Ok ok ok, I will stop being mysterious now. My new job...

is.................

...

lettering manga!! for Yen. They're starting me off with a 2-volume series, and I just got the information to start working on it tonight, so I'm excited to see how it goes! At the moment I'm waiting for the files I need to download... la la la~

I've had a really annoying stiffness in my neck the last few days. I keep thinking, I wish the Magic Touch manga were real, so I could ask Chiaki to fix my neck. Siiiigh. (you nerd, lys.)

Sooo, that's my news for now. Also, I finished reading Please Save My Earth, and man was it awesome. I loved every bit of it (although I imagine that, with some of the flashback-laden volumes, I might've gotten a little impatient if I had to wait months between releases. that's the up-side to reading a completed series all at once). It was so awesome that when I finished I couldn't help myself and tracked down what I could of the sequel series, Moonlight That Surrounds Me, and that series (written... i dunno, 10 years after she finished PSME?) is also awesome, but in a different way. Mostly because it's got an incredibly, astonishingly adorable main character. It doesn't seem quite as emotionally complex as PSME (at least, from the early volumes I've seen...), but I really want to read it even so. Because... cute!!! I really love it when mangaka show an attachment to their characters by writing additional stories about them even after the original series end (see: my Hidaka-sensei fangirlism). Viz, you should rerelease PSME (for new readers) and license Moonlight for us. It's the right thing to do!

(so, hey... I just post my lj entries from the livejournal site, but it seems like lately the clock edits itself to be the current time? i used to always go back and change it right before i was ready to hit "post" but now i don't have to! that's awesome, livejournal!!)

So. I just made some totally delicious muffins. And then I ate two of them. And they were, as they looked, totally delicious. So of course, as I always do when I make and eat delicious foods, I thought I'd share the recipe with you all!

( apple muffins! )

By the way, it's a little late, but I'm back from Tennessee!! I got back around 2am Wednesday morning. I will have to tell you about all my adventures there! It was really fun. And flying in a plane was also really fun. I'd do it again!!

Oh! I almost forgot and then it would have been too late tomorrow! I got all my daily fashion drawings doooooooooooone (except today's, oops *pauses to sketch and scan it quick*...).

*half an hour later...* Okay, here we go! Y'all ready?

( BAM! POW! 37 days of fashion! This entry is now like 500 miles long! )

I think I'll do commentary when I get back......... surely there are a few good adventures to relate in thirty-seven days worth of fashion, but right now I don't feel like typing it all out. At least I got the drawings done AND posted!

And I sure hope my outfits the next few days will be good! It's weird having to pack things and plan ahead. Most days I just open my closet and a couple drawers and stare at my clothes until something jumps out at me and tells me to wear it. And then something else. And then something else says, "No, pick me pick me!" and then I say, "Aww, I'll just wear you both!" And repeat...

Man, these drawings would be so much better with colours (I think so, anyway). One day, perhaps...

And I'm off now! I'm flying tomorrow! FLYING! Eeeeee! So you guys can enjoy my drawings in my absence! I'll be back Tuesday night sometime (probably late-ish) and I'll tell you all about my adventures sometime after that!

So when's the last time I posted? I know it wasn't 2 years ago, as has happened before......... but it's still been a while.

I've got like, 5 more daily fashion drawings to catch up on from my gap (don't worry, I took notes so it's not like I have to make things up) and then I will bombard you my dear readers with them, and hopefully stay on schedule a little better in the future. I've been doing well for the past week or so.

Derek (the littlest brother) is back from school for the weekend, so I guess we're doing familyish stuff, like making caramel apples and watching the Prairie Home Companion movie tonight, and also it was Third Sunday so I got to hang out with the aunts/uncles/grandma/cousins and all their children. Also, on the subject of children, I got to work in the toddler nursery at church today, and from there went directly to the 5th-6th grade Sunday school class. So I have been around kids a lot today. But it's fun. 5th-6th grade class is really fun, actually. Those kids are so smart and funny! And the toddlers are hilarious, going down the slide face-first and intentionally falling off their little tykes motorcycles just so they have an excuse to cry along with the other two kids crying for their pacifier/mom... Being around the church kids and getting to know them makes me feel a little guilty I don't know ANY of my cousins' kids very well, though. Oh wells.

Brndn, sorry for going on and on talking about kids. I won't make a regular habit of it...

Yesterday I went to the Ren Faire at my old university and saw some friends and had a fun (if reallyreally cold) afternoon. I found more cheap things to buy, too! Like 3 pairs of earrings for a total of $11 (two of the pairs are all super dangly and sparkly and beautiful~ and the other pair was only a dollar and cute) and a super cute wooden box with like... inlaid stones? in a flower design, and a made-in-india sticker. The lady selling gets stuff from flea markets and then sells it at fairs for cheap, or something like that. Exciting for me. And some more Jane-pottery!

Also yesterday, a local library was having a used-book sale! YES! I couldn't resist that! Sadly, there was not any manga being sold (except three random volumes of series I'm not interested in) but I did pick up 15 children's books for 50¢ a piece. Glee! And then, in my nerdishness, I figured out Google Documents and made a spreadsheet to keep track of my children's book collection (it's a lot harder to keep organized than manga, with their matching spines and mostly consistent size) (I've started similar spreadsheet projects before, but Mac's office system had a trial period that ran out, and Microsoft's is the same deal, and... I guess that leaves Open Office, but I would have to install it and Google's is already Right There and all) and made some awesome discoveries like, This Illustrator also illustrated This and That book and I never knew it! and stuff. (mainly, Trina Schart Hyman, who is awesome (first noted in Stuck with Luck, a book my mum and aunt had as kids and I kinda... started reading at my grandma's, then took home because I hadn't finished, then never returned...). But also Barbara Cooney, who is also awesome (Roxaboxen ahhhhhhh my childhood dreamland!), and Ann Schweninger, who is nostalgic and heartwarming (Amanda Pig! it seems I've been a fan of illustrated pig characters for longer than I thought). Also seeing the range of decades represented in my collection was happy! 1904-2008! I'm not done spreadsheeting yet, though (haha, sorry for all the asides—it's been a while and I'm not used to writing/thinking in a civilized manner, so you just get it all as it comes to me—anyway, spellcheck didn't even try telling me that "spreadsheeting" was wrong. i think it's just given up...) Where was I? Oh, not done spreadsheeting yet, so I imagine there are still more delightful discoveries in store! Hooray! But I really gotta stop procrastinating and finish the A2Z book cover and stuff.

I guess that's enough random rambling for now. Next time maybe I'll talk about the retro/scifi shoujo manga I've been reading... (it's awesome, in case you were wondering)

Work status (because I need distractions): pictures are all scanned, and about 20% cleaned up in Photoshop. I lost about an hour or so trying to get my mouse's trackball cleaned out so it would scroll both up AND down. It did down fine (it never has a problem with left or right; probably because I use those directions hardly ever) but up wasn't working. So I cleaned it out with rubbing alcohol... multiple times... and the only result I got from that was that I could now scroll UP but NOT DOWN. And I was about ready to scream, or cry, or throw the stupid pretty-but-nonfunctional mouse at the wall and finally I got so fed up I searched online for a better way to clean the thing. And lo, the first result that came up for "apple trackball mouse" was for some apple support forum (it's funny, i didn't even have to type in "problem" or "dirty" and the first result was still for a way to clean it out), where a guy (LukeAP88) suggested rolling the mouse upside down over a plain white piece of paper for a minute or two. And you know what?

LukeAP88 is a genius. It worked PERFECTLY and now I could about cry from relief!! So this is my public thank you to that guy. Guy, you're a hero. Anyone else who has one of the cute bubble-mouses Apple is so proud of, try this if you ever have problems with your trackball.

So now I should get back to work, because I kinda lost another hour or so when I started this entry and decided I NEEDED to track down which volume of I Hate You♥ Kazuha said "reli-li-lief." For any future queries, it's volume 6, page 74 of the English edition. And it's accompanied by tambourines!

(speaking of crying, I actually did cry while reading volume 9 of Emma last night. I'm not sure if it reflects more on the story itself or my current state of mind (the latter being "extremely wimpy"), but the story with the squirrel... the ending was so... I don't know what it is; animal stories with happy endings get to me. There was that Pet Shop of Horrors story too. *sniffle*)

(and speaking of Hate♥, you know what comes out at the end of this month? Are you excited?? Yeah, me too!!! Like you wouldn't believe!!!!)

The last drawing is inked!

... but some 30-odd drawings in the middle still aren't. Ha ha ha... how is that for a false hope? *crash*

I'm up to 70 done, though! 38 to go! *checks again* Oh wait, I miscounted~! 72 done, 36 to go! Yaaaaaaay~!

And I worked at Flowerland 5 hours today. And still got 13 drawings inked after that! Yay! Go me! Goby! (hahahahaha) Tomorrow I'm supposed to be running around all over, though... mum's dragging me along to some herb fair thingy at the local sculpture-garden-park in the morning, and then I intend to visit Jane sometime in the afternoon... let's see if I can get some inking done between/after those things though.

Okay, self-motivational pep-talk entry over with. (heh heh... earlier my mum came in and asked how much I had left and was about to guess like ten or so and I said 40 drawings and she was like WHAT hurry up (or something) and I was like waaaaaaaah~ and then she told me to get enough rest. sigh.) I'm going to find some manga to read as a reward for all my hard work, even though I could be cleaning up/finishing some of my sketches to make them easier to ink tomorrow, and then I will go to sleep under allllll my comfy cozy warm blankets with Marron♥ at my feet. Mmmmm...

Mrr. Thanks for your input on the baseball drawing, y'alls. Everyone says the same thing. I originally was satisfied with my first drawing, but when dad saw it he was like "Hold up that's all wrong!!" and said all the young boys reading it who knew anything about baseball would notice it too, which meant more to me than his noticing it (heh) because I can't lose my cred with my audience! I tried to justify my drawing by saying it was an illustration of a series of moments/motions rather than a specific instant (the girl mid-pitch, the other kid mid-swing, and the ball in flight). But... y'all are right, it just looks like a bunt.

So anyway. Ummmmm, it's really really cold here in Michigan. My armie-warmer 2.0 is getting bigger! It's so exciting! I can't wait to wear it~! I wish I could wear it now, because maybe then I would be able to work faster because I'd be warm and not shivery or dragged down by layers of blankets! I mean, I had to go outside today and it was so cold I was wearing a sweater and a sweater skirt and thick socks and a SCARF (and armie-warmers 1.0 under the sweater sleeves). It's like winter almost. Nooooooooooo~!

(sorry for incoherency. i'm going to try to get some more work done now)

*wishes*

I need opinions on a drawing. Please help out!

( little league superheroes )

It's raining, it's storming! Wheeee! The leaves are falling too. It is, in fact, autumn.

So. Daily fashion drawings are done (which is the important part), but I don't feel like scanning them right now so... sorry to disappoint. They'll be up eventually. I just switched my room around, so the bed's in a different place, and that involved moving pretty much every small item that was on my floor, so the scanner is still halfway across the room from the computer, and not hooked up! On the plus side, I have a big open area (once I finish re-organizing all the junk I had to relocate for the bed-move) in the middle of my floor, rather than several narrow walkways. Hurrah!

Today was actually pretty warm. I wore a sleeveless dress outside, and was actually hot (while the sun was out)!! But then once the sun went away and it became night (that reminds me of the 5th-6th grade class reading the first chapter of Genesis today... hee), it also became cold. But I didn't want to wear my stupid dummyhead hoodie-sweater, I wanted to just slip something smaller over my arms. And so... I have embarked on another selfish knitting endeavour. Most of my knitting endeavours are selfishly motivated. Actually, a lot of things I do in general are selfishly motivated. Or not, but if they take anything I would consider "effort" they probably are. Man, I'm such a terrible person.

Anyway, knitting! I am calling it... arm(ie)-warmers version 2-point-oh! The first time I made arm warmers (was that a year? two? ago...?) I was quite pleased with them, until I realized the off-white colour gets dirty pretty quick, especially if I wear them while drawing (duh). So I threw them in the wash, and was slightly more displeased when I realized the 100%-wool-"ideal-for-felting" off-white yarn... well, semi-felted itself (aka shrunk). It did tighten up and smooth out the stitches quite beautifully, though. And it is stilljust wearable after stretching it out/letting it air dry after later washings. So! Armie-warmers 2.0 are 9 stitches wider, and dark grey, and I'm thinking of having them go to elbow-length-or-longer... so I can wear them with short sleeves when it gets to that in-between-y temperature that Michigan seems to love. Also the dark-grey colour won't get mistaken for a cast, haha. I had more people mistakenly think I'd hurt my wrists wearing the off-white ones... If this pair works out well, maybe I'll make more in different colours! Or stripes! Ooh, wouldn't that be jolly...

So with that... I kinda want to go back to knitting now. I should probably sleep soon, too. And try to do actual work tomorrow, not lazy-slacker-selfish-projects.

(been listening to Shiina Ringo tonight. That lady's got crazy/awesome music. She sings in Japanese, French, English, German... I don't even know what all!)

Oh man!! Where have I been?! It's been like a week almost! Well, I was drawing, I just got too busy to post... or something. I guess I'll chatter about what I've been up to alongside the drawings. So go look at 'em! (or don't)

( drawins, a whole bunch of em! )

Well, that's enough. It's 2:46!!! EEEEEEK I need to sleep!