Yay, first post after getting back from vacation! Man was it a shock going from sunny and 85 degrees to snow/hair/icy and dangerously far below freezing.

Most of my time has been taken up by working and reassuring clients that, yes, I am still alive. I’ve gotten bombarded with new projects in the past few days… evidentially everyone was saving them to help me ease back in from vacation. How nice. =/

I’ve lost sleep (and hair probably) over this damn cartoon project; the woman I’m working with isn’t asking the client what he thinks of her ideas before making me draw them. Evidentially, instead of just taking the two minutes to explain the concept to him, it makes more sense to her for me to spend three hours drawing out something he won’t like… and god forbid I actually got paid for all those hours I worked due to her incompetence. Why does freelancing have to mean dealing with people! =)

I’ve also been sent a contract for the Motorcycle Guide book project. My mom is going to look over it; it’s pretty questionable. Then again, Work for Hire (or “Whore for Hire”) is questionable enough in itself.

At least I have my messy box to help me relieve all the tension! ^_^

And I signed up to audit Japanese second semester. I’ve taken up to third semester, but that was years ago, so I’m planning to refresh and if I’ve gotten a thriving at-home business by next year (we can wish) I’ll be able to enroll as a student for four semester and continue my Japanese! Yay!

This morning it was raining hard on-and-off. We had breakfast here, and eventually got moving enough to walk to town (lucky during a break in the showers). Along the way we saw some wild pigs, kitties, and various other pleasant things.

On the way down 5th avenue, my mom saw a dog she thought she had seen wandering around out condo complex. As we were going into the internet café to reserve a car at Hertz, she said she was going back to find the dog. We were too distracted to stop her, but after about 15 minutes my dad went back to find her. He came back to get us and led us to my mom sitting on a bench with the dog under her legs. She kept saying it was “exhausted” and refused to be led away. It took a lot of convincing – she obviously felt “rescuing” this dog was her mission. We finally led her off to a nearby restaurant for lunch – it was a nice place where the waiter brought drinks balanced on his head. After studying the menu for awhile we were told they were only serving the simple Mexican foods on the back, so we all ended up having either quesadillas or burritos.

While my parents were waiting for the check, Hubband and I went browsing at the shops next door. And inside a little shop selling necklaces we discover my mom’s “exhausted” dog, lying in a corner and very content. So it turns out she would have been “rescuing” this dog from its proper owners, who I’m sure would have been slightly distressed (some may call this stealing…). He seemed very happy and well-looked after (a fact we had noticed earlier but she had refused to admit!). Unfortunately I don’t think this experience taught her anything about the problems in meddling with strange dogs.

After lunch we walked down 5th avenue for a long way. It got a bit nicer and quieter up the road, though the shops still sold the same old junk. We stopped at a Starbucks before finally heading back and going to Walmart. Truly an authentic Mexican experience….

The rest of the afternoon was taken up by shopping for food and the taxi ride home. In the evening Hubband and I walked to a little shopping area down the street and bought a big hand painted tea “stein.”

My dad made some yummy unidentified flatfish with couscous for dinner, and we watched “The Relic” on VHS, which we had discovered in their limited movie collection. And then to bed!

We got up at 8:30am this morning. Since there was nothing in to eat, we found a restaurant in a magazine and called a cab.

The restaurant was called 100% Natural. We think it may have been a chain, because they had personalized mugs, chairs, and even sugar packets. We all ordered variations on eggs and a big huge glass of juice smoothie (their specialty).

The weather was bordering on chilly – Garry and I shopped a bit while my parents waited for the bill, but we couldn’t find any long-sleeved tops that we both approved of.

After breakfast we walked to the Mexican supermarket called “mega.” It was all very similar to a Walmart (which they also have here, BTW), except there was an inordinate amount of dried chili pepper and loaves of processed meat called “Fud.” We bought a lot of essentials, but everything only came to about $79 (or 790 pesos). Very cheap here!

On the way out a guy called us a taxi, and we returned to the condo for a lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches. Garry took a nap while I sat on the couch doing Sudoku and trying to get rid of a nagging headache. The cool breeze from the screened door and the songs of the grackles did help the headache a bit; hopefully it’s gone for good!

My parents left on an exploratory walk around 3:00pm, and I woke Garry up to go on a walk as well. We started out with a plan to go to the beach, but it turned out to be cold and slightly uninviting, so we returned to the condo to retrieve some more suitable walking footwear. We then walked to town, taking many photos of strange, as-of-yet unidentified rodents, and some Mayan ruins. We also met the first kitties of the vacation on a road through the residential area!

In town we shopped a bit for a necklace for me, and searched out a soccer-top store that Garry had seen while in the cab. Shopping was unsuccessful, though we did buy some drinks from the smallest Starbucks ever (are we gringos or what?).

We also had a guy try to sell us some knock-off Rayban and Oakley sunglasses, while also trying to convince us they were polarized. Horray for taking advantage of the gullible customer!

On the walk back we met with many kitties out for their dusk-time prowl, including an absurdly cute troop of five kittens – four shy tabbies and one bolder and very talkative ginger kitten. I took many photos, though unfortunately the light was so dim I had to use the flash (much to their annoyance).

We turned home to an extremely worried mother (despite returning only four minutes past out self-imposed 6:00 curfew). We agreed not to be out alone past 5:00 any more (after all, we are only adults over 6’ tall!). Dada made very yummy BBQ chicken, potatoes, beans, AND bread with olive oil (needless to say there were leftovers). Then we did the dishes, and everyone gathered to watch the Packers while I tidied (I’m not sure when my mom go into football – maybe it’s a menopause thing).

And then we went to bed. And here we are, me writing this while reading it aloud to Hubband. And now he’s turned over a yawned… =)

Getting ready to leave for Mexico tomorrow! We shopped: I got three pairs of shoes, two shorts, a shirt, and sunglasses (score!), and Garry got pants and a shirt; how boy. We packed. And we cleaned, so Beth (our cat-taking-care-of-woman) wouldn’t be horribly disgusted by the squalor that is our apartment. And now we think we’re ready!

Leaving at 4:20am tomorrow. 4:20!!

Finished the rest of the business book cartoons. It sounds like the clients like them so hopefully there won’t be many changes (I hate going back in and making changes, it always takes 3x as long as it did to draw the thing).

I also went on a failed shopping trip with my mom for shoes and clothes. We ended up with one shirt that we can both wear. And no shoes. It really sucks for my mom having size 12 feet - all the shoes in her size look like something an 80-year-old would wear. Evidentially only old or fashion-blind people have big feet. It’s one of those markets that will make a lot of money for whoever is willing to actually acknowledge it; sort of like tall clothes.

Well, due to waking up at 10:00 and having a cat asleep on my lap when I should have been working, these four cartoons are pretty much all I have gotten done today. The bottom right one is a total rip-off of the one the clients “just fell in love with” but didn’t seem to understand that it would in fact cost them over $500 to use. So they get a hopefully-not-infringing-copyright ripoff one for $75. Ah, the joys of freelancing.

I hate days where I don’t feel like I got enough done. =/

Pretty much all I’ve done today is finish this samurai fairy commission. The color is actually not the one for his commission - he wanted bright green hair, purple eyes, orange wings… so that’s what he got, but this version is for people who are… less daring in their color preferences. ^_^

I also answered e-mails, did little fixes on the business cartoons, downloaded, zipped up, and sent off someone’s website for them…. That’s the problem with being freelance, it’s not just “oh, I have a job I would like you to do.” It’s “oh, I like the job you did, but can you change this, and this, and send me this, and show me how it would look with this, and my friend’s brother’s neighbor thinks it might look good if you did this.” Arg.

We also got to level 20 in LOTRO. Woot!

This afternoon I went downtown to the optometrist and got some contacts. It’s the first time I’ve worn contacts in over three years – luckily it wasn’t like when I first started wearing them when I was 11, and they would take me about an hour to get in.

When I got home I finished a couple more icons for the business book, just so I could feel accomplished today. I’m really not sure about the open book one; it’s very heavily based on one the clients loved, but it totally doesn’t belong with the others. “Which of these things is not like the others, which of these things is not quite the same?” I guess they never watched Sesame Street.

After lunch with Garry, my mom picked me up from the UW bookstore and we rented “Bobby” and took it back to their house to watch. Garry worked late and dada is in Milwaukee overnight tonight (he needs a better job). I attempted to make popcorn but I sort of failed; it was half burned/half tiny undercooked kernels. The movie was okay; lots of big name actors but it was all pretty much exactly what you would expect, nothing unique.

I also brought home a folder that my mom had gotten out of all the letters I wrote home from camp Woodland. Garry and I had fun reading them. Aw, so cute. My favorite is “That a counsiler touek of (took off) his shirt after winning an arm wresling thing and it go thrown around in the crowed and once it got thrown to my feet & I throw it and once it got thrown into my face & sliped down and landed in my lap! Sick! So I trough it and it hit the guy that had taken it off right in the butt!” I like the fact that I spell “throw” right until suddenly I spell “trough” for no reason.

Today I finally got the paisley done for the motorcycle people. Of course, I’m not very happy with it… it’s really loose and it looks like it took me ten minutes, when in reality it took hours. I just know she’s going to say she wants it tighter. The problem is, when you actually look at paisley it is all loose, it’s just the pattern that makes it look neat.

I also got a sketch done for my second Gundam commission, this time with the two guys walking a dog. My monitor was spazzing today; it was loosing all the light greys so whenever I reduced the opacity on a sketch to trace over it I would loose a lot of the detail and it all looked like a bad photocopy. We finally got it fixed tonight by just resetting the graphics card to factory defaults. You don’t realize how important a good gradient is on your monitor until it’s gone. It still screwed me up on the sketch a bit, but all that matters is if it inks okay.

And when I got back from lunch with Garry I pulled out the messy box again and made more messy art. I also tried to teach the cat to paint for the second time, but it was unsuccessful. I know he has a little painter in there, because he’s obsessed with wiping is paws after using the litter tray – I just have to find a way to let him release his creativity! ^_^