Bummed.

Posted by jupe

First off, this is my blog and I am allowed to bitch and whine and complain here as much as I want. Here’s your preemptive warning to leave if you really don’t care and don’t want to read it.  It’s also your invitation to not post a comment or criticism about it below because I don’t give a fuck that you don’t give a fuck, so let no fucks be given and no comments about such fucks not being given be posted.

I miss my friends. I really fucking miss my friends.  That’s not to say that the fine folks behind Toronto Comix aren’t my friends because they are. What I mean are the friends I’ve been seeing just about every week for the past three and a half years at my knitting group.  I’ve not seen them regularly since October. I’ve seen them maybe five or ten minutes since November. Once. I had to drop something off and leave.

Tonight is our annual gift exchange between friends, and guess what? I can’t go.

This sucks. This really fucking sucks.

This work schedule of Alex’s is the fucking worst. I’m upset and I’m fed up. I am at home with the kids all the time, other than when I have Toronto Comix or classes. I get out seldom.  Alex and I see each other maybe two hours a day. He sees the kids less. And one out of two days, or both days, on the weekend are usually sacrificed so he can take care of stuff and unwind from the stress of his very high stress job.  Which means, I have the kids. Last weekend was the first weekend in a very long time where I had two days to get shit done without one or both anklebiters constantly biting my ankles.

Alex needs time, too, I know. He needs it as much as I do… but there aren’t enough days on the weekend. What’s worse is he’s working this Christmas so he doesn’t get time off to hang out with the family.

Nerves are wearing thin.

Yesterday was Comic con’s Christmas sale. I shared a table with Toronto Comix and helped them sell 19 copies of the comic. I autographed a few with the others and sold a couple of prints. I spent $55 on prints and sold $50, so I almost broke even for the printing costs. What I *didn’t* break even for was the cost of parking and admission. At least I got my card out, though, and got to talk about the process with some people.  The best selling print was my Poison Ivy. I also lost my big yellow sketchpad there, which is a real piss off. Luckily, I had barely done any art in it so if it is gone for good, I didn’t lose months of sketches and work for important things.

It was a long day. I couldn’t go out for dinner with the other artists and writers because we’re saving money. I came home to make dinner but Alex wasn’t hungry. I had perogies, then he went out, and when he got home, he had a pizza. I feel inadequate.

Then, sleep happened, sort of. I’ve been increasingly uncomfortable, which I suspect has something to do with — you guessed it — stress. I woke at about 5am with a migraine, then again at 6 to take care of Russell, who had puked all over the bedroom. Then up again at 8:30 because the alarm got turned off instead of snoozed. Bravo. Nick was sick this morning, too, so now I have both boys all day, gifts for scouts to buy, stuff to bake, and no time to get other important shit done.

I have a migraine. Again.  Gonna go feel like shit, now.

Posting again tomorrow. Have a great day.

It just HAD to snow…

Posted by jupe

It feels like every time we get really bad weather, I have to go to class. Of all days, it’s always when I am going to downtown Toronto in the middle of rush hour.  As I mentioned yesterday, we got some snow. By some snow, I mean 15cm of snow. For my American readers, that’s about six or seven inches.  Add, on top of that, the wind blowing it around.

It made for some really treacherous driving, as the roads were slippery and the plows can’t be everywhere at once.  I left home at 3:30, got Nick from school, and got to my husband’s workplace at 4:15. After that, it was actually surprisingly smooth sailing.  I was really pessimistic at first, but I suppose that more people than not decided that they’d stay at home and NOT drive.  All the better for me. Greg and I got to the Korean restaurant at 5:15 and waited an hour for the others to show up. Then, it was a matter of SHOVELING our food into our pieholes and arriving at class just when it was supposed to begin. At least we made it.

I got some really good feedback on my story and have some significant changes to make. I’ll sit down with Alex this week and make those changes. Also on the list, lots of stuff. Here’s a checklist, mostly for my own reference.

 

  • Work on Red Surge inks
  • Work on pages for Condo story
  • Get prints made for the table at comic con this Sunday
  • assemble craft for Nick’s teacher
  • draw picture for Nick’s principal
  • knit cowl for Nick’s librarian
  • knit for my mother
  • knit for my cousin’s son
  • knit for my niece
  • laundry — dear god, the laundry
  • dining room table
  • drive out to a secret location to pick up a secret gift for Alex
  • go giftmas shopping for the kids and get gifts for Alex from the kids
  • bake cookies with Nick

So much to do with such little time. So much to do that I don’t wanna do it… but it has to get done.

Off I go to knit.

Still Ploughing on!

Posted by jupe

Well, I’ve finished some art today. Page 1 of The Red Surge is finished, all inks and lettering complete. I need to do some of page 2 today, and I need to do some knitting in the worst way.  I also need to draw a picture for Nick’s principal sooner than later and finish his teacher’s Christmas craft.

Oy, vey. Have I taken on too much?

It snowed last night; how rude. About a foot of snow on the ground and probably an extra hour to and from my class as a result of it. I’ll be leaving home right after Nick gets out of school and braving the terrible drivers. Snow, I can deal with. People? Not so much.

So, yesterday a few things happened.

I spent the day drawing and inking, as I usually do, and Rusty didn’t nap. We went to get Nick, then went to CostCo because Nick had no more snack foods for his school lunches. Once that was taken care of, we went home, only to find that the gifts that my mother had sent us were left on our doorstep by UPS without a signature or confirmation. Just left out there for anyone to take, should they desire. What a piss off.  I brought them inside, then I dropped off the groceries, and then we went back to school, the three of us, because Nick had his Christmas concert.  Alex was stuck in traffic because people are morons but made it JUST in time for Nick’s performance.  I didn’t properly videotape it with the phone because I was distracted, but we amusingly discovered that he’s the kid who yells the lyrics of the sounds, rather than singing them. It was adorable.  He was also very into the choreography and whole ordeal. Such a good kiddo.

During the show, Rusty decided that he was gonna be a terror, more than usual.  He got out of his seat, pushed past the people in the aisle, and made his way right up to the stage where the kids were doing their show.  One of the teachers grabbed him and brought him back to me, then the lovely librarian took him to the kindergarten room so we could actually watch the show.  Later during the performances, she had brought him back to the gym where the Principal was keeping an eye on him.  Unfortunately for him, he took his eyes off of Russell for ten seconds, during which time Russell made another dash for the stage, and was once again apprehended.

I was just glad it wasn’t my fault that time, and thankful that the little bugger didn’t make it ON the stage, as he knows exactly how to get up there.

We had Harveys for dinner afterward because I had a coupon and Nick took FOREVER to eat his burger. I’m talking, 40 minutes to eat a kid sized burger. Bloody hell, kid, seriously? We spent way too long there cos all Nick did was fuck around.

The last stop was the dollar store for some candy canes for our trees and for gifts.

When we got home, Alex rushed in and I took care of getting the kids inside. One of our letters in the mailbox was from the dentist’s office and they had misspelled our last name, meaning I couldn’t mail in the claim. That, coupled with the kids being wild animals, I was happy to get Rusty and Nick ready for bed. After the kids were in bed, Alex and I worked on my homework and I think we have a nicely solid story in mapped format.  We’ll see what kind of subplot Ty will throw in there for us. Tonight, if class isn’t cancelled, Ty will also be teaching us how to write a roast, which will also be awesome. I can’t wait 😀

The last thing I did before bed was work more on The Red Surge. Sometime while drawing, the layers got merged down. I didn’t notice until I was out of Undos. OMG, I was PISSED. I put the work down for awhile and played PVZ until bedtime. This morning, I rectified the mistake and finished the work.

All good, all good.

Oh, I also stepped on what used to be a banana, all mushy and cold and slimy, on a chair which I was resting my foot on. A gift from Rusty.

How thoughtful.

I almost forgot again.

Posted by jupe

And forgetting to blog would’ve made me a bad jupe.

Yesterday was a combination of good and bad. Good in that I got a lot of drawing done, as well as my blog post, and good in that I went to class. More on class later.

First, the bad.

Nick had a day at school. He got it into his head that it was a good idea to tell all the girls in his class that they were inferior and that boys are better, and then after getting a talking to about compassion by the teacher, did it again. He was in charge of handing out papers to the class and only gave the boys paper. He upset one of the girls so much, she went into hysterics.

SO, he spent the rest of the afternoon in the office, which I approve of. There’s no need for my son to become a pigheaded woman hater. He’s only six and such habits must be broken early. I’ll be keeping an eye on him at school.

Aside from that, the only other bad thing is the sheer amount of time I had to sit in traffic yesterday. I left home around 4:10 and after dropping the kids off at Alex’s work, then picking up Greg, I finally parked the car around 5:45.  Then, after class, after dropping Mandy off at Union, driving in Traffic where everyone loses their shit and forgets how to drive, and dropping Greg off, I got home an hour after leaving. Thursdays involve 2.5 hours in the car to drive only 62km, round trip.

BLARGH.

But aside from that, pretty good day. My class read their pitches and we all voted on the best ones. Next week, we must have 17 pages worth of a story map and a story bible all done and then Ty will teach us both sub plots AND then, later, roasts. We will get to roast Ty. OMG, I can’t wait! My class picked my Gimmick story. The Sidekicked story got a few votes, too, but it’s too much like a story that was put out in the past… and my Wavebreak story got almost no votes, which is unfortunate — but I’m super happy being able to work on the first issue of Gimmick. I’ve been wanting to refine it for quite some time and will finally be able to do so.

More updates on that as it comes along.

Also, for anyone wondering about Strays, I’m still working on it. I need to revise the script with the suggestions Ty made but I’ve been so busy lately with my daily drawings and with other life crap. It’s coming along and I’ll post again as soon as I’m ready to go.

TGIF, BITCHES!

BAD BAD BAD, JUPE

Posted by jupe

I had this window open yesterday to post the blog post but got distracted by something shiny. Stupid attention span. Here’s the low down on what went down for the last couple days. It kind of works out since yesterday was pretty uneventful.

Tuesday

Did my daily drawing, etc, did some surfing, and found some recipes online; the usual stuff, really. Ravelry got some love, too, as always. The one huge task for the day was getting Nick’s fillings done… or at least, the first half of them. Little bugger had cavities on both sides of his mouth and they won’t do both sides at once because it’s just cruel and unusual punishment to freeze both sides of a person’s mouth.

So, I called Alex about an hour before it was time to get Nick from school and he came home to watch Rusty, as I couldn’t find a babysitter. I stuffed Nick into the car and we went to the dentist, arriving JUST in time.  They had him drink this awful blue gunk and then eat a freezie to get the taste out of his mouth, but the damage had been done. Nick was already complaining and upset about the awful blue stuff. It started the process of him being upset and everything just escalated from there.

I helped him walk to the chair and held him so he wouldn’t fall, as the blue stuff basically kills all your instincts. If Nick had fallen face first, he wouldn’t have had the where-with-all to put his arms out to stop the fall and would’ve just faceplanted. SO, he went into the chair and chose to watch the Spongebob movie. Not that it did a lot of good. Once things started, so did the screaming. The flailing. The fighting. He was dead set on getting out of that chair, no matter how much nitrous they pumped into him.  I had to sit on his legs and hold his arms down — and still, my six year old managed to lift me off of the chair with his legs and nearly ripped his arms out of my arms. In fact, he did rip his arms out of my hands, and at one point, grabbed my fat roll (you’re allowed to laugh at that) and squeezed and twisted to try to get me off of him.

An agonzing 30 minutes later, he was done. Still frozen, crying, generally upset. I brought him home and Alex tried to play some Wii with him to cheer him up but that wasn’t working. I went to get Alex and I some dinner and I made the boys Kraft dinner with chicken nuggets because Nick’s mouth was still sore and kraft dinner was the easiest thing for him to eat for dinner.

He was weepy and agitated all night and we eventually got him to bed. He went out like a light and slept through till morning without incident.

Wednesday

Nick woke up with no memory of what happened the day before at the dentist. Thank freaking goodness. I took care of the boys’ breakfast and Nick’s lunch because Alex wasn’t feeling great in the morning; he had a slow start. Then, off to school. It was an uneventful day, other than the daily drawing and forgetting to blog. I did some cleaning, hung out with Rusty, and mostly chilled.

I have homework to do later and class to go to tonight. Same old routine.

Have a great day.

More work to do.

Posted by jupe

Well, I had class last night, and it looks like this week will be a writing-heavy week. No worries, though; I’ll still do my daily drawings.  I have some more sketches to upload, too. Expect to see a lot of dog drawings, as I’m not that great at drawing animals and I’ll need the practice if this story is going to be about, well, a dog. Ty gave me some amazing feedback on my story, and my friend Nelson gave me some feedback, too. I have some writing to do!

In the meantime, there are the usual chores. Dishes; laundry; sweeping; cooking. Alex had to be at work this morning at 7, so I had the kids by myself this morning. I got Nick all set and ready to go. Today was crazy hat day at school, so I let him wear his dad’s Dwarven Battle Bonnet. I’ll grab a picture later cos I forgot my phone when I went to drop him at school.

This weekend was supposed to be really busy but half of the big plans dropped. Alex’s step sister’s grandmother died and they had to cancel. I hope we can reschedule something with them before we all forget, like always.

So, anyway, today will be spent doing some chores, doing some drawing, and doing a lot of writing. As soon as this blog post is over, the drawing will begin.

I hope all my American friends had a lovely Thanksgiving. Try not to die today on Black Friday. 😛

I just love Thursdays.

Posted by jupe

Thursday is class day. I love, love, LOVE Thursdays. I’ll be meeting with Fred for dinner before class today and joining us will be Greg and possibly Tom and Mandy from class. I’ll head downtown earlier than usual, too, since I haven’t seen Fred in effing forever. So, I’m thinking ramen noodles, as the weather has been getting colder lately. A nice, hot soup will help warm the soul and fuel the brain — and if we have time, we can stop at the tea house for a cuppa before class.

All good.

Last night’s dinner was a simple one. Alex came home early from work because he was feeling like shit. I made wonton soup and pork buns for dinner and that went over really well. Everyone seemed decently satisfied with dinner. I passed out on the couch before the kids went to bed and Alex didn’t disturb me. I woke up to find out he was watching Man of Steel, then we watched the rest together and finished the night with Star Trek TNG. We watched Chain of Command parts 1 and 2. Part 2 is probably my favourite TNG episode. Picard rocks.

On the drawing front, I finished the Leona turnaround for today’s daily drawing. I’ll be sure to add it to the appropriate folders. We’ll see whether or not I do more turnarounds tonight, I don’t know. I’m equally dreading and looking forward to drawing Dog. That’s the only part I’m not overly confident about. I’ll have to find all sorts of reference stuff to work with so I’m comfortable with it.

Today’s big chore is dishes. I want Alex to be able to make dinner for the boys when I’m gone. Hope, hope, hope.

Speaking of hope, I hope Ty read my script. I wanna start on my thumbnails asap. 🙂

What could be better than Rasta Pasta?

Posted by jupe

Well, as far as jerk is concerned, not much. Rasta Pasta is a hole in the wall in Kensington Market but is well worth the visit. It’s a tiny, well kept space, and your meat is grilled on the barbecue. I was happy with the fresh side of cabbage, carrot, and peppers, as it’s really good winter food. Packed full of vitamins. I came across it when I was walking the area with EK and Brett Weaver back during TCAF and finally went back with Greg before class.

We got downtown fairly early, so after eating we actually had time to sit somewhere and hang out.  We opted for a small tea shop around the corner and sat in warmth and comfort while we did homework and notekeeping from the previous classes. I was hesitant before writing the Rom Com because they can be, well, boring and predictable… but it was the assignment and I didn’t want to go to class emptyhanded. The previous night, I played around with the idea of a person becoming friends with a dog and ran with it yesterday.

It turned out surprisingly well.

It turned out so well that I decided that I’ll make it into a comic. I need to do the writing and scripting still, plus the story bible, and I’ve never drawn dogs before. It’ll be a fun exercise and a good way to keep up the daily drawings. Expect a lot of pictures coming up of dogs and a lesbian teen.

I spent the entire morning working on the picture for today’s daily drawing, but I’m okay with that. I do, however, think that I’ll work on more pictures by hand, as I find digital drawing takes a lot longer than pencil sketching. Plus, I do enjoy using the new scanner. Might be the easier way to go.

I got all my chores and to do list done yesterday, which is nice. I also came downstairs this morning to see that Alex had emptied the dishwasher last night for me. It was a good way to start the day. I immediately filled it up and ran it again; I’m almost caught up with the kitchen chores!

As for today, I think that I’ll spend some more time doing some writing. I do have to go out and get Nick from school, but that shouldn’t be much of a distraction.  It’s barely 1pm and Rusty is napping on the couch. I’m cool with this because it allows me some quiet time to do some writing, browsing, and even chores. I may not be able to watch tv during his nap, but I think that’s okay. I may even bring up some laundry to fold. We’ll see, yes?

Today’s tea was David’s Tea Ceylon Star. It’s a somewhat earthy and yummy black tea with a hint of sweetness. I had a bit of milk in it and some sugar to curb the bitterness that I find black tea gives.  I steeped it at boiling for 3 minutes this time.

Dinner tonight will be something with chicken breast. Maybe a nice noodle and red pepper stir fry. Or, maybe some homemade chicken fingers. I don’t know, yet. We’ll see what happens. In any case, I’ll photograph it later and post the recipe.