ART Therapy.

When you open your mouth to sing, or string words together on a page, or draw your heart on your sleeve... you open yourself up to the world. And people will smile and be moved when your work touches their lives. But because you've exposed your heart, you become vulnerable. Sometimes you will be attacked.

And when I'm attacked, I say: PICKLE Weasel to the rescue!

Thanks to everyone for the the hugs yesterday; I love you for it. Yeah, drawing this made me feel better too. It's art therapy. Cyber bullies will be kissed off. And now, back to regularly scheduled programming!

How do you respond when you see someone being cyber bullied?

Share this moment.

Tweet

A Wrecked TILE Dysfunction.

I must say, I rocked at laying vinyl tiles on the mudroom floor. Until the part where I sat down in the glue... yeah, things kinda went downhill from there. And just before starting on the front entrance floor, I discovered that one must not glue expensive ceramic tiles onto a particle board subfloor as it is too unstable. If it gets wet, which it will (snow, hello), the board will swell causing the tiles to lift and crack. Those who frequent this blog even got to see my stabby face.

And here's what I hope will be the conclusion of my foray into DIY floor tiling.

I gave up on the tiling. And like any self-respecting wife who's husband is off in England for SIX WEEKS, I'd decided to take a night off and drink heavily before putting away all the DIY gear. I left the big bag of floor tile cement powder, along with the two big bags of black grout (also powder) on the little rug in the middle of the freshly tiled (with vinyl tiles) mudroom floor.

It was extremely hot so all the doors were open into the garden, in an effort to tempt the breeze into the house. Suddenly, it began to rain. The rain was crashing down!

It was pouring off the edge of the roof, overwhelming the guttering and literally streaming into every open door! I ran to the garden room (the floor of which was also tiled by moi 6 years ago) and discovered it flooded in an inch of water. I shut the door and mopped it up as quickly as I could; I can't even remember what that sub floor was. And just like that, it stopped raining. Yeesh!

I headed to the mudroom and discovered that it was also wet...

...but there was no puddle of water.

Because it had soaked into the little rug in the middle of the room.

And the paper bags of cement and black grout.

I wish I could tell you it ended there.

But it didn't.

My fourteen year old daughter helped me get the soaking wet bag of cement into a black garbage bag and together we managed to carry it into the garage. But the bag of BLACK grout powder split on the teenager and covered her in fine black dust. It didn't help that she was wearing a nice white shirt that she'd recently bought with her own money. So then I got to see her stabby face.

Fun times, right?

Well any ways the next day I went into the mudroom and I see that the tiles I so lovingly glued down on a particle board subfloor had lifted and cracked in what I can only describe as a flash flood.

And the wet cement? Solid.

I literally could not make this stuff up. I never want to see another tile as long as I live.
Can I have a margarita now...?

A note of thanks to my friend Adam for sparking this title with me.

Tweet

#UsGUYS in Montreal.

You know when things just click? The #UsGuys gang are a fast-paced Twitter stream of social medi-oids. This weekend, I got to meet some of them in real life!

Radio personality @997Dave was headed from Vancouver Island to Montreal. Seizing the day, SEO dude @Josepf and self-proclaimed Interloper @JennyHerner decided to come on up from Philadelphia and St. Louis respectively. Their plan? To début their jointly written beat poem, a tribute to Ginsberg's The Howl, for Dave, fellow Montrealer @MilasPage, and myself.

But Dave bailed on the dinner!

Somehow we managed to have too much fun. I brought my Wacom and drew right there at the dinner. Josepf attempted to make out with a parrot, and it tried to eat him. Jenny joined me in being demure and petite! Ok, she was much better at demure than I, but still...! The poem blew my mind. And Mila graciously organized this event and made everyone feel welcome. She also took the best photos including these.

Josepf did lose his head at one point....

...but I replaced it.

And here we are in the Carré St. Louis after lunch the next day - synergy and a fountain of ideas, (yet somehow still Dave-less).

I'm breathlessly impressed with the entire event. My face hurts from laughing and smiling so much. The conversation was truly sublime and seamelssly interwoven with tweets from #UsGuys following our antics online.

What are you thoughts on meeting people from the internet?

Tweet

Chocolate AND Chippendales.

"You should draw me with a chocolate smeared face surrounded by two (not one but two!) hott guys! Preferably naked. Or not. But they must be hott."

This was @EllieM72's inspired  Second Prize winning entry in The Most EPIC Contest Evar. Originally these dudes were starkers (all danglies tastefully hidden though). But when Ellie first saw the art, she had a sudden realization.

"Oh dang it. Was gonna order mugs but how do I explain two naked guys to my girls?? :( crap"

So I covered them up with a cliché. Which only makes this drawing all the more amusing.

Don't you love watching bicycles go backwards?

Tweet

My FAVICON.

Do you know where you are?

I was reading about the "12 Most Common Mistakes New Bloggers Make" by Danny Brown and realized that I hadn't yet made a favicon.

"Hey JC! What the heck is a favicon?"

Folks, in plain English, a favicon is that thingie in the corner of your thingie.

Apparently a blog should have one to help it stand out. So people know where they are.

I made my favicon thingie here at favicon.cc
And I figured out how to get it into the corner of my thingie at BloggingTips.com

So....does it look like me?

Tweet

TILE ...and ERROR.

Some things just won't get done with the husband around. So as soon as he goes away for 6 weeks, I decide to re-tile the mudroom floor and the front entrance! YAY!
Assessment:

The vinyl tiles in the mudroom went down perfectly. Until I discovered that vinyl tiles shouldn't go in a mudroom. After gluing them down. And sealing them. And five coats of wax. Yeesh!
Assessment:

Bought concrete tiles for the front entrance. Discovered they were too thick for door clearance. Aw maaaaan....
Assessment:

Got NEW thin tiles for the front entrance. Laid them down and looking good. Went to mix the glue and discovered I have the wrong kind of sub floor for tiles in that room. Particle board is baaaaaad!
Assessment:

Need to add a layer of 1/4 inch ply, so I get a piece from the garage and lay it on top of the fitted tiles to check if I have door clearance. I do not. But I do have sticky black tar from the sheet of ply smeared onto my shiny new tiles.
Assessment:

Looking more closely at the bag of glue powder, the instructions say to only mix it with this other "special liquid". Never mix it with water. Totally what I was about to do. Do I have this "special liquid"? No.
Assessment:

I can actually do a lot of DIY. But I don't know if I can rip out a particle board sub floor & install a new plywood one. I'm not physically strong enough...and I'd prolly saw my hand off or something. You think sleeping alone in the Big Bed is bad? Try making Bed Angels with a disembodied hand. Or clapping. And who would draw this blog?

So I'm gonna throw in the towel. And the trowel. AND the TILES. I know when I'm beat.
Assessment:

It's all in your attitude, right? WRONG. That first Assessment was totally off. Now I hafta wait for the Huz to come back and fix all this.

I need wine to wash down the irony here. Let's drink!

Tweet

6 Top Reasons To Avoid DIY.

My DIY Extreme Home Decorating has taken a downward spiral! So here's my 6 Top Reasons To AVOID DIY if you are me!

It's time for a massage, a manicure and a glass of wine. GOOGLE+ here I come...!

Share the funny.

Tweet

Cry BABY.

I was just Skyping with my son, eldest daughter and husband over in England and I started to blubber. I had to end the call and just bawl like a baby.

I miss them so much. But I did this drawing and it made me laugh!

Two and a half more weeks 'til we join them. Until then, I'll be using his t-shirt as a hankie.

Biggest cry baby moment?

Share this moment.

Tweet

Not My HUSBAND.

Three weeks down and three to go. The bed is still waaaay too big.

This is the t-shirt he was wearing when I first bonked him* over the head with my club and dragged him into my cave. Twenty years ago.
*Yeah, that too.

I think this may be the longest we've ever been apart. Thanks for all the hugs from friends and followers...you guys got any other fun suggestions for making it through the night...?

Share this moment.

Tweet

GOOGLE+ is getting BUSY.

My First Day on GOOGLE+ went okay. But not everyone shared the experience.

Do you still need to be invited to GOOGLE+ or what? And will G+ become part of Klout's freaky algorithm? Are these questions that need answering?

Share this funny stuff.

Tweet

My First Day on GOOGLE+.

My first day on Google Plus (G+) went something like this:

I did find a couple things to like about it. But can I afford to partition my already fractalyzed* brain into yet more subdivisions?
*Could be a real word.

Are you on G+ and what did you think of it?

Share this funny stuff.

Tweet

SURFING The Laundry WAY.

We've all faced the never-ending laundry pile, right? Ugh.
But sometimes mindless chores can relax the brain and give way to beautiful images...a bit like meditation. Or hallucination, depending on how much laundry there is, heheh.

Winning Third Prize in The Most EPIC Contest Evar, gifted photographer Karin Hedetniemi wrote: "You should draw me as a girl surfing a galaxy ... a sparkling, mini galaxy. Because once I saw one while I was absently folding laundry." So here she is surfing the Laundry WAY, which is a bit like the Milky WAY, but without the milk. @karinhedet wins a t-shirt with this drawing on it and my thanks for her inspirational entry.

Do you ever see magic in the mundane?

Share this moment.

Tweet

Twitter STRIPTEASE.

My last Twitter Striptease was so much fun I just had to do it again....but better. Here's the play by play on Twitter as I awaited my 10,000th Follower.

Me: 9986 ....oooh...it's getting rather warm in here. I'm taking off my shoes. #10Kstriptease

Me: 9990 Let the Twitter Striptease begin! There goes my t-shirt! *fling*

Me: 9988 Oops just lost two followers*. Putting my t-shirt back on. Haha.

Me: Hanging at 9989. I know this. It's happened exactly like this at 3000 and 5000. It's the pause before the mad rush.

Me: 9991 Taking that t-shirt off again! And easing my shorts down woohoo it's hot in here!

Me: 9992 I'm wearing boxer shorts with Oscar the Grouch on them! And a sports bra....which I'm unfastening...

Me: 9993 ....my bra just went round and round and round and fling!!!

Me: 9994 Good thing I have these giant FEATHER FANS!!!!

Me: 9995 My Oscar the Grouch boxers are booby trapped *p-twang* off they go. Nothing but my Stealth Vajazzle and these feathers.

Me: By the way, I do have a pole here in my home office. Installed for just such occasions. #TwitterPoleDance

Me: 9997 One feather fan down. *gasp*

Me: 9998 I'm hiding behind my other fan. I'm suddenly all shy. Eeek.

Me: 10,000! #NEKKID

Me: Hi @deanna1137. You're my 10,000th follower. Please forgive me for being naked but I just did a Twitter Striptease to celebrate your arrival. You win a t-shirt.

@deanna1137: Well I feel very over-dressed then! But that did make me laugh! :-)

Me: I'm gonna do a pole dance now! Whee. *takes running leap at pole*

Me: Uh-oh. My pole dance is not going as planned. I'm just going round and round the pole. My hands have too much glue on them. I'm stuck!! HALP

Me: Okaaaaay. So here I am all nekkid with my hands glued to this pole. What now? #dontanswerthat

@guiltysquid and @GeauxHeather: How are you tweeting and texting?

Me: That's a good question. Luckily I have prehensile toes.

How did I get out of this sticky situation? Tons of helpful new followers came to my rescue.

*The two followers I lost turned out to be longtime followers @CollinsBat and @kitterztoo. They told me they were going to bravely UNfollow and then REfollow to try to win just for fun. They came in at 9997 and 9998 respectively. I admire that kind of spunk and dedication so I decided to send them each a gfit from my shop.  You're welcome.

Thank-you to everyone who retweeted for others to follow me. I hope my antics entertained and amused you. And for those who may criticize that I should reward my loyal following, you might have missed this from last week.

Who woulda thunk that a striptease could be such a wonderful community builder... would you pole dance on Twitter?

Love My FANS, Pole Dance and Twitter Bird #FML gear are now available in my Zazzle Shop.

Share the fun.

Tweet

EXTREME Home Decorating.

While the Huz is away, the wife will bravely attempt DIY. So begins the tale of the Floor Tiling Extravaganza. Specifically, the floor of the mudroom leading from the kitchen into the garage and garden. I have some beautiful candy coloured vinyl tiles I ordered specially.

First the fourteen year old daughter and I removed the old carpet and brought it to the garbage dump. We removed the boots and coats and crap and cleaned and vacuumed and stuff. Let me just say here that my daughter is awesome and helpful and wonderful. She also has a great sense of humor.

We laid all the tiles out in a zany random pattern (in blatant defiance of all that Martha Stewart holds dear), and I trimmed them and fitted them nice and snug. I actually managed to not cut my fingers off. I did some very difficult cutting including around the water heater and the trap door into the crawlspace. You would be truly impressed.

Then came the gluing. This glue is supposed to be applied and allowed to dry and then you stick the tiles down. It started well but ended badly. I mean I have to do it in sections to avoid stepping on glue, right? But I ended up stepping in the glue anyways, and trekking glue footprints around the house. A few clever people on Twitter suggested putting sparkles on top of the footpirnt which I admit I actually considered. I blame the fumes.

And then I actually sat down on the upturned lid of the glue tub. FML.

That was two days ago. Now I'm in PAIN.
I ask my self WHY? Why am I tiling this floor? I should be paying someone else to do it for me. I should be lying around at a spa relaxing and enjoying life.
Wait, what? ....oh yeah. I do enjoy extreme home-deco. Dang.

The floor will look awesome. The trouble with an awesome looking floor is that the rest of the room now looks like crap. Should I spruce up the rest of the room? No, because that will make the rest of the HOUSE look like crap. Solution? Retrieve the old carpeting from the garbage dump and cover the dang floor with it!

What's your nightmare DIY story?

Share the sticky story.

Tweet