100 Books In 2014

1. Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (reread)
2. Time Traveler's Strictly Cash (Callahan #2)
3. (Callahan #3)
4. Callahan's Lady (Callahan #4)
5. "Parasite" Mira Grant
6. "Divergent" Veronica Roth
7. Callahan (#5)
8. Callahan (#6)
9. Callahan (#7)
10. Callahan's Con (#8)
11. "The Wizard of Oz" Frank L. Baum
12. "Death's Hand" S.M. Reine
13. "The Darkest Gate" S.M. Reine
14. "Dark Union" S.M. Reine
15. "Witch Hunt" S.M. Reine
16. "Called" Robert J. Crane
17. "Flaming Dove" Daniel Arenson
18. "Cursed!" Scott Nicholson & J.R. Rain
19. "A Game of Thrones" George R.R. Martin
20. "A Clash of Kings" George R.R. Martin
21. "A Storm of Swords" George R.R. Martin
22. "Rosemary and Rue" Seanan McGuire
23. "Insurgent" Veronica Roth
24. "Allegiant" Veronica Roth

Natural Bridge Zoo, Natural Bridge, VA

 Today we enjoyed ourselves with some friends at the Natural Bridge Zoo in Natural Bridge, VA.

The zoo is relatively small and unaffiliated with any national zoo affiliations but it's still fun, with a wide array of animals large and small.

The zoo was packed with travelers, all intent on celebrating Memorial Day weekend with their families, just as we were doing. We forgot it was Memorial Day weekend and were a little surprised by the crowds but you live and learn, right?

Still, parking wasn't too difficult and I never felt like we were crammed into the zoo like sardines or anything. They were busy but even when busy there's plenty of space for everyone to enjoy the animals.

 The first thing you walk into at the zoo is the big cat exhibit. There are cougars, lynx, and several tigers.

It took me too many shots with my camera to get a picture of this one lapping up water. He was a thirsty kitty though and sat there drinking long enough for me to finally snap the picture I was looking for.

Most of the big cats were dozing in the noonday sun so the pictures I have are of their backs, or their ears, or anything but their faces. They would move into position, showing their face, and turn away (almost as though on purpose) just as I pulled up my camera to take a picture. Cheeky little tigers.

 Three little potbellied pigs rooting through the dirt were essentially right next door to the tiger cage. I wasn't sure which animal this was more horrible to; the possibly hungry tigers looking for a snack, or the bacon, er, potbellied pigs right next door.

This pig was definitely the largest of them all, jowls hanging down about his ankles as he bullied other pigs out of his way.

I turned to Amanda, one of our friends who came with us on this journey and whispered, "Be polite to that one." She looked at me questioningly and I said even quieter, "He's the hogfather."

I'm not allowed to tell any more jokes.

 This little guy was reaching through the bars, begging to be thrown food. He's obviously learned that it works since he kept doing it and, well, people were throwing him food. He was definitely adorable, right up until he roughed up the other monkeys who were honing in on his territory.

Seriously, this guy was ready to cut them if they didn't step off.

As I'm writing this I'm beginning to realize that the top of my bald head isn't just a little sunburned. It's a lot sunburned. And it hurts. And my brain is getting fuzzy.

Still, aren't these flamingos absolutely stunning? Look at that plumage! Gorgeous!

There were easily 20 flamingos in the area and almost all of them had the same brilliant coloring.

I remember reading that they get their coloring from what they eat. I wonder what these ones eat that seem to make them extra colorful.

I guess it could be sunburn, since I'm extra colorful at the moment?

 Did I mention that a bird pooped on my head while we were there?

People say that's good luck. I think they say that because they don't want to focus on the fact that a bird just decided their head looked like a good bombing site.

One upside to having a bald head? Bird poop is easy to clean up.

For the record, this was not the bird that pooped on my head. It just reminded me that this happened.

Ew.

This is an African tortoise of some kind. I know it's African because the nice lady who was letting it run around in the grass told me so. She also told me that its name had something to do with those wicked gnarly legs but I kind of forgot what she said since I was busy trying to get a good picture of it.

I think I was successful in my endeavor and barely regret only half listening. The lady also had a snake she was holding but I didn't get a picture of it. It was fast-moving, small, and wanted to hide up her sleeve.

 Is there anything cuter than a baby goat?

I mean, besides my daughter of course.

 Two baby goats.

My head is starting to really hurt at this point. I'm getting tired and my eyes are trying to close themselves. These deer had way more shade than I did for most of the day.

Maybe next time I should invest in sunblock? That's probably a good idea. Considering my fair skin I should probably always invest in sunblock. SPF 500.

 Elephants are really big. So big that I couldn't size this picture the same size as the others. It just wouldn't let me. Nope. It had to be bigger to do it justice.

I'm going to stop talking now. I'm tired and need to go get some sleep.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures and my rambling. I hope you enjoy the remaining pictures after this last bit of ramble.

Today was a lot of fun and even though the zoo was relatively small it was large enough to be worth the price of entry, fun enough to keep even my almost-2-year-old (mostly) entertained, and diverse enough to have a few animals that surprised me.

I had fun here and I'm pretty sure everyone else did, too. All in all, it was a successful day.

Now please pardon me: I need to take some ibuprofen, throw a gallon of aloe on my head (if we have any), and go to sleep.

LLAMA FACE!

Rooster!

Springbok?

Look out, they spit!

Jefferson National Park, Cascades, Virginia (Fair Warning: Bugs and a Spider)

 This is a pathway to nowhere that seems to have continued onto a bridge at some time in the past, but that bridge has crumbled long before now.

That small cave to the left is dark and probably not as deep as it seemed to be. Probably.

Either that, or that's where the troll lives.

 You can see that the stairway ends, terminating in empty air over the river. I wonder what this used to be, why it was there, and how it was used.

I'm sure somebody knows but I am not that person.

The water was fast-moving, beautiful, and not too high. The last time we came out here the streams were flooded and we couldn't actually go further onto the path. Today was a perfect day for this.

 This bridge splits the path into the "easy" path and "difficult" path. We took the "easy" path.

Just for the record, "easy" does not mean "stroller friendly."

This little guy was crawling across the pathway. We had seen several corpses of millipedes along the way but this was the first (and only) living one we noticed.

It was fast!

 Downed logs littered the pathway on either side of the path and this one just struck me as particularly photogenic.

Either that or I was trying to be artsy-fartsy with my picture-taking. You decide!

(If this were black and white you could be SURE it was the second option.)

 This is a preview of what's going up on Father Fails on Friday.

My daughter is adorable.

 

 The stroller was a pretty quick downfall for us. We were probably less than halfway to our destination when we came across a large mud pit that would have been passable without the stroller.

It may have been passable with the stroller but the stroller would have never been the same, I'm sure.

This big guy was hanging out on the sign announcing that we were entering the Cascades. Laura pointed it out and I took pictures as everyone else stood far away.

We noticed it on our way out instead of our way in, thankfully. Otherwise we'd have all been jumpy about walking in the woods since this one was roughly the size of my palm. I'd have been trying to spot any others hiding in the trees, ready to pounce at any second.



I'm a little sad that we didn't make it to the actual Cascade falls but it was a beautiful day with my family. We had a lot of fun and I regret not trying to come out here more often while we lived here. Now that we're leaving in a week I wish we had taken a few extra picnics over the last couple of years.

10,000 Hours - Music

It's been a while since I've really had anything to say here. I've been dealing with hernia pain, which was just operated on, and Diverticulitis pain that has finally gone away. It's been tough to care about practicing when I've been in pain but I've at least kept up with the guitar a little bit.

I've discovered how to download fresh content for Rocksmith 2014, which is cool; all sorts of songs made by the community to share with everyone else. Some of them suck (I'm looking at you, very-poorly-done version of "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz) and some are amazing (thank you very much "Simple Man" for making my day).

I'm still having fun with it. It's just hard to come up with anything to say about it since it's more of the same. "Still practicing, seeing results that are unquantifiable in any real way."

Laura says she can tell I'm getting better, at least, so there's that.

Ow

This week has been a bit of a wash-out, so far.

I am suffering from some abdominal pain that my doctor told me three weeks ago was probably diverticulitis. We put me on two courses of two different antibiotics over the course of the next two weeks and for a while it seemed as though it worked but the gut pain is back.

The pain is nowhere near as bad as when I had my appendix out or even the level of pain from my gall bladder. On a scale of 1-10, 10 being my appendix, 8 being my gall bladder, and 1 being absolutely no pain, I'd put the spikes of pain at about a 6 with the regular pain at around a 3 or 4. Enough pain to be annoying, with spikes of pain being immobilizing for short periods of time.

This is why I haven't blogged.

It sounds silly, really. Blogging doesn't require much work; I don't really DO anything, except think and write, maybe take a couple of pictures. What's the big deal?

Well, the pain has led to a kind of mental fatigue that I'm only accustomed to equating to my depressive times. I'm not depressed. I'm grumpy, kind of angry at the doctor for not calling me back almost 24 hours after my CT scan to tell me if we need surgery or not, and a little sad that my body seems to be falling apart, but none of that is depression. It's normal. But my brain is fogged.

I hate it.

I like being creative, writing and picture taking and drawing and guitar playing and and and. More more more. But these past few days I've tuned out completely.

I'm trying to tune back in, despite the pain.

Wish me luck.

This rant has been brought to you by the letter "Diverticulitis sucks."

10,000 Hours - Art

I've been playing around lately; still doing the realistic-style drawings, the 30-second figure drawings, a drawing from RedditGetsDrawn but I've also been trying to get back in touch with just having fun with the drawing.

One of the things that has really helped is watching tutorials on YouTube for how to do anime-style drawing. It's actually helped me do hair better (not perfect, but better) and get facial proportions!

One of the things I'd like to start doing is making comic strips of some kind or another. A page a day or so, hand-drawn and fun.

The only problem with that is that I need to be able to consistently draw the same thing; draw a face over and over again with little variation.

And that is TOUGH. I can't keep a shape from one drawing to another. I have no idea if all people who are learning to draw go through this but I imagine it's not just me. Right?

This week, then, I'm going to try and practice drawing the same face from day to day, getting it to look generally the same with very little variation, getting the lines just right.

Wish me luck; this is going to be tough.

10,000 Hours - Music

I'm at a standstill. Rocksmith is fun but not successful at really teaching me much right now, or at least that's how it feels. The activities I'm doing on my keyboard are teaching me where each note is and what it sounds like but without some kind of primer I'm not actually learning how to play or read music.

I have to practice more but things keep getting in the way.

I still pick up the guitar every day and play the keyboard too. I just feel as though I've come to some kind of plateau. I'll keep going and push myself through it but right now I'm just feeling like it's all a little pointless.

I know that's just my brain and has no actual basis in reality but my brain is powerful.

I'll keep pushing myself. Once I get to the next level I'll look back at this and laugh.

Hopefully.

10,000 Hours - Art

One of the two pictures I'm showcasing today I'm proud of and the other one is this picture of a boy holding a lizard.

I was proud of the boy holding a lizard, to some small degree, and I was going to work on it more, right up until someone told me I was suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect and pointed out that my proportions were all wrong and that I did not capture the boy's shape at all well. I mean, just look at the eyes, and then those things that are supposed to be ears.

Here's the thing: His words were true. They hurt but that doesn't make them untrue. He could have said them in a less cruel way but again, he wasn't lying.

Still, I feel as though I've progressed in the last few months. Some of my pictures have come out really well.

That, and I'm proud of the lizard still. He didn't say anything about my lizard being bad. So there.

Now this page with the eye and the puppy? This page I'm proud of.

I wanted to draw a dog for fun so I pulled up pictures of bulldogs and just quickly sketched this out. The eyeball up top came later because I'm trying to work on pieces of faces but the dog was its own thing.

I'm proud of it. If I shouldn't be, I don't want to know.

What makes me more proud of it is that Lois saw it after I drew it, pointed at it, and said "Doggy!" Which means that even if it's not particularly good, it's recognizable as what it is.

I win!

Of course, this is coming from the girl who drew what can at best be called abstract art and called it "Daddy" but hey, who am I to judge her works of amazing art?

Coming Up With More

I am so unmotivated today it's not even funny.

Today's the first day I've felt like a human being in about two weeks so I'm celebrating being over The Cold From Hell that I was suffering. I feel as though I should be more energetic and happy/productive since I'm no longer sick but no. Instead I want to sit and just go "blah" all day long.

There are only two things keeping me going at the moment:

1. The fact that I don't want to disappoint Laura with absolutely nothing done around the house when she gets home from a stressful day of working on her dissertation.

2. The fact that I'm on a quest with my party over at HabitRPG and if I don't get all my to dos done for the day they'll all get whacked by the creature we're fighting. I'd feel guilty if anything happened to my party because I'm being lazy.

The second reason keeps me doing all the things I should be doing in a day but the first one gets me to go a bit above and beyond. Sure, I could let the living room keep this general messiness to it but the living room is the first room Laura steps into when she comes home; I want homecoming to be a pleasant experience for her.

Sometimes it's really hard to come up with the energy to do more.

What are some tricks that you use? What drives you to keep pushing when you feel like you're on empty?

10,000 Hours - Music and Me

My guitar playing travels apace. I continue to play Rocksmith and while it tells me I'm improving I don't see it quite as much as I feel I should be. I will continue, however, and enjoy myself with it; even though I'm not doing as well as I'd like (and Laura still prefers I practice when she's not around) I am enjoying it. Maybe that's the secret to practice, finding a way to enjoy it.

On the keyboard I'm still working at the most basic level: I'm learning to recognize on sight which key is which, and then be able to find one within a split second of being given a note. Finding the "A" key, for example, or "F#" without having to count out the keys and figuring out exactly which is which.

One of the things I'm enjoying on keyboard is actually going to Ultimate Guitar and following the chords for guitar on the piano. It's good practice at finding chords, though it tends to be one hand at a time so it's not "true" keyboard practice but it's fun and helpful.

By next week I'd like to have mastered several Rocksmith "Lessons" and have learned the basics of reading keyboard music. Just the very basics would be fine; I'm trying to take this slow and easy.

10,000 Hours - Art

I feel like I'm moving backwards in my artistic ability.

I know that's not true at all and I can see where I'm improving when I draw things but I feel like it's becoming work, and that's not what I want at all; I'm trying to learn how to draw because I want to have fun drawing. My daily exercises are starting to feel like chores, not like something fun.

I'm not entirely sure what to do about that; I need to work on it daily to keep improving but I also need it to be fun.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Rocksmith

I've been playing Rocksmith 2014 for about a week now. It says I've put in about 12 hours on it. I've bought a few downloadable content packs to add some new music to it that I knew I'd enjoy playing, like the Queen songs and System of a Down.

Thus far I feel as though I've improved more with Rocksmith than I have with all the other work I've put into playing the guitar. It's teaching me to play songs in a fun, gamified way of things. It includes both note-play and chords with a clear, easy-to-follow interface.

I'm glad I came into this game; I think it's going to cut my learning time in half.

The only thing it doesn't seem to do is teach me how to read music. I should probably supplement that aspect with some old-fashioned music books but at this point I'm spending so much time learning how to actually play, and having so much fun doing it, that I keep putting off the rest.

I don't think it's really too big of a deal to wait to learn that since in the mean time I'll be learning how to properly hit the notes, how to switch between the strings without looking, new strumming techniques, and how it should sound. Once I have all that down I can learn how to read the music and I don't think that will be too difficult since I have a history of reading music.

One of the other nice things is that I can learn bass using the same method as soon as I get an electric bass! I want to learn all the instruments I possibly can so it's a nice bonus.

10,000 Hours - Art

This sketch took about 5 minutes and is only about 3 inches tall.

I'm exhausted and not full of good words to write.

Suffice it to say that I feel like practice is paying off and that I need to keep practicing.

To that end, I will keep doing the following:

• 10 30-second gesture drawings daily
• 1 daily drawing from RedditGetsDrawn
• One page of any drawings I want to draw in any style

I'd also like to get better at proportions so I'm going to add to that list:

• One daily "how to" body/face/eye/nose/ear/etc tutorial.
• Watch a drawing video tutorial daily.

Brillig

I recently went on a quest to learn Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky. I took it stanza-by-stanza, broke it down, and actually memorized it pretty quickly (in about a week) with quite a bit of work on my end. I was dreaming in nonsense words, waking up with the words "tulgey" or "frabjous" on my lips.

I still practice the poem just about every day; saying it once in the morning to make sure it has a firm home in my mind. I'm sure that, eventually, I'll stop having to say it every day but until I'm comfortable I'll still repeat it over and over.

Memorizing the poem made me proud. It's been a while since I've really worked my brain like that; it was nice to know it still works!

Now, because I've felt that brilliant pride, I've decided that I'd learn another poem. Laura mentioned that she's always wanted to memorize Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken so I'm being a jerk and taking her idea.

Interestingly I find that my brain wants to jump right into Jabberwocky as I try to remember and recite the first stanza of The Road Not Taken. It's like my brain is accessing the ability to memorize things but since I've only actively used it on Jabberwocky recently it goes right to that, forgetting its original goal.

I don't know. It's just strange. Meanwhile I'll be over here, resting by the Tumtum tree in uffish thought.

10,000 Hours of Awesome - Music

I either made an awesome decision at 5 AM this morning or a REALLY awesome decision at 5 AM this morning.

On top of trying to learn guitar, and improving my drawing skills, I'll soon be learning the keyboard as well. I'll be using Synthesia to help me learn just like I'm using GuitarBots (and hopefully soon Rocksmith) to help me learn guitar.

Awesome decision, or REALLY awesome?  You decide!

10,000 Hours - Art

Something kind of interesting happened this week.

One of my daily to do list items for the past few weeks has been to do 10 30-second gesture drawings, using Quickposes or Pixelovely. On Monday I found myself sighing as I went to do the exercise, questioning whether or not it was even worth it. 30 seconds was barely any time and besides it's not like this exercise was actually making me any better at drawing; it was just a waste of five minutes. Maybe I should try a few one minute gesture drawings instead of 30 seconds?

I decided that I'd do another day of 30-second-long drawings and I hit "start." I sketched out the first pose quickly, then filled in a little bit of detail. Then a little more detail. Then a little more. Then I looked at the timer to see if I had somehow hit the wrong button. 2 seconds left.

The next model was the same; the thirty seconds seemed to stretch longer and I filled out more of the figure than I ever had before. This continued for all the models I drew. The thirty seconds seemed to last longer and I felt like I was capturing more of each pose.

Strange. It's like practicing every day actually pays off or something. I guess I'll keep on going with this pointless daily exercise.

In other news:

Noses suck. It seems like noses are almost impossible to draw with lines (aside from just detailing the nostrils a little and leaving the rest blank) and you need to use all shading to define a nose properly. I hate them.

I hate them almost as much as I hate hands. Almost as much.

10,000 Hours - Guitar

My fingers hurt.

Typing this hurts. Especially every letter that I hit with the fingers of my left hand. Did you know that the letter "E" is the most commonly used letter and that you type it with your left hand? I am now acutely aware of this.

I've practiced every day this week except for the one day I stayed in bed so sick that I couldn't keep water down. I'm giving myself a pass for that day and I don't even feel a little bit bad about it. Aside from that day, I've been picking up the guitar in just about every moment of free time to practice my chords and my note reading.

I'm using a very old lesson book (Deluxe Edition Guitar Self-Taught Ed Sale Radio's Wizard of the Strings c1952) and playing around on Ultimate Guitar to see if there are any songs that I can play yet using chords or tabs. The book might need some updating; maybe something newer would be better, but it's what I have on hand and it's working just fine right now.

I wouldn't say, overall, that it's going well but I'd say that there has been progress. For some reason I expected to be able to play something cool by now and have it be recognizable, with relatively quick switching between chords or notes and no real mistakes. Not anything complicated, of course, but something simple and straight-forward.

I might have been a little ahead of myself in my head. That's okay; I'm always a hopeful person. I'm able to dial that back a bit and just take victory in the little pleasures, like figuring out that to switch between an Am chord and a C chord all I have to do is move one finger, not pick up my whole hand and place it back down.

By this time next week I have three main goals:

• Be able to read all first-position notes on sight
• Feel like I have made actual improvement switching between chords (smoother, faster)
• Finish Lesson Book One (and find new book)

10,000 Hours of Awesome - Art

Color is not my best medium.

This last week I've really focused on shading. I've done a bunch of other drawing as well but shading was what I wanted to get better at. I practiced continually, several times a day. Supposedly you need to practice things to get better at them, what's up with that, right?!

I'm particularly proud of the bottom sphere in this first picture here.

Noses, ears, and hair; my ancient enemies!

 I hate drawing noses.

And ears.

Aside from that I'm relatively happy with this picture here. After I drew it I decided that I wanted to play around with color a little bit and I like how it came out for the most part.

I'm particularly proud of the shading around the eyes in this picture and the proportions being mostly correct (except for the ears, ignore those!).

Please ignore the dancing cyborg.

 Some more shading work. I have a long way to go but I'm working on it. I think finding simple objects and drawing them quickly, then really focusing on the shading should still be a large goal of mine in the following week.

Shading is what makes a drawing look realistic, even if the lines aren't that great. It's a neat little trick to make a someone "meh" picture look cool, but only when done right.

I'm actually pretty happy with his nose.

One of the resources I've been using is Reddit Gets Drawn. People put pictures of themselves or family or friends, asking the community to draw them.

This is the first picture I put there that got a compliment. All the others have either been ignored or (rightfully) critiqued.

My heart skips a beat in my chest every time I post something up there; I know I'm new and that I have a very long journey ahead of me but I want to contribute too!

I pick a picture that inspires me every day and draw it. Most times I just quietly shrug, shake my head, and don't post anything but so far I've put up three of the portraits I've been happy with.

The one I colorized above is one of the other ones I put up; I didn't get any feedback on it and that's okay! I just assume when I don't get feedback that people are following their mother's advice, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything."

I'm watching a video on drawing every day and reading as much as I can. I then try to take those skills from the videos and put them into practice or at least keep them in mind as I draw.

It's a slow process but I'm seeing progress. I like that.

For next week:

~One "Reddit Gets Drawn" portrait per day

~10 30-second gesture drawings per day

~Watch one "how to draw" video each day

~Find nose tutorial

10,000 Hours - Music

A friend of mine loaned me her guitar a few months ago and I had every intention of learning to play. I had books all ready to go, time set aside during the day (Lois' nap time), and I was going to learn.

The first time I tuned the guitar, the high e string snapped.

It's taken me this long to buy a new string because I'm a procrastinator, even when I don't mean to be one.

Now that it's repaired, however, I've been practicing every day for a total of four days.

That's not a lot, but it's a start!

I'm taking it really slowly. Right now I've practiced the G chord and the C chord, switching back and forth between them and having the ability to put my fingers down correctly without looking at them. Whereas with my drawing I jumped in whole-hog and started trying to draw really tough things, I think doing that with the guitar would be a mistake; slow and steady is the key.

That being said, when I'm playing around I do enjoy going to Ultimate-Guitar and playing around with the sheet music that has tabs. Tabs are a way for people who don't know how to read music to easily and quickly learn to play a song on a guitar; the format's very intuitive and it's neat to be able to recognize a tune pretty quickly. Right now I'm most enjoying Dust In the Wind by Kansas. I can't play more than the first bar but it's still fun!

In the mean time, I'll be over here, hitting G, C, G, C, G, C over and over and over again. Maybe I'll get adventurous and throw in a D now and then. Whee!

10,000 Hours - Art

I wish I had more to report here.

My big goal was to draw hands in the past week and I did that. I drew over 50 hands, ranging from 30 second drawings to full on not stopping until I was done drawing, drawings.

I still don't feel comfortable with hands (except maybe when they're balled up into fists - those are easier). They're awkward things at best. I know that if I just keep practicing I'll get better; I'm just getting used to the fact that I need to practice in order to get better.

As for making a watercolor drawing?

The first one I made, I used the wrong pencils and washing it with water only made a wet piece of paper and a very confused me. It took me a while to figure out how I had messed up.

The second one I made isn't even worth discussing at this point.

I think I may need to get better at drawing before I really start branching out into color. I need to learn shading, so that will be my focus this week.

My goals for the next week:

• Draw 50 feet
• 10 30-second drawings each day
• One 10 minute drawing - focus on shading
• Read about shading techniques

Early Riser

A long time ago I did a weird sleep experiment where I got up very early in the morning after going to bed fairly late. I made sure I got the six hours of sleep that my body tells me it needs to function well but I was going to bed by 10 and getting up at 4 in the morning.

Well, I was insane. Nobody wants to be up quite that early.

That being said, I am trying to make the transition to waking every morning between 6:00 and 6:30. Right now I'm on target with waking between 7:00 and 7:30 even without my alarm and today I was awake at 6:22, 8 minutes before I had set my alarm.

Why?

Truth to be told, I don't have a set good reason for it. I know getting up early means that I'm usually more productive but getting up at 7:30 seems to have been accomplishing that just fine for the past few weeks. I know that getting up earlier usually helps keep me in a better mood during the day but see the previous statement for why that doesn't matter.

Maybe a part of it is that I'd like an hour to myself? The little one wakes up sometime around quarter after seven most mornings or 8 at the latest. That means 2 mornings out of 5 I can do my showering, shaving, medicine and what-not as soon as I get up. On those other 3 mornings I have to wait; often until 11:30, which is her nap time.

Wait.

What that means, I realize as I write this, is that I want to wake up early so that I can take a shower.

Holy crap.

I'm a grownup.

10,000 Hours - Art (NSFW)

There has been a lot of sickness floating around the house lately and business pulling Laura away which has given me less time to do my art. Unfortunately this has given me a lot of great excuses not to get things done the way they should be done and I have spent little to no time drawing.

Until today.

We're healthy again and Laura's returned home. I spent some time drawing, added a to do line on my to do list to draw at least one page of art per day, and am hoping to be back in the swing of things.

One thing for sure? I need to work on hands, feet, and proportions. I actually really like what I did with this particular drawing but after a few seconds of looking at it all I see are the flaws.

I tried to do some water color but absolutely nothing good came of it at this point. I'll keep practicing but I have nothing to share on that end. Maybe I'll do a charcoal drawing and try to capture the hair in water color pencils. That might look nice.

My goals for next week:

• Draw more hands and feet
• Practice water colors, especially hair
• Do at least 10 30-second-long figure gestures per day and one 10 minute

Let's Talk About Who I Am

A few years ago I learned from a doctor that I have a testosterone count lower than most women. The doctor asked a few questions about what my teen years were like and explained that I probably had low testosterone my entire life, never reaching the levels I should have had; it was a bit of a revelation, if not a surprise.

Interestingly, what led to the diagnosis was me talking to the doctor about how I was depressed and listless. He ran a bunch of extra blood tests and told me that this was probably the cause of the depression, listlessness, and low energy.

For the last few years I've been on Androgel (a testosterone replacement therapy) on and off. Losing insurance meant I had to go off it since it's ridiculously expensive and then I was finally able to go back on it when I moved out here.

Here's the thing:

I am literally a different person when I'm on this drug.

The depression isn't 100% gone; I still have some bad days. The listlessness, though, is gone and I feel driven to do things. Even on my bad days I get off my butt and get a few things done around the house, whereas before a bad day meant that I didn't get out of bed or if I did then I didn't get off the couch. On good days I'm a whirlwind of productivity. The difference is insane.

I'm more inclined to get things done, stick with plans on how I want to handle my day, and am generally happier. Granted, I'm still learning how to use this energy; I spent roughly 30 years trying to be as unproductive as possible so now here I am with the energy and drive to get things done and I'm not quite as good at them as I could be since I don't have the practice.

There are a few downsides to the drug though. It's not a perfect solution, it's just close to one.

I'm angrier than I used to be. Those that know me know that I'm one of the calmest people on the face of the Earth. With Androgel, I have a very faint level of frustration that flows in the background of my brain. It comes to the front when things don't go as planned and it results in me being a bit more snappy than I should be.

I feel like I'm a huge jerk when I'm in that mood but I'm told that my level of "jerk" is quite a few other people's level of "being a human being," so that makes me feel good. I'm just not used to anger; it's a part of me but one that I have almost never had to deal with. I could push it aside in the past whereas now it's strong enough to push my rational brain to the back for a bit, at its worst.

I'm more creative too, on Androgel. I've been drawing, writing, and following my passions a bit more than in the past.

Because now I have passions.

I wonder if those things are linked: Anger and passion. Can you have one without the other? Has the lack of one strong emotion robbed me of the other?

Has the lack of testosterone robbed me of the strong feelings needed to follow my dreams? Will having raised the levels in my blood help me find talents and skills I never knew I had, or maybe just help me develop them because I can enjoy things on a level that I never have before?

I'll never know what could have been. I'll only know what comes next and even that I'll only know after it happens.

In the meantime, I'll be following my passions. I need to stay on testosterone.

The truth of the matter is that I like who I am better when I'm on it. I feel more like the real me even though this version of me hasn't been around even 1/10th the time I've been on this planet.

My 10,000 Hours - Art (NSFW)

Just finished this morning. Charcoal pencil.

We took a small vacation to Maryland so that Laura could apply for a good job. I brought my art supplies but I felt kind of strange about pulling them out while staying with friends; pretentious, maybe? I don't know.

Either way, I lost about a week of time to practice.

I'm back to it now, though. I'm finding that I'm liking charcoal more and more for figure drawing; there's something about the way I hold it and the way it flows that just works well for me.

Pencil, done before going on vacation.

I really enjoy figure drawing and had a realization yesterday while going through models on Pixel Lovely's model tool: If I really want to draw something, it needs to inspire me.

That might seem silly to some and others might be thinking "well, duh" but either way it was a revelation to me. I need to be inspired by whatever it is that I'm drawing to really do a decent* job at it.

Mostly 30-second pose drawings, and Lois.

If I'm just flipping through doing 30-second poses, trying to capture as much as possible in as short a time as possible (example to the left) then it's okay if the image doesn't inspire me, though I do better on the ones that capture my attention.

But if I'm taking ten minutes to draw something I need it to capture my attention. I flip through the models, looking for something that makes me almost literally say "Oh!"

I'm back on track and now I know what to look for. I can't wait to see where this goes.

I'd like to try a few different mediums this week. Maybe pastels, or watercolor pencils. We'll see; I don't feel ready for them yet but the point is to do new things, learn new things, otherwise I'll never be ready.

*For some degree of decent, mostly being "as decent as I can do it right now."

I'm Not A Liar But Sometimes I Fib To Myself

Today I woke up at 5 AM, checked on the baby, and had a bad morning. Dealing with baby throw-up is not the way to start a good day. This doesn't mean that today has to be a bad day, of course, but there are better ways to start your day and it seems the start of your day often dictates the general shape of the rest of it.

I have a list of chores to do around the house on HabitRPG, a website that makes to do lists into an RPG-like game. It's surprisingly effective for me.

One of those chores is "tidy the living room."

I sat here for the past 30 minutes staring at the mess around me while my little one napped and all I could think was "There is no way in hell I am getting up and cleaning this room. Not even a little bit."



I then got up and immediately started tidying the living room, then checked it off my list as being done for the day.

Oh, if you looked at the room you wouldn't call it tidied. I barely call it tidied (though it is quite a bit better than it was before I started) but today I need it to count as done.

I need to be able to lie to myself.

I'm not a liar. Not really. But sometimes I need to fib to myself. I need to be able to tell myself that "this is okay" even when it's not.

If I couldn't lie to myself like that, I think I'd go crazy. It's not a lie in that I believe it; there's definitely an internal wink and a nod that tells me I know what's what. The lie, instead, is in saying that I "gave it my all."

I didn't. I don't have "my all" to give today.

I half-assed it. I didn't want to even do that much. There's no way I was going to whole-ass it. Half an ass is as good as it's going to get right now.

There are only two things that are getting whole-assed today:

1. Keeping the baby alive and happy.
2. A super-secret surprise for Laura's birthday.

Those two things? They get all my energy. Everything else will get done when I get to it, for some value of "done."

And then I'll check them off the list, done or not, because I need it today.

And that's okay, even if it's not.

The pictures have absolutely nothing to do with anything, in case you're curious. See? I even half-assed this entry.

10,000 Hours - Art (NSFW)

I've been practicing my drawing every day for about two weeks now and while I am still seeing obvious glaring flaws in what I do, I've become much more happy with the results.

One of the reasons for this is that I've discovered a new (to me) technique called "linear gesture drawing" and I really love the way that it flows onto the paper. Something about the technique feels extremely natural to me. I know I still need a lot of work but when I'm done drawing something I feel like I've actually done something cool, whereas when I was mostly following drawing tutorials I would finish it and feel like I hadn't actually created anything; I had just copied someone else's work and that was it. Even when I'd end up with a kind of cool looking Stitch (from Lilo & Stitch) for example, I'd say "Yeah, but I just did it step-by-step. ANYONE could do that."

When I finish doing a linear gesture drawing, I can say "I did that!"

Below are some not-safe-for-work drawings that I did of art models I found online using a great figure drawing tool. In the future I'll probably find some clothed models to draw but for now this is all I have to share to show what I'm doing.

The only problem is that I'm not sure where to go from here. Once I get decent at this form of drawing, what's the next step? How do I improve, and what skills do I need to add to my current repertoire? I'm not sure. I'm sure I'll figure it out, eventually. For now, though, I'll just keep doing what I enjoy and hopefully keep improving!

Now, everything below this line is NSFW. Fair warning.

 A good friend came to visit last night and during a lull I decided to show her what I've been working on. I flipped to this picture and she laughingly said "Bow chicka wow wow!"

I was just happy she could tell what the drawing was!

I'm particularly proud of this drawing. I just really like the way the blanket came together, and think that even though her face is drawn in a VERY simplistic style I captured it as a face.

That sounds ridiculous but some of the faces I've drawn have ended up with a result that makes me go "Did I just draw a golem, or something?"

I'm happy with this one. Hopefully in 2 or 3 weeks I'll look at it and see all the flaws that I don't make anymore.

That's the hope, right?

Resolutions: Fitness

I always resolve to get fit, jump into it in a big way, do well right up until I don't, and then fail spectacularly. I like everything in that right up until everything after "do well" and I'd like to change that bit. Here's how I plan on doing it:

I'm using HabitRPG as a way of keeping track of my to do lists, my daily chores/activities, and my resolutions. I can tell it what list items are repeated daily, which list items happen on only special days, and what items don't need to be done daily but only need to get done once. I can even set it up so that at a glance I can see the small goals that lead up to finishing a Big Goal.

It's pretty cool.

Tonight I did what I thought would be a good first workout after not doing any kind of working out for a very long time: 25 crunches, 25 wall push ups (yeah, I'm kind of a wuss), and 25 leg lifts. Small, doable, and a way of preparing my body for harder workouts later on. I figured I could up the amount in a couple of weeks, just to ease myself into it.

I learned that I'm very, very out of shape. (I'd use a third "very" there but the use of three "very's" is a major sign of a deranged mind.)

My arms were jelly. My stomach was cramping. My legs were...well, my legs were okay so I guess one out of three ain't not half bad?

I may have to cut them back if I'm going to do them daily. The reason I've failed in the past has a large part to do with just jumping in, not caring if it hurts, and pushing myself to a point where the next day I'm physically incapable of doing it again. Then, after one failure, I give up. Oh, I convince myself I'm not giving up, that I'm just "healing for one more day" but that becomes two days, then a week, then "some day."

My hope is that going slowly and easing my way into it will work because it won't be a major time investment, I won't be hurting myself, and I won't then want to quit due to the pain/mental exhaustion. I've been told this works; now it's time to test it.

My 10,000 Hours - Art

For Christmas I received an easel/art set from an amazing woman who obviously knows me well and loves me.

I've been experimenting, practicing, learning, and having fun. While my little girl is taking her daily nap I pull up website tutorials or watch some video tutorials on YouTube.

Most of the stuff I draw isn't worth sharing yet but it's getting better and I'm seeing improvement. I'd like to start sharing my drawings at the end of the week, maybe Thursdays.

I was talking to somebody about "inborn talent" the other day, about how I feel I don't have any. This friend laughed and said neither did he, which I called out as a big fat lie because I've seen what he can do with a pencil and something to draw on: he is an artist verging on genius.

When I called him out on this, he explained something to me and really opened my eyes:

When I was a kid I played video games, read books, played sports. He drew.
When I was in school writing stories, reading books, and talking (awkwardly) to girls, he was drawing.
When I was an adult, working, reading books, playing video games, or talking (awkwardly) to women, he was drawing. And talking to women.
Even when he was hanging out with friends or doing something he loved, he had a drawing he was working on.

His "inborn talent" came from his love of drawing that started when he was young. Was he a better artist than most other 3 year olds? Maybe, sure. He had a grasp of shapes that other kids didn't have. Beyond that, though, it was practice that made him better. Constant practice. His "inborn talent" accounted for the most very basics and beyond that? Beyond that he had to work hard, learn, and constantly keep drawing.

If it takes 10,000 hours to master something, then inborn talent accounts for maybe the first 50 to 100 hours of practice. Beyond that it's all about slugging away at it, chipping away a block one piece at a time and learning new things. Something people don't tell you is that if you work and put in that first 50/100/200 hours of diligent practice, other folks will think that you have inborn talent too.

I have maybe 5 solid hours of work in on this art thing, half an hour or so each day, and I'm already seeing improvement. When I'm at 100 or so, I'll be a "natural."