ACW Episode 119 – I Didn’t Know She Was Irish

I meant to put this up yesterday, but got sidetracked by things like re-recording audio for my podcast, paying bills, etc. Plus, you know, the whole “my desk broke!” thing has put me a little off schedule. And did I mention Hubster’s car died on Monday? Been a fun week.

Anyway, I have an iPod Nano, which I love, and I’ve got some Queen songs on it. I’ve been playing the Nano in the car, thanks to a little device that allows my radio to pick up the signal from the Nano on an empty radio channel. Everytime Pixie hears “Radio Gaga” she starts singing “Lady O’Gaga” instead. Pixie knows who Lady Gaga is, but apparently has never heard of Queen. How this has happened is beyond me. I mean, the kid does know the lyrics to quite a few songs by the Beatles and Frankie Valley and the Four Seasons. But apparently we skipped Queen in her Rock N’ Roll education.

We’ll fix that. I’m sure once she hears “You’re My Best Friend,” she’ll be singing along with that quite happily. That is, IF I can get her to stop singing the theme song to “iCarly.”

Oy!

ACW Episode 117 – Crazy Train!

My follow up to last week’s cartoon. Summer break is here and it’s hit like Ozzie Osbourne’s Crazy Train. That’s why it’s been so quiet here at the website, as well as at VeryScaryArt.com the last few weeks. The end of school year period is always an awkward change-over in schedules and this year even more so. I hope to be back to a more regular schedule next week, but right now I’ve got one child out of school and at home with me all day and I’m desperately trying to recover the house from the mess it’s been buried under in the last several weeks. I’ve cleaned the kids’ rooms and mine is next on the list, followed by the art room and my office. Once I’ve got about 50 tons of crap cleared out and the rest of our wordly belongings cleaned/repaired/organized/stored, life should return to normal.

Or not, because you know, life never, ever really returns to normal. Especially not around here.

Enjoy your week. I’ll try to have a “Rats!” cartoon up on Thursday.

ACW Episode 116 – It. Never. Ends.

I am getting the absolute crap kicked out of me this week. Right after I got back from Balticon, I had to get to work to finish up Princess’ Maori costume for her class presentation. Then the same day she gave her report, she also performed in her class play, “Charlotte’s Web.” I wasn’t about to miss either event, so I spent most of Friday at her school, cheering her on. She did fantastic in both events.

Then Saturday came and I had to head out to a local museum for a Brownie troop sleepover. Museums are lousy places to get sleep. This particular museum didn’t shut down until 11PM and then all the lights weren’t off until midnight. The cleaning crew came in at 1AM and didn’t even try to be quiet. At 6:15AM, the small theater we were camped out next to came to life and started running a short film on the history of flight every 15 minutes AT TOP VOLUME. Plus there was something in the building that went “SQUEAKY SQUEAKY SQUEAKY CLANG CLANG CLANG!!!” all frikkin’ night.

So I was dead on my feet by the time we finally got home Sunday morning, just in time for me to bake a cake for Pixie’s birthday party which lasted 4 hours. Hubster and I scrambled to get the place cleaned up and ready for guests, all of whom were pretty well-behaved. Then I had to get back to work as soon as the last guest left because I had completely forgotten that the next day we were supposed to take Pixie in for kindergarten placement testing. Oh, and I had volunteered to help out with the school’s field day that same afternoon. And it was just by chance that we found out the next morning as we arrived for the pre-testing that Princess’ class was doing a special party for all the parents that day…

I’ve had four days straight eaten alive by my parental duties. I’ve got today off, but I have to be at the dojo for two hours today and then after school pick up I have to get thank-you gifts for Princess’ teachers. Plus I still need to pick up a birthday/anniversary present for Hubster. And I just realized that I will be spending this coming Saturday at an 8 hour class on CPR and First Aid so I can be an assistant Brownie Troop leader next year.

Yes, I did it to myself, but also no, I didn’t. It is not my fault that everyone has to pack everything into the last week of school, and I’m starting to get a little peeved with some folks about this. I got a snarky email today from one mom chastising a group of us for not contacting her this weekend to make arrangements to pick up some stuff she has for the Girl Scout troops in our area. Excuse the hell outta me, but just like you, I have a very busy life, and if you tell me on Thursday you need me to pick stuff up in the next two days and I’ve got the weekend from hell about to drop on me like a ton of bricks, I’m not jumping through hoops for you. Forget it. Take your damn snark and go vomit it all over someone else’s day.

I’m beyond cranky and tired at this point. The house is a wreck because I simply don’t have time to stop and clean it, and I’ve got certain work projects still waiting for me to get to. And my email is overflowing with messages from people who need me to do even more stuff. Life was supposed to be slowing down at this point. But it hasn’t and it doesn’t look like it ever will.

I am taking next week off, no matter what. Except for the podcast and the cartoons, I am not working. Princess will be out of school and she has already been informed she will be helping me clean the house because we simply must get rid of 50% of the crap that’s piled up around here. Nobody is going to be happy with me while this happens, and I simply don’t care. I can’t live in a trashed house and take care of the kids and do my work. It simply doesn’t work for me.

I’m going to sulk for a bit then pull on my gi and head out to the dojo. Here’s hoping I don’t kill someone today.

ACW 116 – Balticon Ate My Brain

\”Balticon Ate My Brain\” on YouTube

 

 

This was done in Sketch Club on my iPad. The Sketch Club app now allows me to record while I draw, so you’ll be seeing quite a bit of these recordings. If you like them, please let me know! As for the actual sketch, I will post it later today. Right now I’m on my way out the door for some exercise. Yes, I feel as dead as I look in the video above. But take heart! I should be recovered by next Balticon, just in time to do this all over again.

Rats! Episode 60 – Who’s Short?! part deux

I gave my college roommate so much grief about being short. I just went through the cartoons for the next few weeks and there is at least one more about her being short. If you’re short and offended by these cartoons, all I can say is…

Um, my roommate was really, really short!

You’ve probably noticed I’m not posting a lot this week, either here or at VeryScaryArt.com. That’s because I’m scrambling to get ready for Balticon this weekend. I’ll be doing 4-5 panels, including some readings, at the convention. If you go, be sure to look for the crazy chick with red and blue hair and horns. That will be me. I hope to resume regular blog posting… uh, sometime next week. But for now, I gotta get packing!

Rats! Episode 58 – Dude, Where’s My Couch?!

I don’t know what to tell you about this one beyond to say, “Yes, this actually happened.” We had a couch in our unit. I think we might have kept it in the company area. The upper classmen liked sitting in it and the freshmen liked stealing it. I can’t remember why. Honestly, I’m reaching back through the fog of 20 years and all I can recall is that we had a couch and it got stolen. Therefore this particular cartoon was really funny at the time.

Sorry I’ve missed a couple weeks. Things have been extremely busy around here, busier than usual if you can believe it. Hopefully I’m back on my regular schedule now, but we’ll see how things go. Enjoy the rest of your week and beware of couch-stealing rats!

ACW Episode 113 – Happy Mother’s Day!

Yep, I am definitely liking the look of the cartoons drawn with InkPad. They’re clean (art-wise, not content-wise) and colorful (art and content-wise).

This actually happened this past week. A couple months ago, my sister told me she was putting together a family history for my mom for Mother’s Day. The finished product was more like 200 pages long, with a couple hundred photos and scanned documents inside it, but still, damned impressive. I contributed a bit by sending her pictures of my kids to include in the book, but that was about it. Then right before Mother’s Day, she showed me the book and I was overwhelmed by what she’d made. And I felt kind of stupid because I still hadn’t gotten Mom a present yet.

I did get her a present though, and I did get it ON TIME. No belated Mother’s Day gifts from me this year! I took pictures of the kids dressed up as superheroes and had one blown up and framed. And yes, I did point out that I did make my mom grandchildren. But I did not wrap them in gift-wrap and hand them to her.

My sister is a very hard-working, talented person who constantly amazes me, by the way. She’s currently pursuing an advanced degree in physical therapy and she works as a physical therapist at a preschool for children with special needs. I have no idea how she does all that she does. I can only say that for those of you who accuse me of being over-achieving, you ain’t seen nothing until you’ve met my younger sis!

I hope everyone had a happy Mother’s Day!