Thank goodness it didn't have rabies

I went running the other day and a strange dog came up, followed me around the nature park, and then back to my apt. I tried to tell him to stay but he wouldn't listen. I didn't want to touch him because he was greasy, dirty, and started to play with the dead duck from yesterday.

When I was running in the park with my new tag-along we came around a bend and we saw a family feeding some ducks. We were a long ways away from them, but as soon as the ducks saw the dog they bolted. I felt bad because the little boy, who was feeding the ducks, was like "Wait come back duckies!" I think that family was irritated and thought I was some strange girl who lets her dog roam free.

As I was running back home I didn't know how to lose the dog. So I ran home and slammed the door on the dog.. HAHA! I told McKay that there was a dog outside and he was like "How did you manage that?!" The dog kept whining and finally left. I kinda felt bad, but not really. Oh well.

Looking back on it it was kinda fun running with a dog because they will keep pace with you, and they don't complain about how slow I run... HAHA!

So I decided that this is the type of dog that I want...

They are soooooo adorable!!!

Dead birds

I saw a dead duck today when I went for a run.  It was on its back with its feet in the air... HAHA! I hope someone gets rid of it because it will probably get gross after a while...  But who does that stuff?

I thought this was funny too...

Florida Bird Flu

Ripped off...

For my printmaking class we were required to put one of our prints in a gallery or art contest.  I heard about an art contest this sat and decided to do that one.  The theme for the contest was "Community." So I decided to put my print in even though I was stretching it.  I also thought I should put in this ceramic project in just for fun.  

As we were dropping off my stuff, I asked one of the contest people what time I should pick up my pieces (because I didn't want to leave it there abandoned.) She said that the local buissiness were coming to judge at 5pm and the prizes would be awarded at midnight.  I asked her if she was serious about the midnight thing and she said yes.  

So McKay and I went to the school and did some homework.  We left school at 5:00 and we went to the park to see if everything was ok.  I was really worried about my piece because some kid made an unstable 2ft coil thing and I didn't want a gust of wind to blow it over on my project.  

When we arrived it was 5:10 and we saw that they were cleaning up.  So we were glad that we came when we did.  Mckay and I grabbed my stuff and then everyone came over.  They were like "Hey, you came back!  Congratulations your ceramics piece won 1st place!"  I got all excited and then they were like "We gave away all the gift cards you won ten minutes ago, but you can pick between a bird feeder or some flower seeds."   

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! FRUSTRATING!

I picked the flower seeds.

 This was the ceramic piece that I put into the contest...  It's weird but whatever.  It was inspired by my sister, Heather, who did the exact same thing.  Ha Ha! 

The assignment for this project was to put two things together that aren't normally together, and I think that this did it.  ha.

Creations!

This is the latest book I made.  It's my favorite so far....

These are my ceramics projects from last semester, This is my fishy... haha

Horse hair...

Homer Laughing or Flashing slip in a wood fire

Pete's red with the naughty glaze on top.

Running

Since the weather has been getting nice I have started running again.  Yesterday was really cold and McKay agreed to go with me.  He has super long legs so, the pace that I jog at is his walk.  He stays with me though.  

We run in the nature park behind our apt.  It is really nice.  There's 5 ponds, some bridges, trees, a canal, snakes, and a world supply of ducks.  I like running here better than on the treadmill in the gym. BORING!

So yesterday instead of pacing myself the whole way through I walked, then jogged, then ran, then sprinted and repeated this over and over.  The fun thing was we made up a rule that you would have to sprint whenever you saw a duck and you would have to keep sprinting until it flew away.

McKay is sooo cute!!!!!

This past weekend, we went to McKay's parents house.  While he was looking for golf clubs he found his old banjo.  He pulled it out and started playing, and he was like "I forgot how much I liked playing this."  So we brought it home with us.  He loves the banjo and I think that is a tiny bit nerdy but wayyyyyyy cute!  

I love my country bumpkin!!!

Coptic

Yesterday I signed up for the PRAXIS! uhhhh.... SCARY!

My mom bought study books for me..... thank you!

I turned in everything for my student teaching...... *whew

And I made this book.... COOL!

this week...

So this week I turned in my prints and they got hung on the gallery wall in the spori! exciting!

This is heaven, I mean, the flower cooler (for my flower class.)

So pretty!

This was an arrangement I had to do for a forum.  It's not really my favorite and it looks better in real life.  This isn't a very good picture either.  A problem with photographing any floral arrangement is it creates gaps that aren't there in real life. Plus, I'm not a good photographer anyway.

 Even though I am not a biology major or anything I decided to join the optometry society with McKay.  I go to all of the meetings and service projects so why not?

piano hinge book

This book is cute, but doesn't open as easily as the stab binding

C'est la vie

It has been a busy week for McKay and I. We are at school on average from 9am-9pm every day. Sometimes we meet up around lunch, but sometimes we don't. Since we get home late, neither of us feel like cooking dinner. After eating nothing but granola bars for a week straight, I decided to make a real dinner. I was making tomato basil soup (which is really good) and on the directions it said to puree with an immersion blender. Well we don't have an immersion blender so I decided to use the regular blender. I washed off the lid because it had something on it and put the soup in. Just to let you know, having a wet lid is bad. Since it was wet it was like a suction cup. When I turned the blender on hot soup came squirting out the sides (and I was holding the lid down really hard too, but that just made it worse.)

This is my sometimes friend, the press. A couple days ago I spent 8 hours printing my plate and none of them were coming out right. I realized the next day that I had the pressure set wrong. Ugggg.

This is my copper plate that I am working on for printmaking. It is all inked up and everything so you can see it. I forgot that when I was etching my plate that I had to reverse the image first (which I didn't do) so now my image comes out backwards on a piece of paper. Oh well.

This is it printed on a piece of paper. As you can see, it is backwards and I wish it was the other way but oh well. There is nothing I can do about it now.

Two days ago, a famous printmaker came and gave a seminar. I went to the seminar and he was pretty amazing. The next day, I went to the printmaking studio to work on this print, (it is due on wed) and he was there! My teacher introduced me to him and she previously showed him this print I was working on. He was like "I really like your prints. I like the rocks that you made." I was pretty surprised.

This is my favorite book I have made so far. It is a stab binding and I made it big enough to put 4x6 pictures in it for a photo album/journal-y thing. I can also make these books with those scrap booking metal screws (to add more pages later if I want to.) I will never have to buy a scrapbook again!!!

This is the inside!

This is another book I made.

My sister

My sister is in Thailand right now visiting her fiancee's family. She is getting to do a whole bunch of cool stuff like petting tigers, feeding elephants, eating crocodile, among other things. I am sooooo jealous. She comes home to Maryland in a little while and she will have a month to plan for her wedding. Also, I am proud to say that my fourteen hours I spent in the printmaking lab yesterday was worth it. HAHA! I will post what I made later...

This weekend...

This picture is of our next door neighbors and their wild sunday parties.  Our door is the dark one in the back.  Their door is the red one with all the shoes.

Our neighbors are interesting.  This neighbor, acts like the guy the RM had to spend the night with.  He acts like him because I knocked on their door once to see if I could borrow their phone.  He opened the door an inch, and pressed his face to the door so I could only see his eye.  I asked him if I could borrow his phone and he didn't respond, but he shut the door, grabbed the phone, opened the door 2 inches, slipped the phone through, and shut the door.  I thought that was odd.  He also golfs in our back yard with a waffle ball.  This normally wouldn't disturb me but he is like 45ish and doing this by himself.  

He is also from Korea (I think) and they are always frying seafood, and things that smell gross.  This little walkway reeks when they are cooking.

Though this guy sounds weird, our upstairs neighbor is much more interesting.

So as I was making this book I decided that I am going to start making lots of these and start selling them for moolah.  

Anyway, this book is made out of McKay's shirt.  You cant really see it but I put the part with the pocket on the cover.  His shirt had a bunch of holes in it so don't think I just rip up his clothes because I just feel like it.  I liked this so much, I decided to make more books with pockets out of my old ripped jeans. I haven't made those ones yet though.  

Mountain man book

I stole this from Indiana Jones.

You wish!