2012 Resolutions

This year I am setting monthly resolutions. I read that this is a good way to get a lot done. I'll use some months to set new practices in place that in theory will continue past their designated month. Other months are self contained. Last year I did my resolutions faithfully until May. A net gain, and also a failure. To keep on track this year, so that my last 7 monthly goals get a chance, I am doing something kind of finicky with mail, called remailing:

At the 1st of a new month, I will sit down with my resolution and write it and draw it on the front of a postcard. Then on the back of the postcard I will put my own address, and draw a little calendar of the month. Then I will put this postcard into an envelope and address that to the postmaster of a US town with a relevant name. From what I've read, this will get the postcards postmarked with that town's name. I am not sure this is correct, because letters posted in my town get the postmark of the mail sorting center, not the town, but I am willing to try it. And every day I will yearn for the postcard to turn up, and that will keep me on track to completing my goal. When it does turn up, I can record my daily progress on the calendar I've drawn.

January: Learn to cook new healthy foods. Focus on having very balanced nutrition.
Hershey, PA

February: Practice yoga every day. Learn about yoga resources or theory.
Half Moon Bay, CA

March: Go on an adventure.
Globe, AZ

April: TBD
Truth or Consequences, NM

May: Wake up at sunrise, because it is sunrise.
Morning Sun, IA

June: Take time to meditate every day. Do not learn any more meditation theory.
Bliss, NY

July: Swim! Swim until I am worn out, until I can't get out of the pool without using the ladder.
Neversink, NY

August: Spend 40 hours on my current artwork. (track hours)
Paint Lick, KY

September: Be a better global citizen. Conserve resources, share wealth, pay attention to what is happening to everyone.
Blue Earth, NM

October: Take ice skating lessons.
Snowflake, AZ

November: Practice cello 20 hours.
Stringtown, OK

December: Submit JET app.
Satsuma, AL

This method does not seem to promise the wonderful cumulative effect of working on something consistently for a year.

One of the job boards I check is the one the unemployment office referred me to, caljobs. I lost my caljobs password, and I forgot my security question answers.^ I know I haven't forgotten my first car or the job I wanted when I was a kid, so maybe I am capitalizing differently. I feel like it's rude for the unemployment job board to ask about my dream job. Anyway, the website was down tonight so I felt free to hang out on the swap bot website.

I haven't looked at who is sending to me in the Christmas Card and a Teabag Swap but I thought they might be international since I haven't gotten anything and domestic mail is the quickest (On swap bot the swaps are a round robin or random or something- you don't exchange things with a partner). I sent three cards to the US, one to Finland, and one to the UK. I planned not to look at my senders, so as to be surprised, but I am glad I looked because now I can anticipate mail from the US, Spain, Thailand, Australia, and the Czech Republic.

I was reading my senders' profiles, not for any reason, and two of them stated really strongly that they don't accept unwrapped tea bags. I read all the profiles of the folks I sent unwrapped tea bags to, and none prohibited unwrapped bags so everything is fine, but I feel bad because I have changed my perspective re the appropriateness of unwrapped tea bags. Factory wrapped is the way to send tea to strangers. I was just so excited to share the seasonal Trader Joe's Candy Cane Decaf Green Tea. It is so good. It tastes a little bit like a candy cane and not really like green tea. I guess I don't know what it tastes like. It is my favorite flavored tea, and last year I never stocked up and I had to hoard my last box for months and when I had used it up I didn't throw away the box until I moved. I just kept the box in my cupboard-- it has a narwhal on it whose horn has an ornament tied on with string-- and when offering tea to guests I would point it out.

I have a new project in mind and pretty international stamps will help it lots. The project is a stamp collecting album dollhouse book, made from a dozen oil paintings. The stamps will fill picture frames and so on. I have got as far as ripping the pages out of a book and drawing bricks on the spine and back cover.

^Okay, I figured it out. I made a super hard password to spite the uber demanding password requirements. So, that will show caljobs. Like, it said my password had to include characters from 3 sets, but wouldn't accept my password until I added a character from a fourth set. It was at the limits of my password generating abilities, and people who are a lot less computer literate than I are relying on this service.

"Vintage" Birdcage ATCs

These are some Artist Trading Cards I made for a swap-bot swap. I like doing ATCs, they are like an assigned sketch topic but fun.

2012 Planner

 I've made a planner for next year. This is the front. For an epigraph I put in some Latin.

 It's made from a National Geographic book called Hawaii. I picked it for the gold embossing on teal, but I was reading snippets as I cut it apart and they were very interesting, and mostly about sharks.

I left centimeter wide strips of the original pages and glued printer paper in between them. These pages feel nice to turn through. I want to have it heavily, heavily illustrated but I am out of practice so the illustrations so far are a bit timid. You can see they do not fill up the space allotted them.

My hope is that through a year of filling it up with goals and adventures it will become a little time capsule of 2012.

Harry Potter Christmas Ornaments

I joined a craft swap to exchange handmade Harry Potter Christmas ornaments, and once I got started I thought of a family we've known forever who are big HP fans and I made a few nice ornaments for them as well. 

 The snitch has wings of cut paper and I haven't invented how to send it through the mail without destroying them, especially because the gold ball is solid epoxy resin and comparatively heavy. I invented the gold, it is from mixing an acrylic color called Interference Orange (translucent white with glimmer that flashes orange/green) with Burnt Umber (dark brown). I hoped it would turn out light shiny brown, and instead it made a perfect candy bronze. There are heaps of mixable acrylic mediums that I've just steered away from because I don't feel I have time to learn to control them, but this small success is encouraging.

I signed up for the swap hoping my partner would want a little Weasley Sweater, and she didn't seem to, so I made one anyway for our friends the Tersignis. Both sweaters I have knit have been this scale, although I have knit several swaths of fabric meant to be sweater fronts. 

It's so rewarding to make things that a ton of talented people have already designed, I can just sit down and turn them out and they're charming. I noticed the same thing when I made my TARDIS, which still no one in VT has visited. I hope they are all snowed in. 

Christmas Cards!

I meant to send my Christmas cards out on Saturday but the Post Office was closed and I only had Liberty Bell stamps, which are a bit grave really. So I had my cards for an extra day, and I made them extra good. 

 I drew simple messages and hid them under the postage.

 I used my dip pen to put some festive illustrations on the backs of the envelopes.

I had to free up my double pointed needles to cast on a tiny sweater ornament, so I finally finished up these socks from last year and they're on their way to my Nana. 

I found an advent calendar for a dollar at Trader Joe's, so I put a couple dollars' postage on it and sent it on its way, heavily inked in silver.

a new word

a new word catches my eye. I perk up, sound it out. pulchritudinous. I want to collect it, but it's so ugly. I expect the writer hasn't selected it for its clarity. Maybe I will just find out, doesn't mean I'll use it. pulchritudinous. I can spell it, at least.
It means having beauty, from the latin pulchritudo. Oh, latin, you are no good at this.