Congratulations!

An old cartoon for a new baby boy. Congratulations to Adventurer, DH, and CU's 1-3 and Grandma C and family. The baby (from now on to be know as CU 4?) was a whopping 10lb 12oz healthy boy. He was not due for at least another week. Could you imagine if..... Yikes!

Now on to Robbie Burns day. Mr. P. If you so much as try to set foot in this house with that stomach turning, vomitrocious, putrid dish know as hagus again this year....May you rest in peace! I'm the Scottish one, you're NOT! So bring me home some green beer and we'll pretend we had hagus instead.

Don't they have anything that doesn't taste like you're licking a dogs butt? (not that I've ever tried that people!) They must have some....tasty dessert or something more palitable and, you know....edible!!!?

Onion Brain and Sour Cream Delight

I've written a few blog entries lately. Unfortunately I've done so only in my head. I was just thinking that things will be so much easier when they find a way to hook the computer directly to my brain. I don't expect that will happen in my life time. Upon reflection, I started to wonder if this sort of device would be such a good idea after all.

My brain tends to think in layers. Kind of like an onion. For each single thought awaiting verbalization, there are always multiple thoughts simultaneously vying to be the one chosen to be expressed. Luckily, there is a little "thought traffic controller" in my head editing and choosing the most appropriate dialogue. Sometimes the forces gang up on this little fellow and over ride it, at which point I generally end up looking like a shrew or a total ass. (I don't normally like to use obscene language when blogging, but if the big ass fits....)

A friend, as well as my brother, an artist, recommended a book called "Drawing on the Right Side of Your Brain." What it said seemed to make a lot of sense to me. The only problem was that I don't think that I actually have a right side of the brain. Not that I'd ever noticed anyhow. I never visualize in pictures, feelings, etc... I believe though, I may be a wee bit hasty in this assumption!

The other day I was walking through the dairy section of the grocery store and I had the most intense desire for sour cream that I had ever had before. This was not expressed in a verbal format as left-sided thinking is, but in a gut retching desire that I could not explain. It was all I could do to pass by the sour cream without at least feeling one of the containers. Sniffing the container. Maybe a quick lick of the container would suffice? I didn't understand this strong feeling I was experiencing. I had never liked sour cream that much before.

As I passed through the sourcream aisle, I moved onto the potato chip/soft drink aisle. Then it hit me. Dip. I needed sour cream to make dip for the vegetable plate I was bringing to my brothers for Christmas dinner. Great! Now I don't just have a multiple layer onion brain talking to me in words, now my Right brain has finally kicked in, after all these years of just atrophying in my head, and finally decided to function and throw in it's two cents too!

Why wouldn't it send me a picture of vegetables with dip all arranged beautifully on a plate. Wouldn't that have been more effective? What's with wanting to slather myself in sour cream and absorb it through my every pour? Does this mean that not only is my left brain an opinionated know-it-all ass that is incorrect most of the time, now my right brain is stupid too? [sigh] Maybe hooking up directly to my brain isn't such a good idea after all.

Thank goodness I wasn't shopping for personal feminine hygiene products!

Someone just sent me this e-mail link in an attempt to assist me in the realization that I am indeed not too old to try something:

http://www.solsup.com.au:80/greenman/Nevertooold.jpg

EWWWWWW! That's just wrong! I don't feel better, just sick! The age of these individuals isn't the main point of this article. It's that they are all insane!

I have always been told that God gives each of us a gift. Some of us have even been fortunate enough to receive more than one. Wow. The trick is to find out what that gift is and to use it to the best of our God given ability to serve him and others. Did he doze off when I got up to bat or what!?

I'm not sure what my gift is. Perhaps in my case he decided to send me on a scavenger hunt to figure out what it might be. Maybe eventually I will figure out what the heck I'm doing, but not yet. I just hope I've actually figured out exactly what it was before I finally expire! I think I may be getting close.....to expiring that is. Much like that green powder puff tangerine in my daughters lunch bag, along with the 5 sandwiches sitting there since December 22nd that I just found....I should be put out to pasture. Squirrel food.

My melancholy mood all started with two boxes of hair dye and a book called "2006 Artist's & Graphic Designer's Market."

Santa decided that my daughters were good this year and should get what they asked for for Christmas. 2 of 4's heart's desire was a box of temporary hair dye. Copper Explosion to be exact. What does that mean in laymans terms? Honey... that means Orange.

Now there was a time that having orange hair meant that you called yourself a red head and hoped that you didn't get beat up before lunch. If you didn't get called carrot top before the end of the day it's because you stayed home sick from school. Now unbelievably kids actually want to have orange hair.

1 of 4 decided that if her sister was to have orange hair there was no earthly reason why she shouldn't be allowed to have passionate plum to enhance her beauty. Translation: A burgandy purple. I don't even think the colour purple had yet been invented when I was a kid. Nobody wore or dyed anything purple that I can remember. Huh. Purple?

Anyhow, a very dear friend gifted to me some business cards with kind and supportive words, along with the above mentioned book. I was pumped. I was going to sell my art. Well, not the stuff that I've already done, cause I haven't done any yet, but the great stuff that I would produce. Then I read the book.

Apparently it helps with your endeavours if you have actually trained as an artist first. I'm friggin' 41 years old! Do they think that I'm some kid just out of school or something? Do I look like a have hours a day to sit down and produce art, go to school, wear weird clothes, become gay and learn the art lingo? Heck! My brother-in-law is just recovering from a heart attack at 39 years old! I'm on my way down baby! Art couldn't possibly be my gift to give! Is this some kind of a sick joke, because I'm too old to learn something new now!

Please note that in the afore mentioned book..."2006 Artist's & Graphic Designer's Market"....the editor instructs the user that the first stage when one considers a career in art is the Denial ("I can't do it!) stage. I'm there baby!

After entering one of the caption contests in the New Yorker I received a form e-mail encouraging me not to give up. After all this particular cartoonist submits at least 40 cartoons for every one that get's published. Great. At a cost of about $3.50 cdn to mail it with a SASE to the states per cartoon, plus paper, ink and envelopes I'm looking at a profit of about negative $90-$125.00/accepted cartoon. Woohoo! [wimper, sob]

At 39 I took up the piano, quilting, co-ordinating a children's program, dressing up lawn ornamentation of strangers. At 40 I took up blogging. What makes my true passion so hard to take a chance at? Fear of failure? An inadequate amount of time? Not wanting to see naked people modelling knowing I couldn't draw the private parts without a giggle? Your guess is as good as mine!