$1000 worth of shoes

Writing from the comfy chair by the wood stove while avoiding freezing drizzle again.

I'm ready to unveil the frivolous project that features the kimono lady from the last post.  You see, when I need some online distraction, I either shop for airplane tickets for dream vacations or stalk the Fluevog website to check out their fabulous, expensive shoes.

And, well, Fluevog offers the occasional ad design contest.

And, well, I'm a graphic designer.

Who likes shoes.

In a moment of weakness I downloaded the design brief for their latest contest, and decided that my graphic design skills may as well come in handy for fun projects as well as work.  I could win $1000 worth of shoes if my ad is chosen, which obviously is exactly what I need.

Here's the ad I designed, to their specs and with their copy and shoe photo:

After some hesitation and fussy tweaking of details, I uploaded it (well, why not), and you can see it in their gallery of other submissions.  You can also read there about the reasons for the imagery I chose: half moon, Chinese garden moon gate, tall wooden shoes, etc.  You can vote for me if you wish (that's not a link, it's a subliminal suggestion), and if I end up in the top four, well then you can vote for me again.  If I win, I promise to post photos of me in my fabulous new boots.

Distraction

Ok, so I was supposed to be working on a newsletter, or perhaps on finishing up a painting, or something actually useful.  But it's a day that features "freezing drizzle," an Ithaca specialty, and even after having breakfast with the Happy Light (TM), I ended up in front of the wood stove in the comfy chair, working in a very desultory manner on whatever it was that I supposed to be doing.  So instead I started playing on my computer on a completely unrelated project, and then got really into the Photoshop (also TM) zone, and ended up with this lovely kimono lady.  If that Completely Unrelated Project (not TM) comes to fruition, then I will post about it more thoroughly later.

Electric Eel

New boots!!!!  Not for me, unfortunately, but for some lucky Etsy shopper perhaps.  I just finished these lovelies and posted them, and am so pleased with the colors and details and everything that I have a brag a moment and put them on my blog too.

In which I am a movie star once again

I gave an interview last fall with a couple of students from Ithaca College, who were asking about why I continue to make and sell notecards in this age of emails and text messaging.  Found the results on youtube today, and I'll share it because I don't look or sound particularly dorky.

What do you mean, you don't want to sit under the fan?

I had another amusing dream last night, this time a classic waitress stress dream.  So you know I work a night or two per week at a local pub for cash and socialization, yes?  Well, this dream outlined pretty much everything that could go wrong.

It was a slow night, with no customers, I was literally playing hangman with the bartender to pass the time.  Then a table of four came in (hurrah, something to do!), and I seated them and quickly realized that there were extra bits of paper to hand out with the menus which took an extra confusing few minutes.  When I finished that, I realized that several other tables had filled up with customers seating themselves and then looking extremely impatient when no one had brought them their menus.  The other server was all like "you're in charge of seating everyone, you figure it out, which tables are mine?"  Then we realized that there were no more menus.  Sooooo may as well bring them water while the menu issue is being sorted out, right?  Turns out that the faucet and ice machine were waaaaaay back in the suddenly labyrinthine kitchen, and one can only bring one pitcher out at a time and its going to take for-ev-er.  But in the kitchen there was someone laying on the table with a massive gross head injury being attended to by all the kitchen staff.  Avoid that, realize no food is going to be coming out any time soon.  Heading back into the restaurant, I saw that the table of ten with the reservation had arrived and were seated, and the rest of the tables were also full with increasingly-impatient customers.  No way I can get to everyone since they all arrived at once.  Then the table of ten starts complaining that they want a different table because they don't want to sit under the fan.  There are no more tables to move them too because all the other tables are full of people waiting to be served.  The manager gives me the stink eye when I say I need some help.  THEN....I realize this is a dream and I can wake up and actually not have to deal with any of it...

Things to think about:
1) Remember, tip your servers well, because if nothing else they are getting paid $5 per hour to have dreams like this.
2) How long will I last at this job if this is the kind of dreams it gives me?
3) I wonder if the fumes from priming the bathroom prior to repainting had anything to do with my dreams?
4) I recently listened to a fascinating Radio Lab podcast about lucid dreaming.  I'd like to know more about that, since I sometimes have dreams where I can realize I'm dreaming and change them or make them stop.

Florence and Pauline

There are two hens left in the coop these days, Florence and Pauline.  Anyone who thinks that blogs that mentions chickens is dull, please skip ahead.  But for anyone who has been jonesing for a livestock update, here they are basking in the sunshine yesterday in their dust bath.

 

And here are today's eggs.  The little one is unusual, and very amusing.

Ghost chickens and blue paint

No snappy photos for you today, sorry!  I thought about posting a shot of the bleak grey and brown world that is my driveway and view from my window, but am choosing not to.  If it's not going to be snowy and bright and ski-able, I'm not going to acknowledge winter.  Instead I am inside basking in the glow of my gorgeous new Happy Light (to combat SAD...clever name, no?), trolling online for cheap tickets back to Hawaii, and cranking up the wood stove until it's 75 in the living room.

I've had a couple of fun and interesting dreams lately.  First, a few nights ago I dreamed that the former garage at my parents' house (now converted to my Dad's country store) was suddenly a chicken coop.  And SURPRISE, all my chickens that have gone missing over the years were there!  Including the three who were eaten by a phantom fox or abducted by aliens a few weeks ago, and also Harold the rooster had come back to life. 

Second, last night I dreamed I was wandering around London, over in the northwest neighborhood where I used to live when I interned at Kew Gardens.  I had a bucket of blue paint, and I was painting over all the yellow paint on the curbs.  Somehow having this bucket of paint was my disguise to fit in and look purposeful, because I was actually a little lost and trying to find my friends Dave and Ann's house, which in my dream was a few blocks away (rather than in Cumbria) but I didn't quite remember how the streets went because it had been a long time since I lived there.  There was also a big football (read: soccer) game happening in the park.  Random, but interesting.  I do like blue paint.

Painting shoes like a house a'fire

Or something like that.

Here's yet another pair of bespoke footwear creations (Wingtip is paying the mortgage this month):

Winter is being very coy this year.  Temperatures above freezing, no snow in the high hills where I like to go skiing, enough sunshine that I haven't gone completely comatose.  I'm considering doing a snow dance out in the back woods, in hopes of a good exciting blizzard and decent ski conditions.

You know you still want a pair, right?

I've been saying all along that in January I'll really get going again on my Wingtip business.  The belts I posted last time, and now these hot-off-the-press Danskos attest to the fact that the year is starting off well.  These were another bespoke project, and I think they turned out mighty fine.  There are three more pairs of bespoke shoes lined up awaiting attention.

New year, new belts

Coming out of my slump of slothfulness, and ready to tackle the new year.  One of my winter goals is to expand my Wingtip business, so let's start that off right with a couple of new belts.  They are both available on my Etsy site.

Bend it like Beckham

As you know, especially if you read my last post, I am a minor deity in the pantheon of specious gods and goddesses.  That's right, I am the rutabaga goddess (I'm lobbying to represent all root vegetables, but am not sure that will work out) in the yearly Ithaca Farmers' Market Rutabaga Curling Championship.  Also every year, a gentleman named Jerry Feist takes a lot of great photos of the event.  I like this one, where I'm trying to nudge my 'baga by the force of will to be closer to the goal.

Sloth and Indolence

It's the day after Christmas, and I had all these visions of productivity and cleaning and organizing.  However,  I sat down in this chair (the Adirondack chair with the sheepskin) in front of the wood stove (the cute little warm efficient Jotul with the big glass front) for a late breakfast (delicious scrambled eggs from my happy hens, with greens and salsa and GF toast and a cuppa tea) with my book (not worth mentioning but readable enough)...and I find that I realllllly don't want to move.  I think I'll take the day off, and get back to the rest of life tomorrow.  It will still be there waiting.

The day after Christmas is one of my favorite days of the year.  December, also known as the month of Dismember, is rife with holiday craft fairs and getting orders in the mail, and running back and forth to the printer, and fielding emails about special orders, and dragging carloads of display structures back and forth, and working in the temporary cooperative store downtown.  Throw in some cold market days, being the Rutabaga Goddess at the Rutabaga Curl, several fun houseguests, gift shopping, and all of the festive family-ness that happens around the holidays, and you have a heady cocktail that tastes great, but will leave you dragging the next morning.  I'm working around to a metaphor here, something about having a holiday hangover....ANYWAY, it was a great and profitable season, but now I'm taking the day OFF. 

Meanwhile, my paintings are still hanging at the Bandwagon Brewpub, here in Ithaca.  A couple of them have sold (huzzah!)...including my favorite:

It's called "Migration," and painted with acrylics and gel medium on a lovely walnut board I've been looking at for about a year.  It's about 7 feet long.  This photo is a little rough what with the glare from the flash on the shiny gel medium.  You can also see a small watercolor, called "Solstice," which just happens to be available as a notecard.

I have decided not to travel to the tropics this winter.  In one way I'm pleased to be able to just hang out at home and work on my Wingtip business and get some skiing in, but on the other hand I know that around mid-January I will be sad to not be heading out.  I'll miss Thailand, but will make a point of getting back there sometime soon before I forgot how to speak Thai.

Time for more tea.