The Year of Twos and Eights

I'm not much into the whole "New Year" thing... but it certainly is a convenient time to stop and reflect on things.

Let me tell you, folks...

2008 is going to be a fabulous year.
I can feel it in my arthritic 28-year-old bones.

But before I delve into my big dreams for this year of twos and eights, let me bring you up to speed on what I've been doing since I last wrote.

Trips (and Oliver)
After visiting Carrie's family in Arkansas, we drove up Hwy 63 to spend the night at my parent's house in the Missouri "wilderness". It was a brief visit, but I was glad that I got to spend a little time with my parents before going back to work at the UPS Store. We played card games with my parents and hung out with my mom's awesome dog, Oliver.

Oliver can be hard to take pictures of because he's always moving. But here's a good one.




Work
The UPS Store has kept fairly busy since Christmas, but we're starting to slow down a bit now. I'm working mornings mostly. There are a couple of guys that come in at 1pm, so I usually just open at 8am and stay until they show up. Having the afternoons off is nice, but I don't like getting up so early. Especially now that...

Highway 40/Interstate 64 is CLOSED!!!!
So apparently this major stretch of road in Saint Louis is in need of repair. So someone had the bright idea that they could get things done quicker if they just closed the whole road, rather than doing partial closings. I'm sure this is probably true. I mean, it makes sense. But this is definitely one of the more well traveled routes through the city and it is affecting a lot of people. Here is a map showing my previous route to work (in blue), and my current route (in pink). It takes about 10 extra minutes, barring any stupid back-ups from the other highway being closed.



Knitting
For some reason, I decided that I should start knitting again. I've picked back up on the baby blanket I started more than three years ago. I also am making a hat for Matt's soon-to-be baby. Here is a picture of the hat in progress:



UPDATE: I finished the hat tonight. I just hope it will fit a real baby... at least for the first few days of its life.



Home Again
Sometimes it is strange being home again. It almost like I never went away to Tamarind. I'm getting used to driving everywhere again. I'm used to my bed and the chilly house and my cat whining for food every other second. I'm getting used to working and looking forward to coming home from work. Trying to find things to do around the house and trying to avoid things I need to do around the house. It is comforting in some ways, but I also don't want to get too content here. I don't want to fall into the same old routines.

More than anything, my time at Tamarind has reminded me that there are things I want to do with my life and it's helped me to realize that I'm actually capable of accomplishing these things. As much as I love standing around all day at the UPS Store, I've got bigger things ahead of me.

Goodbye 2007, Hello 2008!

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The UPS Store

We returned from Columbia Saturday night and on Sunday afternoon I went back into work at the UPS Store. I had worked at the UPS Store in between my stints as a Six Flags Caricature Artist, and told my boss that I'd come back to help with the holiday season. Monday turned out to be the busiest shipping day of the season. Thankfully, we had four people on hand and were able to keep on top of things pretty well. Here are some pictures from Monday. And these were taken after a UPS driver had stopped by and cleared a substantial amount of the pile out of the store!

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A Trip to the Mizzou Print Shop

As soon as Carrie picked me up from the STL airport on Friday we drove to Columbia for Katie Spencer's PhD graduation.

Before we met up with Katie and her family for dinner and the graduation, we stopped by the MU Art Department to visit with a few of my professors from undergrad. Fortunately, the opening for the Senior Art Show coincided with our arrival and we got to enjoy some snacks and art while chatting with my old friends. Brooke, the printmaking instructor, encouraged me to run upstairs and check out the print shop. I'd been thinking about the place lately and was certain that it would be different than I remembered. After being at Tamarind, everything seemed smaller and messier, but still very familiar. There was even some of my old art hanging around in odd places:



Here's the litho area, which consists of a Griffin litho press next to a graining sink.



There's also an ink slab and an assortment of litho inks.



I'm not sure what is in these cubby holes, but it scares me a little bit.



Here's the etching press (a Charles Brand, I think).



A view of the room from the Brand press.



The screenprinting area is separate and very narrow.



This is what happens to leather rollers when they die. (They become rolling pins for damp paper blotters.)

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Outta Here!

This whole week has been a whole bunch of MickeyMouseWork and passing time at Tamarind. The end of the semester party was Tuesday night at Marge's house. Yesterday we had a last-minute Gold Leaf demo and I did my laundry and packed. Today we took a lightning fast look at our last few projects with Rodney, did a massive clean-up of the studio, and said our goodbyes.

In the meantime, I'm all packed up and ready to go to STL for 5 weeks!

See you in Saint Louieeee!!!!

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Unsatisfying

I'll tell you what unsatisfying is!

Unsatisfying is taking an online Algebra I exam, only to get to the end and find out that the program isn't compatible with your browser and is therefore unable to calculate your test results!

I'm sure you're wondering what I'm doing taking Algebra I tests.

Honestly, it's been 15 years since I was in Algebra I and I found some of the questions to be rather challenging. I like to brush up on these things every now and again. You know, keep my mind sharp. In case I come across a girl named Sue, who has 16 marbles in her pocket. And lets just say that 8 of the marbles are red, 4 are green, and 4 are blue. Perhaps she might want to know how many she could take out and still know that she had one of each color. I want to be able to tell her how many!!!

Dude.

I need to get out of here.

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Sicko

Well, my body finally decided to break down on me. Thank goodness it was at the end of the semester!

• My throat started hurting on Monday, but I thought I had just wrecked it from yelling too much at the football game.

• On Tuesday it was starting to feel thick and even more sore. I told Carrie that I thought I had strep throat.

• By Wednesday my throat felt better, but the rest of my body was achy and I was really tired.

• Thursday I had to sponge all day, but got a burst of energy in the afternoon, printed three color runs in less than an hour and went home and collapsed.

• By Friday I was done for. Sniffling, sneezing, congestion. I was like a cold medicine commercial, minus the cold medicine. Patrick took me to the store and I picked up some generic Nyquil.

• Saturday, hung over from cold medicine, I slept until 11:30am then stayed in my pajamas for the rest of the afternoon. Less sneezing, more congestion, it felt like the side of my face was numb and my ear was stopped up.

• Today I was better. Went to the Packer bar to watch the game with Patrick, went to fancy brunch with 6 out of 8 Tamarindos, and shopped a bit in old town with Alexandra. I'm coughing a lot and I'm still feeling congested. It's moved into my chest now, which means it's almost gone.

We've all but thrown in the towel on this semester at Tamarind. Everyone is tired and even Rodney has lost the will to continue. Our end of the semester party is on Tuesday night and we're not really expected to do much past that. I wish I had known that when I was buying my plane ticket home, but we weren't supposed to be officially done until Friday.

Right now, I've got a ticket out of here on Friday morning. And I won't be coming back to ABQ until January 21st, 5 weeks from now! I'm so happy to be going home. I'm taking some litho plates with me to draw on during the break, and I'm going to be working at the UPS Store while I'm home. I will definitely be busy.

I just have to get through this week!

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My (Texas) Weekend in Pictures

This is what I think of Texas!



Our sweet barrel-proof ride!



A rest stop south of Fort Worth on I-35



More pictures behind the cut!!!

We stopped and ate at Rudy's Bar-B-Q






Suzi expresses how she feels about the "rally" before the game.



Maybe we would have had more fun at this event.



But then there weren't Mizzou Golden Girls at the Homeland Security Conference.



Our seats were better than I thought. Too bad the game was so awful.



The next day we walked around downtown Dallas and looked at buildings. There wasn't much else to do.










Can you tell I lost my hair product at the airport?



The wind certainly didn't help the matter any.



Seriously... there must have been gusts of up to 50 miles per hour.



The JFK Memorial in Dallas




Suzi on the Grassy Knoll



The building that Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly shot JFK from.



"Dear Mom... Be glad you didn't go to the game."

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