People I'd Like to Kick in the Shin

Peter Jackson. PETER JACKSON. I am going to look up your middle name just so I can scream it at you in my mom voice. 

It was a bit of a grim week. I saw a violent animal death on the road to work and cried enough to give myself sinus irritation for the next 3 days, went shopping through the desolate remains of week-before-Easter shelves while disproportionately irritable parents slapped and cussed at their children on all sides, and my mother took the boys for spring break so I feel like I've misplaced something very important. 

Then we watched the last Hobbit movie. I don't need to leave a movie review for you here. You know. Around the world, hobbit lovers turned and fixed their searing gaze on Peter Jackson. And he combusted in the beam of that blazing wrath, probably, so we don't have to worry about seeing trailers for "Madeline: the Battle of the Bad Hat" or "Hatchet: Army of Mooses, part 1".

What we discovered after watching this thing is that there are very few Hobbit 3 gifs on the internet, because it is hard to make gifs after you've thrown your laptop out the window. So we made the most important one. 

SCROLLING THROUGH FACEBOOK FEED DURING ELECTIONS

(Other options: "MONDAYS" and "opening the library two minutes late on a Saturday".)

Happy Monday!

Zenny's 3rd birthday

There was a party, and it was good, and I am so glad it is over.

I made deviled eggs with the whites dyed green - just the same as last year. "I don't eat green eggs," the cousins said, as if green eggs are actually a thing that people are faced with so often that they can develop aversions. I made pizza rolls. "I don't actually eat pizza very much," said the cousins. There was a fruit platter. "I only like bananas." And a strawberry ice cream cake. "I'd like it if it was just cake and no strawberries." And just like last year, they ate everything anyway, because these are kids who think that being picky eaters makes you interesting, and that not getting fat means not letting anyone see you eat the entire plate of appetizers. I let the older cousin palm pizza rolls and chew them silently with his back to me for an hour before reminding him that it's a party and he's allowed to eat the whole plate if he wants to. He then stood bent over the platter and stuffed his mouth with them until they were gone. I got myself a drink.

This kid is 3

Another

Words!

I know I have been posting a lot of pictures and not a lot about other things, so here is the run-down.


I SUBMITTED THE THINGS. The manuscript and illustrations have been sent off to agents, and I am avoiding my phone because every time it buzzes - or does not buzz - I start fretting. Have been drawing girls with birds, instead. And now I can't find my phone, so I hope nobody needs me to do anything.

Meanwhile, the boy came in 2nd place for his robotics programming competition. In the country. Which is great, but it's just one place short of the world finals in Kentucky (wtf, Kentucky? When did you become the world destination for robotics? Update those "robot uprising and overthrow" point of origin maps, folks). But just to drag it out further, he's the understudy if the first place nerd can't make the flight. So now we have to find some 13 year old and push him/her down some stairs. WORK WORK WORK.

The small girl is potty trained. Mostly. Except if it's cold, and her footie pajamas zip from the ankle so she'd have to get naked to use the toilet, and I can't blame her for that one, so we are still in pull-ups at night. Well, she is. I'm ok.

On the needles: more socks. I know.

On the radio: after that last fit of shmoopiness, I have stopped listening to the radio. We are listening to the Amber Spyglass, by Phillip Pullman, instead.

On the netflix: An Honorable Woman. Which is a good show that is hard to watch while knitting, because they switch from English to Arabic frequently and sneak around doing silent things, so by the time I hear a gunshot and look up from my sock, my favorite character is dead.


Next: more girls with birds, and a St. Patrick's Day birthday party!

The worst bird

Get your goose poop boots on, it's walkies time.

A girl and her bird

Fierce warrior action happening around here.

Oranges!

Sketch for my book project. It has a lot of oranges in it. But not nice ones, mostly just round blobs. I ate this one. (The orange, I mean.)

This was my previous attempt:

So shiny. Eh.

Tonight I put down my night knitting and drew it. It was dark. Gavin was watching the new avengers movie next to me, and if you only listen to it, you can hear joss whedon burning his "just follow the formula, it's a franchise" producers with every one-liner.

Probably should have been using that time finding my last needle so I could finish the sock. 

more flying breadcrumbs

no socks for Bertie Wooster

I was going to do a sock-a-long on ravelry, wherein you follow a set of clues as they are revealed over a couple of weeks and knit up a mystery sock along with a group of other trusting sock enthusiasts.

Not this guy

But my yarn managed to be both too dark and too busy, so you couldn't even see all the little cables and zig-zags going down the leg of the sock. I ripped it out and cast on plain socks without a pattern. 3x1 ribbing, gusset heel, basic toe, DONE.

Portrait shot

Arty shot

Action shot

Glamour shot

I decreased across the top for visual interest, but it's still just a sock. However, it is still cold in the mornings, so just a sock is what I need.

But I'm sad about missing out on the mystery knit-a-long, because the Bertie Wooster socks turned out to be pretty damn deco-tastic.

This industry of knitting and produce portraiture brought to you by my post-illustration-completion existential panic. Happens every time. I finish a book and then look up to discover that the sun is shining and plants are blooming and holy shit what am I doing with my life why have I not drawn portraits or painted a still life or developed a successful web comic or built a studio I am a failure and my life is slipping by with nothing to show for it and then I remember that I didn't do those things because I was busy illustrating a children's book. And that now I can start the next one, because I'm not good at comics or oil painting or quitting my job to lurk in the basement - I draw goblins eating oranges, and I'm happy while I'm doing it. And then I feel stupid and finish the socks I was knitting and think about the next book.

Coming next: the assembly of a pdf dummy book; the agony of waiting for feedback/rejection from prospective agents.