So I totally re worked the vampire doll and he’s coming along nicely. The picture made me realize that he needs hands AND the non-raised eyebrow needs to be lower. And I think I might make those buttons gold. Other than that, he’s pretty much done.
You know what I wish? Well, I wish a lot of things-ha ha!- but most recently I wish there were opaque white ink sharpies. That would be truly wonderful.
Maybe he should be holding a plate of pancakes? Or was it only Dr. Tongue that held them?
I swore I wouldn’t work on them tonight but taking that picture made me get the itch, so I fiddled a little, as you can see:
It might be hard to understand, but Frankenstein’s monster is wearing a hospital gown and little else. I made the ghost look like Jason in the first Halloween movie, one of the scariest movies EVER. Zombie and werewolf have been outlined, and I like how they are going, but both need more love before I am going to be truly happy. I have to tackle that Dracula tomorrow. Somehow I have to figure out how to do his neckline, his bow tie is just…floating, and that’s not right.
I have been sitting on these nesting doll blanks for so long now…Periodically I would think, oh, this would be good or that would work or something (up to last night when I suggested a girl, then her muscles, then bones, guts and finally, the smallest doll, a poo and I still stand by that being a great idea) then we moved and I thought that they were in storage, but I thought wrong. Shannon found them for me, on a shelf ( as he said to me “Not YOUR shelf, OUR shelf”) and I finally made up my mind: classic movie monsters! So, from biggest to smallest, at the moment, they are zombie girl, teen werewolf, dracula, Frankenstein’s monster and a ghost. Although I think I might re work the ghost so it looks like a person dressed as a ghost, sort of like in Hallowe’en, uh, the movie.
No, they are not finished yet. Obviously. I have to finish painting them and then I am going to do all the outlining in black marker pen. And I might still do the smallest one as a poo. That’s scary, right? Ooooooooh!
And yes, I am aware that the zombie might look sort of like me. Her hair is parted on the opposite side, so you know, it’s easy to tell us apart. And I had my appendix out.
For the second year in a row we haven’t had the responsibility of taking Ari trick or treating, but we have reaped the rewards of her hard work. Good thing Shannon and I love candy, otherwise, it would go to waste. I think Ari only really likes gummies when it comes down to it.
She loves her costume; she’s worn it every day. Shame the shoes were way too small. We printed a copy of this picture for her to bring to school, she’s so proud of it!
Apparently this sign was made after a scolding from daddy. Well, I take what I can get. Also, neener nonner!
Also, I think I made the best soup of my entire life. I don’t want to forget how I did it, so here goes:
Because Therasa Has A Cold Soup
1. Slice 2 leeks length wise, then chop into half moons, rinse until all the dirt is gone. Peel and slice 3 carrots into coins. Preheat a large pot over medium, add a glug of oil, toss in leeks and carrots. Sprinkle with salt to keep them from browning.
2. Peel a chunk of ginger, about the size of a medium radish, grate into leeks and carrot. Grate 3 peeled cloves of garlic in too. Toss them around until you can smell them, then add a tetra pack of chicken stock. Is it a litre? Maybe.
3. Bring to a boil and add 1 peeled sweet potato and 1 regular potato cut into 1″ dice. Toss in 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts and simmer until they are cooked through. Take the chicken out and shred it with 2 forks. It’s easy, and I didn’t burn myself. Put it back into the pot.
4. Throw in some parsley and the finely grated rind of a whole lemon. Then using a spoon, mash all the potato chunks you can find and stir it all around so the soup is thick. I also threw in a teaspoon of chili flakes near the end for heat. I also threw in about 3/4 C of cooked couscous (from last night) in lieu of using noodles. It just made the soup even thicker.
Makes 4 big bowls.
Seriously, it was SO good. When she was finished, Therasa claimed that she was already feeling much better. We are eating the rest of it tomorrow at supper club. I can hardly wait!
No Frills has bags of carrots that are all different colours. I ate a purple one last night, it was great, but it stained my hands like crazy. Then Shannon ate a white one, and it was the perfect carrot-crunchy, sweet, delicious.
I need a new purse. The zipper on mine is completely broken (and not worth fixing) which isn’t terribly safe for public transit. I think I may go look at Joe Fresh before work.
Swimming tonight!
Less than a year ago I made three paintings, one each for my parents and one for my sister. I hadn’t painted since, the past year has been SO crazy, but because the babies first birthday (see previous post) was rapidly approaching and I’d been meaning to do a painting for their room since their birth, I finally got off my duff and did it. I knew I wanted to do a painting of bears and I have spent a lot of time looking at pictures of bears. A LOT of time. The painting I wanted to do, based on a joke Emily’s mom told us about a certain cross-eyed bear didn’t really work so well. How does one draw a bear with crossed eyes without it looking too cartoony? So I decided to go with the story of The Three Bears, it’s one of my favourites. I prefer the version where the bears, upon finding Goldilocks the greedy furniture smasher holed up in the home, eat her. Sadly, I don’t know who did the illustration I copied. I glued a copy of that on the back of the painting along with the hilariously sober synopsis of the story from Wikipedia on the back. I can hardly wait ’til they are old enough to read it themselves.
It’s not as good as any of Shannon’s paintings, but I am still pretty happy with how it turned out.
Other than the smell.
I went to the twins’ first birthday party this afternoon. It was super fun, those kids make me so happy, I just love love love them! Everyone was oohing and aahing over watching their first bites of sugar, so I didn’t burst that bubble by talking about feeding them McDonald’s ice cream a couple weeks ago. If there’s anything organic in that stuff, someone please tell me.
