Friday, December 28, 2012

Electricity pouring through me

Yeah, I went ahead and dove right into my acrylic paints again... Seems I'm bent on giving myself a headache! Large areas of blended colors are nearly impossible to create with acrylics, unlike watercolors! I still couldn't get the sky to look quite right, but oh well. I am pleased with the basic composition of my newest painting, though the details are lacking in some places. I might go back and work on it more later, but for now I shall consider it FINISHED.
Crappy quality picture, it's too big too fit in the scanner. :( 11x14in.
WIP pics:





close up!

Other than painting, I'm in a weird mood lately. Introverted sometimes, other times I enjoy time with my family. I love the holidays, and I blame the nonstop pace of the semester for making it so hard for me to adjust!

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Mojo (Warning: Boobs)

Guess I've got my mojo back for now! And who would've guessed it would be acrylics that did it?! I spent today painting this little guy:
I was excited when I realized it was the right size to be scanned! Which is fantastic because all I could get was glare or miscoloration when I tried to get a picture of it.
Here are the work in progress pics:




 I am indeed loving this new art setup my dad got me... even though I was a skeptic at first.
Now, as far as the painting I 'ruined', maybe I didn't ruin it but its certainly not what I intended to create. It is definitely different from what I normally create though so I'll share:
"And I've turned into this smiling, snarling monster, As I watch the walls descend, As I watch the walls descend like stars." Rocket Collecting, Milla Jovovich
Looks like I need some practice with watercolors!

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Christmas loot

OHEMGEE I got a big fancy new paint set and I want to paint but I am RUSTY and I ruined one painting already today. :(((( WHY SO DIFFICULT. Need... inspiration. Need... skillz.
I also got awesome earrings made by my brothers girlfriend and some gift cards. Also, my parents are buying Doom and I a futon sometime! :)
Okay, I'm being called for dinner so Merry Christmas! (again)



Bye bye Maine, hello home

Twas a messy affair
The night before we left we had a feast of lobster! Doom was a little put-off by them, they were very rich and it was an unusual flavor/texture for my steak-n-potatoes boy, but I don't think he had too much of an unpleasant experience. I loooved it, though they were so rich that it made me a little sick that night. The next day we flew home, and after 10+ hours in the air, I was ready to be home. There was quite a bit of turbulence while we were in New England, and I was actually scared! Its been awhile since I've experienced that.
Now I'm home, I missed my doggies incredibly. And as soon as I get home I found out that both of them have some kind of weird skin rash/irritation on some of their paws which I'm pretty convinced is from my dad and brother taking them hiking. I have to clean them and put some ointment on and Fei has to wear a conehead. (sigh) I worked all day Sunday (it was a crappy day because we had to stay an extra hour -_-) and yesterday I went kinda nuts and started cleaning my room, basically GUTTING it. I threw SO much crap away. It felt good, but some stuff I can't do anything about because Doom and I won't get our second room until my brother and his girlfriend leave.
Being home feels good, though I do miss Maine.
Merry Christmas, Blogger!


Friday, December 21, 2012

Pistachios & Ponies

Sarai's kitty
Yesterday we went and visited my friend Sarai again in the afternoon! Doom stayed at their house and played games with her husband and then she was kind enough to take me for a trail ride on her pony, Nysa and she rode her pony Holi (which I hadn't met before until this trip). I am soooo sore, and we only walked! I am rusty! But its been years since I've been on a horse pony. I wasn't expecting it at all but I had a great time.
After that we delved into their seemingly endless collection of boardgames and played rounds of Tsuro, King of Tokyo (I actually won one round!), and Munchkins (again!).
OH, and I must mention pizza for dinner. I WAS SPOSED TO BE PIZZA'D OUT! But I lost a bet with Justin (I failed at directions, haha) and since pizza is convenient we got some. It was good though! The good thing about pizza here is that all the pizza places aren't chains! I get sick of Pizza Hut and Dominos (uggh).
Relaxing at Grandpa's house
After we got home we knocked out and this morning I went with my grandpa to pick up lobsters for dinner tonight (Justin couldn't believe they were alive when he saw them *amused*). Then around noon we all went and dropped my grandma off for her hair appointment, went grocery shopping, picked up whoopie pies, then went out for icecream at Shaker Pond Ice Cream. It is dericious, I had pistachio flavor and oooohhmyyygooodness it is addicting.
I am sad we're leaving tomorrow :(


Grandpa's awesome stained glass window

Doom relaxing

Pistachio!

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Rain chased the snow away...

That's right, it rained all day yesterday and this morning, but thankfully it quit! It melted all the snow away which was a bummer, but I am SO glad I went on my solo trek while I did! Otherwise no pretty pictures for me!
We drove around town with my grandpa and he showed us Portland, but like I said it was drizzling the whole time so we stayed in the car. I was tired all that day so I went to bed pretty early.
Today, however, Doom and I decided to go into town and do some shopping. I had fun, and he even found a movie he loves for cheap! It's called Lord of War, and I even liked it. It is one of his favorite movies and he hadn't been able to find it for a looong time. And of course, we find it when we're not looking for it. We also enjoyed a lunch at a sandwich shop together. Doom is more fond of sandwiches than I am, but I still enjoy going out to eat with him.
So, for our haul, we got a hubble space themed calendar for "our" room (I wanted ponies or owls or something but he didn't so we settled on that!) and I found a cute maneki-neko porcelain necklace (I spend way too much money on jewelry-- I need to stop.) OH and how could I forget? We chanced upon a really neat dog supply store and I got some fun things. (The dogs are gonna looooove me when I come home!)
I absolutely adore Maine... <3
Squirrel-watching in the backyard

Drove by the old port, got to see the boat lights in the fog.

nom nom

Even the sidewalks here are pretty

Monday, December 17, 2012

The Silent Woods: A Solo Trek

Doom was being lame and didn't want to go for a hike in the fresh snow, so after morning things had been taken care of, I went by myself! It was beautiful... Quiet, white, inspiring. The air here is so clean! I wanna bottle it up and take it home. It feels good to be alone sometimes. The stream was absolutely lovely as it wound, dark, through the white forest.
After I hiked around for awhile and got tired (my boots are not made for hiking and made it twice as hard!) I headed home. Doom was hungry so we decided to drive into town. We intended on getting some Italian sandwiches but since I wanted something hot, we decided to get pizza instead. We've had pizza 3 times now since we've been here and I'm pretty sure I'm all pizza'd out. But it was delicious. We once again got lost several times, which was made worse by the fact that the roads were a sludgy, slick mess. But we somehow made it home safe. We then had a delicious dinner and I had a whoopie pie (yummmmmmmm). After playing Spore for awhile with Doom, I'm ready for bed!




Sunday, December 16, 2012

Boppin' around town

The past few days of my vacation have been lovely. Yesterday, we visited my friend Sarai who visits this blog on occasion ("Hi!"). It was fun and Doom bought a game and we bought books and shirts that were on sale. (Buy 1 get 3 free, whaaa?) Then today Justin and I bopped around town, first we went to the mall, I got a sweater I liked, then we went to Planet Dog and I got some things for my pups, and then we drove into downtown and visited art stores and ended up buying a painting! It was fun. In the morning when we set out it started snowing and continued through the day, so buy the time we returned there was a decent dusting! We went into the woods but couldn't stay long as it was getting cold.
Here are more pics:


Friday, December 14, 2012

Baby, it's Maine outside!

So finals are over, they were the most intense finals I've ever studied for. If it hadn't been for work (taking up almost ALL of my Saturday and Sunday prior) I feel like I would have fared better. However, I did end up with a B in genetics (I wasn't upset cause I thought it was gonna be a C!) an A- in Cell Physiology (I was miffed about the -, this class was tough and I studied my arse off) and I don't know about my other classes yet.
But, let me instead tell you about more interesting things: Doom and I arrived in glorious New England, and it is beautiful. No snow, but I am still in love!
So far we went and explored the woods, and went and saw The Hobbit (as a lover of the book... I was dissapointed. I loved some things, hated others.)
Enjoy the pics so far:




Monday, December 10, 2012

Green Tea

3 days, 3 finals. Green tea, green tea will get me through this. I just need to breathe, and fill my brain with biochemistry, cell physiology and genetics. No biggie.
I also have to pack for my vacation, clean the house, go shopping and mail xmas presents. In 3 days. Green tea, help me...

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Freedom so close I can taste it...

One more week before I finish my last final and then LEAVE! My parents decided last-minute that they wanted to go, so they're flying out to visit my grandparents right now. They SHOULD be back the day before Doom and I leave. I'm glad to have the house to myself!
Genetics will be the death of me... The race is on in cell phys to not let the final murder me (I heard his final is particularly difficult) even though I'm doing the best in that class than my others... Biochem will surely have me sweating bullets til the end because I'm right on the borderline.
I'll just have to somehow make it through this next week, and then I'll be on vacation...

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Heart of Gold

Working at a veterinary hospital in the kennels, I must say I receive little information on what is happening with patients. And even rarer still do I get to see a case from start to finish, but today I (mostly) did. A golden retriever came in, she wasn't old and nothing was obviously wrong with her except she couldn't really stand, like she was too tired to even get up. She ended up dying while they were in the process of diagnosing her (x-rays, bloodwork, etc.) After that, the owners elected to do a necropsy, which I heard that the doctor on duty didn't like to perform, not because it was uncomfortable or anything, but simply because she felt as if she rarely found answers when she performed them. And so it was. After opening her up and examining her, nothing was found. I was extremely curious so this was a letdown, but this is the first time I had seen the inside of a dog so I was rather intrigued about the necropsy process.