DUMMY. It went right through my head. I couldn’t figure out why my nested comments wasn’t working, right? So I could reply individually to people? Yeah, check box dummy. Check box.

It’s been one of those weekends. I’m going to blame the lingering fingers of my cold. Thankfully, I believe it’s almost done. It’s down to a bit of phlegm in my chest. I hate prolonged sicknesses.

Other things on my mind? Adding projects to my list from my last post. I’ve been working on my ATCs and I didn’t realize how messy it could get. I’m looking at sewing myself an apron so I don’t ruin my clothes by accident. I just haven’t decided on which style:

Source: jonag.typepad.com via Kristina on Pinterest

Source: craftster.org via Kristina on Pinterest

Source: 7layerstudio.typepad.com via Kristina on Pinterest

I have plenty of material to choose from, so I’ll probably work on it tomorrow if I’m not still trying to hack up a lung. It’ll probably be the first one to start with. It’s a bit simpler from the reversible and I’m lacking extra pillow cases for the second one. This is probably one of the easiest decisions I’ve had to make in a while!

Organizing

I’m not sure just how detailed I’ve gotten into my efforts to reorganize things. Actually, I’m pretty sure I haven’t been detailed at all. One of the tasks I’ve been going with is reorganizing my pictures. This includes my art, photography as well as stock and other image related goodness that I’ve collected over the last several hundred years (like serious). The thing that’s hard is I keep collecting more. So I need to develop a better process for staying on top of it. This is also helping me work on constructing the future galleries here. I never realized just how much I had to share. What sucks is that I can’t find an open source or freeware program to help me expedite the process. Trust me, I’ve tried several different ones and none of them do what I want. So I’m doing this the old fashion way. Creating folders and going through each image individually. When I’m done, I’ll be able to use picasa to tag everything. Other organizing projects includes sorting through my yarn stashes better. It’s bad when I dig into the closet only to find two more boxes of yarn *scary face*. I’m working on it though. Slowly. Of course, what’s even more scary is finding all the unfinished projects!

Lastly in organizing is I’ve found a wonderful program called Calibre. It’s for books! Ebooks specifically and it works with any device out there. It even converts book formats to the proper one to be read on kindle, nook, sony reader, etcetera. I LOVE THIS PROGRAM. It’s helped so much in organizing my book collection because I didn’t realize how many digital books I’ve collected over the last few years. It connects to different databases adds tags, summaries, author, and print information to the meta data. It is so handy! Best of all, this program is FREE!

Yarn Related

It’s a flower motif pattern I started last year. I keep getting bored with it and setting it to the side. But I was looking at it again (after digging out the latest yarn stash box) and I think I can still salvage it, so I’m going to try. It’s going to be one long skinny scarf, that’s for sure. I finished my vest pattern, so I will do another post with finished pics for that one. I’m looking at making some more shawls as well as some piggies, similar in design to my Camo Pig. I will be selling those in my etsy store when they are finished. I know, the store is currently empty at the moment, but I promise it won’t be soon.

Digital Art

This is probably the main reason I want to do this type of post. I have so many pieces I start but then never seem inspired to finish. I just keep making more renders. Like the first thumbnail, I just finished rendering that last night. These are not full image shots, I’m only giving you a tickle of what I’m working on. Yes, I’m mean like that. The next one is a recreated character from a much older work, so I’m sticking with a character portrait of her. The next image is Hallithe redone using the Genesis character (she was originally designed with Victoria 4, I will add links after DAZ finishes site redesign updates as it is not loading right now).

I’m really excited about this remake because she is so much closer to what I envisioned. I think this is why I’m so slow about finishing things. I love creating and composing the characters. I get some awesome renders and then I just don’t want to do anymore because I’m afraid of overdoing it and screwing the piece up. I read a thing in a recent painting e-mag about how painters will fear the brush because they are so gung-ho in creating that one masterpiece, they forget to enjoy the process itself. For Hallithe, I’m trying to bring her closer to my vision of perfection, but I’m also trying to perfect her dragon companion. I really need to remember that imperfection can be just as beautiful in a piece.

Finally, I actually worked on a fractal piece. It’s been over a year since I’ve made any fractal designs. I am so rusty, it’s kind of sad. I was getting bored though because you can only reiterate the same parameters with different colors so much. I’ve been thinking of moving programs and trying to combine things to enhance my images. I use Apophysis currently and the several variations of the program, but there are so many other equally useful programs for fractal creation. It’s a matter of learning them and I will admit it, sometimes I feel like an old dog. I like to think I’m willing to learn new tricks, but other days, I just like the idea of comfort.

Other

Of course, I’m still working on my ATC cards. I’m going to have several other cards made (couldn’t bring myself to waste paper), so if anyone else is interested in trading or would like a card, let me know (it doesn’t necessarily have to be a trade, but something I would send free because rule number two is you can’t sell them ).

I am so sure I’m forgetting something else I’m working on and it’ll hit me after I publish this. Seeing this written out doesn’t seem like a whole terribly a lot just that some of the projects are excruciatingly time consuming. But I really have nothing better to do currently, so why not?

This week is so far good. I finished the pieces for the vest I’m making and will probably finish it tonight. This depends on my wrist, which has been feeling slightly tweaked the last few days. I’ve been dealing with a never ending kill me now head cold as well. My sinus passages feel like exploding periodically. I’ve also lost count of the amount of tissue boxes I’ve been through. AND I’VE STILL EXERCISED. Actually, I wasn’t really feeling sore, until after I went to yoga. Now I’m feeling sore and achy. Lovely.

What else is happening? I have ATCs to start with for a trade with the lovely Erica. We’re doing three with the themes of Travel, Summer Highs, and a free for all I kind of have an idea of what I’m going to make and I’ll take progress pictures of them. But I won’t post them until after I know she’s got them. So it’ll be a surprise, you know? I’m excited though. I hope they turn out as pretty as I’m picturing them!

I’m also meeting up with a friend from out of town on thursday. I think that’s the last bit of news. Oh, one more because I could use the good lucks. Finally had another application get verified as eligible and sent as part of the selection. This is the farthest I’ve gotten with a government job so far. I’m hoping I get called for an interview. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE let me get called for an interview. I’m trying not to get my hopes up, but… it’s hard when I’m so bored and need something to occupy myself with.

But, yay! At least the hooks I’ve been tossing out there are finally getting bites.

36. I’ve gotten into arguments with people that feel that others are born into their social status quo and never have the ability to improve themselves (poor, middle class, the 1 percent). I don’t believe this because I’m an example of not staying in my social status quo. I put myself through college and chose a career path that would provide me with a comfortable life style. I come from a poor family background where there were times when my parents barely made ends meet. Yes, my father was military, but he was enlisted and they don’t actually make a lot of money. I know families who serve our country, but still have to feed their kids with food stamps. In some ways, how I grew up is what makes me appreciate what little we have all the more. You are only as rich as you are happy, the happier you are the richer you feel.

37. I am a strong believer in Pro Choice and women’s rights. The discrimination is not as apparent as it used to be, but it is still there. I also don’t feel it’s the right of another individual to tell me what I can and cannot do with my body. And trust me, I’m not on birth control so I can fornicate everywhere. As a female in my chosen career path, I’m a minority. Dealing with my male counterparts has always irritated me when they begin to look down on me because I can’t physically do what they can do all the time. And I’ve had males think I was dumber than them because I am a female (that really infuriates me).

38. I support Gay Marriage. Why? Because it’s not my right to tell someone how to live their life.

39. If you haven’t figured it out, I’m a liberal. I don’t always shove my believes in other people’s faces, but it can be really hard being military because there can be a lot of hot headed people around here who don’t do their fact checking before making very big assumptions. Military is usually assumed to be conservative. So it’s really hard for me to keep a tight leash on my tongue whenever someone decides they need to politically debate something in a group that I highly disagree with. I try to stay in control for Joe’s sake.

40. I am an atheist. Though, after the last two weeks, I really wished I did believe in something that I could fall back on. It’s not that I haven’t gone through the motions or was raised with no religious affiliation, I just choose not to believe in anything. It’s hard to agree with most doctrines because I always find people doing things in the name of some sort of higher power for their justification and they aren’t always doing good things. I can’t bring myself to support such behaviors and I need more than something I can’t see, taste, touch, or hear. Living in the south has been a bit of a struggle because I really have no idea how to reply to someone when they say “God bless you” or “Jesus loves you” or “What church do you go to?”

Weight – 173 lbs
BMI – 27.9
Fat% – 37.8%
Fat Mass – 65.4 lbs

My stats at the end of this round:

Weight – 165.6
BMI – 26.7
Fat% – 37.2%
Fat Mass – 61.6 lbs

I lost nearly 8 lbs these last 6 weeks. I’m feeling pretty amazed by that. It’s hard for me to believe after taking forever just to lose 5 pounds. I find it absolutely amazing.

But now, it’s all up to me. The next bootcamp isn’t until this fall and I have no idea how things will be for us by then. We could be PCSing pending the airframe the husband gets. So I have this summer to continue working on this. What I am most concerned with is making sure I keep my running up. The heat, and mostly the humidity, is really doing me in. I feel so exhausted working out in 80% humidity at 75 degrees, how do I hope to last with higher humidity and temperatures in the high 80s and 90s. I have a camel back and I’ll break it out if I have too, but I would prefer not too.

One day at a time. A group of us is going to be trying to get together on tuesdays and thursdays early in the morning, so hopefully that’ll help keep me on track. I plan on filling in with classes and starting to lift on my own because I don’t always get what I need out of the strong body classes as much as I was. I’ve gotten better about putting my own routines together especially with everything I’ve learned over the last 9 months.

Maybe I’ll share more on those workouts here

Jenta

Jenta is a pixie guarding her small claimed spot in a woody area by a mall (she likes to dress glamorously). But don’t mistake her good looks for softness. She’s mean with that bow of hers. Her character idea is heavily influenced by Kim Harrison’s urban fantasy series the Hollows. Pixies are abundant and guard things from flower pots to plots of land from anybody and everybody.

Figure was composed, lighted, and rendered in Daz|Studio 4 Pro using genesis figure (I was spinning dials like crazy to try and get something exaggerated, but still humanoid). Post work was in Photoshop. All resources used were purchased by me. Here’s an alternative:

Jenta Alternative

I chose not to make this the final piece because I felt it would be too dark for other people’s monitors and wouldn’t attract enough interest. But I still like it enough to show it off. I’m always doing different things until I get the right feel for a piece. It really is interesting to me how you can change the mood of something by changing the lighting and the coloring.

There are things I’ve been wanting to write about though. The first one? I reached my first goal weight of 170 lbs. I’ve lost somewhere between 20 to 30 lbs since last summer. I can’t give an exact number because I was too afraid to stand on the scale and see that I weighed as much as my husband if not more. Either way, it’s not an insignificant sum. I’m thinking of putting a picture page of where I was and where I’m at now to keep me going. After bootcamp is finished, I have to go through my closet. A lot of my clothes are falling off or too big for me now, so I need to put a bag together for the secondhand store. This includes a lot of my business casual clothes *sad face*. I’m going to control myself in buying new clothes though because I still want to lose at least another 15 lbs before I’m satisfied. Technically, I’m suppose to weight around 140 lbs for my age and height, but I don’t see myself getting there. I see myself getting to a weight that makes me happy and I know that’s in the 150 range, which is where I was at before I got married.

Second, I finished another image:

Sierra of Kythe

It was an attempt at combining art nouveau with 3d. I like how it came out and I’ve become very fond of clipping masks in photoshop. It helps with recoloring objects quickly you know.

Third, I’m currently making this. It’s coming out pretty. I’m making it in a rich blue. I’m pretty excited because I’ve never really made anything this complicated before… clothing wise. It’s an embarrassing thing to admit for me because of everything else I make. Of course, soon, I’ll be remedying this.

Fourth, I need to invest in a food saver. My garden is huge! And things are flowering quickly. Joe doesn’t think we’ll have too much to eat, but I don’t think he realizes how quickly things ripen. I’ve already been harvesting green beans and he’s going to get tired of eating those fairly quickly. Of course, I felt totally offended when he said they tasted like they came from the store (he was meaning it as a compliment… he couldn’t tell the difference). I could tell the difference. They were fresher for one.

Fifth, Erica is offering to do artist trading cards and I’ve hit her up for some trading. I’ve never done them before, but I thought I would post the offer to anyone else that was interested. Leave me a comment (or email) if you are.

Okay, I need to end this. I have a list of things to go do and finish up today. I’m so glad to be feeling motivated.

And I’m trying to remember to breath, which isn’t always easy.

I’m hoping that I never have to go through what I went through last week. Those with the password know what I’m talking about. As it stands, we’ll be taking one step forward at a time. I’ve got some hopes pinned on a few jobs as well, so I hope some fruits are exposed next week.

The waiting game, the waiting game, always a waiting game.

I don’t have any other plans otherwise. Boot camp finishes up next week and then I’m back to pushing myself to exercise on my own. I have a few projects I’m finishing too. But I’ll post more about that later.