1. I have been a very bad blogger over the last week, and have missed several updates about several new friends. One thousand lashes with a wet noodle for me.

2. I trimmed and painted my toenails the other night, and in the process of trimming apparently I thought it would be fun to see if nail clippers worked on big chunks of skin! Yes, they do. They absolutely work on big chunks of skin. And afterwards? It hurts. So don’t do that.

3. I’m all about the pool, not only have I continued my laps in the mornings, but now I’m taking a gaggle of girls back for an hour in the evenings. I am now a sponge for chlorine, and purchased many special items to combat the signs of drying out and masking my new scent, Eau de Pool.

4. Now that the weather is getting cooler I’ve been sleeping longer, but worse. How is that? I toss and turn, have wierd dreams, wake up late and feel tired all day. Please explain this fall weather phenomenon.

5. I’ve worn a cross & chain for years. And years. The other day, my chain broke while I was swimming. My cross, thankfully, was easily found. Feels wierd to not be wearing it.

6. I’m horribly allergic to our guinea pig.

7. I took a picture of a bug that looks like a leaf, but haven’t even opened the images yet to show you. This is how my week has been going.

8. Tomorrow is “special person” day at school. I have two kids. One of them goes in the morning, and the special people should attend during that time. The other one has designated the afternoon as special person time, and you’re not allowed to bring children. Additionally, I have a pre-surgical consult tomorrow afternoon. So. That’s how my week is going to end, too.

9. I’ve been asked by my neighbors to (help) paint a mural on a wall in their church. They would like to have it done by Sunday Service. This Sunday.

10. I’m thinking about hiring a double. Anyone interested?

11. Slowly but surely, as long as I am a good girl and eat sensible things, I am losing the pounds I’ve put back on that I spent a year losing. I hate being sensible, and I love carbs. It’s a horrible combination for success.

12. I am playing with the idea of having a Pumpkin Carving Contest here on my blog over the next couple of weeks. Would that be fun? Would you submit your carving?

13. I bought a new toothbrush. Woohoo! I know. Pretty exciting stuff here. You’re better off just looking at the pretty pictures.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
1. Tommi (here in comments)
2. MommaK
3. Megan
4. Better Safe than Sorry
5. jakapk
6. Jenny
7. InterstellarLass
8. Sallwood
9. UziCue
10. Madelaine
11. Catherine
12. Rus
13. Sage
14. Keb
15. Jessica
16. Sarcasmom
17. Jen @ Jen’s Horde
(leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

1. I got up early today to prep a new painting.

2. So I have to hurry up with my Thirteen, because I plan to paint all day again.

3. I turned the ringer off on the phone yesterday so that I could paint.

4. I didn’t blogsurf at all yesterday, and now I’m behind.

5. I have continued swimming in the morning, still 7 laps (just under 1/4 mile). I’m still learning how to swim, and before this summer couldn’t even go underwater without squishing my eyes closed and pinching my nose. There’s a older swimmer dude there who has been encouraging me and teaching me how to breathe and swim “normally”.

6. I’ve been taking the girls to the gym in the evenings, Chickey goes to the kid gym and Catybug has been swimming with me. I swim twice a day now, once in a super warm over-chlorinated pool, and once in the olympic size cool pool. (That explains all the swimsuits.)

7. I have no intention of becoming an olympic swimmer. I just want my back to feel better, and swimming is the cheapest therapy I’ve found.

8. I would like every single person who reads my Thursday Thirteen to comment and say hello, or something. “HI, hello. (your name here)”. (Remove “your name here” and type your name.) Really, it takes two seconds. Just put your Nike’s on and do it. Offending visitors will be banned. Hahah! See, I’m really mean, so you better do as I say.

9. I’m not doing so good with this hurrying thing.

10. I revamped my site and got a Print Shop up and running and everything. Ya’ll are ignoring me. I should charge admission to my blog.

11. I did sell Noodle this week. A special Thank You to the new owner. I obviously didn’t drop dead of a heart attack, but then again she kindof caught me by surprise a day early. I do so love when that happens! Noodle’s new mom is going to love her and hug her and squish her and call her… Noodle, probably.

12. I keep thinking of stuff for my Thirteen during the week when it’s NOT Thursday, and by the time Thursday rolls around I completely forget what I was gonna say. I should invent a shirt that has a post it pad and a pen built into a clear plastic button down pouch on the sleeve. There’s my invention. Can’t live without it.

13. I’m done now, I’m going to go sketch and get ready to paint!

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
1. MommaK
2. Terrilynn
3. Uzi
4. The Crusty Crone
5. Angie @ The Big Red Couch
6. Kate @ A Daily Does of Power
7. InterstellarLass
8. Squashed Toad
9. Erikie the Master Painter Girl
10. Rashbre (link not available)
11. Jak
12. Sleeping Mommy
13. Raehan @ Agog and Aghast
14. MsShadow@ Multiple Hellrosis
15. Keb
16. E!
17. Catherine
18. Jessica @ Daydreams and Musings
19. Sallwood

Psst! It’s going to take me until next Thursday to stop by and see everyone’s 13’s, but I’ll get there!! Thanks for playin’!

(leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

1. I’ve been working on a custom blog illustration for the last 2 days solid. I even got up at 4 am this morning because the status of it bothered me so much. I completely repainted my project and spent almost 4 hours on it. ::yawn…stretch::

2. Because I was up at 4 am and it’s now 11 am, I’m on my second pot of coffee. Yes, I said POT. Good grief. As my sister Tommi is my witness, when I start talking after the last cup of the first pot? You wish you had a tape recorder to play me talking in slow-motion. Or a fast-forward button on your ears to actually comprehend what I’m saying at lightening speeds.

3. If you’ll repeat #2 in 3 seconds, you’ll know what I sound like with this much coffee in my system.

4. I’m using the word coffee instead of caffine because I’m really not sure if caffine is spelled caffene or caffeine or what. I give up, and I don’t feel like checking. So coffee it is. Ask me if I can spell something easier, like vaccume! hah!

5. I really do know how to spell vacuum. Oh GOOD LORD no I didn’t. Thank you, m-w.com.

6. I am totally playing with my Thirteen today. As if you couldn’t tell.

7. It was 66 degrees in our house at 4 am. at 8 am it was 64! How the hell did that happen and WHEN are we moving to a WARMER CLIMATE!?

8. My auction is giving me heart palpitations. I get all giddy when I have auctions running, it’s so exciting! So just in case I fall over dead on October 5th at 7:45:03 PDT, you’ll know why.

9. I have SO MUCH TO DO. I have 3 of those 4×4 paintings to complete among other things, so I’m going to disappear again until they’re done. Must. Finish. To-do. List.

10. So, it seems this listy thing is catching on, and I’m really excited about that, and one more little thing just to clarify the purpose of this program, it’s for fun! You link me, I link you, it’s a nice big happy linkfest and we get to know eachother a little better in the process. You see links on mine? Go meet someone new! Leave your link with them, and on and on and on, get it? Cool beans. Or bananas, whichever you prefer.

11. I am visualizing my living room with a whole new color on the walls. Oh no. I think I’m going to be painting it again soon! Me thinks it has more to do with “RESALE VALUE” than actually wanting to paint floor to ceiling again. Ugh.

12. I just went outside to get my Chickeymonkey off of the bus, and saw something very Wisteria Lane’ish. My neighbors to the right and left both have white vans parked in their driveways. I’m wondering if I should find out who they called and get one of those vans, too?

13. It’s been one helluva long week so far for me, how about you?

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
1. MommaK @ Petroville
2. Interstellar Adventure
3. E @ Retrospect
4. The Crusty Crone
5. Mary @ Elsewhere
6. UziCue
7. Keb
8. Jessica @ Daydreams & Musings
9. terrilynn @ Nearest Distant Shore
10. Catherine @ The Fountain Pen
11. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

1. I dream in full color, and my dreams are so real that nearly every day I wake up tired with clear memories of what happened in my dream.

2. I picked a winning box of Finding Nemo cereal, and we’re the lucky winners of a Disney Wobbler Collection! Woohoo! Weebols Wobble but they don’t fall down!

3. I got about 5 hours of sleep lastnight.

4. I was up late working on my Ordering information, and Sales & Specials. 😉

5. Still swimming 7-8 laps a day at the YMCA. I’m even getting a little faster and a little less out of breath each time I go.

6. I have a new pair of shower shoes. Neener Neener!

7. I love my new blog design. I love that when I look at my sidebar I start singin’ little ditties. It makes blogrolling fun!

8. WordPress dot com is up. www.wordpress.com. I am very excited about this! Why? Because maybe, just maybe, I can get people to join my cult and get a wordpress blog and find out what it’s like to blog in the best platform ever made. Seriously. I love it that much.

9. Since going live in my new blogaroonie layout, I’ve switched completely over to Firefox. I’d been using it intermittantly, but when the design was complete there was some code that IE just didn’t want to read and/or get along with. I hate that. So I opened up Firefox, saw my blog, and selected it as my default browser. It’s so much better that I even became an affiliate and link them over there on my sidebar. So if you don’t have Firefox, go try it. It doesn’t conflict with IE, so if you keep IE as your default you can just open pages in one and the other and see for yourself. Things are better when your browser knows how to read code!

10. I’ve completed 36 projects this year, between paintings and custom illustrations. That doesn’t include the 4 projects waiting in the wings. (and yes, Clara, the Dewdrop Daisy is among them!)

11. I keep fashion catalogs purely as reference materials so when I draw people, I have a ton of models ready and waiting. And they look nice, too.

12. I’m gonna be a maid-of-honor next summer! 😀

13. I am always looking for smelly-good candles for our house, spend way too much money on fragrances that smell raunchy when they fill the air. I have “scented candle frustration”. There. I’ve said it.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
1. Utenzi’s Thirteen!
2. Crusty’s Thirteen!
3. Keb’s Thirteen!
4. MommaK’s Thirteen!
5. E’s Thirteen!
6. Sleeping Mommy’s Thirteen!
7. Rashbre’s Thirteen!
8. (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

1. I’m up to 7 laps (almost 1/4 mile) a day at the Y.

2. I forgot what day it is, and I actually thanked Microsoft outloud for their “hover your mouse down in the bottom corner right over the time so you know what day it is, dumbass” feature.

3. I’m starting to wonder if I have Adult ADD. My scatterbrain of late has been making me relatively insane.

4. I hate PMS. And when I have PMS, I hate everything else, too.

5. My garbage man will take anything I put out at the curb, but won’t pick up my neighbors’ stuff. I attribute this to my mild flirtations last summer when I demolished two rooms and had bags upon bags of constructiony type garbage that I pretty-please bribed him to take for me.

6. I just figured out that I’m allergic to those new fabric softener sheets with febreze in them. Don’t buy those! I am covered in blistery little things and thought for sure I had a rare incurable disease and would die in less than 24 hours.

7. I may have hypochondriasis. I’ll get back to you on that.

8. My little doodle for Mir over at Woulda Coulda Shoulda is now for sale. I think you should buy yourself a new coffee mug! Yeah! Go on! Buy some stuff!

9. I’m working on 2 more illustrations, one of them is almost finished, I think. I’ll be wacoming my fingers to the bone for the next 24 hours!

10. Yes, it’s true, I’ve wondered off and on over the last few days how it is that the top layer of our wedding cake (which had been stored in the freezer in the garage that we just sold) has outlasted a couple of what I thought were good friendships.

11. I keep staring at my Raindrop Daisy. I have to get back to my easel after these illustrations are done. And I’m wondering if people forgot that I paint?

12. I had a horrible allergy attack lastnight during Cocoa’s bath. Cleaning her cage wasn’t fun either. What a pig! (get it? Pig? hahah)

13. My good friend Erikie has been painting these little Art Cards called ACEO and I’m so proud of her for painting one a day! You need to go bid on one, or two or three. Okay? She’s loving it and I would love to see these take off for her, she is so passionate about her art. Go look! Here’s her blog, and here are her auctions!

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. Crusty’s Thirteen
2. Lily’s Thirteen
3. E’s Thirteen
4. You link me, I’ll link you!

2. I had a dream lastnight that I’ve become my mother. No one would confirm or deny it, and I’m not quite sure what to make of it.

3. I have a collection of sculpey clay figures that my girls have made sitting on a shelf right beside my monitor.

4. Hi, my name is Leanne and I’m a hummingbirdaholic.

5. My neighbor bought me a purple keyboard last week and I love it!

6. I still have ants in my studio.

7. I’m planning on having a garage sale this weekend, and still have to get tables and price everything. I wanted to start it tomorrow morning. :gulp:

8. I gained back the weight I lost last week, and crave chocolate pretty fiercely right now. (Thank you PMS)

9. I’ve been futzing with my blog layout, and will continue to futz until I have the format completely changed to match my gallery template. I moved my blogroll because blogrolling is irritating the hell out of me, taking forever to load.

10. My favorite soap is General Hospital, but I watch OLTL just to laugh at the characters and how much more unbelieveable the story line is compared to GH.

11. My schedule has suddenly become more hectic than it was over summer vacation. That’s just not right.

12. I cried when my hubby left for work this week. I’m a big sappy sap when it comes to him.

13. I love comments. They make me feel warm and fuzzy. But I am almost as bad about replying to comments as I am about replying to e-mail. That’s not good. I’ll work on that!

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. Lily’s Thirteen!
2. Crusty’s Thirteen!
3. Mrs. Fun’s Thirteen!
4. E’s Thirteen!
5. You link me, I’ll link you!

2. I’ve been debating scanning and posting the MRI of my back. I haven’t done it, thinking “who on earth really wants to see that?” LOL

3. Lots of people (wonderful people!) played Thursday Thirteen last week, and I smiled really big, and got to “meet” a couple of new folks. (Make sure you link my 13 so I can go visit your friends, and their friends!)

4. My sweaters arrived from Coldwater Creek and now I would like it to get just a little chilly outside so I can wear them.

5. I’m going to be preparing for a garage sale today!

6. I have ants in my studio.

7. I had the pest control folks out to spray the other day, and he bought a dresser that I was going to put in the garage sale!

8. I’ve lost almost 5 pounds since last Friday.

9. I’ve got 25-35 pounds to lose before I’m back where I was 15 years ago, all in an effort to make my back stop hurting and being stressed. (I’ve lost 40+ since March 2004!)

10. I love Dobbie from Harry Potter. I can totally relate to Dobbie. I didn’t think I would like HP at all until I watched the movies! So I probably spelled his character name wrong.

11. I have a very strong urge to go buy something pretty. Right. Now.

12. I’ll resist the urge, because I don’t go anywhere that requires me to BE pretty. Really. Comfort comes first. (Right Paige?)

13. I totally forgot to fix the Thursday Thirteen code until late yesterday afternoon, so I hurried fast and hope it works for everyone who uses it! My host and I have not been having a very good week, call me stressed!

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. Lily’s Thirteen
2. Crusty’s Thirteen
3. KB’s Thirteen
4. Wavybrains Thirteen
5. E’s Thirteen