Both boys have the flu. This is hell on earth. I'm surviving on coffee and anti-depressants.

I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson, for the first time. What a masterpiece! Appropriate excerpt:

Every now and then you run up on one of those days when everything's in vain...a stone bummer from start to finish; and if you know what's good for you, on days like these you sort of hunker down in a safe corner and watch.

Tomorrow I give thanks for family, food, and....studio space!!! I finally have a place to paint. Andy and I are renting a room at his business partner's house, Andy for a place to work in peace and it's big enough for me to do art at night after the boys go to bed. Hallejuah!

I found three of my favorite scenes from my favorite movies...and never realized until I put them together that they all revolve around music.

film/song

Mean Streets/Jumpin Jack Flash by the Rolling Stones
(best character intro ever)



Hardware/Stigmata by Ministry
(best art making ever)



Reckless/Never Say Never by Romeo Void
(best dance scene ever)

I took a survey online to determine which of the presidential candidates suited my political view. My answer was Dennis Kucinich. I didn't know much about him so luckily the latest Esquire has a profile of him. Not your average candidate, that's for sure. Of course I also find Ron Paul interesting. As far as the ones that will most likely run, my endorsement goes to Hilary. She's not Kucinich, she's not Paul, and she's most everything I hate about politicians but I can trust her on social issues and she's obviously smart as hell. And hey, she's a woman. My dream has always been to see a female president.

The weather has cooled here and it's beautiful. So nice to break out the long sleeves for a change of pace. I got a fab vest for the cold weather, reversible, pink on one side and fake fur on the other. And I can finally fit into all my skinny clothes again after three years of baby fat. I'm even sporting big earrings again. On top of that I've been in the mood to wear eye makeup. Feels like a new me. Or maybe just an evolved one.

My favorite holiday is less than a week away. Andy's mom is doing the bulk of the cooking but we're hosting it at our house for the kid friendly factor. Should be a great day and if I can keep the scale under 140 lbs. I will be relieved.

Favorite saying seen on a T-shirt recently:

I WASTED MY PRETTY YEARS ON YOU

I've been getting into the macro setting on our camera lately.



So much so that I've started a gallery on Flickr.

Tonight is the first episode of Project Runway. Sooooo happy.

I feel like so much has been happening lately and I never have time to record it all here.

I put The Last Tree on Earth painting in my first Flagler County Art League show this weekend. The reception is this afternoon and I put the boys down for an early nap so we can all go together.

Last night we had friends over for dinner and the Lindners brought me the most amazing bouquet of roses from their garden. It's like something out of a classic painting, living art. It made me realize I haven't had real roses for about fifteen years, just those sterile thornless things that Latin Americans get paid pennies a day to grow for us.

We've arranged our first official home exchange for a week in February 2008. We are swapping with a family in Columbia, Maryland so we can visit our friends and do some skiing.

I've started drinking coffee again. I needed just one vice and it's about one of the most harmless, maybe even healthy ones.

Big shakeup with Andy's work--he is parting ways with his biggest client from the past several years. A lot of changes and adjustments to be made, especially to our thoughtless spending habits, but not the end of the world. Andy is going to go full force into the website end of his business which I think will end up being more interesting for him anyway.

Justin is running around a lot these days, blowing kisses, having tantrums, bugging his brother, chasing the cats, demanding sweets, trying to go up slides, obsessively pressing buttons. Both boys got screwed by the time change so sleep routines are once again a source of constant stress. You don't want to get me started on how ridiculous daylight savings time is...just read this from Wikipedia:

In 1905, the prominent English builder and outdoorsman William Willett was inspired to invent DST during one of his pre-breakfast horseback rides, when he observed with dismay how many Londoners slept through the best part of a summer day. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk.

and

In the mid-1980s, Clorox (parent of Kingsford Charcoal) and 7-Eleven provided the primary funding for the Daylight Saving Time Coalition behind the 1987 extension to U.S. DST, and both Idaho senators voted for it on the basis of fast-food restaurants selling more French fries made from Idaho potatoes; in 2005, the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association and the National Association of Convenience Stores successfully lobbied for the 2007 extension to U.S. DST

So it's just corporate America exploiting us again, for money. What else is new.

We're going to have a Winter Solstice party on December 22nd. I am so excited for all the parties and festivities of the next several weeks. We're having a conservative Christmas this year as far as gifts--Andy and I are even considering capping our one gift to each other at $20 or even $10! How funny would that be? Honestly I have never liked the commercialism and twisted expectations of gift giving so it's cool we have a tangible reason to cut back and focus on the more important aspects of the holiday.

If you have any leftover Christmas cards this year, send them here:

A Recovering American Soldier
c/o Walter Reed Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue NW
Washington DC 20307-5001

Andy took the kids out this morning and I drank coffee, cleaned the house, and listented to Clutch's Blast Tyrant album over and over and over. They are my new favorite band. I can't believe I never knew of them when I lived in Maryland. The lyrics are absolute poetry....(Notes From the Trial Of) La Curandera:

Did you not grant quarter to the daemon, giving treatment to its wounds?
And would you not consider it unnatural to be born outside the womb?
We eagerly await your response and your best defense.

La curandera is the young girl
In a linen dress of white.
She dances on black sand in the night
In her linen dress of white.

Let us vote to dunk the witch in the river Styx and photograph the lye.
So in the shadow of Cerebus her spirit will reside.

La curandera is the young girl
In a linen dress of white.
She dances on black sand in the night
In her linen dress of white.


BIRD IN THE FIRE, MOUTHFUL OF SAND
KING OF THE BRIAR, MOUTHFUL OF SAND
THE SCALE AND FEATHER, THE LOCK AND KEY
THE LORD OF WEATHER, THE BEAST AT PEACE