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Greetings all!

I have been working downtown for the last few months. While spending time amongst the circus that comprises the people and events downtown I thought that I would capture some of the marvelous things to be had here in the great city of Denver. Thanks to my handy iphone I am able to snap quick pictures of the "goings on". Today while eating at Tokyo Joes on the 16th street mall with Jason we witnessed some crazy shenanigans. Luckily, this will be one of the better examples of things taking place down here in that it is fairly fun and entertaining. Jason and I were seated at a bar like area that sits against a window that faces 16th street, eating our brown rice chicken bowl with California rolls when a hipster guy rolls up on a commuter bike outfitted with HUGE speakers. He parks it just to the side of the restaurant and dismounts.

Meanwhile there were a few other lanky hipster girls standing to the side of a small open space in front of the restaurant, (one of these girls were wearing super short shorts with some butt cheek hanging out, gross)! Suddenly, one of the girls steps out into the open area and starts doing a jazzy little dance (insert eye roll here). Then the bike guy flips on the music bike suddenly we had a flash mob situation. Several other people joined in and began to perform a little number for everyone in the area.

Please note the girl on the far left wearing the cream top and the tiny navy shorts, this is butt cheek girl... I really could have done without that part. Anyway, I suppose they call this a flash mob, I have only been exposed to this through "Modern Family" and commercials. It was kind of a fun little deal but still a fine example of crazy crap that happens in d-town.

My next example is on the opposite side of the spectrum in terms of occurrences. Last Wednesday, my birthday (thank you), Jay and I were again at Tokyo Joes (I know we eat there a lot) and we see a fine gentleman standing out in the rain. He was clearly homeless and found some huge plastic bag that he made a poncho from. He stood for a little while arguing with no one into the air while vigorously smoking a cigarette. What I didn't understand is why he insisted in being right out in the heavy rain. There were plenty of places around that he could have sought shelter, yet he choose to sit there and yell things into the air.

I enjoy the dramatic effect that the plastic bag has in this picture while it blows purposefully with the wind. I think I need to emphasize the amount of rain we received that day. Note that the streets are empty, this is peak lunch hour, everyone had found refuge inside, and when people had to venture out they did so with haste. After standing for a few minutes he sat down and pulled the bag over his head (not a good idea) and just sat for a while. He was like that until I turned around as we were about to leave and I noticed that he had simply vanished. 

He kind of looks like a gnome here. I know that I appear to have lost all compassion for people, which is mostly true, but that is a side effect from working down town. After getting harassed everyday while walking down the street by multiple homeless people, including one that has followed me twice and green peace people asking if I care to save the pandas, you end up with zero patience. 

So that about does it. I am going to try to capture other crazy or random things about down town and put it up here. Maybe people will begin to better understand why I hate it. 

I'm back!

I obviously haven't done this in a while but wanted to do a quick update. I am sure that no one will see this for a while if ever but I kind of like the idea of keeping track of what is going on. I haven't updated my reading list for a while so I thought a good way to catch up is to go over what I have read over the past few months.

I took a quick shot of some of the books I have read lately.

I just started reading this one called The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larson. I haven't gotten too far yet because I haven't been able to stay up long enough. So far so good though...

I just finished The Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo. He is one of my favorite authors so I was really excited when I picked this one up. It was kind of a slow read but the story was pretty interesting. I think one of Russo's best writing qualities are his abilities to create a character with a lot of depth. This story I think explored some feelings and thoughts that I have had before but have failed to verbalize. I think he adds such an amazing human element that keeps you invested in the story.

The next two are from the Hunger Games Trilogy, I don't have the first book in the series because I lent it out but I really enjoyed them. I blazed through all three in a pretty short time. It was pretty violent but it was a really interesting story and was kind of a "Twilight" spin on some classics like 1984. These were some exciting books and I would recommend them.

The next one I borrowed from Jay's mom Barb and it is a pretty faced pasted mystery. The book is called Fever Dream by Preston & Child. This was another fun read and I blazed through it pretty quickly too. If someone wants something fun and faced paced this is a good one to pick up.

Ok this next one is called The Glass Castle by Jeanette Wells. This is an incredible story about the author's childhood. Her story is about her amazing triumph and success in her life. This book is incredible especially seeing that it is a true story. If you are ever feeling bad about yourself or your family take a look at this book and I am sure you will be grateful.

Finally there is The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro and I was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley. These are both collections of short stories about the author's lives. Both were pretty similar and they told their stories with plenty of humor. Although they were a little raunchy at times, there was some serious humor to be had.

Well that about sums it up. I will try to remember to give my feed back about The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and let you know what I think.

I got a job and that's it

It's almost been two months since I posted last... and my day to day routine has changed significantly. Essentially I decided that I should go back to work and it would help me take my mind off somethings that have been going on in my life. Hasn't been working to well, instead of thinking about it at home, I think about it while I fill out paperwork. It has consumed me and not necessarily in a good way, as if I were passionate about it, just that I feel like my whole life is sitting in front of a screen in a cubicle. What's new right? Who cares, everyone does it... I think what is really bugging me is that I feel like I am trying to fill up time while I wait, but how long will I have to wait and I don't want to look back at my life and see that I was just filling it with something that I'm not passionate about. It makes my life seem empty. I hate what I do, and it I feel like I am on a road that isn't going to lead anywhere. I am not writing this to incite a pity party, I don't want that, I am just talking out loud. So in explanation of my blogging absence I am on hiatus, in life and blogging. Maybe I will start updating it while I am here at work. That's it for now.

The weather is warming up, and my workouts have to too!

Okay so same old story, but I really, REALLY want to get into better shape. I have been exercising fairly regularly but I need to step it up and I need to improve my eating habits. So because I am clueless when it comes to this stuff so I went to the local library and checked out a cookbook called Cook Yourself Thin. There was some really interesting things in there besides recipes and I think I am going to try some of it out. For starters I am going to write down everything I eat for a week, (which is going to be depressing I am sure), as well as cook a myriad of healthy meals. Additionally it stated that generally you should figure what weight you want to be and multiply that by 10 to figure how many calories you should eat everyday. So there you go, we will see how well that goes!

Chin Faces

Alright I have some explaining to do about this post. I know that Jen wonders why it takes so long for me to make my lists, then these two videos explains why. In high school my friends and I would make videos where we would film a person's mouth upside down and when you watch it, it seems like the chin and mouth are part of a whole thing like a strange creature, as if the bottom of the chin was the top of the head... anyway, I don't think I am making any sense. Well to bring it all back around this is what Jay and I were doing instead of working on my list. Here is the first one...

http://www.youtube.com/user/blackeslash26?feature=mhw5#p/u/1/E0UpOxGvPc4


And the second one...

http://www.youtube.com/user/blackeslash26?feature=mhw5#p/u/0/KfIMLXI2ed4

I know this is so stupid, but this really is a glimpse into what it is like when Jay and I are by ourselves!

Next posting I will talk all about our April Fools joke!!!

The loot

I have been meaning to do this for a while so I figured that since this weeks haul was respectable it would be a good time.

I will start with Albertsons…

There were some really good stock up prices, which I won’t get into, a smarter more capable woman will go over this at castlerockcouponqueen.blogspot.com.

I got 5, 5 lb bags of flour for 1.00 each, regularly 2.99 each

3 boxes of Jolly Time Popcorn for 1.00 each, regularly 3.69

5 cans of Dole Pineapple for 1.00 each with 2.00 in coupons, regularly 2.29 each

1 sour cream for .79

2 Tony’s Pizzas for 1.00 each, regularly 1.49

5.8 lb’s of 93% lean ground beef for 11.56 or 1.99 per lb, regularly 3.49

6 racks of pork baby back ribs for 2.49 per lb, regularly 6.99

1 Hunts Ketchup

bananas at .39 per lb

3 bags baby carrots for 1.00 each, regularly 1.50 each

totaling 61.22

with a savings of 97.14!

King Soopers

I had to do 2 transactions the first was 20 yoplait yogurts for 10/6 with coupons totaling at 9.55, and 2.40 in savings. This gave me 2.00 for my next transaction.

I got 2 boxes of Post Raisin Bran

1 Kitchen Basics beef stock

1 carton large eggs

1 Ken's dressing

1 Oreida fries

1 Tresseme conditioner

1 box cherry poptarts (oh so healthy)

1 pack of Ramen

2 bags of Nestle Chocolate Morsels

1 box Ronzoni Penne pasta

2 packs of Ronzoni Spaghetti

4 braeburn apples

2 12 packs of pop

for a grand total of 23.93 after coupons

with 30.36 in savings!

Sprouts

1, 2 % milk = 1.89

.5 lb Deli Roast beef = 3.71

.5 lb deli turkey = 3.36

Deli sliced swiss cheese = 3.12

5 lb box of cuties = 3.99 – 1.00 cp

4 Pears = 1.40

3 Hass Avocados = 1.00

2 jalepeno peppers = .30

1 lime = .29

3 lb Gigantic navel oranges = 1.06

2 red bell peppers = 1.54

Roma tomatoes = 1.19

1 reusable shopping bag = .99

total = 25.16

savings = 1.10 ( I know that is pretty impressive!)

And finally Safeway… I have to admit that I cannot find the receipt anywhere so I am going to have to wing it!

3 boxes of Kellogs frosted flakes

2 bags of baby carrots (yes I realize I bought these at several stores)

1 can of cream cheese cake frosting! Yay!

4 boxes of Betty Crocker cake mix

and my total was around 11.84 but with my coupons and some spoils from a previous trip I was able to net .64!!! Yes that is right, they paid me to buy it!

So my grand total was $119.22!!!

That is a total savings of around $142!!!

Which puts my savings around 54% savings!

I don’t know how Jen does this every week, it is a lot of work to figure all this out!


Here are some more pictures, luckily my new kitchen set up lets me display even more...

Okay I have been working on this from start to finish for more hours than I would like to admit so it is time that I hit the hay, Jason is currently passed out on the couch so I am going to see if I can carry him up the stairs... 

Road lessons

Okay so I went for my regular run today, after all it did stop snowing finally! However, a lot of people in the neighborhood neglected to shovel their sidewalks so there was some dry running spots and others still resembled the peaks of the Himalayas. Due to these conditions I was forced to run on the road where it was  fairly dry. After ascending the back hill from hell, (that is it's new name) I was descending happily in the sun at a rather good pace, I was listening to some Stevie Nicks and contemplating life when suddenly any evil patch of ice skating rink took me down and showed me whose boss. Luckily for me I get hurt all the time so I am getting better at falling and have learned how to fall and protect the vitals, (face, hair, boobs... etc.) I sacrificed my entire left side, oh yes I am serious, and managed to hobble away okay. The extent of the damage was limited to my elbow, hip/right under the butt area, ankle,foot, knee, and shin. I took a picture of my injuries, but for your sake and my own, I will only post my knee and shin. I have to say the picture makes me look like a weenie, and I am not claiming that this is my worst injury... that happened when I took out that fat girl in rugby (she had it coming she played for Thunderidge, HRHS FOR LIFE :) ).

Note: although the picture looks like my leg is 10 feet thick at the top and 2 inches at the bottom by my ankle, I assure you that it is not. Let us also note my winter tan... you can almost see through my leg! I am disgusted by how my leg looks but I am going to let it go... but I mean really!!! 

p.s. the shower right after was like hot burning torture... and the peroxide... never mind.

Progress

Alright, I have gotten some more work done on my painting and I thought I would post some new photos of my progress. 

Here it is with the painting I completed last summer, I think it will look neat hung with the other. 

Here is a more detailed shot.

As many of you know, I LOVE ME SOME POPCORN! Now I have a theory that it tastes better when Jason makes it for me, so while I was taking pictures of my painting I got a few of the master at work!

Look at those strong arms grabbing the bowl...

He loves the camera!

Here the popcorn artist works carefully at his craft.

A professional's hands!

That's all for now, I will try to continue to update my progress... until next time!

Artist diaries

Okay I am starting a new painting project and I wanted to follow my progress on the blog here. There is a big art show in Castle Rock every year called the Castle Rock Artfest, and this year I am going to try to get in. This is a juried show which means every artist has to submit slides of their work to a jury and be selected. This show draws about 25,000 to 30,000 people. I am desperately trying to create more work because I don't have enough to bring to a show. So over the next 8 weeks or so I am really going to start focusing on my paintings. The first one I am starting is a collection of two paintings that will hang side by side. They are long and thin, 51 inches by 14 inches. I am using pictures from the same series that I painted "Where the skirts Fly", but in these paintings I am intending to abstract the image even further than before. I have been thinking a lot about my art, who I am as an artist and what sort of relationship I have with my art. I can't say that I have any answers but I have started this dialogue. I have also been considering the work of one of my favorite artists who is Georgia O'Keeffe, and last night I was reading in one of my old art history books and they briefly discussed her work. I will quote from the book titled Art Since 1900 by Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, and Benjamin H. D. Buchloh. They state in the section of Early American Modernism that, " It was left to Georgia O'Keeffe to salvage the lyrical subjectivity that some artists hoped to wrest from the machine age, but in order to do so she abandoned images of production and consumption altogether. After a decade of intermittent paintings of New York, she turned away from the city, and eventually rediscovered, in the desert landscape of the American Southwest, a relation to objects and images that reasserted rather than overwhelmed the body... with her abstracted flowers and landscapes... [she] recaptures self-creation for her own art of nature... In doing so, she charts an alternative identity for American artists, especially for women, one that departs from the machine age and its myths of modernity," (2004, p. 225). I love the idea of turning away from the hustle and bustle of society and rediscovering the beauty of creation. I feel that through my art I am creating a place that I believe exists but that I can never quite find. I love the beauty and yet the solidarity found in the American Southwest. There is this duality and tension between lively, colorful culture and the quiet reverence of the desert. Anyway these are some of the initial thoughts that I am having.

I wanted to post some pictures of my temporary work space and the canvases that I've made. I will try to keep updating as I make some progress.

Pictured here is the first canvas and you can see that I have begun to draw out my painting. Essentially the blue edge of the skirt will weave in and out of the painting. The size is turning out nicely because if it is hung low and you stand next to it you almost get the feeling that it is your skirt flying through the air. And yes that is a bag of sunflower seeds, which is a necessity for me and making art, I'd like to thank my brother for that.

Late afternoon sun.

Here is a slightly clearer shot of the sketch so far. 

Until next time...

A heritage of awesomeness...

I wanted to dedicate a post to some good times that Jay and I have had, specifically in the biking realm. Since I am always the one behind the lens there are not a lot of pictures of me, and the ones that I am in I look TERRIBLE, I am not kidding I was still working at Pioneer and was at my heaviest... moving along.

I'll start with a picture where I look like a cupcake (in a bad way) and Jay looks like a mountain man with strangely white teeth. Let me also note that I am wearing some very extensive body armor underneath my jersey do to the fact that we had been down-hilling all day, if you don't know what that is I would love to educate you.

Here we are with our full face helmets. For those of you who had my last e-mail address, (blackeslash26) the name stemmed from this bike here, a black eastern slash size 26... a little trivia for you.

Yeah not my cutest moment here, my face looks as round as a bowling ball but I will drop it. This is us at Keystone about 2 years ago.

Here is my friend Janet and myself flexing our guns, note my sweet pink body armor, I can't tell you how much that stuff saved my you know what!

I like this picture because it is a rare picture of me actually on my bike. This was my Kona Coiler which was a pretty sweet ride but just a little large for me. I had just finished chasing this guy down the mountain because he almost hit me and my friend Janet and I was going to make him pay. I think I may have set a land speed record that time. 

Ode to the best bike ever... This is a Transition Syren which is a women's specific freeride bike. I LOVE THIS BIKE. I sold it for a few reasons which I won't get into now but I would give my left arm (not my right) for this bike again. I have made Jay promise me that I could get it again one day. Look at how BEAUTIFUL she is... tear... okay I have to talk about something else or I will be sad about this for a while...

Now let's check out Jay's sweet skills!

This will look familiar since I used that as Jay's profile pic on the blog. This was taken at some local jumps by Keystone. The area is called Wildernest. This was a pretty sweet jump and Jay was able to throw down some pretty clean moves.

Another view, he was getting some pretty good air. 

This is another jump at that same place, as you can see there are jumps everywhere. He got pretty high off of that one, and yes that is another table top. 

And what have I been doing this entire time some might ask... well I have been sneaking around taking pictures, I think it was put best by Lady Gaga in her song Paparazzi...

Here is a little jump at a trail that we are usually playing around on called Palmer Park which is located in Colorado Springs. He hits this one every time we ride the trail so I had to get a picture of it. 

This picture is from a 4 cross race that Jay competed in at Angelfire NM. We thought this would be a much more fun experience than it was but oh well. Jay is the second from the right, the one who is wearing jeans and staring down the camera.

This is a cool picture that I took at the Castle Rock skate park one fine evening. 

This is Jay at Redstone skate park in Highlands Ranch. He is doing a mighty fine table over the spine. 

Same spine, different angle, different day... still cool. 

I also want to post two videos, one is Jay doing a 360 over a gap at the Sunset trails, and another is a compilation of all the biking footage I had that I put together for a project for my digital art class. I will warn you that my movie editing software would not allow me to change the length of the song so the song goes way longer than the video so it is okay to stop it when the video is over. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ybH4odTnqQ 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P9IachdN_4 

That is all for now. I really miss biking especially when it is snowing outside, and I cannot wait for the weather to get warmer!

New addition, flowers and some ribs!

So this has been quite a weekend thus far and I want to start by introducing our newest addition. We call her 47 inch LG... If there is every anything good about a car accident it is this. Our insurance check that I got from our car accident afforded us this new toy, (besides who cares about a dented bumper on a truck anyway)! So Friday night we went and picked it up and then the real work began. Because of our crazy entertainment area setup we (we meaning Jay) had to do some minor construction in our house. He drilled a hole and lined it with PBC pipe so that our cords could travel from the lower levels of our shelves up to the tv. I took some pictures of the mess we had going on. I also want to note the ridiculous size of the box! But once we were all done it came out very nicely and it works like a charm. So needless to say we have been watching a lot of tv this weekend.



Moving right along... so I have to brag on my husband for a quick minute. He bought me the beautiful bouquet of flowers Valentine's day and I had to take some pictures. First let me remark how well the flowers and the vase go with my painting in the background. I took some close up shots just because they are so pretty, I just wish this blog had a scratch and sniff feature so you could smell how divine they are!



Ribs. I made some tonight and they were not only tasty but quite attractive. Now the pictures don't do them justice, (it kind of looks like something scary from a horror movie) but I was very proud of the end result. They weren't too shabby since this is the first time I have made ribs... and shout out to Jen here, they were such a good buy too!!!

That's all the randomness I have for now!