work, blah, blah, blah

before any seattle area people start going on and on about how great saturday's weather was, remember this: one good day of weather with temperatures in the normal range for april does not make up for an entire shitty, shitty spring and the lack of summer last year.

in other words, i still despise pretty much everything about this region.

what is not worthy of disdain, however, is this new orange teapot that leff picked up the other day.

i've started a weekly embroidery blog called threadjacker. here's last week's entry called "crop dusting".

i'm only making these when i've got a spare minute (ha!) so they're really, really quick.

i finished the "renton" journal on excheckered. this is what the total 112 bound collages look like when stacked.

some of the innards of "renton" from last week.

and, of course, here's last week's "pax and ak".

new pieces from all three projects will be posted in just a bit.

until then, cats! or rather, cat, as both pictures are of fujiko.

still the same

*insert typical hatred of the pnw here* as things have still not gotten any better. (please know that the shit weather is only the very smallest part of the reason that i want to move back to the east coast again.)

this week i developed an smart phone.

and found an inadvertent volcanic explosion in my studio.

best news of all: jens sent me a package with super tiny deer included!

(apologies for my hands in that photo. the mail arrived while i was working and i didn't bother to wash up before taking the photo.)

here's last week's pax. (latest image posted soon.)

and one of last week's excheckered pieces. (newest collage should be up soon.)

i also made a really quick embroidery of one of my favorite "simpsons" quotes yesterday.

i'm off to decide if i'd rather see bye bye kitty!!! @ japan society or art in the streets @ moca (or both. or neither.) by the end of the summer.

same old, same old

just like last week, my hatred of this region is still going strong. i'll try to not belabor the subject but do know that it's extremely difficult.

like i mentioned last week, i'm focusing on work to get me through the remainder of my wa state stint. some of you know what i'm talking about. all i can tell you at this point is to check the rakkadeer site to keep up with announcements. (keep in mind that these things do take time.)

not work related, leff built a phallic castle last night in "carcassonne".

put your uprising joke here.

also not work related, i've decided that i can only tolerate online reading clubs. (don't get me started on the sheer hell that is a seattle area reading club. just. don't.) anyway, the awl has a really good one going right now. the first book was peyton place. next up is valley of the dolls.

if you know me irl, you know how excited i am by the prospect of this trash being more widely read. sweet fucking neely o'hara, it is so wonderfully bad.

(i also want to point you in the direction of atomic books' reading club. they've always got great picks too! an additional plus, they're in baltimore and not seattle. (strange as it may seem, i miss living in baltimore from time to time. not being able to pop into atomic is one of the reasons.)

but back to the work topic/usual ending. excheckered. this was my favorite post from last week.

and here's last week's pax.

the new one will be posted shortly.

until then, i'm going to crash out with clouseau

and read valley of the dolls. you should too! just, you know, in your own home.

where i pretty much give up

i could pretend that it was spring in this shitty, goddamed, fucking jackdick part of the country by posting these pictures, toeing the party line and saying "oh, the seattle area is fabulous! we have so many green things this time of year!".

but then i would be lying to you. yes, there are blossoms but it's only been 60 degrees f once so far this fucking year. plus the blue sky in the cherry blossom photos was around for 10 minutes tops. honestly, it looks a hell of a lot more like this most of the time.

so i give up. i fucking give up. i'll enjoy warmth and life again when we move out of washington state. until then, i'll just work.  at least my productivity won't go by the wayside.

speaking of work, here's a left over picture from last week's baking insanity.

leff has become xbox royalty. (ok, no.  he just got trinkets for completing "fable 3".)

i got some fish sauce. it's kinda' "eurgh?" to work with, imho, but it's comfort food for leff.

this is my comfort food.

back to work, here's a collage from last week from excheckered.

new pax and ak will be up shortly.  skull diggery has been put on posting hiatus for a little while.

now to get back to working and trying not to smash in people's heads with bricks.  my cat's cute though, so that's something that could help me curb my murderous rage at this fucking region.

bake sale for japan reminder

just a reminder that the seattle bake sale for japan is TOMORROW, sat, april 2nd from 10 am-1:45 pm at cakespy shop, 415 e pine st, seattle, wa. all proceeds from the sale are going to the red cross.

here's the final batch of baked goods that i made for the sale. (you can see them all together in the flickr set.) if you're in the seattle area, why not stop by the sale and pick up one or two or three?

soot sprite cookies (from "my neighbor totoro" and "spirited away")

an orange flavored wreath based on the one that mr osono made for kiki in "kiki's delivery service" in both its unbaked (where it looks much better, honestly)

and the finished baked versions.

tare panda cookies

onigiri emoticon cookies

sleepy squid cookies that were based on a restaurant sign

kamineko cookies (although only one will be available at the sale since the other broke while i was wrapping it. (leff ate it.))

nara pup cookies

murakami flower cookies

and kodama cookies (from "princess mononoke")

if you can't make it to the sale, please consider making a donation to the red cross. thanks so much!