To anybody who keeps up with Lost...

OMG!

Work + Life = Hard

When the sun shines on my windowsill it makes me happy and hopeful.

Work has been annoying, hard, long, frustrating, and never-ending by turns.

It's hard for me to then go home and get laundry, cleaning, dishes, cooking, done and then try to focus on what I actually want to do with my life (sewing, drawing, writing). Instead I sit down and watch the season finale of America's Next Top Model (Anya totally should have won).

I need to restructure my life so that what I spend the majority of my time doing is what I want to do and what makes me happy. I have only myself to blame for not getting things done outside of work. It's just too easy to excuse "couch-tv-time" when this month has flown by with barely a day off.

Make Believe. Not War.

I haven't been this excited by a movie trailer in a long, long time.


If you haven't seen the trailer yet - DO.

He finally has one.

Jameson's family got him a late birthday gift (thanks to some amazing searching by the Yi).

It is the perfect gift. Yi got him the new Smash Bros. game - Brawl. I could not even begin to tally the hours they both spent playing Melee - now they have a new one to dominate each other at.

Too bad we only have one controller, we'll have to save up for a second one. But it's still an amazing gift!

Jack Valentine Holst

He is beautiful:



His daddy took this picture right after he was born.

8 pounds .04 ounces of sweetness.

psst

Jack Valentine Holst (first grandbaby in Jameson's family) was born today!!!

I get to meet him tomorrow!!!

If you don't know - I effin' LOVE babies.

Budget v Shoes

Jameson and I started a hard core budget 2 months ago. Here is our Budget Box:

Notice the futuristic cardboard of the used envelope box! Our budget does not allow us to even buy it a cool organizer. But it does have a sweet drawing on it.

It's a good, good thing but it makes buying things that aren't accounted for really hard. Even things you need, like shoes. Both of my current chucks ripped up the sides weeks ago (back when there was snow and then more snow). But I haven't been able to buy shoes to replace them until today. Working extra shifts just to get some canvas shoes sure does make you excited to finally purchase them! Too bad they won't get here until next week, free shipping is never fast.

These lovelies are to replace my broken black chucks (I've just been wearing black socks to hide the fact that you can see my feet when I wear them). I've never seen yellow chucks before:

Hopefully they don't get dirty too quick. I haven't decided on lace color yet. Any suggestions? My black ones had green laces. I never use the white ones they come with. Too skinny, too short, overall cheap - in my opinion.

And on to my dream shoes:

I have been trying to find shoes like this for years, YEARS! The $10 green ones kinda like this, that I got in Chicago, where the closest I have come. Those fell apart in about 3 weeks. Here's hoping that these lil ladies last longer and don't give me as many blisters.

Ahh shoes, my feet are excited just thinking of them. Three cheers for All Stars!

In between.

A brief, photo by photo, reacap of the time I spent away from my blog.

First off:


Mushrooms Bandits. These little fellows, along with some other handmade stuffed friends, were sold by me at Loop In Motion 2007. It was not as money-full as the previous "Motion" but these guys still make me smile.

Almost everyday I have to go to work - even if only for an hour. So a lot of the time in between was spent working my job. The best part is I also have to bring work home with me:


The Dreaded Schedule.

In December I left childhood behind forever when I turned 30:


This is the birthday cupcake I dropped and then caught before it hit the ground. My hand was covered in yummy, yummy cupcake. This was peanut butter and jelly. My Jameson bought it for me. Being 30 makes me think I am allowed no more excuses for not having my life together. I don't feel older, I just feel less able to comfort myself with the idea that I'm only in my twenties. I no longer am.

Also, there was Christmas:


I would like to introduce William Randolph Pine. He looks all fancy here but he only cost $10 (maybe less) and looked like the sad tree from the Charlie Brown special. He cleans up quite nicely once you add decorations and gifts. The best part, we set him up in our room. I love falling asleep to the Christmas tree lights.

Snow! It snowed again and again and again this year. Just when we thought it was spring - snow, four more times.


This is the view out our kitchen window. Ahh, the alley with the two dumpsters. It's beautiful.

So my last post before my hiatus was the ultrasound of James' sister's baby.


Jack Valentine Holst is now officially 3 days past due.

I missed a day.

This is awesome and out of nowhere (except my love of Little Lulu).



I'm attempting to blog everyday.

I promise the post about the Mushroom Bandit is coming. It's going to be part of a longer, photo filled, catch up post. Our new iMac makes it all so much easier.

However, yesterday was spent with our good friend Drew of AshleyG and Drew. He made our iMac all fancy and taught us all sorts of awesome things it can do. They are moving away soon and we needed to use his brain before he takes it to Portland.

Then Ashley joined us (along with our famous roommate - brag brag - JJ Loy who has an article in the current issue of Make Magazine) and we all ate cheap and yummy food while watching "Must See TV".

The long catch-up post will happen. Soon.

Quickie.

This is a Mushroom Bandit:



more about him tomorrow (or later today, whatever).

Comics make me sad.

So, Cosmic Cherry, yeah...



We submitted it in both email and hard copy form on the same day. Image's website says this is best and they say email will get you a response faster. We know for a fact that they received the hard copy because it was signed for by Eric Stephenson (for those of you who don't know - he's a big guy there). Then... nothing.

So, we waited a month or so and sent a follow up email, as they say you should do. Then... nothing.

A friend of ours who is part owner of Star Clipper (one of the best comic book stores ever and it's right around the corner from us) said that he knows Eric Stephenson and he would host it on the web for us and send him the link. Awesomeness. Then... nothing.

It sucked. A lot. A "no thanks" would have been a million times better than just nothing. Especially when everything on Image's site said that they Do respond, even if it is just a "no thanks".

All of this, especially the very long (months) drawn out process of never hearing back, kinda just squashed us both. It's not like we thought there was no way they'd turn us down. We just didn't prepare, after spending over a month of over 12 hour days working towards something, that it would fall sooooo flat.

And for me, much more than Jas, it has left a bad comic-icky taste in my mouth.

We are scooping ourselves back up but I feel quite done with Cosmic Cherry (still bitter lil me) and figuring out what our next direction is has been hard. Just wanted to put this out there because I am beyond tired of explaining to people "what's up with Cosmic Cherry?". It's weird how people I didn't even know knew about it and are extremely disappointed in this outcome. But none more than us.

Super Gumbo and the New iMac

Super Gumbo would like to welcome you all to the first blog from our brand new iMac.




Jas and I saved and saved and finally had enough to buy it with cash! It is very hard to buy from Apple with cash if you do not want a store model. We ended up having to purchase an Apple Giftcard and then order it online using said giftcard. Kinda dumb - but then we got our iMac and it is big and beautiful.

My little iBook is outdated to the point of being unable to run Photoshop and, much more importantly, videos on the web. Oh, YouTube... I waste so much time.

I must get back to posting more. If only to share the final chapter of our adventures in submitting to Image.

Uncle Jameson and Aunt Dira

This is the first image of the lil' baby Holst:


James' sister Sarah and her husband Joe are expecting. I've mentioned them before.

This will be the first grandbaby on his families side. My family has a boatload of them. I'm very excited, none of my neices or nephews are very lil anymore.

lil kitty

I might have to steal a kitty.


This is Isadora.

Or Eee-izz (said in a very highpitched voice), Izza-muffin, Chicken, Izza-dorable, Bah-bee, or even Fat-head (meant in the sweetest of ways). Half of those nicknames came with her, from her real and loving owners who miss their lil'kitty.

We absolutly love having her around. She is the kitten-iest of cats ever.

Jameson says she is a person pretending to be a cat, which would make sense as she is almost too perfectly kitty-cat. She purrs in any position, bumps our chins with her head (one of the best catnesses), follows me around, sleeps in our bed and, every now and then, cocks her head a bit to one side and asks, "Merow?"

I'm in kitty bliss.

It's been soooo long.

There's been cleaning, coughing, a successful staff party, hirings and firings, wars fought with managers from other staffs, busy shifts and dead ones, new emails sent out to Image, new ideas for comics, and on and on.

I'm sorry I've been away.

Next Saturday is "Loop in Motion", which you find out about here. I blogged about it last year. This year I haven't found time to get anything made for it. With less than a week to go I'm gonna try to throw something together.

And for no reason at all here's this:


I painted this a long time ago and found it when we cleaned. Just thought it would add some color to this silly post.

I promise to try to be better about blogging in the future.

Coughing and Cleaning

This cold is sloooowing me down. There was a lot of laying on the couch yesterday. I did manage to hang the new shower curtain - but that's not much of an accomplishment.

Today will be more like this:

Dust rag in hand, sorting through massive amounts of books, mags, and comics - all while coughing and hacking my lungs out.

Tra-Lah!

Summer Cold

I have a cold. It's always worse to have a cold in summer, in my opinion. I seem to have one every summer. The plan was to do an extremely late spring cleaning this week, while I actually have a couple days off in a row. This cold is trying to slow me down, but this will be our only chance to catch up on the cleaning. Jameson started the cleaning off last night, while I was at work. He did the dishes and cleaned the kitchen and bathroom! I HATE cleaning the bathroom, so it was the best surprise when I got home last night!

Summer cold be darned - I've got spring/fall cleaning to do!

We are also going to go through our magazines. So, if anyone wants a lot of old New Type, Bust, or Giant Robot mags - let me know!

Cough, cough, hack, sneeze, sniff. I godda gedda tissue.

Cosmic Cherry #2

- is in the works!

Just because we haven't heard anything about being accepted doesn't mean we can't keep pushing forward. So here is my boy hard at work laying out a new page to pencil:


If you think you spy a mustache on that fine asian fella' you'd be right. It started as a bet. I believe the bet was a bit fake as he's been threatening to grow one for some time now.

And because he's so cute (I mean tough) when he is hard at work, here's another shot:


It's kinda strange to be working on the 2nd story arc (issues 7-12) while he is working on the 2nd issue. It would seem unfair that I can get done so much faster if it didn't also mean I have to do all the scanning. Me and my Mustek don't always see eye to eye.

"What, What, What?" A quickie.

If you read Jared's blog (or JJ or Fry or whatever you know him as) then you already know. If not you must click here.

Yo Gabba Gabb is a kids show that is being made by an enormous amount of talented and strange people. I really can't describe it without rewriting all that Jared has already faithfully compiled. Go read skablahblah!

Be warned - it might just break TV.

Books are good.

Today I interviewed and hired a new employee. Then I came home and cleaned, did the dishes with my boy, put away laundry from two weeks ago, answered some (but not all) emails, and checked on my American Apparel order's status (it seems to be in stand still at the LA Fedex).

In-between all of this I read.

I have been running out of books lately, rereading all of mine far too many times. I even accidentally read one of my favorites far too soon, you have to leave a really good book alone for a certain amount of time. I used to have a roommate (Boz) who had a collection to rival my own (she also worked at Barnes and Noble and kept us both stocked with the finest of new titles). Before that I had my sisters who also had large quantities of books. Lately it's been sad. I'm very lazy about walking the few blocks to the library in 100+ weather and I get scared at the vast amount of shiny new top sellers at Borders.

I much prefer, I've found, friends just handing me books and telling me, "You should read this." Enter my roommate Jared. He walked into our "hang out" room in the mid-afternoon with a stack of five books. He'd dug around to find me something to read. One of them was:



I started it immediately. Jonathan Lethem is great. "Girl In Landscape" is my favorite but this was very good. Yes, I can say it "was" good because I finished it. Jameson seems to think it is very impressive that I can finish an entire book in less than a day, especially considering I was taking breaks from the book to accomplish actual tasks. It doesn't seem amazing to me, I'm pretty sure all the females (and I think my young nephew) in my family devour books just as fast.

Now I will get to the point: if any of you folks have any books you think I should read - please tell me!

ps- Jameson is reading "The Omnivores Dilemma" and he kept reading snippets to me. So, my reading was interspersed with lovely little nuggets about how everything we eat is made of corn and how we are, essentially, people made of corn. Awesomeness.