1. Do you own an original painting/piece of artwork?

3. How much is too much for such a purchase?

I have more questions, they will be based on your replies!

I’ve been blogging for a couple of years now, and have never done any kind of formal introduction-y type post. So I thought to myself, “self? how rude are you not to ask about the guests who so kindly read your blog?” And I replied to myself “well, very, apparently, so I shall fix that!”

Now it’s your turn. Please, tell me about you! Do I know you (yet)? How did you find me? Do I make you giggle? What is the single most important thing about you that I should know? Are you afraid of heights? Spiders? Does giggling irritate your OCD? Please, share!

Today, I’ll be playing the role of Michele.

I get to recommend a new site for Michele’s blogroll, so I picked someone special.

Inquiring minds also would like some input on NASA, cause their last launch and landing had me nervous.

I’m (as Michele) also curious to know who is to thank for your Awesomeness, so you can answer that question here.

Last but not least, What’s your talent?

Now I’ve done all of this wearing my prettiest shoes, in compliance with the terms of the program. Now I must take my shoes off (nice legs, Michele, I wish I could have borrowed those too. Next time? Okay. Thanks!), and share an illustration that I doodled the other day.

This doodle is for a friend of mine who is going to be famous, I tell you. She writes. And she writes well, and her name is Mir.

You should really go read her blog if you don’t already. She’s already on my blogroll, already on Michele’s, so she has all necessary approvals, I think?

Tell her I said hi, and that her kids are cute!

I’ll be doodling again today, and (crossing my fingers) uploading a couple of others into my Graphic Illustration gallery that you haven’t seen before.

I knew that getting Chickeymonkey registered for school would take a little while, but I was thinking in terms of hours.

I was not prepared to spend the entire evening lastnight, and the entire day today, in preschool preparation.

Free Country? The United States? Pfft! You are not free to raise your children as you see fit. This means that you had better get every injection that the government demands you shove into your little babies bodies in the first two years of their life, because God forbid you delay until you feel their bodies can better handle the immunizations, they will NOT be able to go to a public school!

Yes, there are waivers. But for a federally funded preschool program? You have to write an essay about how your religious beliefs conflict with immunizations, and if you score poorly on that essay? Out you and your child go. I was informed that all I would need – since I wasn’t waiving them but just delaying them – was an immunization schedule from our physician. I got that at the beginning of the week.

So here I go into this thing thinking I was prepared lastnight and boy, was I not prepared at all.

The schedule is no good if your child hasn’t even had MMR and Chickenpox vax, and I hate those. And she’d need a lead screening which was just an added “wtf” to the day. I swear, you’d think I was a first time mom or something. Lastnight was all about finding out what my schedule would consist of today.

We started off to the doctor’s office for the “official” form, which wasn’t included in the package. We got that, stopped and had her lead screen test (ouch!) then headed to the grocery store for some school supplies and things, then to drop off her form at the school. Where we are told that “nut-uh, she has to have these other two to even get on the bus.” Sure, okay, I didn’t have anything else I wanted to get done today! We went home, unpacked groceries, had some lunch and scheduled the appointment for those other two vax.

Great news! I get to go pick up the Chickenpox at the hospital pharmacy and take it to the doctor’s office! YAY!

Even better! My insurance told the gal they wouldn’t pay for it if it were billed by the hospital pharmacy so I got to spend $88.86 out of pocket, too!

Bonus! On your mark, get set, GO! I had 20 minutes from the time I received the vax to get it injected into my teenie little Chickeymonkey.

At the doctor’s office, I handed them my checkbook purely out of guilt and asked them to “please, keep it. It’s all yours, anyway.” They thanked me for my offer but declined. So now I have this checkbook, and it’s empty, and who wants it? There’s nothing left.

At the school with the completed form with all required immunizations? The preschool letter-inner shook my hand and thanked me, because apparently I was one of few parents who got my stuff together and took care of things in a timely manner. And I told her if my kid had a temp from these stupid shots and couldn’t attend the first day of school, I would hunt her down and smack her silly. I also told her that I was on the verge of a mental breakdown and seriously considering moving to another country, so if she made me do one more thing to send my child to school I would sit on the floor right there and cry.

I’m not kidding, it’s like enlisting a 3 year old into the Army. I’ll probably get put in jail for failure to include her social security number on the forms, for crying out loud.

So the good news? I lost another half pound yesterday. That’d be about it for the good news, though. 😆

Today’s Catybug’s first day of 4th grade.

Finally.

Oh it’s not that I don’t love the little bug, but boy she was ready to go back! She was bored. Oh, so very bored with everything. I don’t think magic tricks would have entertained her that last week of summer vacation!

One down, one to go. Tomorrow I’ll register Chickeymonkey, and she’ll be starting preschool in a couple of weeks. Phew. They grow so fast, don’t they?

Me, I’m ready for it. I’ll be starting therapy after the Chick heads off to school and hopefully in about 5-6 weeks I won’t be writhing in pain most of the day. I had an appointment yesterday at Neck To Back, and they have this neat stretchy machine that will give my 2 bulging discs space to de-bulge. I’m also going to begin swimming (prior to therapy sessions) for 30 minutes a day, because it’s about the only thing left that I can do until I’m healed.

For now, I’m over here scurring about like the madwoman I usually am! I’ve been getting kids ready for school, finishing one custom graphic illustration and starting another, updating pages in my gallery, maintaining a constant (and long) to-do list, and planning out a last-minute garage sale I’m going to have this weekend.

Those of you who experience Fall, the trees are changing color. Have you noticed? This, I believe, is what has me in a tizzy over here. Once the chill hits the air, I hate being outside. Runny noses, goosebumps (aka “growing”!), layers upon layers of clothes. Blechy. Now I’m going to cram all of those things I’ve been wanting and needing to get done into the next week or three!

For your eye candy today, I took this photograph in downtown Rock Island this past weekend. I thought the composition was striking and interesting, and of course the bonus is that it’s art! It’s just not my art, but hey! It’s still purdyful!

I’ve been reading a little bit tonight on carbon dating, and I have one question. Everything that I’ve seen says that it is a “fact” that the half-life of C14 is 5,730 years.

I’m sure someone, at some point, had to figure out that the number 5,730 was the stick by which to measure the age of really old stuff. Anyone care to point me in the direction of how the half-life of C14 was determined?

I’ve just gone LIVE with my new gallery setup! Please, browse away!

New features:
– Photography gallery
– Graphic Illustration gallery
– Easier browsing, faster loading
– Comment feature enabled, client feedback is ALWAYS welcome and appreciated!!
– The Print Shop! I’ll be adding prints of paintings and photographs here!
– Large Projects Gallery: my catfish “Trapped” is here as well as one of my frogs, “Toronto Swampy”, I’ll be adding the other two frogs along with detail pages, too!

Notes:
– Firefoxers, still need to tweak some code for alignments’ sake, but it is viewable!
– I’m still adding content and updating information that’s been moved over from the old layout.
– The top thumbs are *not* clickable to the item detail. We disabled the links, and I’m considering re-linking them. (Let me know your thoughts on this, thumb links are “live” on the search page, so there’s a sample of how it works there!)
– I will propegate each painting with keywords so that the search function is more inclusive. Right now you’d need to be pretty specific about what you’re looking for. Expanding search terms is on my to-do list!

Suggestions or comments on the new site? Leave those here! Comments on my paintings or photographs? Leave those in the gallery!

Links to the gallery and main index page of my website are here in the blog, over to the left. I plan on implementing the same design here on my blog as a skin option, but the one you are vewing now will still be available. That change is still a few weeks away.

I just love it. I hope you do, too!!

This is it!

This weekend is gonna be a busy one. Between finishing up my new gallery and going live with it today, heading down for a signing and fish-spiffy-upping, tomorrow with the events and auction – I’m going to be bouncing off the walls!

Not really, I’m not allowed to bounce anymore.

Or bend or lift, either.

Back soon to let you know when the site has gone live, I hope you’ll have time to stop back later today and check it out!