Recently Keith and I came across a gallery in Pittsboro, NC called Davenport & Winkleperry where they cater to the genre of artwork known as steampunk.  I had not seen this type of art exclusively myself so I was rather unfamiliar with the term. It was here that we saw the work of Thomas Boatwright and after oohing and ahhing over the collection, we bought a series of his paintings titled The Robot and the Mermaid. I’m not one who usually appreciates the darker side of art, my own is usually vibrant and abstract, but his work was very good. I highly encourage you to check out his page on DeviantART.

Number two on my list of new favorite things are a couple of alcoholic beverages. First is a very delish beer that Keith picked up for me on the last grocery run called Belgian Kriek Beer by Lindemans. Now make no mistake, like the only other ‘beer’ I like, this one is very sweet and tastes very much of the black cherry malt. However, since the word beer is clearly printed on the label I am not completely out of line when I say that I do, in fact, enjoy a good beer every now and then. The other beer I like is ACE Hard Perry Cider. Again, it’s sold in the beer section at the grocery store so no scoffing!

Thirdly, is a tasty little cocktail number I picked up at a local Greenville shop, called Canella Blood Orange Mimosa. I’ve never had a mimosa before so it was an experiment for me…a rather expensive experiment considering the price for a small bottle was seven bucks. I also picked up the baby bottle of Bellini but I haven’t had a chance to try it yet. I was distracted by the Kriek, hehe.

Lastly, in case you’re looking for some new computer games to try, Keith introduced me to the gaming community site of Steam. I am currently trying to beat all the levels of a game called Chains, a really challenging color matching game. I love the graphics in this game! My eyes tend to dry out from the lack of blinking though, hehe. Keith is working his way through Half-Life and he has thoroughly been enjoying a game called Portal. Even if you don’t play Portal yourself, check out the humor surrounding it. Hope you like cake

If you are one of those people who has a couple desktop computers and a laptop or two, then this site makes picking out a multi-panel desktop wallpaper super easy!

http://www.mandolux.com/archive/newest.html

Busy

Busy

Busy

Anxious

Excited

Surprised

Headless chicken

Lazy

Lazy

Lazy

Creative

Greedy

Light bulb!

Consolidating

Organize

Farm for gold!

Must make a long chain!

Scully and Mulder’s lives are sooo exciting!!

16 Days til I hitched!!!!!!!!!!!

One option that I have is to work more with my figure drawing skills and attend the figure drawing club nights armed with a plate and my trusty carbide tip. I hated figure drawing but I do feel that I’m good at it and it would making an interesting basis for some prints. Maybe now that I don’t have to draw for 3 hours straight I’ll feel more like doing it. I have tended to resist doing what I have to do but happily engaging in an activity once it’s optional. EXCEPT cooking. F that noise! Hehe. Cooking will always be an activity that I will be forced into. Eating is a necessary inconvenience. End of story. Imagine how much time and money we’d save if we didn’t have to eat 3 meals a day. Not to mentioned we’d be in better shape physically. I think I’ll go on an eating strike…as soon as I finish this slice of pizza!

Other than school I haven’t touched any wedding plans in awhile but I’m confident all will work out. Oh, and not only will I get to finally marry Keith this summer but I’m also going to be doing a summer internship at Emerge Gallery here in Greenville. I took the first part of the class which I thoroughly enjoyed and aced, so I decided to take the second part for an elective. I know, I know, I’m working backwards with the whole paying them to be able to work there thing but hey! It’s all for experience right! Hehe. Anyway I’m really looking forward to my summer this year. I’m so excited about finally being Mrs. Karina Constable. Now I’m going to go dream about tropical islands!

Secondly, I am officially a Printmaking major at ECU and am currently planning the pieces that will be featured in my senior show. SO EXCITING! The panic will set in after I graduate and suddenly realize I have to pay my own bills somehow I considered posting about it when it happened almost 6 months ago buuuuuut…..then I skipped back to the studio and said, “I’ll do it tomorrow”. Classic, no? Living in the studio did obtain four A’s, a B, and a 2.9 GPA for me though. 2009 ended on a high note for me

Now, as for this year, the major to-do is getting married! FINALLY! As of June 15, 2010 I will be Mrs. Karina Constable! Oh my goshers! I’ll have to order new checkbooks and credit cards! Oh, and deal with all new insurance crap but not until mid Feb. I hope that the transition off mom’s insurance will be fairly hassle free and I won’t have to jump through too many hoops for my meds. I’m hard pressed to think negatively at the moment with a wedding on the horizon though I can finally give Keith a title with only two syllables and after three years of having to call him my fiance I bet the novelty won’t wear off any time soon.

School wise I’m also well organized for the new year and with hard work and a healthy diet I will definitely be graduating in Spring 2011. Again, very exciting but at the same time I cringe from the thought of true adulthood. My mom’s financial support has a blessing but at the same time a crutch. I have yet to live off my own income and since I’ve been a full time student with no real job in the past few years I’m dreading getting back into the working world. Hopefully the economy will continue to pick up and there will be more opportunities for someone with a Fine Arts degree by the time I graduate. Ideally I’ll win the lottery and not only not have to work again ever, but I’ll also be able to build a beautimus house with a big library and print studio for myself. Sigh! I’ll also wake up one morning and be a Master Printer and know how to use ALL Adobe products. Yea. I dream big

In reality I’m just hoping that my MS stays asleep for a very long time and that I can find some kind of full time work after college. At this point I may settle for McDonald’s, yuck. Although I abhor the thought of working retail again I would feel a lot better about myself once I’m no longer dependent on mom financially. I hope I can be as financially generous with my future children. There are certainly times when I think to myself I’m damn lucky mom is generous with her retirement money but I wouldn’t want to be shelling out money to my kids when they’re in their late twenties and still being college bums. Granted I feel that I’m rocking the house grade wise but I’m still a college bum none the less.

So in another year hopefully a new chapter of my life will begin and be titled, “Happily Married and Financially Secure: Mother throws a party!”

As for real new year’s resolutions….less pizza and soda, more carrot sticks and water about sums it up. My treadmill has been lonely late and I think a spider has made his home on it. It’s been a very safe and undisturbed location lately XD. I am also doing the Live Healthy Greenville thingy with a friend of mine so hopefully I’ll be a shade slimmer for my wedding

So there are my new year plans and wish me luck with staying on track Hope everyone has a great new year too!

SO! Instead of trying to plan lots of things at once, I’m going to try a new approach. I’m going to narrow down my to-do-lists into smaller blocks of time. Week to week, maybe. Half of my problem is I think of a bazillion things to do, and then I get overwhelmed and end up not accomplishing anything on time. My anti-anxiety meds do nothing to help me prioritize and complete things that need to be done. They just help me contain my loopiness, hehe.

This week’s need-to-dos consist of the following:

1. Take car to dealership to get the recalled part put in and have the ‘Maintenance Required’ light turned off. I could have had this done over a week ago but I just haven’t. No reason other than I never got up early enough to get it done as soon as the service department opened. I don’t like trying to take the car any other time because I know I’ll be in the waiting area for at least an hour. X-D My second excuse was that the bed bug bites I received still itched fairly bad up until a couple days ago, and I didn’t want to be seen in public with my huge itchy spots. If I went out, I would wear pants to cover up all the spots on my legs, and this proved to be extremely uncomfortable. Shoes were also torture. The tops of my feet were covered in spots, and shoes hurt. X-D Sooooo… yea… there are my excuses for letting the Maint Required light stay on all this time. I plan on doing this tomorrow morning for sure before I drive home to Apex for a doctor’s appointment. Poor car. Probably feels super neglected. Maybe I’ll take him to get a bath tomorrow as well.

2. EXERCISE! This has been on my list of to-dos for oh… the last several years! X-D I’m seriously coming down to the wire on this chore. I now have a definite date by which I have to loose a hundred lbs!!!! Okay I exaggerate, but seriously at least 30lbs need to be dropped. 30 lbs in 11 months… totally achievable, so I have no excuse! Now, if I can just forget that cheese pizza and Pepsi ever existed. Blarg! I may invest in the Nintendo DS Walking game to help. While my treadmill is a wonderful tool if properly utilized, I found that it got pretty boring to up my heart rate by walking to nowhere. Hehe. Hopefully my health and fitness walking classes this semester will help motivate me. Even with a definite wedding date on calendar, my love of Keith is still strongly rivaled by my love for Pepsi and Domino’s. Sigh.

3. Finish submission drawings by Aug 25. Indecisiveness was squashed with much effort and I have picked the theme. I’m still considering the media, but this is not nearly as hard to decide on as the theme was. Whew!

4. Make my current supply of Pepsi and cheese pizza the last for awhile. X-D I need to put a poster up in front of my treadmill with a picture of pizza and Pepsi that says, “Just Say NO!” It’ll go well next to my big Hawaii beach photo and my Kauai calendar.

And now, with this list to go on, I’m gonna load up a new Everybody Loves Raymond episode, get a glass of water, and get back to drawing!

1. I have three large drawings I have to produce by August 25 so I can officially submit to the printmaking program. Again my indecisiveness has caused problems in this area because I can’t nail down what theme or media I’m going to use. I have no doubt in my technical skills once I have a solid plan of action but I’ve been deliberating over this project all summer! I’m now down to the wire and of course my procrastination has put me in a damning spot. ARGH! Okay…TOMORROW!…eerr TODAY rather! I have to start. HAVE TO! As of Monday August 3, I have to begin this project come hell or high water!! There are two things I am absolutely set on acheiving right now…getting into the printmaking program and becoming Mrs. Keith Constable next year in Hawaii!!!!! CHARGE!!!!

2. GETTING A JOB. I want one but I don’t want one. I hate working retail but that’s all I’m realistically qualified for unless I opt to put my Graphic Design & Advertising degree into effect. A full time job, such as graphic design, is probably out of my scope right now if I want to get my Bachelor’s before I’m 30 XD Is there a justifiable excuse for me not having a part time retail job right now? No. None what so ever. I’d love to use the MS as an excuse but I’ve been holding steady for almost a year involving some stressful events which could have led to a relapse but didn’t. I’m 90% certain I could handle being a part time student with a part time job on the side. Only issue now is I straight up don’t want to. However, my guilt over once nagging Keith about not having a job is starting to seriously way on my conscience. I was a bitch to him and he’s only said a few smart remarks about my laziness. Damn it. I hate it when I land myself in a situation where I’m clearly the hypocrite. SO! Now the true test of my resolve will be if I go down to the local Walgreens, which is hiring, and put in an application. I’m familiar with retail jobs so I know I can do it, I just know there’s a good chance my current bitterness with customer service positions will probably become worse. OF COURSE, here’s where my tendency to speculate gets me in trouble!! I have a god given gift of being able to insistantly come up with the worse possible scenario and worry over it constantly. It’s gotten me into trouble numerous times now. Have to keep it in check!

For all I know I may actually enjoy a job at Walgreens and actually enjoy making out a schedule for myself that keeps me busy all day. A part time job will require that I really get my school work done in a timely manner and I think I do need the pressure of tight deadlines to keep myself on track.

Right now my inner turmoil is primarily over having a whole summer with nothing but free time and only a few things that I have to get done. I want to enjoy this situation but I’m not truly able to because I know I need to be in summer school and I need to get a job. I feel like I’ve retired but from what I haven’t the faintest clue! I have taken to wedding planning like a fish to water but I should probably prioritize my goals a little better. LEARN TO COOK! GET BACHELOR’S DEGREE. GET JOB AND BECOME FINANCIALLY INDEPENDENT. GET MARRIED AND START FAMILY ONLY AFTER FINANCIAL SECURITY HAS BEEN OBTAINED!

As of right now it doesn’t look like it’ll happen exactly in that order. The wedding is June 15, 2010 which leaves me less than a year to finish another 2 years worth of classes. Hehe. I can however achieve three very achievable goals before then…one being officially being accepted into the printmaking program, two making myself learn how to cook more stuff, and three get a part time job. These things I know I can do. SO! This following week will see me checking over my Fall semester schedule and having it on hand when I apply for a part time job at Walgreens. Heck, I might even try a few grocery stores and CVS. Work on the submission drawings is truly the easiest of these goals, so no more whining about that. Becoming a better cook…eh. This will be the most challenging goal. I don’t enjoy cooking, Keith happens to be a great cook but it’s not fair to expect him to do all the cooking when he’s the only one who’s pulling the full load of school and a job. There’s no reason I can’t have a meal prepared other than my own laziness and unwillingness to battle the kitchen. GOTTA DO IT!!

I have let the MS be my main reason to procrastinate in getting all this done but no more! I feel like I need actually do something that risks a relapse and then even I have one I won’t feel as bad as I do now when I’m sitting around just worrying over what might happen! With Brown Teddy as my witness (my fave stuffed animal that sits on my desk with me), I have formed a Plan of Action!!

OKAY! This week’s course of action:

1. Take car to dealership to have that recalled part replaced and the maintaince light turned off

2. Pick up perscription at CVS

3. DRAW THE DAMN PICTURES!!! “For Christ’s sake!” –Mitch Hedberg

4. Print out semester schedule and have ready for Walgreens application

5. Work on my cooking skills

There I have devised a concrete plan of action! When I wake up later today I will execute it!

FOR THE HORDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I whine, we stop, and now I’m going crazy with a pretty bad allergic reaction to the bites I received from bed bugs! Actual bed bugs! YUCK!!! We were so tired when we stopped we didn’t notice them and although we joked about the place probably having them, I didn’t seriously think they were there! Tell me that’s not bad karma!

Now I am covered in these nasty little bites that itch like crazy! I’ve almost gone through and entire tube of cortizone cream and will probably need another one before this is all over with. Out of everyone that gets bitten apparently only a small percent have the allerigic reaction to them that I got. Scratching is a serious no-no because of the risk of infection. I just tell myself I have chicken pox again XD I’m also trying to limit the number of surfaces I touch because I’m leaving oily cortizone stains everywhere. TARNATION!

Benadryl has also been a very good friend to me so between that and the cream I’m surviving. Not happily, but I’ll live. Next time though…I’m sleeping in the damn car! OR I’ll dish out the hundred bucks to sleep one night in an upscale place! Hehe.

Other than the motel fiasco Texas was pretty fun. I was amazed how quickly Galveston had been cleaned up after hurricane Ike hit. Some places had been washed completely away  but my family’s beachhouses had survived. I also learned that buidling a beachhouse price starts off at $1,000 per piling!! HOLY CRAP!

And now my fingers are itching pretty bad so I’m gonna go lather them with anti-itch stuff and go to bed. Night night!

I just got back from my trip to Mass and now I’m preparing to head out on the trip to visit my family in Texas. I won’t want to get back in a car for the rest of the summer! Mass was great and we enjoyed a nice side visit to Maine. Although it rained quite a bit I enjoyed the T-storms and the rest of the time it was pretty cool. The mosquitoes left something to be desired though XD The ones up in Maine almost carried me off! Of all the things I pack for a trip I just never think to bring Off!

For the Fourth we had a nice cookout at Keith’s grandparent’s. I really enjoy their family get-togethers, always so lively! It was also perfect weather that day, sunny, cool, and mostly breezy. Wonderful! I gotta move north some day, for serious! I’ve posted pics from this trip on Facebook if you’d like to check it out.

Wednesday morning will see me rising early and hitting the road to Houston, TX.  I should get one of those vibrating seat cover thingys that keeps your bum from falling asleep. Hehe! I’ll keep my fingers crossed that it’ll be a fairly uneventful and quick drive On last drive to TX we got a flat tire XD No repeats please!

Alrighties, time to get back to packing and going over my checklist!

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This beach wedding photo may look familar to you. In July of last year I posted a similar picture when Keith and I had planned to get married on a beach in Maui. We should have been married in November of last year on our Hawaii cruise. Unfortunately, after planning everything and making down payments on various things, we were informed of a medical insurance problem I would be faced with if I married before I was 26. Since I require insurance to pay for my MS medication losing the coverage I have through my mom’s plan would have been bad. I’m covered on my mom’s plan as long as I remain a full time student and until I turn 26…unless I marry XD Since I am still a full time college art bum, trying to acquire my own insurance before I was 26 turned out to be a big hassle with no positive results. Pre-exisiting condition regulations and all that jazz. *RASPBERRY*!!!!!!!!!!!!

SOO! As of March of next year I will be free to marry and as of a few days ago it has been made official….WEDDING ON KAUAI IN JUNE OF 2010!!!!!!!! WWWOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTT!

Just yesterday I put a down payment on a beautiful house called the Aloha Hawaiian Hibiscus Home in Poipu, Kauai. I haven’t set a final date yet (still looking through various wedding services) but the house is rented for June 13 through June 20 of next year! I already have the dress (the dress I got last year XD) and my Maid of Honor picked out so I’m told it’s all downhill from here Yays!

IN OTHER NEWS!

I will be spending lots of time on the road in the next few weeks! A LOT of time! The last week of June will see me driving up to Massachusetts for a two week visit with Keith’s family and a few days after returning from that trip I’ll be setting off for an even longer drive to Texas to visit my family. I may be in over my head, hehe.

I’m told not to get stressed out on account of stress being a trigger for MS relapses but I’m setting myself up for some rather strenuous trips. We’ll see how it goes. I am armed with prescription strength anti-anxiety meds and  Ambien so I think I’ll be fine I always get really excited about going on these kinds of trips but I’ve noticed that by the fifth or sixth day of family visiting I’m ready to hide…in a cave…with only cheese, chocolate, and penguins to keep me company. 

You know…I figure if I get tired of visiting I’ll just take an Ambien and then people can talk at me all they want. I might hear them…I might not. *Devil horns sprout up* Hehe!

Anywhos! Wish me luck and I’ll try to keep my blog posted with wedding plan updates!

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