Kaori's Pig

I've been going through some old files, and looking through some old stuff. Sometimes I make cards for people. I made this card for my friend Kaori on her 29th birthday. She loves cute little pigs. I was watching the winter Olympics four years ago when I made this. That is why he's doing a ski jump. Kaori thought it was funny, like it symbolized the end of your 20's is like jumping off of a cliff.

flamingo talk

I drew this cartoon a number of years ago. I know it's corny!

I have a bunch of better, more current, cartoons that I'd love to post on my blog, but I'm trying to sell them first.

Another collection of stuff I've drawn resides in a special folder called "rejected by me." Because for some reason I once thought they were funny and now I don't know WHAT I was thinking. Maybe someday I will post those here... although I don't want anyone to get the idea that those are the best I can do!

cutie custom skippy pin

At a dog show my mom met an artist who creates little porcelain dog breed pins. On her website she has a lot of different pins, ornaments and other things. There's even a few cats. Her name is Mary Dixon.

She made me this Pomeranian pin after I sent her photos of my boy, Skippy. Not many Pomeranians are black and white like he is. She didn't charge any extra for custom; it was $19.50.

You can check out her stuff over at her website mddogart.tripod.com.

She also has an Ebay store.

Here are some other dog breed pins off Mary Dixon's site...

These are some standard Pomeranian colors.


Mine is one of a kind. :0)

the rest of my St. Martin pics.

This should be the rest of my St. Martin photos...

There are not so many rules of the road there in St. Martin... there was a guy riding in the trunk of the car ahead of us. (See him up there). There are also no traffic lights in places where they are obviously needed. One taxi driver we rode with seemed determined to get us into an accident. By God's miracle she only hit somebody once (lightly).

There also appears to be no rules about livestock. If you click to enlarge this photo, you can see a goat running with the baby goat running behind. Goats and chickens are running around all over the place. I asked that taxi driver about them; she said they can go wherever they want to find the good grass, and then at night they go home.



View from driving the car we rented. This is one of the better roads!

Here's another view of the ocean.

I looked down and saw there were all kinds of living things on the ground here. All those shells had either legs or were snails.

We went parasailing... I don't have a picture of us, but that's how high we were. I actually think it looks higher from below than it felt being up there. (Usually it's the other way around).

Orient Beach.

George enjoying some green tea.

Orient Beach in the evening.

Dock Spoats

More about our trip to St. Martin...

One morning we went to a beach called Dawn Beach. They rent snorkeling equipment there, because there are coral reefs not far from the shore.

The Caribbean-style English that the locals speak there can be pretty hard to understand. At the snorkeling rental place the guy kept telling us to swim out to the dock spoats. We were staring at him trying to process that information while he said it three or four times.

...is there a dock out there? a dock we have to swim to? Then I looked out at the water and said, "Oh! The DARK SPOTS!"

guy: "yes yes yes the dock spoats!, the dock spoats!"

You can see a lot of dock spoats in this photo. There were some stripey fish under there.

We had chairs behind this couple. I think the cloud in the upper left of this photo looks like a chicken.

my notes

We went to this marriage conference this weekend.

I don't think anyone else has notes quite like mine. I got some good Starbucks coffee this morning and was recharged for some serious doodling.






















































































Do you ever notice someone who is dressed completely inappropriately for their age?

The doodle on the left, next to the lady with a burger, is of this character who was sitting across the isle from us with his wife. He appeared to be about 50, with grey hair and lines on his face. His hair was spiked up on top with a lot of gel.

He was wearing skateboard style sneakers, a big long shirt, and gigantic homeboy shorts, you know, the kind with the huge long pockets on the back. The only thing missing was he wasn't showing his boxers. When we'd pass him in the hall he always wore this goofy smile... in his own little world I guess.

(I did take other real notes... it was a good conference).

La Playa

I'm going to keep posting about St. Martin until I run out of pictures.

These cactuses were on the hill by the beach.




This kind of cactus was used for the logo of a beach restaurant called La Playa.


These are the La Playa restaurant rules:

free stuff

When we left St. Martin, airport security went through everyone's suitcases. Wearing their sanitary rubber gloves, they picked through our bags full of dirty clothes from our week on the beach.

I had to laugh as we were waiting in line, I watched a security guy open a woman's suitcase, and I noticed in there her large collection of miniature hotel shampoos and conditioners.

Of course, I have my own collection. Here is my assortment of hotel items from various trips.


The nicest ones there are some Bath & Body Works shampoo, lotion, and conditioner I got at a Marriott. I also have my Hyatt mending kit, and of course a couple of shower caps should the need ever arise.

I used up a lot of my mini conditioners. I read somewhere that conditioner is good for shaving your legs. Those came in handy for that purpose.

Does anyone else have a collection like this? If you're looking for something to blog about, I'm tagging you. Let's see your hotel collection.

dream tree

This was in the middle of a butterfly farm. It's a dream tree. It says, "Think of a dream, wish, or memory. Write it down and tie it to the tree. Think for a minute and set it free!"


I like the one here in the second photo, intermingled with things like "world peace," it says, "I wish my teddy was real." Leon Age 3

beach dogs

There are a lot of homeless dogs in St. Martin. They were sleeping all along the beach, under tables and chairs. This dog was very bored and disinterested in me talking to him. After I offered him a drink of water he got up and moved.


These dogs were having a blast. They were with their owners. There are no rules about leashes. With all the unneutered homeless dogs everywhere, I'd imagine some owners get home to find their dog is expecting puppies.

a few doodles

Here are some doodles. I did not draw very much on vacation. I found I do not draw very well in this environment. I think and draw better with a cup of coffee or green tea, when I'm in working mode. I felt more like doing nothing or reading.


There were a lot of locals walking around on the beach selling stuff. At Orient Beach, they were very polite, and seemed to have quite a few customers. But at Dawn Beach, which was smaller, they were relentless.

Wanna buy a hat?

No thank you.

Then a shirt, you would like to buy a shirt?

Really, we're good, thanks.

Then I could braid your hair. Want your hair braided?

The only way to get away was to keep walking. I added some color to this doodle in Photoshop.

swimsuit edition

While we were on Orient Beach one afternoon there was this photographer setting up a camera. You can see him in this photo, in the center behind the umbrella. There was a woman with him, and apparently she was there to model some clothes. She went and changed into a brand new bikini and a white see-through thingy.


Then she walked quite far away from the photographer. He must have had a super zoom lens.

For a long time she danced around there on the shore, swinging her arms around, taking in the air, twirling, gleefully sweeping an arm down and touching a wave... she was putting on quite a show for everyone lying there on their beach chairs.














This guy is modeling his black swimming trunks. Makes you want to buy a pair, doesn't he?

Meowzers

When we arrived at the hotel room our first night at St. Martin we were greeted by this stray cat.

I started feeding her every night, and assumed she'd be sticking around for good after that. But one day she was gone and never came back.

The last time I saw her I was sitting on the back porch when she suddenly leaped onto a palm tree and caught a lizard, then gobbled up the whole thing.

Our trip to St. Martin

Yesterday we returned from a great vacation. This year will be our 10th wedding anniversary, so we planned this trip to be more exotic than our regular vacations. I have never had a more relaxing vacation than we just had... it was really really nice.

Here's where we were... St. Martin in the Caribbean. I've circled it in red.



We stayed on the French side at Orient Bay.



Normally I am not a person who likes to spend much time swimming or lying on the beach, mainly because I don't like getting into cold water, and then shivering cold in a towel. But the water here was as warm as the air. This was my first time on a beach with water this clear and clean white sand.



We went parasailing, took windsurfing lessons, snorkeled, rented a Jet Ski, and just relaxed on the beach and played in the waves. I read 196 pages of Memoirs of a Geisha.

We are both ready to be home though. It is nice to be back where everyone speaks English. I need to sort through my photos and then I'll share some stories about this trip.

I'm Back!

Just a quick post to say I'm back! We got back late tonight after a long day of flying.

I will have more to say tomorrow!

vacation

I will be away from my computer for a while. I will be here:



see you in 7 days!

:0)

where do you like/not like to eat out?

This is the front of a greeting card that I made. Our church gave some people a gift certificate to the Old Country Buffet and asked me to make a card to put it in.

When I was in college I LOVED The Old Country Buffet. Now it is on my list of places I used to like but now gross me out. Some more of those places include: Pizza Hut, Friendly's, Ponderosa, all fast food places... Applebee's is hanging on by the skin of its teeth.

Do you all have any restaurants that you used to like, but have disappointed you/grossed you out enough that you don't care to go back? (feel free to include any icky details).

I want to read this before watching the movie

I borrowed this book from my friend Jenn a YEAR ago. Tonight I am going to go to bed early and start reading it. Jenn, if you are reading this, you will get your book back! I really am going to read it!

Sea-Band

I was wondering if anyone's tried this and if it actually works. I'm going to be flying soon. I cannot fly on those small airplanes without getting sick. If I have Dramamine I'm fine.

We just got these Sea-Bands. I don't want to find out the hard way that this doesn't work.



This reminds me of something I read once in a psychology textbook. More people used to get sick on airplanes when they actually wrote "FOR VOMIT" on those little blue bags.

Less people got sick when they started writing "FOR MOTION SICKNESS." Now, thankfully, they don't write anything at all on them. It's a good idea not to get people already thinking about it during takeoff.

live and learn

I thought TiVo was completely trustworthy. The Amazing Race was moved from 10:00 Tuesday to 8:00 Wednesday. I saw the little red light on and assumed it was taping The Amazing Race.

No, it can only tape one thing at a time so it decided it was more important to tape another re-run for George's already enormous collection of Dog the Bounty Hunter episodes. >:(

skippy's big backyard

This is my dog's gigantic backyard. On nice mornings he likes to take himself for a long walk and pee all the way around the border. The entire backyard is fenced in for him. Can you see him? He's the black dot.

random thoughts

I have been very immersed in my art lately. When I get really into a project, that's all I want to do.

After neglecting yesterday's dishes, my kitchen started smelling like bolony for some reason. You know that smell of a kid's lunchbox that's had a bolony sandwich sitting in it for a few hours. I had to clean it up before I got back to work this morning.

You can spell it bolony now, right? I think the bologna days have past. Ok, maybe not, my spell-checker doesn't think so.

Here's a doodle:

Country Keeshond

This is what I've been fiddling around with. I'm sure it can't be done yet. Something always needs to be changed every time I stare at it. I want this to look like an old folk art style painting, like it's painted on a piece of wood.

After working on this, I have ideas for a lot more... and to make some interesting stuff with other dog breeds.

OK, now it's as finished as it's going to be. I just uploaded the new one with touch-ups. Probably nobody can tell the difference but me. This design is now available at my Cafepress Shop on a number of different products.