Category: The Adventures Of Cynical Woman

Sorry this is a little late today, but I’m still pretending to be recovering from Ravencon. That means I’m really just being lazy and sleeping in instead of getting up early to write my blog posts.

The following cartoon was drawn on my iPad (have I mentioned how much I love my iPad?!) while at Ravencon. The event depicted here actually happened during the con’s opening ceremonies. Con Chair Mike Pederson OWES me for my many hours of hard work this past weekend (not really; I was just as lazy at the con as I’m being at home today).

Ah, the things we do in the name of beauty. I liked my first try at blue hair, but it wasn’t blue enough for me. So I decided to push the effect a bit farther. I found a blue hair coloring kit in my local drugstore, of all places. When I double checked the brand online, many of the reviews mentioned intense and long lasting color, so I decided to try it. First though, I had to redye my hair bright red, because the first time I dyed my hair blue, I sort of did my whole head and that killed the red, which made things too dark over all. So I redid the red, which completely removed all the blonde highlights I had the hair dresser bleach in some weeks back. Now for the blue to really stand out, I had to rebleach those spots. I figured I could do this. I’ve been dying my hair for years, how hard could bleaching be?

Fortunately, I did set aside an entire evening to do this, because the whole process of bleaching and dying took HOURS. I had to put on a tipping cap and pull through the strands I wanted to bleach. Then I had to mix and apply the bleach. Then I had to wait an hour for the strands to bleach out. Then I had to rinse out those strands and then I finally got to apply the blue hair dye. And it was an hour before I washed the dye out and could see the results.

Not satisfied with doing all that, I had also decided Friday afternoon to make a pie from scratch. I had bought a new cookbook on pastry desserts and wanted to try it out. So whilst bleaching and dying my hair, I was also mixing up pastry dough and pie filling, two activities that also took hours to complete. While the hair dying was finished Friday night, the pies didn’t get made until Saturday evening, and then I ended up making tarts with the leftover pie crusts on Sunday afternoon.

Anywhere, here are pics of the results of all my hardwork. And let me just say, next time I decide to dye my hair blue, I’m going to see how much my hairdresser will charge to do it for me.

Blue hair…

and Apple Blackberry pies!

Oh yes I did. And I’m thinking it’s going to stay this color for a while. Here’s a photo of my new color the day I dyed it. Going to have to do the blue more frequently than the red, since I can only get blue in semi-permanent color, but I really don’t mind that. Actually, what I may do is a combination of blue and red. Just to freak people out.

Although the nuns at Princess’ school seem to be handling my new hair color just fine.

Here’s a couple of pics of my hair right after I dyed it last week…

It’s faded quite a bit since then, leaving me with sky blue streaks everywhere. I’m thinking tomorrow I’ll dye it red again, then this weekend bleach in wider highlights and go for more blue. Because I really like the color!

It’s over, it’s over, it’s over. And I thought cookie season would never end.

I spent 3 days straight last week doing the final accounting. That’s 3 days all day and late into the night tallying up boxes of cookies sold, amount of money collected, divvying up booth sale credits, filling in paperwork, etc. Our troop of Brownies sold 1900 boxes of cookies. The proceeds from those sales filled our bank account fuller than it’s ever been, I think. I know the troop leader was happy about it.

And now I’m happy because I don’t have to deal with cookies for another six months at least. Yeah, there are a few minor details here and there that I need to attend to, but otherwise it’s finally over.

Huzzah!

Yes, it’s been that bad. I’ve been having nightmares about the cookies. About being swarmed by them, stampeded by them, eaten by them and drowned by them. And the only way to survive any of those circumstances is to keep eating until my enemy is gone. If only the real life solution were that simple.

However, we had our second and last booth sale this past weekend, and now I’m in the final stages of delivering Princess’ last few boxes of cookies and collecting money from the troop. Then it’s down to the final accounting. We could earn a bonus if I can get everything done on time. I certainly hope I do get it done on time. I don’t want this dragging on any further than necessary. As I mentioned on Sunday, I’m scaling back on work, and as soon as Cookie Season is over, I expect I will have a nice chunk of free time on my hands which will then be invested in MY OWN PERSONAL PROJECTS! And won’t that be nice for a change, hmmm?

Anyway, that’s ACW for the week. I hope you liked it, or understood it. Hubster said it “sort of made sense,” which is better than anything else I’ve got going on so far.

This is the webcomic that was supposed to run last week. I drew it on my iPad at Farpoint while I was sitting at my author table, using the ArtRage app. The inking was done with the pen tool, obviously, while I used the water color brush and the chalk tool for the colors. This is probably how I will continue to do the webcomic while I’m at a convention. It just made life a lot easier to do a single panel cartoon on an easy-to-carry device. I mean really, my bags were so much lighter with just the iPad in it to handle most of my digital needs for the weekend.

So anyway, this is what I did at Farpoint at my author table. I sold my smutty books on one side and boxes of cookies on the other. I did pretty well, both book-wise and cookie-wise, on Saturday. On Sunday, I was wiped out both physically and emotionally and so I didn’t set up my table that day. But even so, this was probably one of the better conventions for me as far as sales go. And surprise, suprise! I was actually asked to be a panelist on a webcomics panel that Sunday. I thought that was funny, because I really only consider myself a hobbyist when it comes to webcomics. I love doing webcomics, but so much of my work focuses on writing and podcasting that I sometimes forget I’m a webcomicker as well. I remember looking at Bryan Prindiville on Friday and saying, “How the heck did I end up on a webcomic panel?” and he said, “Well, duh! You have a webcomic?”

I want to thank everyone at Farpoint for all their help and support that weekend. Both the con staff and several friends of mine went out of their way to take care of me, both before and after hearing about my father-in-law’s passing. It’s nice to know I have friends, especially friends who will sit with me in the bar while I down a few girlie drinks to kill some stress. Thank you all. I really appreciate your kindness.

Explain to me again why I volunteered to be Cookie Mom?

Oh yeah. Princess.

See, Princess and I made a deal. She’d get all her work done in school and I’d let her participate in Brownies. And she has definitely kept her end of the deal, so we’ve been going to Brownie meetings regularly all year. But then the troop needed volunteers to do things. I wasn’t ready to step in as troop leader or assistant leader, nor did I think I was ready to be treasurer when the call went out at the beginning of the year. But when they asked for a volunteer to be the troop cookie coordinator, I thought maybe it was time for me to get involved more. After all, Princess was really doing well in school.

Well, she continues to do well and I am now up to my assets in paperwork and cases of cookies. It’s taken a huge chunk out of my schedule and about driven me crazy with the paperwork and pick-ups and deliveries and coordination. A smooth, low stress job this has not been (and it was specifically described to me as smooth and low-stress). But still, Princess has kept her word and I want to support the things she does so I’m keeping mine.

And in spite of all the hassle, I will probably do this again next year. It’s one of those jobs where, once you’ve done it, you pretty much know it. In other words, it will be less of a pain in the ass next time around. I hope. I certainly wouldn’t want to inflict this job on some other poor, unsuspecting mom.

Or would I?

Would anybody here be interested in taking on a smooth, low stress volunteer opportunity next year? The Girl Scouts could really use your help…

File this one under “Yet one more reason why Helen is a bad, bad mother.” Yes, I let my kids listen to Pink. At least some of her songs, anyway, though nothing quite so hard core as “F#%&ing Perfect.” But we do listen to “Raise Your Glass” quite a bit. Frankly, I like listening to Pink. And to Katy Perry. And to a few other artists who’s lyrics are a bit… unconventional in terms of children’s music. And Pixie and Princess both love to sing along to whatever is playing on the radio.

There are some who would say, “Why don’t you just listen to those songs when your kids aren’t around?!” To those people I would say, “The only time the kids aren’t around is when I’m working, and when I’m working, I’m not listening to music.” And then those same people might come back and say, “Then why not only listen to those songs when you’re driving around in your car?!” And to those people I would say, “I do only listen to those songs when I’m in my car! The problem is, I’m almost never in the car without the kids!!”

Seriously, the only opportunity I get to listen to music I like is when I’m driving, and I’m usually not in the car by myself. The kids are in there with me 90% of the time. And so they end up listening to a lot of music most parents would frown at. But I will say this.

It’s NOT my fault, because the Hubster is the one who keeps buying me those CDs!

What’s funny is right after I do this to Princess, I then go and do it to Pixie as well. But then, I get up at 4:30AM so I think I’m entitled.

I will be at Farpoint on February 18-20 in Hunt Valley, MD. I’ve been informed I will be participating in panels on writing, podcasting and webcomics, so stop by and listen to me ramble if you care to do so.