Busy day

Sunday (yesterday) was a busy day.
We went to church at a place that had hymns and a little bit of liturgy, which is awesome. As per the norm, the sermon didn't resonate hugely with me, but it was also a guest pastor so we'll have to see how things play out there. I did have a little bit of a musing on the relationship of emotion to truth, but nothing conclusive.

After church we went to help somebody move. This person had A TON of stuff in her house. I never want to be that bogged down. I wish I could go minimalist to be honest, but being an artist doesn't sit well with that. Supplies, supplies, supplies.

There were a couple large furniture pieces that had been assembled in a loft and we did a lot of fun problem-solving estimations to see if we could get them down the stairs. By measurements it was looking pretty iffy, but of course when the men got back they were like "let's just try it," and Erin found a clever method to move the fan out of the way, and it was accomplished in the end.

Afterwards I told a couple people about Bananarchy and they thought it was awesome.

People here are so cute. They think 90 degrees is ridiculously hot. If they start sweating, it's an event. I'm just here enjoying the cool weather and wearing jackets sometimes. Austin doesn't give you enough chances to wear hoodies even though I love them.

So I took this cool photo when I got back: I love the color balance though I could have done without the errant lightbulb in the background.

There are hammocks everywhere in this house. I may have mentioned that last time.

I spent the afternoon somewhat lazily on the computer, looking at old work and tumblr. I then tried to take a nap but couldn't fall asleep. I had gotten a picture i wanted to draw in my head, but when I headed down and tried to draw it, nothing really turned out right. That happens a lot, ever since I was a kid actually. The image in my head is like an idea I can see, but it's not so solid in that I can zoom in and study every detail and copy it exactly.

While I was drawing, there was dinner which was pasta which was AWESOME.
After dinner I kept on using my markers, coloring and whatnot.
Kestrel, the youngest of the family I'm staying with, joined me and wanted to help test my colors. I suggested she try mixing some, and that got her excited except she kept wanting to mix more than two and making brown.

So I started trying to explain color theory to her.

Of course, she didn't really grasp it and just fixated on the fact that I had gotten out the entire rainbow. Primary and secondary colors? Right over her head. But she had fun. Maybe she'll thank me later, when she learns about colors and already knows a little. :)

I was already tired and hadn't been able to manage my nap, so I actually went to sleep before my roommate did, even though she's been going to bed an hour or more before me until this.

Soooooo that was yesterday. Today I hear we're going to see the mountains.

The art is happening!

I woke up this morning (without an alarm) before 6:30 and it was already light outside. Well, that's odd.
I saw a rabbit omnomnomnomnomnomming some plants outside. Well that's odd.

So far my Colorado experience has been pretty awesome. Yesterday morning, all the adults (including me... i'm on the edge of THAT group now.... wow) sat around the breakfast table making art. THAT was really cool. I just realized i capitalized both of my most recent "that"s. Ah well.
Here's a bit of what I did:

so those were cool.

Later on, we went to a small church festival during which I ate some decent food that filled me up (and there was one grain salad thing that was pretty yummzy), and superficially watched the henna table with the girl I'm rooming with, and decided we'd probably get along pretty well.
I actually did give a couple people henna, but mostly I just went a little nuts on myself.

That evening I sat quietly with my laptop and tried not to giggle out loud at some silly things I wrote in the past.

I did a liiiiiittle bit of comic planning and then went to bed.

yes, my writing is still boring, but I figured if I have this morning time, might as well develop a sort of habit of journaling. maybe my writing will improve. :(

New Ventures

Here I sit, in a hammock indoors, aspen trees and fog outside the window, in a really nice area of Colorado.
I've been invited to be an artist-in-residence for the summer–to get to stay here and do art without working a "real" job. What! A great! Opportunity!

The house is beautiful. This is right after you walk in the door–Erin painted aspens inside, too!

At first I wasn't sure that I could do it, but I clearly saw God putting everything into place. Even when the one interested sublease candidate was taking WAY too long to respond, even when the manager at my house was taking WAY too long to respond, it all ended up working together so that my friend returning from missions work overseas has a place to stay, and I get to go. I even got a free ride up here with a family I know who is visiting for vacation.

I apologize that my writing isn't as beautiful as it once was. (Though I guess in terms of blogging, it's just gone from rambly to slightly less rambly and more functional.) However, that's one thing I want to work on this summer. Erin (the wife/mom of the family I'm staying with) is a writer, and I've not written in a awhile, though I've been wanting to. We'll see.

However, my main focus is on my comic. I hope I can put out 2 pages a week, or get WAY ahead on it.

In addition to that, I want to practice painting and get better at it, and I want to do an illustration series (medium to be determined) based on Sleeping at Last's "Atlas" album.

I also want to form some habits while I'm here: Habits like praying every morning, hopefully setting aside a specific time to read my bible too (or maybe not a specific time, but regularly, since scheduling my day makes me feel like I'm stuck and limited).

The family I rode up with is visiting this week, so I'm not sure what that means for developing routines, but things will eventually fall into place. For now, I want to explore. I've gotten into the habit of taking really long walks, so I want to see what's within walking distance of here.

Ah, well, I guess I'll go out and face the people soon. People. I just spent 2 days in a car with people. I am very grateful for this quiet space.

Jesus in the morning.

I'm not one to wake up early. 7 AM is a reasonable time, and I grudgingly hit snooze until the last minute on work days, but on my days off I usually pull myself out of bed between 9 and 10:30. The result of this is that I never get to experience the kind of mornings where you feel the space in air and time.

This morning was different. I wanted to see a sunrise. So Bethany and I woke up at 6:30, pulled together some Bible study materials, and drove to Whole Foods to sit on the roof and have prayertime.

There weren't many people around and we could pray louder than we can at home. Our house is in no way condemning of prayer, quite the opposite, but you've got people's morning snoozing and puttering to not disturb.

We read about the lost sheep and lost coin. It's hard to understand exactly how the sheep farmer felt since sheep aren't much of a business model anymore unless you're playing Settlers of Catan. But I could imagine Bethany in all her ENFP-ness being the woman with the coin- losing something and then calling up everybody when she found it. She also loves to sweep. It was a fun way to imagine the story.

We sat on the edge of the roof and looked out at the city and prayed for its' people. It was cloudy, so the sunrise part didn't exactly work out, but the atmosphere was still very nice.

I made this picture about it.

We were loud and goofy and spiritual and it was great fun. We were just ourselves before God. Afterwards, we went in and bought bread.

I wanna do it again.

Time for some CAR WASH STORIES

Here's what there is to know about my job.

I work at a car wash from 9 AM to 6:30 PM three days a week in a row. Usually I'm on the drying team but on occasion they'll send me over to the vacuums or to the detail area. It's a pretty physical job so by the end of the day and especially by the end of the week I'm SUPER TIRED.

It doesn't require me to interact with people much, so I get to spend a lot of time in my head, which compensates some for the boring repetitive job.

The reason I am writing is because last week we had a day that was not boring and repetitive. It was scary and crazy and hectic, because the stop button was broken at the end of the tunnel.

Most of the actual car washing is done by an automated system where the cars are put in neutral and pushed forward by a conveyer under the front tire. There are emergency stops at the beginning, end, and inside, for obvious reasons. Usually there isn't a need for it because the finishing supervisor is pretty good at hopping in the car at the last second and driving it to a parking spot. But if he's running a bit late or a car won't start, we have a safeguard.

The other day they were working on the wiring. A car was coming through and getting kinda close. Supervisor J was nowhere in sight and the other employee near me looked a little frazzled. Confidently I was just like -shrug- and pushed the button and NOTHING HAPPENED NOOOOOOOOO

Supervisor J showed up and drove the car away. Whew! But I knew this button would cause problems. Especially when it's busy we use it around 3 times a day.

I'm usually very quiet at my job. Nods, short answers, straight up ignoring small talk... RUDE (i know). But this day caused me to yell "hey" one time when Supervisor J was looking the other way. This felt like a small accomplishment.

A few close calls but it was okay. But then. Disaster.
One of the trucks got locked. Supervisor J jumped back and forth a bit trying to decide if there was time to run around the building to hit the other button. There wasn't. He motioned to the people inside to shut it off from there. It wasn't working inside either. He started pushing the truck out of the way. I helped. I felt pretty kick-butt. >:D

But that didn't solve the problem, it only temporarily suspended it. The boss came out. He jumped in the next car and put the brakes on or turned it off or something so that it couldn't move even when being pushed a little. Then they managed to turn the tunnel off.

They used the kit to unlock the truck, drove it away, and started the tunnel. But all was not solved. That second car still wasn't moving!!!!!!!!!!!! oh noooooes
I tried to get another girl who I'd seen driving cars in detail to get in and move it but she wasn't supposed to or didn't understand or something. Supervisor J finally got over there and moved it in the nick of time.

After that I had such an adrenaline high. They called the electrical people and got them to come back and fix the wiring.


Okay, I realized this story probably doesn't interest many people. But it was exciting to me, so I decided to write it.  I may not be writing beautifully right now, but I want to write, at least.