The Adventures of KJ & The Dreamy Giraffe

We now interrupt your regularly scheduled adventure...

for a picture of some puppies, taking a snooze:

I'm just not feeling very adventurous today, I'm afraid.   In fact, I may just have to go take a snooze myself.

But if you, like me, are having an unadventurous kind of day,  I hope the above cuteness made you smile, at least a little bit!

Adventure #105: KJ & A Month Of Sundays (& Saturdays, Too!)

Dear You,

I was SO productive this weekend and I'm positively bursting to show off what I got done.

But I can't.   It's a big commissioned project, that's sort of a surprise, so I have to keep zipped lips for the next month or so, and it's killing me not to be able to share!

But I CAN show off the art I did the OTHER Saturdays & Sundays this month.

A few weeks ago, my 2 & 1/2 year old niece, Kaylee, spent the weekend at my house, and we painted (okay, I just put the colors she picked out on the brush --- she did the rest):

Drew circles and houses:

 

Traced her feet, hands, and whole cute little self (which is much, much, much cuter than the outline would indicate!):

And did projects (that's what she calls any art that's not painting or coloring):

She seems to be developing quite the creative streak already.  And not just when it comes to art!

The other night, she, my mom, my sister and I were at Red Lobster, and she got out two little packets of creamer and was pretending that one little packet of creamer was The Mommy and one little packet of creamer was The Daddy and was making up this little dialogue between them (one of them kept asking if they could go to Monkey Joe's tomorrow and the other would respond "SURE, we can!").   The funniest point of the whole show was when she dropped one of the creamers one the floor and look at us and said, "I want a new daddy!"

Adventure #104: KJ Plays Tag (But Makes Up Her Own Rules)

Dear You,

I've been tagged by the charmingest of Sams and my favorite Good Girl and Ali J of aussiepatches (though that one was a while back, but I didn't get around to participating back then).

Rules of “tag”:
1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog. DONE!
2. Share 7 random and/or weird things about yourself.  DONE!
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs. 
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I've done this before (here and here) and though I'm a quirk-filled individual, goodness, it's hard to do this without repeating myself!  But here goes:

Okay, those aren't my real answers.  But that's a nifty little thingamabob I found on Good Girl's blog and thought it was too funny, so couldn't resist.   I couldn't get the HTML to work right, but if you'd like some humorous trivia tips about your very own self, you can get them here.  (And if you can figured out and tell me how to post the results to my blog properly, it'd be much appreciated!)

Seriously, though:

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1.  I didn't have a boyfriend until my sophomore year in college.  One morning, at the beginning of the semester, I was walking across campus and saw this absolutely gorgeous guy.  And I thought to myself, "I'm either going to marry that guy, or never see him again." Imagine my almost falling out of my chair when, the next afternoon, Mr. Absolutely Gorgeous walked into my fiction writing class and took a seat.  I was wrong on both accounts: I DID see him again, and we did date for a little while (making him boyfriend numero uno), but as you've probably surmised by the fact that I've never mentioned a husband, did not get married.

2. Growing up, I said I'd never ever, ever, ever be a teacher.  My first job out of college was teaching language arts (and one math class) at a small private school.

3. I did not want to be an artist growing up.  If you'd have told me that's where I would have ended up, I would have laughed at you, because never in a million years would I have considered myself even talented enough to sell one painting, much less, you know, to sell them on a regular basis.  To prove this point: The first painting I sold, I put a price tag of $15.00 on it (though the buyer, a friend, gave me $25.00) and thought that was fair.  I think it was a 9" X 12".  Or maybe a bit bitter?  $15.00!!!

Here's the painting:

And how unseriously I was taking it?  I didn't even SCAN the piece before I let it go.  This is just a snippet -- and, as you can probably tell, it's a very bad quality picture taken with my digital camera -- the flash (why didn't I turn it off?) glaring against the varnish (back when I used gloss, before I learned the wonders of satin or semi-gloss).  The painting had text on it that read: In her free time, Stacey liked to paint men on the walls.  Unfortunately, though she gave them hearts, none of them seemed at all interested in being her boyfriend.

4. I hate mouth noises.   Talking's cool, but any other sounds people make with their mouths -- yuck.  Especially chewing.

5.  I have a bad habit of asking loved ones if they're on crack or smoking dope.

6.  I am terribly backed up on my Guiding Light-watching.  I currently have 8 episodes on my DVR -- yesterday it was 13, but I spent most of the day in front of the t.v., painting while listening.  I can't seem to catch it when it actually airs and somehow continuously wind up several weeks behind.  But I can't manage to give it up, either.  I mean, Ricky Paull Goldin is leaving?  How the heck are they gonna write out Gus?  I must know.

7.  One of my favorite books is Practical Magic, by Alice Hoffman -- but I HATED the movie.

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Speaking of books, I also got tagged by Fria for the Literary Challenge.

Rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages). DONE!
2. Open the book to page 123. DONE!
3. Find the fifth sentence. DONE!
4. Post the next three sentences. DONE!
5. Tag five other people.

The nearest book:

Page 123, Line 5:

"William, I am a much better jet pilot than a car driver."

Fekadu laughed loudly and joyously.  William wondered how this poor man could be capable of such happiness, however temporary it was.

"Your stories," said William. "I want to believe you."

"Then believe me," said Fekadu.

That's actually five sentences, BUT the fourth and fifth were so great, I had to tack them on.  Ten Little Indians is a book of short stories I picked up last weekend from a thrift shop.  I've only read one of the stories so far, but so far, so good.

I'm not going to tag anyone, but if you want to play either game: You're it!

Dream on,

KJ

Adventure #103: KJ, The Original Peanut Butter Girl

Dear You,

Long, long ago, and far, far away, when I was a little girl, a friend of my maternal grandmother always called me "The Peanut Butter Girl".

I always thought this was because I liked peanut butter sooooooo much (and still do -- make mine crunchy, please!), but recently, I asked my mom, just to make sure, and turns out I was misinformed.  I earned the name Peanut Butter Girl by looking like the little girl that was on the jar of some brand of peanut butter back in the day.  (I have Googled extensively and cannot for the life of me find out which brand it was and my mom doesn't remember.)

On a seemingly unrelated note: I like painting superheroes.  Along with mermaids, princesses, pirates, fairies, and my versions of fairy tale heroines, they show up fairly often in my work.  And to me, Peanut Butter Girl sounded sort of like a superhero name.  A superhero with very laidback superpowers, for sure, not the type that's out leaping buildings in a single bound or battling dark forces with deadly ray-guns, making bad guys sorry they were ever born.

And so I started dreaming up what Peanut Butter Girl would look like.  What WOULD her powers be?  And, of course, she'd have to have a sidekick, 'cause what's peanut butter without jelly?

And soon thereafter, Peanut Butter Girl and Jelly Bean, her faithful companion and partner-in-(lowkey)-crimefighting were born.  They're not your average superheroes, oh, no! Their superpower is the ability to discern the precise moment someone is absolutely going to freak out if they don't get a PB & J, and to bring aforementioned PB & J to the poor about-to-freak-outter. You might say they're saving the world, one sandwich at a time.

Here they are, starring in their first adventure, "Peanutty":

 

WELL.  A painting of two peanut buttery superheroes is kind of a quirky painting.  Um, what I mean is, it wouldn't fit as neatly and easily with traditional and  typical living room decor across the world as, say, a nice landscape or abstract piece would.  It would take a certain, special, unique, peanut butter-lovin' individual to have the wall just right for it to hang on.  Not just any setting would do for art with this sort of offbeat subject matter.

I actually kind of believe that each of my paintings don't sell until that right, perfect buyer comes along and finds them.  Like, you know, if a painting takes a year to sell...it's because it took that long for the person who absolutely, positively was meant to have that painting to see it.  (That sounds a little hokey, but, I do genuinely hope that is how it works.)  And that was certainly the case, I think, with "Peanutty".