matryoshkas
Softies with blood and/or fangs
Smiling piles of poop
ninjas
cthuluhu
octopi
Hello Kitty
Food with faces
That I like anyway:
Hedgehogs
Mushrooms
Owls
Cupcake pincushions
Sweet little girl dolls dressed up as animals
Yetis
