The Boy did this thing at school for Mother's Day that included a paper on what he'd do for me if he had a million dollars. First on the list was buy me a capybara. I have such a smart boy.

I don't know what the deal is with the slippers and the babushka, but probably better if you don't mention it to her.

I recently found out a friend of mine absolutely NEVER uses "OK" when writing. He always spells it out. He was so very opinionated about this I started to wonder if other people have strong opinions as well. I have strong opinions about word usage, but for whatever reason the OK/okay issue does not inspire me to passion.

So. Tell me!
Poll #1396232 IT'S A SUPER IMPORTANT POLL, OK?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Pick one:

I especially want to hear if you have a really strong preference, like if using "OK" makes you break out in a rash or something.

I guess I use "OK" when I write. But I wouldn't be surprised to find I use them both. When I was a wee word-loving lass I always used "okay" because I thought it was more elegant than two big capital letters. It's also a word instead of an acronym of unknown origin which I think gave me some comfort.

I think it was when I read about Oskar Kokoschka signing his paintings "OK", and found it so funny, that I started preferring that spelling. Or maybe I'm just lazier now.

And she needs a haircut.

Here are four of our chickens. There are two more Nancys but they look just like these two. We gave up trying to tell them apart and named them all Nancy (after Nancy Drew.)

Houdini is a bantam which is why she's so much smaller. It's also why the other chickens pick on her (Stephanie mostly, she's the last hen from the previous flock. She has issues.) Or it might be Houdini's wacky beard that makes her the target of ridicule in the chicken yard.

You can kind of see it in this picture:



She looks a bit like The Lorax.

There's been some debate in my house about whether she's an Araucana or not. I can't remember what C. said he thought she was but he was wrong. She's just proved me right by laying the cutest little blue egg.

The Boy and I built the best zoo this morning. I'm such a sucker for little toy animals. If I had the money I'd own a stupid number of Playmobil sets. The cool toy store we go to has a set with BADGERS! That's almost as cool as a set with a capybara (which they don't have as far as I know (though they do have a guinea pig set)).

I know that as a (so-called) grown-up I could just go buy that badger set but there's this thing called Setting a Good Example, so ideally I should save up for it instead. Hmm. I wonder how much I could earn washing the car...

We have way too many dinosaurs. Next time we'll build a dinosaur park.

I love a really good word. Actually, I love lots of really good words. I used to sit and read the thesaurus as a kid. (Actually, I just sat and read the thesaurus the other day.)

I love how expressive language can be and how different languages express similar concepts in different ways, how a culture's language can reflect what's important to them, or what's familiar.

And then I just like the way some words sound. CARTILAGINOUS! It's fun to say.

I'm working on a monster word book. It's sort of a vocabulary book but not really. Only some of the words will be uncommon words (spurrier = someone who makes spurs) the rest will be grouped with similar words. I haven't quite figured it all out yet. It will mostly be silly. But that goes without saying.

Anybody have a favorite word? Least favorite? (I still find the word blog icky.) Something I need to include in the book?

I think I created a LJ feed for the 365 Monster Doodles. It's showing up on my friends page, anyway.

Thanks, Gwen.

I've adopted this as my new all purpose expletive. When I'm happy or sad or excited or disappointed or pissed off or scared: HEDGEHOGGERY!

Thanks to David "Voz's Boyfriend" Attenborough's Life of Mammals I managed to stay up late enough (3am) to finish all my Craftland tagging AND inventory AND the sketches for the Illustration Job of Inconvenient Deadlines.

PLUS I learned that ungulates (maybe it was one in particular, now I forget) on the African plains have horizontal pupils for watching the wide horizon for predators. When they lean their heads down to graze their eyeballs rotate in their sockets keeping the pupil horizontal. (I learned some other things but in my sleep-deprived state I might not remember them.)

I watched the piece about rodents like three times. I am such a dork.

I have next to nothing done for BazBiz and I have to finalize the illustrations (assuming they don't just send back my sketches and say "try again") before I leave for the BBB but I do have the whole series of The Life of Birds out from the library, so at least I've have Sir David's company while I work.

These are some of the monster ornaments I made this year. They just need to get boxed up and delivered to Westminster St. I will be so glad to cross that off my list.

Who's coming to Sweden with me in 2010 to see The World's Tallest Moose?

Question: When someone asks you what you do, how do you answer? Not a big long description or anything or an explanation of what you do, just a quick answer. What do you say?

I get really stuck on this one. Saying "artist" implies something that's not really accurate while "crafter" brings to mind something totally, totally different from what I do.

Just curious what other people say when someone asks, "What do you do?"

I spent the entire day making cookies for the school bake sale. Many a sprinkle was involved.

Two new magnets of the nerdy variety.

Is there any other variety?

I have been super busy making magnets lately. I'm trying to get a big jump on December shows, believe it or not. The magnets always sell really, really well so I'm trying to get a bunch done ahead of time. I did that last year and it paid off.

Every so often I think I've made my nerdiest magnet design ever (like this one, for example) and then I go and make another, even nerdier one.

This one isn't even as nerdy as the two designs that came after but you'll have to wait to see those.

I do like the pleased look on this guy's face. Euclid would feel the same, I'm sure.

If anybody needs/wants envelopes I just posted some on destashcraft. They're free if you pay the shipping.

I will ♥ you forever if you take them off my hands.

I ♥ my hens.

Etsy/Paypal question:

Does anybody know what it means if a buyer (on etsy) from Germany pays for an item and says the payment has gone through on her end but there's no record of it in my paypal? I don't think it's a scam or anything, I think something got screwed up. This has happened with TWO orders from people in germany this week. Both say they paid but Etsy still shows them as unpaid and there's nothing in paypal. Should I contact paypal or etsy?

WTF? Anybody?